ground of principle, and not after a period of ineffectual conflict, as a mere exigency of war? And why proclaim liberty only to the slaves of rebels, thus compelling to do right to the negro, those who do wrong to the gov ernment; and rewarding those who do right to the government, with the power of continuing to do wrong to their slaves ?" It must again be remembered that President Lincoln was restrained by the laws he was sworn to administer, from interfering with the domestic institutions of the several States. The most he can do is to offer compensation. He cannot himself emanci pate. But what he cannot do at all in any loyal State, nor by ordinary law in any rebel State, he can do in his military capacity, when required by the exigencies of He is restrained by the Constitution from abolishing slavery because he thinks it impolitic or wicked. This is a question for each State to decide. But in quelling a rebellion he may use whatever means become necessary for sustaining the government. With the slaves as laborers, the white population of the South are disengaged for the war. Proclaim freedom to those slaves, and they will either escape, or the Southern army will be crippled by the large numbers needed to guard them. It is on this ground that the President justifies his proclamation as being in accordance with law. He is blamed for doing that which alone he considered within his power; while that which he is censured for not doing, was impossible without breaking his oath and

war.

violating the Constitution. Feeling strongly, but not too strongly, the monstrous wickedness of slavery, and not experiencing the difficulties of Mr. Lincoln's position, it is natural we should think that had we his power, we would at the first have declared slavery to be sinful, and fought against it on the highest and holiest grounds. Had the North done this they would at once have re ceived the sympathy of the friends of freedom throughout the world. But the abolitionists of America who wished to do this, were the minority and had not the power. It was surely better to take instalments of liberty than to get nothing. So they strengthened the Republican party against the Southerners, and if they did not advance as rapidly as they desired, were glad to advance at all.

But is it not a grand advance? No slavery in the Territories! Compensation offered to all States remaining in the Union who will emancipate! Several hundred thousand slaves already free! And on the first of next January, all the slaves of rebel States free-the United States Government which formerly guaranteed them to their owners, now pledged to their emancipation! After so many years during which slavery has seemed not only holding its own, but increasing in influence, is it possible that Englishmen can view emancipation advancing by marches so rapid, without delight and devout thankfulness?

But whatever doubts may be entertained in reference

to the sincerity of the North in fighting against Slavery, there can be none as regards the sincerity of the South in fighting for it. They openly avow that their object is to perpetuate and extend this hateful system. When South Carolina seceded it stated as her reasons-that the North had denied the right of property in slaves, had pronounced the institution sinful, had permitted Abolition societies, had aided the escape of slaves, and had elected a president whose opinions were hostile to slavery. The Richmond Inquirer vindicated the war on the ground that "the experiment of universal liberty has failed the evils of free-society are insufferable— free-society is impracticable in the long run-it is everywhere starving, demoralized and insurrectionary; policy and humanity alike forbid the extension of its evils to new people and coming generations and therefore freesociety must fall and give way to a slave-society, a social system old as the world, universal as man." The VicePresident of the Southern Confederacy said-" Our new government is founded on the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery is his natural and normal condition. Our new government is the first in the history of the world based on this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This stone which was rejected by the first builders is become the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice. Negro slavery is but in its infancy. We ought to increase and expand our institutions. All nations when they cease

to grow begin to die. We should then endeavor to expand and grow. Central America and Mexico are all open to us." Dr. Palmer, preaching at New Orleans, said "The providential trust of the South is to perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery as now existing, with freest scope for its natural development. We should at once lift ourselves intelligently to the highest moral ground, and proclaim to all the world that we hold this trust from God, and in its occupancy are prepared to stand or fall. These slaves form part of our households, even as our children. It is a duty we owe to ourselves, to our slaves, to the world, to Almighty God, to preserve and transmit our existing system of domestic servitude, with the right, unchallenged by man, to go and root itself wherever Providence and Nature may carry it."

The conduct of the Southerners has been in accordance with this explicit avowal of their purpose. When they took Harper's Ferry they seized 2,000 negroes, many of whom were free, and marched them away to slavery. The National (U.S.) Anti-Slavery Standard, of September 15th, says that a party of colored men sent to Manassas under a flag of truce to bury the dead were seized by the Confederates as soon as they had discharged their humane office and driven away to bondage. General Phelps reported that many negroes sought refuge in the Federal camp, loaded with chains and barbarous irons, deeply scored with lashes, or bleeding from birdshot wounds.

With such evidence as this, how absurd is the statement sometimes heard that slavery has nothing to do with this war! Nothing to do with it, when but for slavery in the South, resisted in the North, the rebellion would never have broken out? Nothing to do with it, when the Southerners avowedly declare that they fight to maintain and extend it? Nothing to do with it, when tens of thousands in the Federal army would not draw a sword nor fire a shot but in the hope of now and for ever smiting down this Goliath of wickedness? Nothing to do with it, when the Northern army liberates wherever it goes, while the Southerners drive to bondage all in whose veins is a trace of African blood? Ask the multitudes who, since the war broke out have obtained their freedom, whether it has nothing to do with it! It has everything to do with it. It is virtually, if not ostensibly, a war of Emancipation. The South, from the first, declared that it was so on the part of the North. We think it would have been well had the North as explicitly proclaimed it themselves. But whether so intended or not at the beginning, this it has now become by the inevitable progress of events. History has no such conflict on the roll of Freedom's struggles. Never before was tyranny so terrible, contended for so openly, and on such a scale. Never before were millions of one race banded together to fight to the death in defence of a claim to treat another race as mere cattle, and for the further right to spread this pestilence