SLAVERY DOOMED AND THE UNION MAINTAINED. 325

separate nation it perishes under its own weight. With our nationality maintained, it dies by the same blow which brings the rebellion to the block.

As we have said, however, we do not doubt the alternative to which God's providence points, and which His decree has made sure. It is, in our judgment, “foreordained,”—and we say it with no other light than that which is vouchsafed to others, but we think every available consideration warrants the position,―that this nation is to stand, that its enemies are to be overthrown, that the rebellion is to be crushed, and the "Confederate States of America" blotted out; and just as surely as that is done, the same decree of God, executed by the American people, will terminate negro slavery in this land.. This, at least, is our opinion.

If any persons hesitate to accept these conclusions, we can only ask them to defer their opinion until the case is decided. This is safe. They might tell us to do the same. We are quite willing to wait; but we will, as briefly as may be, give "a reason for the hope that is in us," and we trust not without "meekness and fear."

Under God, it is a question of means, and a question of endurance. There is a sense in which the remark of the great Napoleon is true, that "the providence of God is with the strongest battalions," and there is a sense in which it is false. We accept the true sense, and apply it to the present case. Another remark we accept, that "the age of miracles is past," and we apply it now to war. And yet, we hold rigidly to the true doctrine of providence, that God works in, through, by, and controls, all that takes place, educing evil out of good, and exalting His great name. While the Omnipotent and the Omniscient thus works out His purposes through means, there is generally an adaptedness of the means to the end, an

adaptedness which a close observer can often perceive, and the course of which he can often trace with clearness and declare the result.

Now, apply these general principles to the case in hand, and we say that the issue of this war between lawful Gov ernment and a foul rebellion is merely or mainly a question as to which of the parties can hold out the longest. We take it for granted, at the outset, that neither intends to compromise the question which underlies the whole contest, the question of nationality. The Government will not surrender its authority of rule over the whole Union, but upon one condition,-that it is compelled to this by the total defeat of its armies. No party or administration would dare do this. The people will not allow it. It is the people's Government, and the people are carrying on the war to sustain it. On the other hand, we have no idea that the leaders of the rebellion will ever give up the contest, except upon one of two conditions,-that their independence as a nation is recognized; or, that the rebellion itself is crushed, which means the destruction of its military power. Such being the case, the war must go on until one party or the other is completely overthrown. It is then a question of endurance, a question of means and of power. This, upon the ground we have assumed, is the sole issue.

REASONS FOR THIS POSITION.

What, then, is the relative strength of the parties? In answering this, we cannot go into a full examination, but will present some general considerations which are fundamental, and which substantially embrace the whole case.

With the rebels, the issue, leaving out other resources, is chiefly one of men, and that in comparison with men on the other side. That the rebels can "get along" and

STRENGTH OF THE PARTIES IN SOLDIERS.

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fight long and vigorously without money,-or rather, with that only which is worthless, except to themselves, and which may become well nigh or totally so, even to them, -is unquestionable. Nations have frequently done this. England has prosecuted her gigantic wars, during a long period, with her currency at a very low ebb; and France has fought just as vigorously with her assignats down at zero at the stock-boards of other nations, and worthless, for the time, upon the Bourse of Paris. The Confederate "nation" may also fight on, with a worthless currency, or with none at all; and for a circulating medium, or without one, the people can come back to barter. As for their bogus Government, it can get its necessities for the army, by "taxation in kind," and by arbitrary "impressment," phrases which have a place in rebel "law," and which with the people have a meaning. Those necessities which they must have from abroad, they gain by their cotton which runs the blockade; and as they have obtained supplies hitherto, we admit, for the sake of the argument, that they may gain in that way what they may need hereafter. We therefore leave all this out of the account, and come back to the simple element of men out of whom to make soldiers; and how stands the account on this score?

STRENGTH OF THE PARTIES IN SOLDIERS.

The census of 1860 answers the question. The eleven Confederate States, including Tennessee and Arkansas, and excluding Missouri, contained, by that census, one million and a quarter of white males between fifteen and fifty. The remaining States contained something over five millions of white males between fifteen and fifty. The total white population of these respective portions of the country, was, in the former, five millions and a half, and in the lat

ter, twenty-one millions. No account is here taken of the large districts in these eleven States which are within the lines of our armies, and from which the rebel armies cannot be recruited; as, for example, the whole of Tennessee, a large portion of Arkansas, large portions of Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and indeed a part of each one of the eleven. In the comparison, we give the totals of each section, as shown by the census, thus allowing a great advantage to the rebels. Admitting that threefourths of the number between fifteen and fifty years of age, whether it be too great or too small, probably the former, is of no consequence in the comparison,-are physically qualified for the army, there are about nine hundred thousand men out of whom to make soldiers in the eleven rebel States, and thirty-seven hundred thousand in the remaining States. This was about the proportion of fighting men within the range of the parties at the beginning of the rebellion.

How does the case as to men stand now, in the fourth year of the war? It is probable that the losses on each side have not much changed the proportion, if any. If it be said that the Union armies have lost more in killed, as the rebels have generally acted on the defensive, this is fully or more than compensated by the fact that we have, by many thousands, a large excess of prisoners; and also from the consideration that our well-organized Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and the abundant supply of every thing requisite in the Medical Department of the Union army, have contributed to the recovery of a larger proportion of our wounded than theirs, as the records from the battle-field and the hospital, and our knowledge of their lack of medical supplies, fully confirm. Upon the estimate, then, made largely from official data, that there have been killed and disabled, in the Federal armies, half a million,

NEGRO SOLDIERS.-THEIR NUMBER UNLIMITED. 329

and upon the supposition that the rebels have lost the same number, the latter have now left for military service but four hundred thousand white men, while the Government of the Union has thirty-two hundred thousand white men, from whom to recruit their armies.

NEGRO SOLDIERS-THEIR NUMBER UNLIMITED.

The foregoing calculation relates only to the material for white soldiers. President Lincoln states in his letter to Colonel Hodges, of Frankfort, Kentucky, under date of April 4, 1864, that there were then in the Federal service "quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers," of African descent. What proportion of this number carry a musket we do not know; but from an official report made by Adjutant-General Thomas, on his return from Mississippi in the summer of 1863, and from the rapid recruiting of negroes since, it is safe to say that there are now in the ranks of the Union armies as fighting men, at least one hundred thousand of this description.

But be this estimate about negro soldiers as it may, the facts upon this branch of the subject, present and prospective, are momentous as regards this question of the military strength of the respective parties. The rebels dare not, to any large extent, make soldiers of their slaves; while, into every rebel State where our armies penetrate, the recruiting office is opened, and thousands are soon enrolled and drilled to fight for the Union cause; and that negroes will fight bravely, and when they have had sufficient discipline will fight as well as white men, is too well attested by official reports from the highest commanders in our armies, for any persons who fully examine the case to doubt.

It is true that a large number of white men are required at the North to do the work of agriculture, which in the