bellion is slavery -and if we fight the rebellion we must fight slavery. General Butler says the slaves are sure to be free. Wendell Phillips, as an abolitionist, says his work is done. When the children of this world and the children of light are so emphatically agreed, I think that all between the two extremes, will come to a like conclusion. General Butler took seven pro-slavery democratic colonels with him to New Orleans, and they are all in favor of emancipation. Such is the logic of facts. The objections to negro soldiers are coming to an end very rapidly. The low motive of selfishness must help soon to accomplish this result. When it comes to drafting, and the question is whether we refuse to let negroes be soldiers, and so increase the chance of being drafted ourselves and having our sons drafted, I do not think there are many who will refuse to let them go. Col. Higginson, and Col. Montgomery, in South Carolina and Florida, have demonstrated that they make good soldiers. They take discipline well, are obedient, are imitative, have a great deal of the love of approbation, which is an important motive in war; and as to courage, courage in a soldier after he has been disciplined, is a matter of course. Then they know the South; are acquainted with the coun try; are used to labor and hardship; do not need half the equipage that white soldiers need, in marching; and are not exposed so much to the diseases of southern climates.

If the war goes on I expect to

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see armies of negroes, all of whom will acquire selfrespect as United-States soldiers, and inspire respect in others. The wives and children will stay at their homes; the men will come and enlist; and this will be the best education for liberty-the best kind of transition from slavery to freedom.

People say, "what will you do with the negroes if you free them?" Providence answers the question-make soldiers of them. Give the negro the opportunity he needs. This is a part of the solution of the problem, and so we had better accept it. Another part of it is, to make Florida and Texas free States, and let the negro go there and work for wages; or work on land of his own, raising cotton by free labor. Free labor will supersede slave labor in a few years, if you give it this trial.

Another aspect of the war is its tendency to produce a deeper and truer union between the States and people. It is often the tendency of prosperity to divide, and of adversity to unite. Those who have gone together through great trials are likely to be thoroughly united; more so than those who have only enjoyed life in company. "Two young lovers lately wed," think that they love each other as much as is possible. They know nothing about it. They do not know how much deeper and richer the love will be which will come one day, when they shall have borne together common sorrows, gone through labors together, endured hardships

and made sacrifices for each other, watched by each other through long hours of sickness and pain, and dropped tears into the same grave on the little casket which holds the darling of their hearts. So is it also with nations. When prosperity has divided a nation by developing different interests and antagonist activities, adversity unites it by common sacrifices and common struggles. Superficial thinkers imagine that our Union was made by the Constitution, and that those who made the Constitution made the Union. Superficial thinkers, for what is a constitution but a piece of parchment, unless it expresses the wishes and intentions of the people? Nothing is easier than to make a good constitution,nothing harder than to have it accepted and set in motion, unless the people are ready for it. The South-American States have had as good or better constitutions than ours; but their constitutions have not saved them from anarchy and civil war. The Revolutionary War made the people ready for the Federal Constitution, by making them really desire "a more perfect union." Their common struggles and sufferings, side by side, through eight years of war; their common efforts to raise men and money; "the bones of New-England's sons, fallen in the great struggle for independence, and mingled with the soil of every State, from Maine to Georgia,”—this was the real basis of the Federal Union. And now the same causes will produce the same results. Massachusetts.

men, fighting side by side with the men of Pennsylvania, for the defence of Kentucky; men of Iowa and Wisconsin and Maine and Maryland, struggling for the possession of Richmond, or the opening of the Mississippi; New York and New England, rescuing the loyal men of Texas and Western Virginia with their own blood; comforts sent from Boston to the bedside of the sick soldier of Missouri, in the hospitals of Tennessee. These are the things to unite a nation. The Union between the loyal States is today stronger than it has ever been. Never was there less danger than there is today, of the West separating from the East, or of New England's being left out in the cold. The war, like a burning fire, has fused the convictions and sentiments of the nation together; it has made abolitionists by the logic of facts, of men, who, two years ago, were bitterly pro-slavery; it has made the semi-loyal loyal, or has driven them into open treason or rebellion. We may therefore say that the Union was never so strong as it is today.

And even as regards the rebel States, perhaps it will be found that this war will have a tendency to prepare them for union with us on a firmer foundation than in the years that are past. If it destroys slavery, it will destroy the only cause of disunion. Slavery abolished and the slaveholders converted to emancipation, they will become one with the North in feeling and conviction. The fact that

we have fought together will not necessarily divide us. The people of England were as much united after their civil war as before. Two boys at school, long jealous of each other, often like each other better after they have had a trial of strength. The North and South have learned to respect each other's courage and determination. We thought them braggarts—they thought us cowards. We have both found out that we were mistaken.

There is, then, no reason for discouragement. We can always fall back on first principles, and say, "The Lord reigns." It never was more evident than now that the Lord reigns. He had waited long enough for us to do justly, he could wait no longer.

We have shown in this war the immense power of free institutions. We have improvised armies and extemporized navies. We have shown that a free and educated people need never have standing armies or great navies or forts; that when she needs them she can make them all at once. America sprang from the ground, at the sound of the cannon fired at Fort Sumter, an armed man. Her common schools, which send armies of industry into the field in time of peace, sent armies of soldiers when necessary to the war. We supplied all deficiencies of organization by the power of voluntary action.

Best of all, whatever else comes, emancipation has

come.

Whether the slaves are free or not, we our