ticable. We have shown once before that the free negroes of the country are opposed to this system of colonization, if the fact that only twelve thousand of them have emigrated in forty-two years to the black republic of Liberia be taken as evidence. If they are, therefore, unwilling to lend their co-operation to this scheme of colonization, shall we force them into it against their free will? Why, this of itself, would be reducing them to slavery; for if they are not at liberty to follow their own inclinations in this respect, they certainly can not be called free. * * * *

But, let me ask, is it not time to abandon these impracticable theories—these "inoperative" measures? They have already cost the country over two hundred thousand lives and nearly two thousand millions of dollars; they have aroused a feeling of bitterness and enmity between the two sections that may never be allayed; they have plunged the country into all the horrors of internecine strife; they have driven over a million of men from the peaceful paths of industry to follow the trade of war; they have desolated thousands of once happy homes, and recruited the army of the poor from the families of our dead and disabled volunteers. But we shudder at the terrible consequences which have already resulted from this Abolition policy, which, if persisted in, will convert our once happy land into a vast Golgotha."

As bearing on the President's Proclamation of emancipating the slaves in the Southern States, in a certain event, and in pertinence of expressions to the Archbishop's organ, we quote the comments of the Louisville Journal, the Louisville Daily Democrat,

the New York Journal of Commerce, as seen in, and quoted by the Louisville Journal, the Boston Post, and Judge Caton, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois.

THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION.

"On first reading this proclamation, we supposed that it referred to the 6th section of the confiscation act, and proclaimed what the President understood to be the legal effect of his previous proclamation founded on that section. This in all conscience would have been bad enough. On reading the proclamation a second time, however, we perceived that it makes no reference to the 6th section of the confiscation act; and, on examining this section itself, we perceived that its subject-matter is different from that of the proclamation, the former relating to all the property of rebels in any State, while the latter relates expressly and exclusively to all the slaves of the States in rebellion. It thus appears that the proclamation is not and does not assume to be founded on the confiscation law or any other law. It is evidently an arbitrary act of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the Union. In short, it is a naked stroke of military necessity!

We shall not stop now to discuss the character and tendency of this measure. Both are manifest. The one is as unwarrantable as the other is mischievous. The measure is wholly unauthorized and wholly pernicious. Though it cannot be executed in fact, and though its execution will never be seriously attempted, its moral influence will be decided and purely hurtful. So far as its own purpose is concerned, it is

a mere brutum fulmen, but it will prove only too effectual for the purposes of the enemy. It is a gigantic usurpation, unrelieved by the promise of a solitary advantage however minute and faint, but, on the contrary, aggravated by the menace of great and unmixed evil.

Kentucky cannot and will not acquiesce in this measure. Never! As little will she allow it to chill her devotion to the cause thus cruelly imperilled anew. The government our fathers framed is one thing, and a thing above price; Abraham Lincoln, the temporary occupant of the executive chair, is another thing, and a thing of comparative little worth. The one is an individual, the sands of whose official existence are running fast, and who, when his official existence shall end, will be no more or less than any other individual. The other is a grand political structure, in which is contained the treasures and the energies of civilization, and upon whose lofty and shining dome, seen from the shores of all climes, center the eager hopes of mankind. What Abraham Lincoln as President does or fails to do may exalt or lower our estimate of himself but not of the great and beneficent government of which he is but the temporary servant. The temple is not the less sacred and precious because the priest lays an unlawful sacrifice upon the altar. The loyalty of Kentucky is not to be shaken by any mad act of the President. If necessary, she will resist the act, and aid in holding the actor to a just and lawful accountability, but she will never lift her own hand against the glorious fabric because he has blindly or criminally smitten it.

She cannot be so false to herself as this. She is incapable of such guilt and folly.

The President has fixed the first of next January as the time for his proclamation to go into effect. Before that time, the North will be called upon to elect members of Congress, and the new Congress will assemble. We believe that the proclamation will strike the loyal people of the North in general with amazement and abhorrence. We know it. We appeal to them to manifest their righteous detestation by returning to Congress none but the avowed and zealous adversaries of this measure. Let the revocation of the proclamation be made the overshadowing issue, and let the voice of the people at the polls, followed by the voice of their representatives in Congress, be heard in such tones of remonstrance and of condemnation that the President, aroused to a sense of his tremendous error, shall not hesitate to withdraw this measure. The vital interests of the country demand that the proclamation shall be revoked, the sooner the better; and, until it is revoked, every loyal man should unite in vigorously working for its revocation. If the President by any means is pressed away from the constitution and his own pledges, he must be pressed back again and held there by the strong arm of the people.

The game of pressure is one that two can play at, and it is no slight reproach to the conservative men of the country that heretofore they have not taken their fair share in this game as played at the national capital. The radicals have been allowed to have the game

too much to themselves. We hope this reproach will now be wiped away."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN GIVES WAY TO THE PRESSURE. "The President of the United States has shown frequently a determination to resist the radicalism of his party, although his efforts to resist appeared, in the progress of events, to be giving way. The proclamation of yesterday morning shows that the Abolitionists have pressed him into their service; not entirely, but virtually. The long solicited proclamation has come. It is virtually what the radicals desire. Although they still can find fault with it, they will accept it as a hopeful sign of progress. Those who desire the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is, can now expect little aid from the President.

He has proclaimed in bad but intelligible English, that the slaves in any State, or part of a State, in rebellion on the first of January, 1863, are to be free. The army and navy are to recognize them as free. He does not say that the military power shall enforce their proclaimed right to freedom; but they shall not repress any efforts the slaves make to be free. Here the President is not as explicit as the Abolitionists would desire. The army and navy are not required to aid the slaves to obtain practical freedom, but they are forbidden to put down an insurrection among slaves if one should be started. The right to freedom is, however, recognized; the next step is a natural one, and will follow if the initiative is taken.

On what shadow of authority can the President rest this proclamation? Will military necessity cover an act of this sort? If it will, then may not State