the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Thus the war has changed, ostensibly if not really, its character and aims. Before, it was Republicanism and American nationality that were at stake. Slavery everybody felt in his heart was doomed to perish by the war it had evoked, but it was not possible that this should be the immediate and declared object. Slavery had excited men to take up arms, and by this act a political contest became a military one, and was to be treated as such, with the weapons of war. It does not follow as a matter of course, because slavery was the cause, that to have destroyed this would have destroyed the war, any more than that to shoot the incendiary will put out the fire. But it soon became manifest, what was not seen at first, that slavery was not merely the cause, but to a large extent the support, of the rebellion; and now it became only a question of time when it would be judicious to take away from it its chief support. The special considerations which have influenced the decision of the President are beyond the sphere of our judgment. He is the only person in the country, excepting one or two, who is in a situation to judge accurately the immediate needs of the campaign. It is the duty of one portion of the community to acquiesce in the policy now it is declared, as it was for another portion to wait patiently while the cautious President waited for the ripening of events to teach him. The decision he has at last come to has this important effect, that the war assumes now, to some extent, a political character, because it is impossible so hotly debated a political question as this should become the subject of executive action without exciting the opposition of one party or another; and also because another and a larger idea has been given us as a watchword. Our object in the war is republicanism and nationality as much as ever, but by the side of these, freedom.

This proclamation was issued on the 22d of September, sixty days after the proclamation of July 25, and its immediate object was to carry into effect the provisions of the "Confiscation Act" so called, of which the previous procla

mation gave warning. This occasion was taken advantage of to renew the offer of compensated emancipation to the Slave States, and to recommend further legislation on the subject; and as a further step in the same direction, and, as is probable, a part of the same general plan, emancipation was declared in all States or parts of a State which shall be in rebellion on the 1st of January next, the test of loyalty being representation in Congress. These two measures of emancipation cover the whole ground. It would be desired that all the Southern States should open their eyes to the approaching fate of their cherished institution, and accept the liberal offer of the government; if they will not do so, loyal States may maintain slavery awhile if they please, but in disloyal it shall not exist any longer. It is in the way of the Union, and must be removed. After that, the loyal slaveholding States may reckon how much slavery is worth to them, when they are wholly surrounded by free communities. It is not likely they will delay long to receive the price offered, and enter the same path of progress with the North.

We would notice in this connection the change in popular sentiment which the year's experience has produced, not merely on the general subject of emancipation, but with regard to making it immediate. The experiment has been tried, and has succeeded. The testimony of Port Royal coincides with that of the West India Islands, that the most direct way is the best. Any other course will lead to perplexities and dangers without end. At best, society in the seceded States will be for years in such a state of anarchy and transition, that there is little fear of mischief in this direction, while all the evidence we have goes to show that society will come into a condition of orderly industry much more rapidly if its laborers are recognized at once as freemen, and that they will value their new manhood higher and turn it to better advantage if it is granted freely and unconditionally.

We wish now to consider the effects of this proclamation upon the South, assuming, as we think we are entitled to do, our military success. We are beginning a third campaign, with better promise than ever before. We have more of the South in our possession than last winter, our resources are greater and better organized, we know our strength better,

and have been taught our weakness by suffering. The enemy is only encouraged by our mistakes, is disheartened by his recent reverses, and has lost quite as heavily as we, while his power of recuperation grows less every day as the stringency of the blockade increases, and his own land becomes more exhausted. Only one thing now can give him hope, — foreign intervention, our constant bugbear, his perpetual will-o'-thewisp. But if we look this full in the face, its dangers vanish. We have little to fear from it provided we are true to ourselves. No doubt, if our blunders went on, intervention might come, perhaps to save us from annihilation; but give us victory, and we are safe. England and France can, if they choose, decide that the South has earned its independence, and can recognize the Confederate States of America as a nation. But what then? From a civil war it becomes a foreign one, and all the rebels have gained is a word of encouragement,- something to be sure, but not much, so long as we are the strongest. If the blockade is effectual, we have the same right to enforce it as before; if we are able to subjugate the South, the conquerors of India and Algeria have earned no right to protest.

Our future military movements, it is probable, will be a continuation of those in the spring. The strategic points of the South, the State capitals, the forts and railroad centres, will be seized and held, and its armies scattered. Charleston, Montgomery, and Chattanooga will be in our hands, as New Orleans, Nashville, and Corinth are now, and with all such points in our possession the armies of the Confederacy must melt away as Beauregard's did last spring. Guerilla and brigandage will be the only resource, as for a while after the evacuation of Corinth they were throughout the West; and these can do little against a firm and vigorous rule.

But the military problem, severe as it is, is nothing compared to the political one which will present itself when the war, as a war, is over. It is hard to realize how completely the points at issue have been changed within a year. Our situation now is perhaps no more difficult, certainly no more perilous, than then, but different. If our arms had been successful a year ago, if Bull Run had been a victory, and had been followed up by an immediate occupation of all the

Southern States, and a hundred thousand well-trained soldiers (not a Bull Run "town-meeting ") could have done it then, - there would have been such an outburst of thanksgiving from the oppressed Unionists of the South, such exultation at being rid of the tyranny, such a welcome to the old flag, that the love for the restored Union would have been such as the old had never known. But this was not to be, and it is well it was not. It was better that the old slaveryridden Union should never be restored, that the day of cringing and compromise should be wiped out even from memory, if it could be. The flag, which had for so many years been dipped in African blood, must be baptized in our own before it could become the symbol of a truly great and free nation. And this has been done, the heart aches to think how faithfully, what noble lives have sacrificed themselves to the cause, not in vain if the nation they died for shall come out of the struggle purified and ennobled. The blood of these martyrs will be the seed of our new civilization.*

The old Union was forever lost at Bull Run. It is a nobler and better one we have been laying the foundations of since. Already it has appeared to many as if the only choice lay between separation and subjugation. Judge Nelson of Tennessee, who more than a year ago surrendered his allegiance on the ground that the United States government had not, with the best of wills, shown itself able to protect loyal citizens in the seceded States, was only one out of thousands who, firm Unionists at the start, have been driven by circumstances

* Mr. Hamilton of Texas, who knows the rebellion well, used the following words in a recent speech in New York: -" Restore the government, its Constitution, and its laws to all, fellow-citizens. With all my heart. Restore the Union as it existed for the year just preceding the rebellion? God forbid. Am I to be remitted back to the soil of Texas, to be hunted by assassins the little remnant of my life? Am I to go there to teach my little son that the chief blessing of his great future is to run from street to street, and from man to man, and insist that he is as sound a man upon this subject of slavery as lives? Am I to see my neighbors and friends hung by the neck because they have doubted that the chief business of the Great Ruler of the Universe is not in directing and controlling and maturing and perpetuating the institution of slavery? No, fellow-citizens; if I cannot go there and strike hands with my friends at home, if I cannot be again united with my family, except upon the terms that I am to live in such society as existed there, hard as it is to utter, I can find it in my heart to say, let me never see them. But if you mean by the restoration of the Union as it was, a restoration of that Union such as our fathers intended it to be, then, with all my heart, let us have it.”

into equally hearty rebellion. No doubt even now there lurk here and there a few concealed loyalists. Now and then an incident like the recent escape to us of the distinguished representative from Texas, Mr. Hamilton, shows that we have perhaps underrated the strength of the Union sentiment in these localities. But few dare avow themselves as such, even in the presence of our arms; for there is yet a chance, they argue, that the Confederacy may triumph, and they do not care to subject themselves to the fate of Jacksonville. So the Union feeling has apparently disappeared, even where once it was very strong, except in Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and probably Western Texas, where the stern and uncompromising loyalty of the inhabitants deserves a better fate than it has met. Still, even if we acknowledge that the Union as it was is destroyed, and a new one can only be built up after subjugation, we must bear in mind that whatever may be the result, separation or enforced Union,- the fighting cannot stop yet. If the Southern Confederacy were to be established, we must yet fight for boundaries; if we are to have peace at all, we must fight for an honorable peace. No treaty could be made which could last a day, unless one which we granted after a triumphant victory.

We will leave out of view the alternative of separation; it has been often enough discussed, and its impracticability demonstrated. Nothing but the direst necessity will ever bring the people of the United States to consent to dismemberment of their territory. So much is fixed. But on the other alternative, what right have we to conquer an unwilling people? Our legal right in the premises is undeniable. Except where the doctrine of secession as a constitutional right has obtained a foothold, no person has been bold enough to defend the rebellion but on the sacred principle of revolution, and an edifying sight it is to see the London Times and the Quarterly Review taking up the cudgels in behalf of the right of a people to self-government. But the right of forcible revolution contains in itself the counter right of putting down the revolution by force, - the right of every state to maintain its integrity and defend its existence, corresponding to that of every man to protect his own person from assault. Had the conspirators chosen peaceful legal proceedings in order to