832 



UNITED STATES. 



nition of its justice and necessity, by the Com- 

 monwealth of Massachusetts." 



As the year advanced the views of the Gov- 

 ernment were made known relative to the im- 

 portance of the measure and the influence 

 which it should exert in the administration of 

 aflairs growing out of the war ; the views of 

 the people were also expressed relative to its 

 legality ; and its operation could be seen. 



The view of the President relative to the 

 proclamation \s expressed in these words: "a 

 fit and necessary war measure for suppressing 

 said rebellion." 



Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, in a letter to 

 the American minister at Paris, dated Decem- 

 ber 1st, 1863, more than two months after the 

 future appearance of the proclamation had 

 been announced by the President, presented 

 the following view of the position of slavery 

 in the conflict : 



The great problem of domestic slavery in the United 

 States presented itself for solution when the war be- 

 gan. It is in process of solution, and so the war goes 

 on. It is not yet solved, and so the war is not yet 

 ended. The people of the United States are intensely 

 engaged in the difficult task. If it questions and re- 

 jects one process of solution after another, that does not 

 prove that it is abandoning the task. On the contrary 

 it is the very act of performance of the task itself. If the 

 performer seems alow, let the observer ask where or 

 when did any nation advance faster in a labor so com- 

 pfex and so difficult. The President's message will 

 carry the public mind still more directly and more 

 earnestly on its great work. The war would have had 

 no terrors for the people if they bad not feared that the 

 Union could not endure the trial of solving that prob- 

 lem. Apprehensions of that kind are beginning now 

 to be dismissed. In all the elements of strength, 

 power, and stability, the Union is stronger when Con- 

 gress meets to-day than it was when Congress met a 

 year ago. In all the same elements the insurrection is 

 weaker. Revolutions do not revive their strength or 

 their energy. They must succeed at first, or at least 

 gain advantage continually, or they must perish. A 

 year ago it seemed that any foreign nation might as- 

 sail and destroy us at a blow. I am sure that no one 

 foreign nation would now conceive such an attempt, 

 while a combination of several powers for that purpose 

 is impossible. 



In a letter addressed to the Committee on 

 the Inauguration of the Loyal National League 

 of New York, dated April 9th, the Secretary 

 of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, thus describes the 

 extent of the emancipation and its good faith : 



Nothing, in my judgment, is more certain than the 

 fulfilment of these predictions. Safe in the States, 

 before rebellion, from all Federal interference, slavery 

 bma come out from its shelter understate constitutions 

 and laws to assail the national life. It will surely die, 

 pierced by its own fangs and stings. What matter now 

 now it dies? Whether as a consequence or object of 

 the war, what matter? Is this a time to split hairs of 

 logic? To me it seems that Providence indicates 

 clearly enough how the end of slavery must come. It 

 comes in rebel Slave States by military order, decree, or 

 proclamation, not to be disregarded or set aside in any 

 event as a nullity, but maintained and executed with 

 perfect good faith to all the enfranchised ; and it will 

 come ip the loyal Slave States by the unconstrained 

 action of the people and their Legislatures, aided freely 

 and generously by their brethren of the Free States. I 

 may DC mistaken in this ; but if I am, another and bet- 

 ter way will be revealed. 



Meantime, it seems to me very necessary to say dis- 



tinctly what many yet shrink from saying. The 

 American blacks must be called into this conflict, not 

 as cattle, not now even as contrabands, but as men. In 

 the Free States, and, by the proclamation, in the rebel 

 States they are freemen. The Attorney General, in an 

 opinion which defies refutation, has pronounced these 

 freemen citizens of the United States. Let then the ex- 

 ample of Andrew Jackson, who did not hesitate to op- 

 pose colored regiments to British invasion, be now 

 fearlessly followed. Let these blacks, acclimated, 

 familiar with the country, capable of great endurance, 

 receive suitable military organization, and do their 

 part. We need their good will, and must make them 

 our friends by showing ourselves their friends. We 

 must have them for guides, for scouts, for all military 

 service in camp or field for which they are qualified. 

 Thus employed, from a burden they will become a 

 support; and the hazards, privations, and labors of 

 the white soldiers will be proportionally diminished. 

 Some will object of course. There are always objec- 

 tions to everything practical. Let experience dispel 

 honest fears, and refute captious or disloyal cavil. 



The postmaster-general, Mr. Blair, in a speech 

 delivered at Cleveland, Ohio, somewhat later, 

 thus spoke of the permanence of the emanci- 

 pation : 



That measure, which as commander-in-chief, the 

 President rightfully adopted under the Constitution, 

 and in accordance with national law, to obtain the co- 

 operation of the whole race of people, and which in- 

 volves both life and freedom in its results when pro- 

 claimed, was beyond revocation by either civil or 

 military authority of the nation. The people once 

 slaves in the rebel States can never again be recog- 

 nized as such by the United States. No judicial deci- 

 sion, no legislative action, State or national, can be 

 admitted to re-enslave a people who are associated 

 with our own destinies in this war of defence to save 

 the Government, and whose manumission was deemed 

 essential to the restoration and preservation of the 

 Union and to its permanent peace. 



In a speech delivered at Cincinnati, on Oc- 

 tober 15th, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 

 Chase, more fully related the cause which led 

 to the issue of the proclamation, the design of 

 it, and the advantages which had arisen from 

 it. He said : 



It was very simple and very plain, that slavery de- 

 pended for its existence outside of those States upon 

 the national will, which is simplv saying your will 

 and my will, that slavery outside of those States should 

 not exist antagonistic to free labor. But with slavery 

 in South Carolina, we in Ohio had nothing to do, and 

 I was just as much averse to any interference with 

 anything within the limits of other States. Although 

 I dislike the institution and condemn it, yet I was just 

 as much averse to any interference with it as I should 

 be with their interference with our institutions here in 

 Ohio. That was my doctrine ; and so when this re- 

 bellion commenced, it would have been extremely 

 agreeable to me if we could have put our foot upon the 

 snake I mean the rebellion and crushed it out without 

 any further trouble. But while I greatly desired that, 

 and had I been general-in-chief I should have attempt- 

 ed, in an awkward way, to accomplish it ; still we all 

 know the rebellion went on, and assumed greater and 

 greater proportions. We put greater and greater 

 armies into the field, but the slave population of the 

 South was the real prop of the rebellion raising pro- 

 visions for the army while it was fighting in the field, 

 so that they could have pretty much all their laboring 

 population in the battle-field- and they had another 

 laboring population behind them to feed and support 

 them ; and therefore it appeared evident, especially as 

 we had to depend upon the blacks in the South for in- 

 formation for our armies, and the whole country was so 

 demoralized that they were the only friends our armies 



