INTRODUCTION.

The anti-slavery principles laid down in the Chicago Platform, though not in all respects such as many earnest men desired to see put forth by a great party, were the best the people at that time could be induced to accept; and, as such, practical men, who preferred to secure something really good, rather than lose all by maintaining an unpopular though indisputably just theory, acquiesced in and gave them a cordial support. The people (at the East, if not in this State,) are now prepared to take another step in advance; but the Administration seem to act as if bound by the party platform, although that platform was made for a time of peace, and the war has put an entirely different face upon public affairs. The people, however, are not bound by any effete party theory, and the people, when convinced of the desirability of a new course of action, always compel the Government to change its policy. To assist in convincing them that a change is not merely desirable, but that the sooner it is effected the better, the following pages were written. Public opinion (not always an enlightened public opinion by any means,) rules, in this country, and often directs the course of Government before it finds expression through the ballot-box. Public opinion is ripening in favor of the abolition of slavery, but information is required to remove many prejudices. The writer believes Emancipation must be proclaimed--either soon, as a laudable object to be obtained by the war, or later, as an unavoidable necessity resulting from it; and as delay must be productive of great evil, he believes immediate and complete Emancipation is our best policy, and hopes this pamphlet may be the means of directing the public mind to the investigation of a subject which must ultimately force itself upon us, and perhaps in a manner less agreeable than now, when we have time to give it a cordial welcome and a careful study.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

The first edition of this pamphlet was published anonymously, because the writer desired to have it judged according to its merits, entirely disconnected with personal considerations. Having, in the Appendix, made some statements which would not appear well if from an unknown source, and being willing to assume the responsibility which attaches to the utterance not only of those statements, but of every sentiment advocated in the pamphlet in its original form, the author publishes this edition with his name endorsed.

The term "anti-constitution abolitionists," used on the 22d page, refers solely to the Garrisonian abolitionists. It would be unjust to Gerrit Smith, and others who think like him, to class them among those who are opposed to the Constitution. They are really its most ardent supporters, believing, as they do, that the Constitution does not in any manner sanction slavery, and that in spirit it is diametrically opposed to the institution.

This pamphlet will be sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of Twenty-five cents in stamps. Address,Lock Box 605.San Francisco.

Friends of emancipation desirous of circulating this pamphlet will be supplied at cost price, $15 per hundred.

THE WAR,ANDHOW TO END IT.Fellow Citizens:

Believing that the people of the United States will soon be required to determine upon some mode of abolishing slavery, I have collected from many sources the most reliable information obtainable concerning the results of emancipation in other countries; and though you may not sustain my deductions therefrom, yet for the facts presented I ask your careful consideration.

John C. Calhoun, in a report to the United States Senate, made by him as chairman of a special committee of the Twenty-fourth Congress, used the following language:

"Emancipation would ruin families and individuals, impoverish and prostrate an entire section of the Union, and give a fatal blow to the production of the great agricultural staples on which the commerce, navigation, manufactures, and revenue of the country entirely depend. To destroy slavery would be to place the two races in a state of conflict which must end in the expulsion or extirpation of one or the other."

This opinion was not Calhoun's merely, but may be said to have been the popular opinion concerning the effects of emancipation. The planters of the West Indies, notwithstanding the financial ruin that had been brought upon them by slavery, were strongly opposed to the act of emancipation passed in 1834. "They predicted that the most disastrous results would follow. The slaves, they said, were too lazy to work without the whip, and the few 00056who might be willing to work would be robbed by the others. This would lead to continual fighting and prodigious slaughter. Thousands would die for want of the fostering care of their masters; in short, blacks and whites would be swallowed up in one great gulf of swift destruction. To the very last they remonstrated, threatened, and entreated the home government not to consign them to such an inevitable fate." Their remonstrances were in vain, the act was passed, and Mr. Thome, in his work on the West Indies, says: "The great mass of negroes spent emancipation day in the churches; and in every quarter the day was like a Sabbath." Planters and missionaries in every part of the islands reported that there were no drunken carousals, no riotous assemblies, no excesses of any kind. Rev. James A. Thome was the son of a Kentucky slaveholder. He visited the West Indies in 1836, and published an account of his investigations soon after his return, in 1837. A great number of planters made statements to him, most of whom reported that a larger number of workmen than they ever before had in their fields turned out the week after emancipation. The estates were in far better order than ever before. Dr. Daniell, Member of the Council, owner of an estate in Antigua, and manager of others, a very old resident, and formerly much opposed to emancipation, told Mr. Thome there had been no deficiency of labor; the negroes accomplished twice as much as before, and were more tractable. He said that love of home was such a passion with negroes that nothing but bad treatment could force them away from an estate. Dr. Nugent, manager of a large estate, and Speaker of the Assembly, reported that emancipation had proved the greatest of blessings. The estates were better cultivated, and at less cost. The sick house used to be thronged with pretended invalids, but after emancipation, when the negroes were paid for their labor, they seldom went to the hospital, and the one on his estate had been turned into a stable. Mr. Thome reports the names and experience of scores of planters confirming these statements. The testimony of the magistrates and teachers was equally favorable. The Governor of Antigua said 00067the planters of that island assured him that the negroes were industriously disposed, the schools were prosperous, and the churches well attended. The police reports prove that capital offenses much decreased in number; that the principal crimes were breaches of contract, owing as much to the injustice of the planter as to the dishonesty of the negro. The Governor of Tabago, in 1857, said that a more industrious class does not exist in the world than the freed slaves of that island. Rev. Mr. Bleby, for thirty years a missionary in the West Indies, asserts that in Barbadoes, where he resided after emancipation, the criminal statistics compare favorably with any country under heaven. Lord John Russell says: "None of the most inveterate opponents of emancipation now allege that the free negroes have turned robbers, plunderers, or bloodthirsty insurgents."

The good results of British West India emancipation were much more apparent in those islands where the slaves were freed unconditionally, as in Antigua, and the Bahamas, and less favorable in the others, where the slaves were held several years as apprentices to prepare them for freedom. Jamaica shows a darker picture than any other, but even there the condition of the negro has been much improved since complete emancipation. Rev. Mr. Bleby says:

"Being determined to perpetuate slavery, the planters resolved to do all they could to keep their people in heathen darkness. The whole white population of Jamaica banded themselves together in an association which they called the Colonial Union, the avowed object of which was to drive every instructor of the negro from the island. Eighteen churches were levelled to the ground. They dragged the missionaries to prison, treated them with brutal violence, and did everything they could to put an end to their labors."

Mrs. L. Maria Child, to whose work, "The Right Way the Safe Way," I am indebted for much information, says:

"It is obvious that men so completely under the dominion of passion and prejudice were not likely to use power judiciously; and, unfortunately, the apprentice system, which was intended as a preparation for freedom, proved a source of exasperation to both parties." [The planters cared for nothing so much as to get all the labor possible from the apprentices before their complete emancipation.] "The fact that the power of punishment was transferred from master to magistrate, proved very insufficient protection; for the magistrates 00078were themselves planters, or friends of planters, and a large proportion of them were the mere tools of despotism."

The magistrates took little notice of the complaints of blacks, but condemned, without a hearing, on complaint of the whites. The records of their courts, imperfect as they are, show that, in the short space of two years, sixty thousand of the apprentices of Jamaica received in the aggregate, by order of the magistrates, one quarter of a million lashes, besides over fifty thousand other punishments by the tread-wheel, the chain-gang, and similar modes of legalized torture. The Encyclopaedia Britanica says the planters were more overbearing and tyrannical during the apprentice system than under slavery. "They seemed determined to make the apprentice act a failure, and display their bitterness against it by turning the negroes out of their houses, destroying their provision ground, and subjecting them to every kind of annoyance."Rev. James Phillipo, who was a missionary in Jamaica for twenty years, says: "Instead of a diminution of the miseries of the negro population under the apprentice law, there was a frightful addition to them, inducing a degree of discontent and exasperation never manifested even under the previous system." In 1838, "convinced that slavery, by its very nature, does not admit any of modification," Parliament proclaimed complete emancipation; after which "the conduct of the emancipated negro would have done credit to Christians of the most civilized country in the world. All seemed to have sense of the obligations they owed to each other and to the civil authorities. The laborers, with a few exceptions, went to work on the following day, and many of them gave their first week of free labor as an offering of good will to their former masters." How many white Christians, think you, would have done the same? Not a single instance of violence or subordination, of serious disagreement or intemperance, occurred in any part of the island. Labor was cheap; it might have contained plentiful; and, notwithstanding the women and children were withdrawn from the field, a larger, instead of a smaller crop of sugar might have been sent to market, in consequence of the greater activity of 00089free laborers, it being fully demonstrated that one freed negro would do more work for fair wages than two slaves. But "the planters, not the slaves, proved themselves unfit for the great change inaugurated by the act of emancipation." Not having sufficient capital, they cheated the laborers, and in other ways continued to oppress them, until they were compelled to sacrifice their feelings of attachment to their domicils, and establish themselves in free-holds of their own. But even this proves their industry and economy, for in twenty years after emancipation one hundred thousand of the colored men of Jamaica had become freeholders, notwithstanding the price of labor was only twenty-four cents per day. Rev. W. G. Barrett, a missionary, stated, at a meeting in London last year:

"After a lengthened residence in Jamaica, after having visited every one of the West India islands, the Mauritius, French and British, after having resided some time in British Guiana, and gathered the feeling resulting from those different colonies, I have no hesitation in saying that when the emancipated negroes welcomed that first of August, they were prepared to bury in oblivion all the injuries of the past. Had the conduct of the planters of the West Indies been as wise as the conduct of the negro was forgiving, had their acts been as just as the demeanor of the emancipated slaves was good, there would have been none of those complaints we have heard of, none of that abandonment of estates, and those heart-burnings of which we are repeatedly reading both in the columns of the colonial and the British press."

Wm. G. Sewell, in his work on the West Indies, says: "Disaster and misfortune have followed, not emancipation, but the failure to observe those great principles of liberty and justice upon which the foundations of emancipation were laid." Lord Brougham, in one of his speeches, said he had positive proof, from undoubted authority, that wherever the freed negroes were well treated, the supply of sugar produced by their labor had not diminished since the act of emancipation.

The English Baptist Missionary Society, in 1859, sent commissioners to the West Indies to make a minute examination into the condition of the islands. This deputation, after a research of more than a year, have recently made their report, in which they assert that emancipation, has not only produced the most gratifying moral results but has enormously enhanced the material prosperity of 000910all of the islands, including Jamaica, concerning which so much has been said to the contrary. As to the religious condition of the people of Jamaica, they reported that they had built, since emancipation, two hundred and twenty chapels, independent of the Established Church, of which there was no record showing the number. The people regularly, attending these chapels amounted to 91,000, one fourth of the entire population, and the Sabbath Schools contained 22,000 children, being one-third of all the children old enough to attend school. The money contributed by the negroes to sustain these churches amounted to more than $100,000 per annum. The educational statics of the island were very incomplete, but from a census taken by the missionaries of one district in Jamaica, at the time of emancipation, and another taken twenty-five years after, it was found that whereas, at the first census only three negroes in five thousand were able to read and write, at the last census one thousand seven hundred were able to do, so. The people are now well governed and well behaved; persons and property are perfectly safe, and serious crimes very rare. These facts, the commissioners state, contrast most forcibly with the awful condition of society in Jamaica before emancipation.

In 1851, Mr. Bigelow, now United States Consul to Paris, published a work on the West Indies, in which he gives a sad picture of the degradation of the people of Jamaica; and other travelers, especially those who merely visited Kingston, and took that dirty city as a specimen of the whole island, have made similar reports. Mr. Charles Tappan, who visited Jamaica in 1858, says:

"On landing at Kingston, I was inclined to believe the story that the emancipated slave is more idle and vicious than any other of God's intelligent creatures; but when I rode through the valleys, and over the mountains, and found everywhere an industrious, sober people, I concluded that all the vagabonds of the island had moved to the seashore to pick up a precarious living by carrying baggage, begging, etc., and such upon inquiry, I found to be the fact. Wherever I went in the rural districts, I found contented men and women cultivating sugar cane, vegetables, and fruits on their own account. Their neat, well furnished cottages compared well with the dwellings of pioneers in our own country. I found in them mahogany furniture, crockery and glass-ware, and shelves of useful books."

At a meeting held in London, presided over by Lord Brougham, and composed of many eminent men of England, America, and the West Indies, Sir Francis Hincks, Governor of the Barbadoes, offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:

"Resolved, That, on the 25th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, this meeting joyously records its satisfaction in the retrospect of that great act of national justice and sound policy, and emphatically affirms that the emancipated population of those colonies have triumphantly vindicated the justice of the act of emancipation by the signal progress they have since made, morally, religiously, and politically."

At this meeting, George Thompson, M.P., made a speech in which he said:

"Twenty-five years have passed since the slaves were emancipated, and what are they now? They are industrious cultivators and independent freeholders of the soil; they are the liberal promoters of education; they are devout members of Christian churches; they not only sustain, out of their own resources, the religious institutions of their own locality, but they even send to societies in England their liberal contributions. There is no department of agricultural, commercial, mechanical, or political life into which they have not entered, and in which they have not creditably distinguished themselves."

Considering the degraded condition of the negroes of the British colonies before emancipation, this statement of their progress is remarkable. More than two million slaves had been taken to the West Indies, but only eight hundred thousand remained alive at the time of emancipation, many of whom were born in a state of barbarism in the wilds of Africa. In America, on the contrary, all the importations of which we have record are only about three hundred thousand, while we now have four million slaves. At the present day, a native African on a Southern plantation is as great a rarity as a white blackbird. They are not so numerous by far as those slaves called octoroons, but in whose veins scarce a drop of African blood can be traced. The moral and intellectual character of American slaves, therefore, is infinitely above that of the slaves of the West Indies in 1834. In the West Indies, at the time of emancipation, there were more than five times as many blacks as whites; in the Slave States of America there are twice as many whites as blacks, making the proportion of colored 001112men to whites in the Indies ten times greater than in the Southern States, and the danger of emancapation ten times as much, supposing there to be any danger; though that is hardly supposable, as I have just proved there is none.

At successive periods, between 1816 and 1828, the South American republics, Buenos Ayres, Chili, Bolivia, Peru, Columbia and Guatemala, emancipated all their slaves. In 1828 thirty thousand Hottentoto helots were emancipated in Cape Colony. In 1857 the Dutch abolished slavery in their West India colonies, and in 1859, in all their possessions in the East Indies, while at this moment the abolition off serfdom is taking place in Russia; yet in no instance, (except in Russia, where there has been a trifling trouble in consequence of adopting a system of partial or gradual abolition,) have these changes been productive of any injury to life or property. So much for the moral aspect of emancipation. Now let us look at the matter as a financial question.

The financial troubles of the British West Indies commenced more than one hundred years before emancipation, and the planters' petitions to Parliament for relief began more than fifty years previous to that event. Instead of emancipation being the cause of these troubles, they were the cause of emancipation. As Jamaica is the island almost always referred to by pro-slavery men, let us examine the condition of Jamaica previous to and after emancipation. In 1792 the Jamaica Assembly reported to Parliament, that in the course of the preceding twenty years, 177 estates in Jamaica had been sold for the payment of debts; 55 had been abandoned 92 were in the hands of creditors; and the 80,121 executions, lodged in the Marshal's office, amounted to $109,0012,500. That does not look much like the prosperity in Jamaica, pro-slavery men, without giving figures, assert to have been the condition of the colony previous to emancipation. But it grew even worse than this before slavery was abolished. From other reports made by the Jamaica Assembly to Parliament subsequent to 1792. I extract sentences as follow:

1804.--"British merchants holding securities on real estate in Jamaica, hesitate to enforce decrees of foreclosure, because if they do they must become proprietors of the plantations, of which, from fatal experience, they know the consequences. All credit in Jamaica is at an end; confidence has ceased, and a faithful detail of our distresses would have the appearance of a frightful caricature."

1805.--"The condition of the planter is one of increasing embarrassment and impending ruin."

1807.--"The estates now in chancery [not including those previously sold] amount of one-fourth of the whole number in the colony."

1812.--"The ruin of the original possessors of property has been completed; estate after estate has passed into the hands of mortgagees and creditors absent from the island, until there are large districts, whole parishes, in which there is not a single proprietor of a sugar plantation resident."

1826.--"The present proprietors are fast going into bankruptcy [as did their predecessors]. Commerce is deserting the shores of Jamaica. Ruin in the most dreadful shape, is advancing with rapid strides."

In 1830, four years before emancipation, Lord Chandos presented to Parliament a petition from the Jamaica planters for relief, starting that their distress was unparalleled--many families reduced to absolute penury--and that without speedy and efficient relief, the ruin of a great number of the planters must inevitably take place. Parliament granted the relief, not as they wanted it, but in the shape of emancipation. The island was utterly insolvent at the time the emancipation bill passed. The sugar exports of Jamaica from 1801 to 1807 averaged 133,000 hogsheads annually. From 1807 to 1814 the average annual exports were 118,0000 hhds.; from 1814 to 1821, only 96,000 hhds.; and from 1828 to 1835, the exports were but 90,000 hhds., showing plainly that sugar export commenced failing off long before emancipation. The same causes have produced a still greater decrease in the exports from Jamaica since emancipation, but in most of the islands there has been a large increase, so much that although the sugar exports of Jamaica now average but 30,000 hhds. per annum, the total sugar exports of the West Indies nearly equal the amount exported before emancipation. But let us see what became of Jamaica in other respects after emancipation. Joseph J. Gurney, who visited Jamaica in 1840, says:

"The imports of the island are rapidly increasing; trade improving; towns thriving; new villages rising up in every direction; property 001314much enhanced in value; and the people, wherever they are properly treated, are contented, industrious and gradually accumulating property. Real estate is as valuable without the slaves as formerly with them. Land that sold for $15 per acre before emancipation, readily brings $60 per acre, and a great deal of the land leased for more money in one year than it would have sold for under slavery."

This highly favorable state of affairs continued till the year 1846, when the British Parliament repealed the tariff on sugar. For many years the West India planters had a monopoly of the sugar market in Great Britain, so complete that not even the British East Indies were allowed to compete with them. Eight years after emancipation this tariff was repealed, and sugar suddenly fell from $11.86 per cwt. to $5.65. Business in the West Indies had been carried on by credit for more than one hundred years, but now credit was at an end; mortgages were fore-closed; estates were sold, and thousands of families reduced to poverty. Their cries of distress resounded through the world, and pro-slavery men in America exultingly proclaimed, "Behold the effects of emancipation." Real estate in Jamaica fell 50 per cent, and in 1850, Mr. Bigelow said: "It is difficult to exaggerate, and still more difficult to define, the poverty and industrial prostration of Jamaica." Notwithstanding this great depression, the effect of the shock soon passed away, and in 1858 the reports to Parliament from all the West India islands, showed that in the four years preceding there had been an increase in the West India trade over the preceding four years amounting to $21,802,000. The total trade of 1857 was over fifty-two million dollars.

I have not been able to obtain any official reports of the West India trade later than 1857, but it is true that the exports of the islands, though nearly as great as they were immediately preceding emancipation, are not yet, even with this great increase, half as large as they were in what are called "the prosperous days of the colonies," in other words, when men were captured, enslaved, and sacrificed by the thousands in order that sugar might be exported and sold to fill the pockets of English speculators. But a decrease in trade, however great, does not prove emancipation a failure to any one who believes a human soul 001415worthy of higher regard than a hogshead of sugar, and the comfort and happiness of men of more consequence than the profits on the export of a barrel of rum or bag of coffee. When a cultivated people consider reasons like these sufficient to decide the greatest of moral questions, it is time for barbarians to teach us a better lesson. The gross materialism such exclusively pecuniary considerations imply is enough to overwhelm with shame any christian nation. Let us not advance such an argument in this age of civilization.

But, setting aside all sentiments of humanity, justice, morality and religion, it is safe to assert that not even the material progress of a country can be determined by the exports alone. The best indication of the prosperity of California is not her large exports of gold, but the general advancement of the people in agriculture, manufactures and the mechanic arts. So also with the Indies; their pecuniary condition is to be judged more by the progress of the laborers in the accumulation of property, their increased means of enjoying the comforts of life, and the amount of produce consumed at home, rather than that which is sent abroad. Ernest Noel, writing from Jamaica to the N. Y. Times last year, says ten pounds of coffee are now consumed in that island where one pound was used previous to emancipation. Every laborer now has his cup of coffee. So it is with sugar. Noel gives it as his opinion that the amount grown has not so much decreased as the exports indicate, but that it is used by the natives themselves. Instead of being sent off to enrich foreign capitalists, it is retained at home to add to the comforts of the producer. The commissioners sent to the Indies by the Baptist Missionary Society state that, while the annual export of sugar from all the islands for several years before emancipation averaged 3,600,000 cwt., the sugar exports of 1858 amounted to 3,500,000 cwt., being a diminution of only 2,000 hogsheads. The annual earnings of the 70,000 negro families of Jamaica are estimated by the commissioners at about eleven million dollars, and the amount saved by them since emancipation, estimating at a low rate the value of their real and personal property, is not 001516less than twelve million dollars. This shows that some of them, at least, do not spend all they earn, and that the whole of them, as a people, are far from being the idle, vicious, thieving vagabonds they are so often represented.

In view of these facts, gathered from such a variety of sources, and substantiated by witnesses of such unimpeachable character, is it not evident that the slave power, besides being the curse of America, is the most audacious liar in christendom? The upholders of slavery, by their persistency in lying, have made nine-tenths of the American people believe that the abolition of slavery would bring inevitable ruin upon the country. For more than twenty years they have lied about the results of emancipation in the West Indies; and having succeeded in deceiving many honest people, they coolly point to the general belief in their lies as proof of their integrity, and as evidence of the necessity as well as justice of their iniquitous system. Their audacity is unparalleled.

I will close this portion of the subject with an extract from the Edinburgh Review of April, 1859, which, after furnishing statistics on the progress of the West Indies for the ten years previous, appended to its array of figures the following statement:

"A long and thorough investigation has borne us to the conclusion that, merely as a dry question of policy, emancipation has paid. Slavery and monopoly were bearing the West Indies to ruin; under free labor and free trade they are rising to wealth, and are yearly enriching us more and more with the overflowing wealth of their fertile soil. Instead of being the plague of statesmen and the disgrace of England, they are becoming invaluable possessions of the British crown."

During my examination of this subject, I have found evidences in favor of emancipation sufficient to fill a volume of five hundred pages--sufficient, at least, to convince all rational men that immediate and unconditional emancipation, viewed as a question of morals and finance, would be the greatest blessing this government could confer upon the Southern people, both master and slave. I have spent more time in collecting these statistics than my inclination prompted, in order to meet the objections of that large class of men who consider the question of the continuance of 001617slavery as purely one of profit and loss, on which consideration of humanity or justice have no practical bearing. Except in recognition of this prevailing opinion, I would not have taken the trouble to prove slavery a financial blunder to be remedied, while my sense of justice tells me it is a most monstrous crime to be extirpated. There are far higher considerations in favor of emancipation than those which concern our material prosperity. By making this war a war for the freedom of the slave, we make it a war for human rights. The rights which pertain to men because they are men--the rights of humanity--are far higher and more sacred than those which are derived from any form of civil government. Human rights are inherent and immutable, while the rights of a subject or citizen are conferred by statute, and liable to constant modification. One is as much higher than the other as God is higher than man. It is said to be glorious to give up your life for country. I think it more glorious to do so for the sake of humanity; and it has been given to this people and this generation to contend for the establishment of principles which lie at the basis of human rights and progress. As a mere struggle for the ascendency, between parties one of which is only more wrong than the other, (though a great deal more, it is true,) I, for one, feel very much disposed to stand aside, and allow those who love fighting to fight it out. The struggles of the battle-field, which some natures look upon as the grandest and most sublime exhibition of human passions, seem to me, apart from any noble object that may be attained thereby, as illustrative only of gross brutality and barbaric folly. The sight of human gore, and the sound of human woe, the hissing shot and bursting shell, the groans of the wounded and the gasps of the dying, make a scene the boasted sublimity of which, merely as a sublime sight, I have no desire to witness. But elevate the standard of the war; make the contest one for the rights of man, for the destruction of tyranny, for the establishment of the principles of justice; inscribe on our banners "Emancipation for the Slave" and "Equal Rights for All," so that, overlooking the brutality and the suffering, we may see, not far beyond, the realization of our 001718hopes for the cause of humanity, and feel that through all this trial and these sufferings a glorious future awaits us, which shall be a rich atonement for all, and I am ready to stake my life in the contest. What matters individual ill or welfare in a war such as this should be? If America, cursed with slavery, has been the hope of the world, what may not America free become? If we can save our republican form of government, and destroy slavery, this war, indeed, will not have been in vain; but if our President and his advisers desire to have the evil that caused the war still continue to exist, then surely they are endeavoring to retain that which has cursed every country on which it ever rested; and if we, the people, do nothing to aid this and other reforms which should take place in our system of government in order better to adapt it to our present condition, then we are wilfully closing our eyes to evils which the war gives us a grand opportunity to put an end to.

Three objects are before the American people at this time for attainment--the preservation of the Union, an honorable peace, and the abolition of slavery; the first and second of which may be easily and quickly secured by proclaiming the third, and enforcing it as fast as our armies move southward. The abolition of slavery must soon be followed by the disbanding of the rebel army. Every Southern soldier would desire to protect his own family against the possible vengeance of the slaves. Peace would soon follow, and slavery being destroyed, the peace would be permanent between two sections, though quiet at the South cannot be restored for years. The estates of rebels should be divided and apportioned among the Northern soldiers, upon condition of immediate settlement. This course would infuse a new element into Southern society, which in less than ten years would revolutionize the character of the Southern people. It is an absolute fact, (all lies to the contrary notwithstanding,) that the white man can perform more and harder labor at the South than the negro. It has been proved over and over again in the ditching and railroad building of the Southern States. Labor too arduous for the negro is performed by the white man with ease. The "poor white trash" of the South, 001819being acclimate, are better able to labor even than the whites of the North, and on finding that other white men, more intelligent than themselves, are not ashamed to work for a living, they too would earn enough to live decently; and the next generation, educated in the schools introduced by the Northern men, would be a superior race. In the meantime, laws would require to be passed for the regulation of labor, and to prevent the oppression of the negro by white tyrants.

There is no doubt that an openly avowed abolition policy would create dissatisfaction in the Slave States still loyal to the Government, but it must not be forgotten that there are eight million white people in the South, and only three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders, and it is possible that if fair vote could be taken a majority would be found in favor of abolition. If not, it is solely owing to their ignorance, and in the more enlightened future they will thank us for forcing upon them the blessings of free society. It is much better to have a little less to last for years. But the troubles will not end immediately. Anthony Trollope says, in reference to the abolition of slavery, "the discontinuance of an evil is always the commencement of a struggle." We must expect a struggle for years between the various elements that will compose Southern society after the closed of this war. I do not look for a conflict of races when liberty is proclaimed, but simply for the minor difficulties that must inevitably result from a disorganized state of society. Time, however, will bring peace, and happiness will again settle upon our now distracted country. What murders, what outrages, what bloody butcheries may intervene, it is needless to imagine. Let us fix our eyes upon the happy future. Yet, in view of the fact that freedom would remove this cause, and in view of the mild character of our American slaves, it is highly improbable that any massacre of whites by blacks would follow emancipation. But if any excess of the kind should occur, it certainly would be far preferable to a long and bloody civil war, which must, if emancipation be not adopted, result in the destruction of our government, 001920and an enormous loss of valuable lives. Better exterminate every master by the hand of the slave, than sacrifice the lives of men who are true to their country and humanity. I know not why we should be so careful of the safety of slaveholding traitors, and so lavish of the blood of our loyal soldiers. The doom of slavery is written in the Book of Fate. It is only a question of time; but how long a time, and at what an expense of blood and treasure, depends upon the method of conducting this war. The campaign of Patterson in Western Virginia is said to have cost the government ten million dollars, and the total results were the capture of twenty fugitive slaves, every one of whom were returned to their masters. Millions of dollars expended to maintain an army of negro catchers, for the benefit of slaveholding rebels! That is one way to conduct a war; but it is not my way, and I have reason to believe that a great many men of my way of thinking are deterred from offering their assistance to the Government, because they do not feel that the present policy of the Administration is what it should be. It has been reported that many officers in the Federal army would resign if the Government should proclaim emancipation. None of this class did resign when Fremont issued his proclamation, but if any actually threatened to do so, their services should be dispensed with now, and men put in their places who will not resign when time and events compel the Government to adopt this policy. It is well to prepare for the inevitable future. There is another and much larger class of soldiers who earnestly desire the abolition of slavery, and knowing the war will end in that, they are satisfied to obtain a good result under false pretences. I am not; and in this case I am more strongly opposed to such a sneaking course for the reason that it will cause a greatly increased loss of life, to say nothing of the loss of national self-respect and the respect of the world. This war should speedily end. Already it comes home to the bosoms of each one of us whose relatives or friends have bled or died on fields made memorable by incompetency and mismanagement. Continue as we have commenced, and we will have a guerilla warfare for an indefinite number of years. We may obtain possession 002021session of every Southern seaport, and station soldiers in every inland Southern city, (when we have captured them, which will not be in a hurry,) yet the rebels will retain the mountain defences, and keep the country in a state of insurrection for years; and after they are crushed, if ever, then slavery again will cause a turmoil from that time on to eternity, unless we take a new tack. I believe in striking home-in the very citadel of the enemy's strength. What folly to suffer a servile race to cultivate fields to furnish food to those who are fighting against us! What inanity to allow four millions of people to assist our enemies, when two millions of them would gladly assist us! It probably would not be necessary to admit emancipated slaves to the military service of the Government. The good feeling that in many cases exists between master and slave should not be disturbed more than necessity requires. The desirability of a harmonious relation between all parties after the war is over forbids this. I know the negro's intense love of home, and his deep gratitude to those who treat him kindly. The house servants at the South are, in many instances, bound to their master's family by the ties of friendship, and not a few of them by the ties of consanguinity. But there are on the plantations many thousands who have no white associates but the overseer, and no friends but themselves. These would gladly aid a Government that would show a disposition to aid them. They are ignorant, but could soon be made to understand their new position, and, if unyielding necessity at last required it, many an efficient regiment could be formed of this "raw material." It is barely possible that after a few Federal victories, the deluded people of the South will return to their allegiance; but in such an event their curse will return with them. In any aspect of the case, therefore, is it best to wait for a temporary success, by our armies alone, while it is evident that by freeing the slave and arming the negro, the war would end almost immediately; and by merely freeing the slaves, without accepting their armed service, we could secure permanent peace in six months? The latter mode would be far preferable. By refusing to adopt it, the country will be distracted by war for years, 002122and emancipation will be found the only remedy at last, because by defeating the rebels, without emancipation, we shall have conquered and brought back the old evil to harass us and cause fresh troubles. Emancipation will be just as necessary then as now. I am not strenuous as to the particular mode by which slavery shall be abolished, but I am fearful of delays. The military is stronger than the civil power; it hesitates not at slight difficulties; it does not wrangle over petty details; a few leading minds control all its operations, and its results are produced quietly. But take the matter into Congress after the rebels have laid down their arms; let the demagogues, the Presidential aspirants, and the corrupt politicians of that body expand their volumes of gas on the subject, and the country will again be agitated from center to circumference; jealousies will be excited, sectional interests raised, and the final dissolution of the Union rendered unavoidable. If it is going to Congress at all, it better go there now, when there is a chance of unanimity.

Strictly considered the Constitution does not sanction slavery; it does not expressly recognize its existence. But take Constitutional pro-slaveryists and anti-Constitution abolitionists upon their common ground, which is, that slavery, sustained by State laws, and sanctioned by the Federal Constitution, cannot, by the General Government, be legally abolished until the Constitution is amended. Then, I assert, if it may not be interfered with by the civil power, it can be by the military, and that power should be exercised. The upholders of slavery, in the States where it exists, have rejected the Constitution, and voluntarily withdrawn from its protection; they have defied the Government, and raised an armed force to fight against it; they have adopted another constitution, and claim no rights under the old one. Shall we give them what they do not ask? Shall we thrust upon them a protection which they spurn? Since this contest commenced the President has deliberately ignored a law of Congress, in order that armies might be speedily raise for the protection of the Government. Acknowledging the justice of his action in this 002223respect I claim that he has equal reason, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the army, to disregard those provisions of the Constitution which protect and encourage its enemies. (I refer to Art. X of the Amendments, concerning the reserved rights of the States, which is so construed as to authorize the holding of slaves under state laws.) This is no time for a blind adherence to those Constitutional provisions which, by unjust constructions, are made to favor men who defy the Constitution in nearly half the States of the Union.

I do not believe that any government can permanently endure that is not based upon, or at least progressing towards, the eternal principles of truth and justice; and I do not believe this Government, which is now afloat on a sea of troubles, will ever again be firmly established until our rulers, guided by the land-marks of righteousness, lay anchor on the rock of immutable truth. Yet, not now should we talk of constitutional amendments. This is a time for action. Under existing circumstances gradual emancipation is impracticable. We have had a dalliance with evil long enough. Slavery is an ensnaring harlot, which cannot be touched without contamination. It brutalizes everything with which it comes in contact, blinds its votaries with ignorance and besots them with a worse than drunken foolishness. It is the sin and shame of our country; the one evil that overtops all others--that sinks to the foundation of iniquity and reaches to the very apex of villainy.

We just begin to understand the new relations in which we are placed by this rebellion; and although the Constitution defines treason, we just begin to understand what that means; and I have come to the conclusion that the system of slavery itself has been "organized treason' against this Government ever since its formation. Its spirit is contrary to the spirit of democracy, and all I was by which it is fostered are, and necessarily must be, indirect opposition to a republican form of government. Yet the people of California have been told by their most popular preacher that "Slavery is not the cause of this war, and has nothing to do with it." The man who tells you this manages to keep on the top wave of public opinion as much by his tact as his eloquence. I have the charity 002324to suppose that when he encourages an unjust popular prejudice, he is actuated by the belief that whoever goes far in advance of the people places himself in a position where he is incapable of doing them much good; so, through pure love of his fellow-men, whose welfare he keeps constantly in view, our popular preacher desires to avoid a radicalism that would weaken his influence. This is very considerate, surely; nevertheless, I believe in the truth, when I can find it, no matter how many people believe the contrary. And as to the truth of this statement, let us examine:

The rule of slavery is the rule of brute force. It is founded upon the ignorance and degradation of the enslaved--"upon the annihilation of the most sacred rights of man." It has no sympathy whatever with free institutions, and has never ceased its warfare on the best interests of this people. It has been the bane of the nation from its foundation. I need not detail the workings of the institution, but will, in brief language, remind you of some of them: Slavery intrenched itself in the Colonies before the United States Government was formed; it obtained recognizance in the document which we still acknowledge as our Constitution; it acquired territory from foreign Powers for its future growth; it repudiated the Ordinance of 1787 prohibiting its extension, and broke the compact of 1820 defining its limits. It was the principal cause of the Florida war; it produced also an unjust war with a neighboring republic in 1846, and endeavored to inaugurate its villainous system of labor in California in 1849. It "wasted the fair fields of Kansas," and stained its soil with the blood of hundreds of its liberty-loving people. It took possession of New Mexico and Arizona, and endeavored to extend its rule over Utah and Nevada. It has bribed Presidents and Cabinets, controlled Congresses, corrupted Courts, and declared all the territory of the United States slave territory. It has robbed the U.S. mails, and destroyed papers which the people desired for their instruction. It has mutilated school books and religious writings, in order to expurgate from them every sentiment favorable to a spirit of freedom. It has mobbed, 002425persecuted, and finally expelled from its borders, men who were not upholders of its iniquities. In the North it has triumphed by political intrigue, and in the South has been upheld by ruffian brutality. Its history is one continued story of outrages. Whenever it has had the power to do so, it has burned, maimed or killed all who dared utter anything in opposition to its barbarities; where it has not had this power it has distributed political rewards for acts of party subserviency. Words of remonstrance at the North have produced the politician's defeat and the business man's ruin; while even a lack of sympathy at the South has been sufficient to insure physical torture or death. For fifty years, by its unity of interest, the Slave Power in this country has managed to control public opinion, to direct the Government, and to impede the progress of free institutions. After a long series of uninterrupted successes, it has, at last, received a check; it perceives that the acme of its power has been reached; and, in the phrenzy of despair, it strives to overturn the Government which has so long protected it. The census reports and the indisputable evidence within every man's observation, have demonstrated to the slaveholders the growing power of free labor, and the consequent early doom of slavery. They saw themselves surrounded by Free States, and intruded upon within their own territory by the advancing host of free labor. In some of the border Slave States the hard-working immigrants from Germany, the ever restless sons of the emerald isle and the invincible yankee purchased homes adjoining the plantations of slaveholders, and demonstrated to them that "men who are bred in the customs of free society, inured to labor, and economical of their resources, have both the ability and the will to take advantage of the planter's necessities, and purchase his lands at low prices." This process was continued until slavery was crowded out from whole sections of Virginia, Missouri and Texas. These things, it would seem, ought to have convinced the people of the South that the boasted economy of slave labor is a delusion. But it did not. Many of them believe it a necessity, and they are encouraged in this belief by their politicians, who continually 002526assert that the abolition of slavery would be the ruin of the South Cotton cannot be produced by free labor, they say, and in order to sustain slavery in the cotton States, it must be perpetuated in the border States and extended into the Territories. So is has been extended, against the entreaties, the protestations, and all the efforts of good men to stay its progress. Although, in the early days of the Republic, the Slave Power lost some of the States that were once under its dominion, it has since succeeded in devoting a greater number of new States to its service. This increase has been charged as the effect of abolition agitation at the North creating a feeling of opposition at the South. As well might you assert that fire engines are the cause of conflagrations, as to say that abolition agitation perpetuates slavery. George M. Weston says: "It is an insult to the intelligence of the Southern people to suppose them capable of being influenced by motives so puerile in connection with a subject of such vital interest." The true cause of the increased power of slavery lies in the unsound opinions concerning the profitableness of slave labor, and in the immense pecuniary interests of the slaveholders. Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, in his letter to Thomas Clarkson, places this matter on the right ground. He says the political movements against slavery had no effect at the South, neither would a purely persuasive attempt to remove slavery, such as Clarkson proposed, succeed any better. The Southern people were not excited to further "aggressions" by the abuse of abolitionists; they were impelled to extend slavery by altogether different causes. Nature and the requirements of trade, pecuniary interests, and long established custom demand the perpetuation of slavery, Mr. Hammond says, and neither the threats nor entreaties will ever prevail against it. Hear him:

"Supposing we were all convinced, and thought of slavery precisely as you do; at what era of 'moral suasion' do you imagine you could prevail on us to give up two thousand millions of dollars in the value of our slaves, and a thousand millions more in the depreciation of our lands in consequence of the want of laborers to cultivate them? * * * You see the absurdity of such an idea. Away then with your pretended moral suasion. You know it is mere nonsense."

Although Senator Hammond falls into the common error concerning the effects of emancipation, yet I agree with him that slavery is not to be remedied by moral suasion, on the contrary, it is to be put down by the strong arm of military force-an evil be crushed at once, and at whatever cost. We all know emancipation to be just; experience has proved it to be profitable; but this war makes it inevitable; so we have no choice, except the choice of time, and no duty except to make the time short. The longer the delay the more will be the cost in the end cost, not in money alone, but in life, in national honor, and perhaps in the total destruction of our government. The most effectual mode of curing an evil is to remove its cause, and the cause of this war is too obvious to be mistaken. We can trace all our present national troubles directly to one point-that is slavery. The impoverishing effect of slavery, "its tendency to band together all connected with it, and isolate them from the people of other States," its exclusive interests, the jealousy it fosters, the brutality and ignorance it causes, and the spirit of lawlessness which it naturally gives rise to, have kept the nation in a ferment for the last thirty years. This war is the natural and inevitable culmination of the troubles caused by slavery, and we shall never again have peace except by its extinction. Geo. M. Weston, in his history of the "Progress of Slavery," says:

"Virginia and the Carolinas, with exhausted soils, stationary populations, and decaying towns, saw, with regret and alarm, that the free States, with inferior natural advantages, were rapidly surpassing them in numbers and wealth. With jaundiced eyes, they beheld the vigorous commerce, the thriving manufactures and the opulent cities of the North, and insisted that they alone were the producers of real wealth, and that the North was thriving at their expense. * * * Without the products of the South, where would Northern ships find freights? Without Southern customers, where manufactures find markets? Such questions, and the ideas that prompt such questions, are common in all the slave States."

Senator Hammond, in a speech in the U.S. Senate, March 4th, 1858, addressing the Senators from the Northern States, said:

"Transient and temporary causes have thus far been your preservation. * * * The South has sustained you in a great measure. You are our factors. You bring and carry for us. One hundred 002728and fifty million dollars of your money passes annually through your hands. Much of it sticks; all of it assists to keep your machinery together and in motion. Suppose we were to discharge you; suppose we were to take our business out of your hands; we should consign you to anarchy and poverty."

Is it any wonder that the Southern people remain grossly ignorant of the resources and character of the North, while one of their most intelligent leaders utters such adsurdities as those? Mr. Forsyth, of Alabama, ten years ago, said to the people of the South in a public address:

I have no more doubt that the effect of separation would be to transfer the energies of industry, population, commerce and wealth from the North to the South, than I have that it is to the union with us-the wealth-producing States--that the North owes its great progress in material prosperity. The Union broken, we should have what has so long been the dream of the South--direct trade and commercial independence."

The whole tribe of Southern disunionists, blinded by slavery, or wilfully closing their eyes to the true cause of their misfortunes, have held similar views for a quarter of a century, and; their continued efforts, have "embittered the South against the North, have created a spirit of uneasiness, and destroyed the patriotic feelings of the Southern people." Therefore I assert that slavery is the sole cause of our national troubles, and emancipation the only remedy. In no other way can we have permanent peace. In no other way can we as a nation ever reach that high state of cultivation and prosperity at home, and that commanding influence and respect abroad which will be ours when freed from the curse that has already done so much to lower the national character, to brutalize a large class of our people, and to endanger the existence of the Government itself. Slavery has caused this rebellion against a government in most respects the best that ever existed, and it is now the duty of the Government to rebel against slavery--not by law, to be passed by authority of constitutional amendments, some months or some years hence, but immediately, by proclamation enforced by the sword. I despair of seeing the President assume the responsibility. He even from the contemplation of his first assumption of unlawful power, just as it was, and 002829as wholly repudiated the policy of Fremont, which might have been the entering wedge to split and finally destroy the iniquitous system that has come so near destroying us. But I look to Congress for a speedy remedy. Though it should be done by the military, it may first be authorized by the civil power--not, I trust, by any slow-moving attempt to amend the Constitution, but by means of a declaration made necessary by the extremity of our danger. Let us say to our representatives: We will have no further subservience to the behests of this tremendous evil--no more compromises, and no more delay.

"Hear it, ye who sit in council,We, the people, tell you so!Will you venture 'Yes' to whisper,When the millions thunder 'No?'Will you sell the nation's birthright--Heritage of toil and pain--While a cry of shame and vengeanceRings from Oregon to Maine?"

You all remember the words of the eloquent Curran, used in the defense of Mr. Rowan, in allusion to that most noble decree of the British courts, which, in the case of Somerset, declared the freedom of every man whose feet trod British soil:

"No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the God sink together in the dust, his body swells beyond the measure of his chains that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation."

Shall we, who boast so much of freedom, let monarchical Britain longer thus put us to shame? Shall we continue in the future all the absurdities of the past, and invite the nations of the earth to witness out inconsistencies? Claiming our Constitution as the palladium of the liberties of the people, we have held millions of our fellow men in bondage; holding up to the gaze of mankind the Declaration of Independence as the most sublime expression of man's equality, we have, in practice, acted as if 002930it really were what one of our Northern doughfaces pronounced it, "a tissue of glittering generalities." How long are these things to continue? I trust not long. Already, by this rebellion, has this noble decree of Great Britain been practically extended from the borders of the northern lakes to the verge of old Virginia; and, already has Fremont indicated a mode by which the human chattels of rebels, even on the very plantations of the disloyal South, might be confiscated to the Government, and by the Government consecrated to freedom-a policy which, if adopted, would leave nothing to be done except for Congress to provide some means of finally remunerating the loyal men of the South, when their slaves might, by the military power, be declared free also. And, in my opinion, to grant the delay that waiting for Congressional action would require, is granting a great deal. When, to prevent the spread of a conflagration, it becomes necessary to destroy any man's property, it is not customary to wait for a committee to assess damages; the danger is summarily removed, and the question of damages is an after consideration. So it should be with emancipation; and for another reason, also, which is, that the amount of damage in individual cases cannot be estimated for years after emancipation. Many slave owners would grow rich by the operation, without the receipt of a dollar from Government, caused by the increased value of their lands, and the better system of labor they would be compelled to adopt.

"But what would you do with the slaves?" Do with them? What would be the necessity of doing anything with them, except to pass laws for their protection? Is not their labor needed where they are? Has it not been demonstrated by the results of emancipation in other countries that as freemen they are less dangerous than as slaves, and that their willingness to labor will induce them to continue in the service of kind masters for wages, to the moral, mental, physical, and pecuniary benefit of both? Has the freed slave been a curse in those States of the North where slavery has been abolished? Our history proves the contrary. They have always taken care of themselves when freed, and found it much easier than before freedom, when 003031they had to earn their master's living as well as their own. Yet people still say that they are dependent upon a master for support, and that when freed they become public nuisances, to get rid of which some colonization plan must be invented for their removal. If there is anything I abominate more than slavery, it is the schemes that are sometimes hatched for colonizing men against their will. The inevitable failure of such schemes, in a financial point of view, only saves them from condemnation by making them supremely ridiculous through their absurdity. Whenever the eggs of colonizationists do not become disgustingly addled during the process of incubation, the chicks that come out of them are sure to die young, in consequence of the utter inability of their progenitors to furnish enough of the "wherewith" to keep the breath of life in their gluttonous bodies. All the colonization chickens yet hatched have proved to be natural gourmandizers, the pecuniary sustenance of which is a financial impossibility. This being the case, the spasmodic efforts of colonizationists are, at present, unworthy of opposition; but if, in the future, public interest should be so aroused and absurd prejudice so excited as to make involuntary colonization practicable, then would come a time to enter an earnest protestation in the name of justice and humanity. Yet, if you could persuade negroes to emigrate to Central America, or elsewhere, where they might have some hope of retaining their identity, and possibly building up a nation superior to that of any other colored people, and thereby establish a national character which would elevate the colored race in the eyes of the world,--if you could induce them to try this, so that they would go cheerfully and hopefully, I would be glad to see it, for their own sakes, in order that they might be removed beyond the reach of the white man's justice; but the idea of exporting freemen against their will, as if they were criminals, is only a little less cruel and unjust than slavery itself. The long time that has elapsed since their ancestors were brought to America, their association here with a cultivated race, their religion, their education in some of the arts of civilization, and, more than all, the spirit of pride and aspiration that characterizes many of 003132them, have established a much greater difference between them and the people of Africa than exists between them and us. Henry Clay's scheme of emancipation and colonization was a project for the sole benefit of the white people of Kentucky. He represented to them how disastrous slavery was to all their interests, and inserted in the scheme a clause providing for the sale, in other States, of slaves the owners of whom might desire to dispose of them before the advent of the distant period when the progeny of such slaves, if born within the State previous to the specified time, should become subject to the provisions of the law. In this way the curse would be transferred from Kentucky to the neighboring States, after the style of the young convert who, believing that her artificial flowers were drawing her soul down to hell, took them off and gave them to her sister. Neither had justice to the slave any part in Clay's scheme, notwithstanding his pretensions at the close of the following extract from his letter of advice to the people of Kentucky: "I am utterly opposed to emancipation," writes Mr. Clay, "without the colonization of the free blacks.' He then urges the benefits that will result from the adoption of his scheme as follows:

"We shall acquire the advantage of the intelligence, the fidelity, and the constancy of free labor, instead of the carelessness, the infidelity and the unsteadiness of slave labor; we shall elevate the character of white labor, and elevate the social condition of the white laborer; augment the value of our land, improve the agriculture of the State, attract capital from abroad to all the pursuits of commerce, manufacture, and agriculture; redress, as far and as fast as we prudently can, any wrong which the descendants of Africa have suffered at our hands, and we should demonstrate the sincerity with which we pay indiscriminate homage to the great cause of the liberty of the human race."

The first portion of this extract is worthy of consideration, because it is true; but the latter part is deserving of nothing but contempt for its inconsistency and insincerity. To illustrate the absurdity of such a method of redressing the wrongs of the slaves, I will cite a parallel case: A certain New England sea captain, thirty years ago, brought home from one of the South Sea islands a female child, as a servant for his family. The girl grew to womanhood, and, the passions of some Northerners not being very unlike 003233those of our Southern slave-breeders, a child was born to this woman, of which the son of the captain was the reputed father. The old man was just. He acknowledged the paternity of the child, (which is not often done by white grand-parents, or white parents either, down South,) he nurtured it kindly, (which is occasionally done at the South,) he provided for its education, (which is sometimes done at the South also,) and it grew up in all respects an American, except the tinge of foreign blood derived from its mother. Suppose now, the mother dies, (as the native Africans have all died at the South,) and the old man's son should say to the native-born American, in whose veins his own blood runs, "My father did you great injustice by bringing your mother to this country, where you can never be on an equality with white people. She is dead, but I will redress your wrongs by sending you to the South Sea islands, after you have worked for me till you earn money to pay the expense of your transportation." The boy looks up in alarm, and replies, "Why, I do not want to go to the South Sea islands; I know nothing about that country; I was born here; educated here; this is my natural home, and I could not be happy in the climate and among the people of a region to which I am not accustomed." "Tut! tut!" says the man, "what do you know about such things? Has not the great statesman of Kentucky declared that this is the only way to redress your wrongs?" Argument is quite unnecessary on this question; a simple illustration is sufficient to overturn all that could be advanced in favor of the justice of colonization But there is one other point in Mr. Clay's letter worthy of notice as a curiosity of inconsistency. It is the closing assertion that the emancipation scheme, a prominent feature of which was a provision for the sale of men into endless bondage, " would demonstrate the sincerity with which we [the aiders of such a scheme] pay homage to the great cause of liberty of the human race." Funny old fellow was that same Harry Clay--"Clay the philanthropist"--a curious example of the ridiculous spectacle a talented man can make of himself by endeavoring to clothe the most terrible fo crimes in the grab of justice and benevolence. 003334But--to return to the subject-with freedom, the slaves would rapidly improve. In New York, where I have resided during most of my life, and have taken pains to inform myself on this subject,-which always interested me,-I can testify that the records of the courts exhibit a greater comparative freedom from crime among the colored men than among the whites, with all their advantages of social position, education, and freedom from the disabilities of an insane prejudice. Even in New York city, where a disproportionately large number of the more degraded among the colored race reside, the statistics show that they are far less burdensome to the poor fund, in proportion to their numbers, than the whites; while in the colored schools of the city there is a larger number of children, in proportion to the population, than in the same class of schools for white children. This, of course, is attributable, in a measure, to the large number of white children that attend a higher class of schools, to which the blacks are not admitted. When we consider that, although slavery was provisionally abolished in 1799, yet it is now less than forty years since it ceased to exist in that State, and that, during the earliest portion of that time the acquirement of education and the accumulation of property were lightly regarded by the negroes, in consequence of the dependent and thriftless habits engendered by slavery, we may safely assert that the progress they have made is far more creditable to them as a race than white people are generally willing to admit, especially in California, where the colored man is driven from our courts of justice (!), and his claims for the rights of citizenship laughed to scorn. Yet Chancellor Kent says:

"Citizen, under our Constitution and laws, mean free inhabitants born in the United States, or naturalized under the laws of Congress. If a slave, born in the United States, be manumitted, or otherwise lawfully discharged from bondage, or if a black man be born in the United States, and born free, he becomes thenceforward a citizen."

This opinion was written long before the Dred Scott decision; and, I think, is not only older but better authority. When the Constitution of the United States was adopted, colored men voted in a majority of the States.-in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode 003435Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and north Carolina; and long after that they continued to vote in North Carolina, and also in Tennessee, after the admission of that State into the Union. I do not say they should, as a class, be allowed to vote now. I would neither give nor refuse the privilege of voting on account of color. There are other and far higher qualifications that should be required in a voter than a white skin merely. We have too many voters already for the good of the country. No right of governing others should be accorded to a man who is incapable either through ignorance or immorality, of governing himself. There is far too much license in America for the good of the people. Yet am I an advocate for "equal rights," just so far as men prove themselves equal to exercise them; and wherever men are not fit for the exercise of all the rights of citizens, every effort should be made to improve them. During the past ten years,--or since I have been able to think discriminatingly,--I have felt less and less pride in the greatness and glory of my country, and more and more desire for the progress and elevation of humanity. Man, the world over, is my brother--be he black, red, or white. We all have one origin, one destiny, one God to rule over us, and one common grave waiting to receive us. Men are unequal in capacity and cultivation, but they have the same natural rights. It is maintained as one of the laws of nature that, throughout every grade of the animal creation, the stronger invariably governs the weaker. I admit it; but, among men, the right to govern does not give the right to oppress. On the contrary, it involves the duty to protect, to nourish, and to elevate, in order that the whole human may move on harmoniously, in accordance with that other and higher law--the law of progress. That all men may have opportunity to advance according to their capacity, I would remove every bonds that holds them down--and especially where it is evident that the same bond that keeps down the slave degrades also the master. "Emancipation should [ not ] be the last resort of the Government in this war," but it probably will be the last, because by no other means shall we put down the rebellion; and this fact being clear to my mind, I am 003536in favor of making "the last first," in order that the war may end quickly.

Final emancipation is our only hope, and speedy emancipation our best policy. In urging this policy upon the people, I have not referred to the threatening aspect of our foreign relations, for I believe we should do the right thing because it is right, and not through fear of a war with a foreign power if we persist in the wrong. We have never been in the habit of looking to the monarchies of Europe for any approval of the acts of a republican government; nevertheless, at this crisis, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that hostilities with foreign powers are liable to commence at any moment. There is a great difference between the spirit of the British Government towards this country, and that which animates a majority of the British people. The sympathies of the people of England not being, as yet, strongly enlisted in favor of the Union, as would be the case if our policy were emancipation, the British Government is left free to wage war against a republic of which it has always been jealous, and which, if again united, will be its greatest rival; while, in case of disunion, an immense trade will be opened between England and the Southern Confederacy, (now almost monopolized by the North,) an alliance will be formed between them, (because it will then be too late for the people to restrain the Government,) and the material prosperity of England will be much enhanced. Through France and Spain would be less directly benefited than England, the rulers of those countries see in the downfall of this republic the more permanent establishment of monarchical rule throughout the world; and, though professing friendship, they stand ready to make use of any pretext that would enable them to insure the permanent disruption of this Government. While we maintain our present policy, they may safely aid the rebellion without giving offence to their own people; but let our Government proclaim emancipation, and the enthusiasm of the people of France would warn the Emperor of the danger of running counter to such an immense public opinion; while the British Ministry, controlled by the British people, would foresee itself crushed by any attempt to interfere against a 003637cause so holy as would then be the cause of our Government; and Spain, without England and France, would be powerless. We should have the sympathy of the people of the world, the approval of our own consciences, and the smiles of a benignant Providence.

CONCLUSION.

Having investigated the results of emancipation in other countries, elucidated the true and only cause of the war, and indicated what I conceive to be the sole remedy, I have now to consider some of the changes which must inevitably follow this contest.

If any man supposes he is hereafter to live in country under precisely the same system which has heretofore governed us, he is greatly in error. We must have a change--else why this rebellion? There was never a revolution without a cause, and never a war that did not produce changes beyond the intention of those who brought it on. So it will be with this war. It is one of the means which God has ordained for the progress of man.

I look for a stronger Government in the future--for a more stable Government, for a Government further removed from the influence of the mob. The heads of Government should have more power, still with careful restrictions, and the terms of office should be extended, that we may not, every year in the States, and every four years in the nation, have a struggle for office that demoralizes the people and draws men away from their legitimate business. Ten years constitute a period short enough to carry out the policy of any Federal Administration; and as to Federal officers appointed by Government, they should retain their places during good behavior. This would build up a privileged class in America--an aristocratic class, perhaps--but better that than a constantly recurring struggle for office among men who ought to be engaged in some regular pursuit. The American people will hereafter have less of license, and more of law; fewer privileges as citizens, and more rights as men; less diversity of law among the States, and more unity as a nation. Some of the powers now exercised by the States must belong solely to the 003738General Government. Federal power and "State Rights" must be more clearly defined--the former extended and strengthened, and the latter much weakened. The elective franchise should also be restricted, and the laws regulating it made uniform throughout the Union. We must have one government in spirit and in power, as well as in name, instead of a "confederation of petty nationalities" with conflicting laws in cases often not required by diverse interests. The end of slavery will be the end of one cause of so much special legislation and contradictory enactments by the various States. Citizens of one State must be citizens of all, or else of none--citizens of the nation, everywhere alike entitled to the same privileges and the same immunities. If a high standard can be maintained in New York, a low one must not be permitted in California, by means of which a man who is protected in the one State may be expelled from the other. Such things are absurdities under a national government. If we are one people, we must have one common rule. Laws to apply in one section and not in another should be made only to meet the requirements of local causes, and never extended to such general principles as those which determine claims to citizenship and secure the common rights of the people.

The changes that will occur in the commercial and manufacturing interests of the country will not be less important than the political reforms. It is an axiom that, in the affairs of human life, no necessity can exist for the possession of anything that is beyond the limits of possible attainment. The wants of the greatest commercial and manufacturing nation of the world render necessary, at the present time, a greater supply of cotton, and a more certain supply in the future. Cotton is England's necessity. The English poor demand it; the English capitalists will see that they have it; and they look elsewhere for it than to the United States. Already promising experiments have been made in many portions of the civilized and uncivilized world, notwithstanding the results of the increased cotton culture in India are highly favorable to the production of a cheap, plentiful and permanent 003839supply for the looms of England. In Australia, successful experiments have been made, and in the West Indies, also, cotton has been cultivated, even on the mountains of Jamaica, three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and the product of last year's crop was sold in the Manchester market for sixteen cents per pound, so superior was its quality. There are millions of acres, equal to the ground on which that crop was raised, now lying waste in the West India colonial possessions of Britain, while there are thousands of persons, not employed on the sugar estates, both able and willing to cultivate cotton for wages so low that its production must be profitable to the planter. In China, too, cotton is produced, and in the wilds of Africa, according to the reports of Livingstone, there are large tracts of country covered with the cotton plant in a wild state, not of so good quality as our American article, but undoubtedly susceptible of improvement, and freely gathered by natives, and sold in exchange for cheap articles of England manufacture. The Egyptian cotton is also seeking a market in England, and while experiments in Central America prove the adaptability of that country to the production of an excellent staple, the cotton tree of Peru is said to bid fair to revolutionize entirely the cotton culture of the world. This war has sent the English capitalist and statesman on a world-wide search for cotton fields. They have found them, and five years will develop their products. We shall have peace in this country before that time, (I hope,) and the products of our nation's industry will again seek a market in lands across the sea; but cotton will not find it, (at remunerative prices,) and the consequence will be a decrease in its production here, and a corresponding increase in the cultivation of the cereals, which will command better prices. Those fields in the South peculiarly adapted to the culture of cotton will still be used for the production of a crop for the home market, and the great North, with its accustomed magnanimity, will consent to its protection by a tariff on the foreign article. Then will our Northern looms again be supplied by Southern cotton, and our southern brethren again be clothed with the goods of Northern manufacture; 003940the internal trade of the country will increase, and the commercial transactions with foreign nations comparatively decrease, till another century will witness a state of prosperity in the Union never before dreamed of. The nation will be a world within itself--self-producing, self-sustaining, self-governing--independent of all the nations of the earth for any of the necessaries or comforts, and for most of the luxuries of life. Then will there be free labor throughout the whole country, harmonious interests affecting the whole people, and a bond of union established that will grow stronger with each succeeding generation. Nature has given America the resources, and a free people will develop them. Who can picture the future of a country extending from sea to sea, from the torrid almost to the frigid zone, embracing every variety of climate, and inhabited by a people more generally educated than any other nation on earth--an industrious, enterprising, and progressive people, in the enjoyment of all the blessings of a most liberal and beneficent government-a government which though in some of its features is now too far in advance of the condition of the governed, will, in that glorious future, even in most of these respects, be fitted for the people which, on this continent, will become the leader of civilization, the exemplar and teacher of the world?