14 RADICALISM AND THE NATIONAL CRISIS. As a war-measure, as the means of reaching a Constitutional end, which is the only aspect of the case presented in the President’s Proclamation, I do not see how any reasonable man can doubt his right to adopt it. He has a right as “ the Commanderin-Chief of the army and the navy,” to do any thing justified by the usages of civilized warfare, which, in his judgment, may be necessary to the conquest of the rebellion. This is involved in the very nature of the war-power; and surely it is Constitutional to use the whole strength of this power to maintain the government of these United States. I am not able to see what there is in slavery so sacred, that it should be exempted from the ordinary incidents of war, especially a war provoked by itself. Let it take the consequences of its own acts. Slavery is giving great aid and comfort to this rebellion ; the slave-population furnishes the producing force which feeds the army in the field ; a portion of it accompanies the army in the character of servants, and diggers of trenches; the rebels themselves are using this power to great advantage; and surely if we may do anything to weaken and destroy them, if we may take away their property, and if necessary, bombard their cities, then in the state of war, we may strike down that institution for whose ascendency they are fighting, and on which they rely as one element of strength. If they want to escape the blow, let them lay down their arms; and the President’s Proclamation will not touch them. They are now simply warned by the Proclamation, “ that on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three,^all persons held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then he in rehellion against the United States, shall he then thenceforward and forever free, and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.” Let the rebels lay down their arms before the first day of January ; and this Proclamation will not disturb the institution of slavery. It becomes effective only in the event of their persistence in the war. It offers them a day of grace.
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