7
not very likely to fail. This is what troubles the South.
The President makes the proclamation, and runs his risk.
Time only can tell the result. But this is certain : just so fast
and just so far as our armies advance, slavery is overthrown,
and the proclamation is a reality !
It was important, moreover, that the precise issue raised in
this struggle, an! persisted in by the South, should be
known—that our army, as it bore the broad standard of the
nation southward, should understand that no man who fled
from Southern traitors to stand beneath its folds could stand
there as a slave. It was important, also, that our friends
abroad, who consist of the entire mass of the population of
Europe, saving only their hereditary rulers and their imme¬
diate satellites, who are the enemies of freedom everywhere—
it was important, in this long night of our affliction, while
they were bending forward to see through the thick darkness
how went the battle, that they should know what was involved
in this direful struggle.
" Watchman ! tell us of the night,
What it signs of promise are !
Traveller ! o'er yon mountain's height,
See that glory-beaming star!"
The President did not make this issue. The South made
it. He merely announces to the world the fact. Their war-
cry, from the first, ringing along the line of all their hosts,
has been, a Down with the Union to save slavery !" If this
be so, what can our war-cry be but the exact reverse of it :
" Down with slavery, down with any interposing force or
obstacle, whatever it may be, to save the Union !"'
FUTURE INSUBORDINATION OF THE SLAVE.
But there is another mode in which the Rebellion is affect¬
ing slavery, which I wish to consider, and that is, its home
aspect, as it operates on the mind of the slave himself.
Not only the free people of the North and South have an
interest in the controversy now going on, but the poor slave
himself. It is in vain to suppose that he does not fully un¬
derstand the moving cause of this contest. Early in the war,
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