There is neither reason nor justice in Massachusetts, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania and the great States northwest of the Ohio
pouring out their blood and treasure for the gratification of the
slaveholding pretensions of Maryland, Kentucky or Missouri. The
citizens of these States who own slaves are as much bound, if the
preservation of the Union requires it, to give up their property in
slaves, as we at the farther North are to pour out our blood and
treasure to put down a rebellion which threatens alike them and us.
If they love their few slaves more than they do the Union, let them
go out of the Union. We are stronger to fight the battles of the
Union without them than we are with them.
But we have referred only to the slaves in the rebellious States,
and if it is, or if it becomes, a military necessity to liberate all
the slaves of the Union, and to treat the whole present slave
population as freemen and citizens, it would be no more than just
and proper that, at the conclusion of the war, the citizens of loyal
States, or the loyal citizens of loyal sections of the rebellious
States, should be indemnified at a reasonable rate for the slaves
that may have been liberated. The States and sections of States named
have not a large number of slaves, and if the Union is preserved, it
would not be a very heavy burden on it to pay their ransom; and to
paying it, no patriot or loyal citizen of the free States would raise
the slightest objection. The objection therefore urged, though grave,
need not be regarded as insuperable; and we think the advantages of
the measure, in a military point of view, would be far greater than
any disadvantage we have to apprehend from it.
Whether the time for this important measure has come or not, it is
for the President, as Commander-in-Chief of our armies, to
determine. But, in our judgment, no single measure could be adopted
by the government that would more effectually aid its military
operations, do more to weaken the rebel forces, and to strengthen our
own.
It seems to us, then, highly important, in every possible view of
the case, that the Federal Government should avail itself of the
opportunity given it by the Southern rebellion to perform this act
of justice to the negro race; to assimilate the labor system of the
South to that of the North; to remove a great moral and political
wrong; and to wipe out the foul stain of slavery, which has hitherto
sullied the otherwise bright escutcheon of our Republic. We are no
fanatics on the subject of slavery, as is well known to our readers,
and we make no extraordinary pretensions to modern philanthropy; but
we cannot help fearing that, if the government lets slip the present
opportunity of doing justice to the negro race, and of placing our
republic throughout in harmony with modern civilization, God, who is
especially the God of the poor and the oppressed, will never give
victory to our arms, or suffer us to succeed in our efforts to
suppress rebellion and restore peace and integrity in the Union.