“ But Rebellion stalks through the land. A confederacy of slave States has repudiated that Constitution; and, placing themselves beyond its pale, openly seeks to destroy it, and ruin all whom it, protects. They no longer profess any obedience to its requirements; and, of course, cannot claim its protection. By their own act, our duty to respect their rights, under that Constitution, ceases with their repudiation of it; and our right to liberate their slave property is as clear as would be our right to liberate the slaves of Cuba in a war with Spain. ”

“ From the instant that your slaveholding States become the theatre of a war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant, the war powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of slavery, in every way by which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of States burdened with slavery to a foreign power."—New York Tribune. ”

“ O. A. BROWNSON ON THE WAR. 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Adams would not have been compelled to rely upon these comparatively trivial and unimportant instances of interference by Congress and the President for the support and protection of slavery. For the last twenty years, the support and protection of that institution has been, to use Mr. Adams's words at a later day, the vital and animating spirit of the Government; and the Constitution has been interpreted and administered as if it contained an injunction upon all men, in power and out of power, to sustain and perpetuate slavery. ”

“ But every day's experience is scattering that notion to the winds. The ferocious spirit exhibited from the first by the Secessionists towards all dissentients, the invasion of Western Virginia by Eastern, the threats to put down loyal Kentucky, the foray in Missouri, the plan for capturing Washington, which was part of the original scheme, are convincing proofs, that if by any pacification whatever our troops were disbanded to-day, to-morrow a Southern army would be on the march for Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and perhaps Chicago. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE WAR POWER OVER SLAVERY. We published, not long ago, an extract from a speech delivered by John Quincy Adams in Congress in 1842, in which that eminent statesman confidently announced the doctrine, that in a state of war, civil or servile, in the Southern States, Congress has full and plenary power over the whole subject of slavery; martial law takes the place of civil laws and municipal institutions, slavery among the rest, and "not only the President of the United States, but the Commander of the Army, has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves." ”

“ The peace power is limited by regulations and restricted by provisions prescribed within the Constitution itself. The war power is limited only by the laws and usages of nations. This power is tremendous: it is strictly constitutional, but it breaks down every barrier so anxiously erected for the protection of liberty, of property, and of life. ”

“ He asserted that, in time of war, all slaves were belligerents as much as their masters. The slave men, said he, cultivate the earth and supply provisions. The women cook the food, nurse the wounded and sick, and contribute to the maintenance of the war, often more than the same number of males. The slave children equally contribute whatever they are able to the support of the war. Indeed, he well supported General Butler's declaration, that slaves are contraband of war. ”

“ Suppose Cuba were to issue letters of marque against our commerce, and, according to the Charleston Mercury, seize 'upon the rich prizes which may be coming from foreign lands,' does any sane man doubt that we should at once invade that island, and liberate her slaves? Or does any statesman or jurist question our right so to do? And why, then, should we hesitate to pursue a similar course in respect to the so-called Southern Confederacy? ”

“ But the risk, nay, the certainty of the punishment to be visited upon the slave confederacy, will be far greater—of infinitely greater magnitude than they can well conceive; because it will be no more or less than the loss of all their slave property, accompanied with the necessity of contending, hand to hand, for their lives, with the servile race so long accustomed to the lash, and the torture, and the branding and maiming of their inhuman masters ”

“ But the men of the North know how to deal with them; and we tell them, once for all, that, if they dare grant a solitary letter of marque, and the person or persons acting under it venture to assail the poorest of our vessels in the peaceful navigation of the ocean, or the coasts and rivers of our country—from that moment their doom is sealed, and slavery ceases to exist. We speak the unanimous sentiment of our people ”

“ That as slaves enable an enemy to continue and carry on the war now waged against our Government, it becomes the duty of all officers and loyal citizens to use every proper means to induce the slaves to leave their masters, and cease lending aid and comfort to the rebels. ”

“ As long as they do not step out of their own bounds, and do not put the question to the people of the United States, whose peace, welfare and happiness are all at stake, so long I will agree to leave them to themselves. ”

“ Finally, the revolted States having appealed to the sword of revolution to redress their wrongs, may soon have to choose between submission to the Union or the bloody extinction of slavery, from the absence of any law, any wish, any power for its protection.— Ibid, April 20. ”

“ Virginia, next to Maryland, will be subjected to this test. She has seceded, and hence she will probably risk the breaking of every bone in her body. If so, we fear that every bone in her body will be broken, including her backbone of slavery. The day is not far off when the Union men of the revolted States will be asked to come to the relief of their misguided brethren, for, otherwise, the war which they have chosen to secure their institution of slavery may result in wiping it out of existence.—Ibid, April 23. ”

“ In the North, the case is different; the men who join the army of subjugation are the laborers, the producers, and the factory operatives. Nearly every man from that section, especially those from the rural districts, leaves some branch of industry to suffer during his absence. The institution of slavery in the South alone enables her to place in the field a force much larger in proportion to her white population than the North, or indeed any country which is dependent entirely on free labor. ”

“ I might furnish a thousand proofs to show that the pretensions of gentlemen to the sanctity of their municipal institutions under a state of actual invasion and of actual war, whether servile, civil or foreign, is wholly unfounded, and that the laws of war do, in all such cases, take the precedence. ”

“ But it takes time to accustom a whole people to the thought, and to make them see the necessity. It was impossible for Northern men to fathom the spirit and the desperate exigencies of the slave system and its outbreak, and consequently to comprehend the desperate nature of the struggle. ”

“ 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 SLAVES AS A MILITARY ELEMENT. The total white population of the eleven States now comprising the confederacy is six million, and, therefore, to fill up the ranks of the proposed army (600,000) about ten percent of the entire white population will be required. In any other country than our own, such a draft could not be met, but the Southern States can furnish that number of men, and still not leave the material interests of the country in a suffering condition. ”

“ The institution is a tower of strength to the South, particularly at the present crisis, and our enemies will be likely to find that the "moral cancer," about which their orators are so fond of prating, is really one of the most effective weapons employed against the Union by the South. Whatever number of men may be needed for this war, we are confident our people stand ready to furnish. We are all enlisted for the war, and there must be no holding back until the independence of the South is fully acknowledged.—Montgomery (Ala.) ”

“ Its disorganized condition, helplessness of civil authority, and the total insecurity of life and devastation of property by bands of murderers and marauders, who infest nearly every county in the State, and avail themselves of public misfortunes and the vicinity of a hostile force to gratify private and neighborhood vengeance, and who find an enemy wherever they find plunder, finally demand the severest measures to repress the daily increasing crimes and outrages which are driving off the inhabitants and ruining the State. ”

“ The class of population which is recruiting in our large cities, the regiments forming for service in behalf of the Union, can never be permanently worsted. They will pour down upon the villages and cities of Virginia and Maryland, and leave a desolate track behind them, and inspire terror in whatever vicinity they approach.—Ibid, April 29. ”

“ Real and personal property, owned by persons who shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have taken an active part with the enemy in the field, is declared confiscated to public use, and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men. ”

“ Even the compromising Everett has boldly told the South, "To be let alone is not all you ask—but you demand a great deal more." And in his late oration, he has most powerfully portrayed the impossibility of a peaceful disunion. Many men, some anti-slavery, were at first inclined to yield to the idea of a separation. ”

“ A Northern invasion of Virginia and of Kentucky, if necessary, carrying along with it the Canadian line of African freedom, as it must do from the very nature of civil war, will produce a powerful Union reaction. The slave population of the border States will be moved in two directions. ”

“ The claimants then desired to look at them, in order to determine whether he was holding their slaves as prisoners. The veteran warrior replied that no man should examine his prisoners for such a purpose; and he ordered them to depart. This action being reported to the War Department, was approved by the Executive. The slaves, however, were sent West, and set free.
In 1836, General Jessup wanted guides and men to act as spies. He therefore engaged several fugitive slaves to act as such, agreeing to secure the freedom of themselves and families if they served the Government faithfully. ”

“ All persons engaged in treasonable correspondence, in giving or procuring aid to the enemy, in fomenting turmoils and disturbing public tranquility by creating or circulating false reports or incendiary documents, are warned that they are exposing themselves. ”

“ Venture upon the capture of the poorest of those richly laden ships,' and, from that moment, your slaves become freemen, doing battle in Freedom's cause. 'Hundreds and hundreds of millions of the property of the enemy invite us to spoil him—to spoil these Egyptians,' says the same paper. ”

“ Slavery was abolished in Columbia, first, by the Spanish General Morillo, and, secondly, by the American General Bolivar. It was abolished by virtue of a military command given at the head of the army, and its abolition continues to be law to this day. It was abolished by the laws of war, and not by municipal enactments; the power was exercised by military commanders, under instructions, of course, from their respective Governments. And here I recur again to the example of Gen. Jackson. What are you now about in Congress? You are about passing a grant to refund to Gen. ”