For be it remembered
that our army is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that the most
zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been for years
fighting, with tongue and pen, the abolition battle. So marked is the
character of our soldiers in this respect, that they are now
familiarly designated in the official military dispatches of the
Confederate States as "the Abolitionists." Conceive the results when
an army so empowered by national law marches through a slave
territory. One regiment alone has to our certain knowledge liberated
two thousand slaves during the past year, and this regiment is but one
out of hundreds.
Lastly, the great decisive measure of the war has appeared,--_the
President's Proclamation of Emancipation_.
This also has been much misunderstood and misrepresented in England.
It has been said to mean virtually this: Be loyal and you shall keep
your slaves; rebel and they shall be free. But let us remember what we
have just seen of the purpose and meaning of the Union to which the
rebellious States are invited back. It is to a Union which has
abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, and interdicted slavery
in the Territories; which vigorously represses the slave-trade, and
hangs the convicted slaver as a pirate; which necessitates
emancipation by denying expansion to slavery, and facilitates it by
the offer of compensation.
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