to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed
to buy negroes, except in such way as to save you from greater taxation to
save the Union exclusively by other means.

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it
retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think
the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the law of war in
time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that slaves are
property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that by the law of
war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And
is it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the enemy? Armies, the
world over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it, and even
destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all
in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things
regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of
vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and female.

But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it is
not valid it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot be retracted,
any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to
think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union, why better
after the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year
and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation was
issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice
that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt returning to their
allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the
issue of the proclamation as before.

I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of
the commanders of our armies in the field, who have given us our most
important victories, believe the emancipation policy and the use of
colored troops constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to the rebellion,
and that at least one of those important successes could not have been
achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers.

Among the commanders who hold these views are some who have never had any
affinity with what is called "Abolitionism," or with "Republican Party
politics," but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit their
opinions are entitled to some weight against the objections often urged
that emancipation and arming the blac