lly as the sheep was a black
one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of
the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among
us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty.
Hence we behold the process by which thousands are daily passing from
under the yoke of bondage hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and
bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it
seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty,
and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary has
been repudiated.

It is not very becoming for one in my position to make speeches at length;
but there is another subject upon which I feel that I ought to say a word.
A painful rumor, true, I fear, has reached us, of the massacre, by
the rebel forces at Fort Pillow, in the west end of Tennessee, on the
Mississippi River, of some three hundred colored soldiers and white
officers [I believe it latter turned out to be 500], who had just been
overpowered by their assailants [numbering 5000]. There seems to be some
anxiety in the public mind whether the Government is doing its duty to the
colored soldier, and to the service, at this point. At the beginning
of the war, and for some time, the use of colored troops was not
contemplated; and how the change of purpose was wrought I will not now
take time to explain. Upon a clear conviction of duty I resolved to turn
that element of strength to account; and I am responsible for it to the
American people, to the Christian world, to history, and in my final
account to God. Having determined to use the negro as a soldier, there is
no way but to give him all the protection given to any other soldier. The
difficulty is not in stating the principle, but in practically applying
it. It is a mistake to suppose the Government is indifferent to this
matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to it. We do not to-day
know that a colored soldier, or white officer commanding colored soldiers,
has been massacred by the rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it, we
believe it, I may say,--but we do not know it. To take the life of one of
their prisoners on the assumption that they murder ours, when it is short
of certainty that they do murder ours, might be too serious, too cruel, a
mistake. We are having the Fort Pillow affair thoroughly investigated; and
such investigation will probably sh