o fight for them. I have neither
written nor made a speech on that subject, because that was their
business, not mine, and if I had a wish on the subject, I had not the
power to introduce it, or make it effective. The great question with them
was whether the negro, being put into the army, will fight for them. I do
not know, and therefore cannot decide. They ought to know better than me.
I have in my lifetime heard many arguments why the negroes ought to be
slaves; but if they fight for those who would keep them in slavery, it
will be a better argument than any I have yet heard. He who will fight for
that, ought to be a slave. They have concluded, at last, to take one out
of four of the slaves and put them in the army, and that one out of the
four who will fight to keep the others in slavery, ought to be a slave
himself, unless he is killed in a fight. While I have often said that all
men ought to be free, yet would I allow those colored persons to be slaves
who want to be, and next to them those white people who argue in favor of
making other people slaves. I am in favor of giving an appointment to such
white men to try it on for these slaves. I will say one thing in regard
to the negroes being employed to fight for them. I do know he cannot fight
and stay at home and make bread too. And as one is about as important as
the other to them, I don't care which they do. I am rather in favor of
having them try them as soldiers. They lack one vote of doing that, and I
wish I could send my vote over the river so that I might cast it in favor
of allowing the negro to fight. But they cannot fight and work both. We
must now see the bottom of the enemy's resources. They will stand out as
long as they can, and if the negro will fight for them they must allow him
to fight. They have drawn upon their last branch of resources, and we can
now see the bottom. I am glad to see the end so near at hand. I have said
now more than I intended, and will therefore bid you good-by.

PROCLAMATION CONCERNING INDIANS,

MARCH 17, 1865.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

A Proclamation.

Whereas reliable information has been received that hostile Indians,
within the limits of the United States, have been furnished with arms and
munitions of war by persons dwelling in conterminous foreign territory,
and are thereby enabled to prosecute their savage warfare upon the exposed
and sparse settlements of the frontier;

Now, ther