ich
has since taken place, has only served to inflame their desire for
freedom, and to fix their determination to obtain it. They have received
and gladly welcomed the obscure idea, that, in some way, this sanguinary
conflict was initiated for their benefit, and will not end without their
complete emancipation. In this they are not mistaken. The final
suppression of the rebellion by military force will be the perfect
consummation of that end, accomplished through the treason and wicked
folly of the South herself. If she persevere in her stubborn resistance
to the authority of the Union, the great measure of liberation will be
the result of her own blind and wilful acts of madness, and this as well
through their natural and necessary consequences as by the terms and
import of the President's proclamation. Let slavery destroy itself. It
is a just and righteous judgment that, in its atrocious effort to
destroy the nation, it should accomplish chiefly, if not solely, its own
violent and bloody death. Such retribution often attends the commission
of great crimes; but it seldom happens that effects so momentous for
good flow from the infliction which seems intended only for punishment.

Under all circumstances, with or without the proclamation, slavery must
disappear soon after the suppression of the rebellion. From that time,
the States will become more and more homogeneous in their social
organization. This will tend to promote unanimity among them all, and
therefore, by an obvious process, to strengthen the rightful power of
the Federal Government. The vast extent of our country, comprising so
many varieties of condition and climate, and such diversities of
production, rising through every grade of elevation, from the Atlantic
seacoast to the central mountains, and thence again descending to the
shores of the Pacific, with mighty rivers running through nearly twenty
parallels of latitude--this magnificent seat of republican power affords
the most unbounded resources for industry in all its employments, and
for commercial interchange of productions on the most gigantic scale.
With free labor prevailing everywhere throughout this vast and splendid
region of the temperate zone, no limits can be assigned to the national
progress. The population, wealth, activity, and intelligence of the most
favored among the Free States at the present day, can alone offer the
measure and example of what the whole will be in the full maturity o