rcumstances,
the nation cannot afford to leave all the sacrifice, and all the glory
of such an achievement, to the South only. It will be a grand historical
fact in the progress of humanity, and must adorn the annals of the
nation.

I speak now of the slaves of the loyal. What course should be pursued
with the slaves of rebels, is a very different question. As regards the
seceded States, it is clear, as our army advances, that the slaves of
the disloyal, _seized_ or coming _voluntarily_ within our lines, with or
without previous proclamation, necessarily will be, and ought to be
emancipated, under that clause of the Constitution authorizing Congress
to 'make rules concerning captures on _land_ and water,' and the law
carrying that provision into effect. There never has been a war, foreign
or intestine, in which slaves coming within the lines of an army have
not been emancipated. In the case of Rose vs. Himly, 2d Curtis, 87, the
Supreme Court of the United States declared that, in case of rebellion,
'_belligerent_ rights may be superadded to those of _sovereignty_,' and
that we may punish the rebels as _traitors_, or, treating them, by land
and sea, as we now do, as _belligerents_, under the war power, which is
also a constitutional power, we may enforce the same military
contributions, or make the same captures, as in case of a foreign war.
Indeed, if this were otherwise, our Constitution, as claimed by
secessionists and anti-coercionists, at home and abroad, would have been
a miserable failure, and would have invited rebellion, by depriving us
of the power to suppress it by all war measures recognized by the law of
nations. Such is the law, ancient and modern, and the uniform practice
of nations in suppressing rebellion. Such acts are not bills of
attainder, operating as judgments without war or capture, but the
exercise by Congress of the power expressly granted by the Constitution,
applicable, as the Supreme Court has declared, in case of rebellion, to
'make rules concerning captures on land and water.' But this provision
implies capture or conquest, and the act of Congress proposes no mere
paper edicts, which, without capture or conquest, can only operate as
offers of conditional amnesty to rebels, or freedom to slaves. This
great constitutional war power, as our army advances, should be clearly
_proclaimed_ and _exercised_, and the slaves of the disloyal, used, as
they are, to supply the means of support to the reb