pose, and surrenders without necessity.
But the policy of emancipation brings the quarrel to a speedy decision.
The rebel States must promptly triumph or brave a social dissolution.
Every Union advance into a rebel region henceforth clears a broad
district of slaves. The few are hurried off by their masters; the many
escape to a land of freedom. How signally this process will be
accellerated after the first of January, few will yet believe. Let the
war simply go on, with fluctuating fortunes, for a year or two longer,
and the new slave empire will be nearly denuded of slaves. The process
is at once inevitable and irresistible. Whether the able-bodied slaves
thus escaping to the loyal States shall or shall not be used in whatever
way they may be found most serviceable against the cruel despotism which
so long robbed them of their earnings while crushing out their manhood,
is purely a question of time. There are thousands who would last year
have revolted against the employment of Blacks in any way in our
struggle, who are now ripe for it: every week, as it transpires, adds to
their number. Loyal men hesitated at first, believing that the rebellion
would easily and speedily be put down. These have now discovered their
mistake and amended it. An aristocracy of three hundred thousand
generally capable, energetic persons, accustomed to rule, and
recognizing a deadly foe in every opponent of their wishes, surrounded
by twice so many shrewd and skilful parasites, and wielding the entire
resources of ten millions of people, are not easily conquered. The poor
Whites fill the ranks of their armies; the Blacks grow the food and
perform the labor essential to the subsistence of those armies and of
their families. Slavery unassailed is the strongest natural base of a
gigantic rebellion: it easily adapts all the resources of a people to
the stern exigencies of war. Slavery resisted and undermined is a very
different affair, as the annals of this struggle are destined to prove.

Let no doubts, then, vex the mind of a single hearty Unionist as to the
issue of our great contest. The Proclamation has not added a thousand to
the number of our enemies, while it has supplied four millions with the
most cogent reasons for being henceforth our friends. These millions are
humble, ignorant, timid, distrustful, and now grinding in the
prison-house of the traitors. They are not, let us frankly admit, the
equals in prowess, capacity, or opportunity