addition to our present establishment, might give us decisive
success in the next campaign.

I have long deplored the wretched state of these men, and
considered in their history, the bloody wars excited in Africa, to
furnish America with slaves--the groans of despairing multitudes,
toiling for the luxuries of merciless tyrants.

I have had the pleasure of conversing with you, sometimes, upon the
means of restoring them to their rights. When can it be better
done, than when their enfranchisement may be made conducive to the
public good, and be modified, as not to overpower their weak minds?

You ask, what is the general's opinion, upon this subject? He is
convinced, that the numerous tribes of blacks in the southern parts
of the continent, offer a resource to us that should not be
neglected. With respect to my particular plan, he only objects to
it, with the arguments of pity for a man who would be less rich
than he might be.

I am obliged, my dearest friend and father, to take my leave for
the present; you will excuse whatever exceptionable may have
escaped in the course of my letter, and accept the assurance of
filial love, and respect of
Your
JOHN LAURENS]

If, however, it be objected that the arming of Negroes by the Rebels was
exceptional and local, and, that otherwise, the Rebels always used their
volunteer or impressed Negro forces in work upon fortifications and
other unarmed Military Works, and never proposed using them in the clash
of arms, as armed soldiers against armed White men, the contrary is
easily proven.

In a message to the Rebel Congress, November 7, 1864, Jefferson Davis
himself, while dissenting at that time from the policy, advanced by
many, of "a general levy and arming of the Slaves, for the duty of
soldiers," none the less declared that "should the alternative ever be
presented of subjugation, or of the employment of the Slave as a
soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what should then be our
decision."

In the meantime, however, he recommended the employment of forty
thousand Slaves as pioneer and engineer laborers, on the ground that
"even this limited number, by their preparatory training in intermediate
duties Would form a more valuable reserve force in case of urgency, than
threefold their number suddenly called from field l