on the Law of Nature, and resting solely on
positive Local Law--and that, not of the United States--as soon as
it becomes either the motive or pretext of an unjust War against
the Union--an efficient instrument in the hands of the Rebels for
carrying on the War--source of Military strength to the Rebellion,
and of danger to the Government at home and abroad, with the
additional certainty that, in any event but its abandonment, it
will continue, in all future time to work these mischiefs, who can
suppose it is the duty of the United States to continue to
recognize it.

"To maintain this would be a contradiction in terms. It would be
two recognize a right in a Rebel master to employ his Slave in acts
of Rebellion and Treason, and the duty of the Slave to aid and abet
his master in the commission of the greatest crime known to the
Law. No such absurdity can be admitted; and any citizen of the
United States, from thee President down, who should, by any overt
act, recognize the duty of a Slave to obey a Rebel master in a
hostile operation, would himself be giving aid and comfort to the
Enemy."]

They believed that when Fremont issued the General Order-heretofore
given in full--in which that General declared that "The property, real
and personal, of all persons, in the State of Missouri, who shall take
up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to
have taken an active part with their enemies in the field, is declared
to be confiscated to the public use, and their Slaves, if any they have,
are hereby declared Free men," it must have been with the concurrence,
if not at the suggestion, of the President; and, when the President
subsequently, September 11,1861, made an open Order directing that this
clause of Fremont's General Order, or proclamation, should be "so
modified, held, and construed, as to conform to, and not to transcend,
the provisions on the same subject contained in the Act of Congress
entitled 'An Act to Confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary
Purposes,' approved August 6, 1861," they still were not satisfied.

[The sections of the above Act, bearing upon the matter, are the
first and fourth, which are in these words:

"That if, during the present or any future insurrection against the
Government of the United States, after the President of the United
States shall h