d aim, with which Mr. Lincoln
and the Republican Party started out, accomplished. To repeat his
phrase, Slavery was certainly now in course of ultimate extinction.

But since that doctrine had been first enunciated by Mr. Lincoln, events
had changed the aspect of things. War had broken out, and the Slaves of
those engaged in armed Rebellion against the authority of the United
States Government, had been actually employed, as we have seen, on Rebel
works and fortifications whose guns were trailed upon the Armies of the
Union.

And now, the question of Slavery had ceased to be simply whether it
should be put in course of ultimate extinction, but whether, as a War
Measure--as a means of weakening the Enemy and strengthening the Union
--the time had not already come to extinguish it, so far, at least, as the
Slaves of those participating in the Rebellion, were concerned.

Congress, as has been heretofore noted, had already long and heatedly
debated various propositions referring to Slavery and African
Colonization, and had enacted such of them as, in its wisdom, were
considered necessary; and was now entering a further stormy period of
contention upon various other projects touching the Abolition of the
Fugitive Slave Laws, the Confiscation of Rebel Property, and the
Emancipation of Slaves--all of which, of course, had been, and would be,
vehemently assailed by the loyal Border-States men and their Free-State
Democratic allies.

This contention proceeded largely upon the lines of construction of that
clause in the Constitution of the United States and its Amendments,
which provides that no person shall be deprived of Life, Liberty, or
Property, without due process of Law, etc. The one side holding that,
since the beginning of our Government, Slaves had been, under this
clause, Unconstitutionally deprived of their Liberty; the other side
holding that Slaves being "property," it would be Unconstitutional under
the same clause, to deprive the Slave-owner of his Slave property.

Mr. Crittenden, the leader of the loyal Border-States men in Congress,
was at this time especially eloquent on this latter view of the
Constitution. In his speech of April 23, 1862, in the House of
Representatives, he even undertook to defend American Slavery under the
shield of English Liberty!

Said he: "It is necessary for the prosperity of any Government, for
peace and harmony, that every man who acquires property shall feel that
he shall