the army, would gladly remain in the land of tobacco or of
cotton, if Government would only provide them with the land whereon to
live. Were they thus settled, and were every slave in the South
emancipated by the chances of war, there would be no danger to apprehend
as to the future of the latter. Give a Yankee a fat farm in Dixie, and
we may rely upon it that although a Southern nabob may not know how to
get work out of a 'free nigger', the Northerner will contrive to
persuade Cuffy to become industrious. We have somewhere heard of a
Vermonter, who taught ground-hogs or 'wood-chucks' to plant corn for
him; the story has its application. Were Cuffy ten times as lazy as he
is, the free farmer would contrive to get him to work. And in view of
this, I am not sorry that the Legislatures of the border wheat States
are passing laws to prevent slaves from entering their territories. The
mission of the black is to labor as a free man in the South, under the
farmer, until capable of being a farmer on his own account.

The manner and method of colonizing free labor in the South deserves
very serious consideration, and is, it may be presumed, receiving it at
the hands of Government, in anticipation of further developments in this
direction. We trust, however, that the Administration will _lead_, as
rapidly as possible, in this matter, and that the President will soon
make it the subject of a Message as significant and as noble as that
wherein this country first stood committed by its chief officer to
Emancipation, the noblest document which ever passed from president or
potentate to the people; a paper which, in the eyes of future ages, will
cast Magna Charta itself into the shade, and rank with the glorious
manumission of the Emperor of Russia.

The primary question would be, whether it were more expedient to scatter
free labor all over the South, or simply form large colonies at such
points as might serve to effectually break up and surround the
confederacy. Without venturing to decide on the final merit of either
plan, we would suggest that the latter would be, for a beginning,
probably most feasible. Should Virginia, certain points on the Atlantic
coast, embracing the larger cities and vicinity of forts, and Texas, be
largely or strongly occupied by free men, we should at once throw a
chain around the vanquished foe, whose links would grow stronger every
year. With slavery abolished--and it is at present abolishing itself
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