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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 wi
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