them. The life of the nation is involved in this

contest, to say nothing of the men. All of us have sent our friends, brothers, kindred,- those who are dearer to us than our own lives; and shall we peril them on the Potomac, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in South Carolina, at the mouth of the Mississippi,where my own friends and neighbors and townsmen are to-night, shall we risk their lives rather than strike at the institution of slavery, when we know that the rebellion rests upon slavery, and will go down when slavery ceases to support it? Have you yet other men whom you wish to sacrifice upon this altar? Ellsworth, Lyon, Baker, and others of equal virtue and equal patriotism, with names unknown, have gone down upon bloody fields, sacrificed at the shrine of slavery; and will you offer up more, and yet more, of the best blood of the country -the young men, the hope of the nation, the strength of the future-in order that slavery may longer last?

I say, then, it is a necessity that this war be closed speedily. By blockade it cannot be by battle it may be; but we risk the result upon the uncertainty whether the great general of this continent is with them or with us. I come, then, to emancipation. Not first, although I shall not hesitate to say, before I close, that, as a matter of justice to the slave, there should be emancipation, but not first do I ask my countrymen to proclaim emancipation to the slaves in justice to them, but as a matter of necessity to ourselves; for, unless it be by accident, we are not to come out of this contest as one nation, except by emancipation. And first,

emancipation in South Carolina. Not confiscation of the property of rebels: that is inadequate longer to meet the emergency. It might have done in March or April or May, or possibly in July; but, in December, or January of the coming year, confiscation of the property of the rebels is inadequate to meet the exigency in which the country is placed. You must, if you do any thing, proclaim at the head of the armies of the republic, on the soil of South Carolina, FREEDOM,- freedom to all the slaves in South Carolina,—and then enforce the proclamation as far and fast as you have an opportunity; and you will have opportunity more speedily then than you will if you attempt to invade South Carolina without emancipating her slaves. Unsettle the foundations of society in South Carolina: do you hear the rumbling? Not we, not we, are responsible for what happens in South Carolina between the slaves and their masters. Our business is to save the Union; to re-establish the authority of the Union over the rebels in South Carolina; and, if between the masters and their slaves collisions arise, the responsibility is upon those masters who, forgetting their allegiance to the government, lent themselves to this foul conspiracy, and thus have been involved in ruin. As a warning, let South Carolina be the first of the States of the republic in which emancipation to the enslaved is proclaimed, and as a penalty for her perfidy in this business, which began at the moment that her delegates penned their names to the Constitution when it was formed. Treachery was in their hearts then, and they have adhered to their disloyalty through evil

report and through good report; but I trust the day is now near when, by the reconstruction of SouthCarolina society, we shall there have a State which, in process of time, will be loyal to the Constitution and the Union.

Next, Florida. Impotent in her treachery; purchased with the money of the people; with less than one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants; with property, I suppose, not of equal value to that which might be found in a single ward in this city, she has undertaken to lend herself to this conspiracy. Emancipate the slaves that are there, and invite the refugees from slavery in the South, for the moment, to assemble there, if they desire, but without compulsion, and take possession of the soil. If that is not sufficient, let the penalty upon South Carolina be increased by dividing her soil among those whom she has heretofore held in bondage.

And next in this work of emancipation I name Texas; for, if we read the history of the last twentyfour months aright, these people have gone out of the Union because they see they cannot extend slavery in the Union. It was not because a few abolitionists in the North hated slavery; it was not because some of us went to Chicago in May, 1860, and nominated Abraham Lincoln for President, and then elected him: but it was because men of all parties and all persuasions and all ideas, in the North, had come to the conclusion that slavery should not be extended. It was the doctrine of churches, the doctrine of homes and hearth-stones, that slavery should not be extended; and hence the slave States went out of the Union. Which way do

they expect to extend slavery? Southward, through and over Texas, into Mexico and into Central America, thus cutting us off from the Pacific, separating us from our possessions west of the Rocky Mountains, and rendering another division of the Union, by the line of the Rocky Mountains, inevitable. Now, then, let us teach them, by emancipation in Texas, that, in the Union or out of the Union, slavery is not to be extended. Emancipate the slaves in Texas; invite men from the army, from the North, from Ireland, from Germany; invite the friends of freedom, of every name and of every nation, and bid them welcome in Texas, where we have one hundred and seventy-five million acres of unoccupied land, or shall have, when we confiscate it to the government of the United States. Thus we form a barrier of freemen, a wall over which or through which or beneath which it will be impossible for slavery to pass.

I do not pursue the subject of emancipation further. These three States will be sufficient for warning and penalty, for refuge and for security against the extension of slavery; but I certainly would have it understood distinctly, that, by the next anniversary of the birth of the Father of his Country, we shall emancipate the slaves in all the disloyal and rebellious States, if they do not previously return to their allegiance.

"What will you do," says one, "if you emancipate the slaves?" My friend, what will you do if you don't? What are we doing now, when we have not emancipated the slaves? I want to tell you what Mr. Jefferson thought, more than sixty

years ago, and I ask you if that which he feared is not in process of completion to-day? He says, in a letter to St. George Tucker, dated Aug. 28, 1797:

"Perhaps the first chapter of this history which has begun in St. Domingo, and the next succeeding ones, which will recount how all the whites were driven from all the other islands, may prepare our minds for a peaceable accommodation between justice, policy, and necessity, and furnish an answer to the difficult question, Whither shall the colored emigrants go? And, the sooner we put some plan under way, the greater hope there is that it may be permitted to proceed peaceably to its ultimate object. But if something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children."

Terribly prophetic words! Terrible in the possibility of their fulfilment!

What will you do with the negroes, if you emancipate them? As between what we may or can do with them and the salvation of this country, we ought not to hesitate a moment. They are but four million; and, though in their weakness they plead, here are five and twenty million of men who ask a country; all the coming generations of this continent rise now and demand sacrifices of us all, that we may secure and preserve a country for them. Mankind everywhere gaze with anxious eyes upon this contest, lest the last hope of liberty should go out in this our land; and if—I do not hesitate to say if the salvation of the country demanded the sacrifice of four million on this continent, black or white, slave or free, North or South, it would be a sacrifice well made for so great a cause. But, my