n letter nor in
spirit does it interpose a feather's resistance to the most summary and
effectual extinction of the rebellion. On the contrary, it justifies the
use of all the means sanctioned by the laws of war. It justifies, and,
if need be, demands, the receiving, employing, and arming of all the
loyal inhabitants of the South held in slavery under local laws, whether
by rebel or by loyal masters. What the former might think or say, need
not be asked or cared for; and the latter can not, in loyalty, object to
the taking of their slaves for the defence of the nation, if military
reasons make it needful or wise to do it. _If employed, these slaves
must be freed_, and their masters must receive compensation at the hands
of Government. To this, if their loyalty be any thing but an empty name,
they will consent. If the extinction of slavery should be the ultimate
result, what then? Is slavery so sacred and beneficent, that a
triumphant rebellion and a dismembered country are to be preferred to
its extinction? The loyal people of the North--the great body of the
nation--are getting tired of that conditional Unionism, that Border
State loyalty, which makes a paramount regard to the interests of
slavery the price of adhering to the national cause. Conditional
Unionism--what sort of Unionism is that? Loyalty with a price--what is
such loyalty worth? The very terms imply threats, and involve the
assertion of the very principle of secession itself. To treat with it,
to concede to it, is to admit the principle. It has already cost the
country too dearly to be longer endured. Six hundred millions of dollars
and a hundred thousand lives vainly sacrificed to the foolish policy,
are enough. It helps the cause of rebellion, it paralyzes the arm of
Government. The people have become sternly impatient of it. The sooner
President Lincoln, in his quality of Commander-in-Chief, understands
this, and makes the Border State Unionists understand that every thing
must give way to the necessity of putting an end to the rebellion
forthwith by the employment of all the means which God and nature have
put in our power, the better it will be for him, the better for the
nation, and the better for the Border States themselves, if they are
wise. I think that when firmly told there must be an end to this
conditional Unionism, this loyalty with a price, those States will have
the wisdom to see on which side their real interests lie. But, at all
events,