ich the Rebels were to have been beaten and the Union
restored!

Such was the state of affairs, when, six days after the Battle of
Antietam, President Lincoln issued his Proclamation against slavery.
Some persons were pleased to be much astonished when it appeared. They
said they had been deceived. They were right. They were self-deceived.
They had deceived themselves. The President had received their pledge
of support, which they, with an egotism which is not uncommon with
politicians, had construed into a pledge from him to support slavery at
all hazards, under all circumstances, and against all comers. He had
given no pledge either to them or to their opponents. Plainly as man
could speak, he had said that his object was the nation's safety,
either with slavery or without it, the fate of slavery being with him a
secondary matter. If any construction was to be put upon his words to
Mr. Greeley beyond their plainest possible meaning, it was that he
preferred the destruction of slavery to its conservation, for it was
known that he had been an anti-slavery man for years, and he had been
made President by a party which was charged by its foes with being
so fanatically opposed to slavery that it was ready to destroy the
Constitution in order to gain a place from which it could hope to effect
its extermination. But Mr. Lincoln meant neither more nor less than what
he said, his sole object being the overthrow of the Rebels. He has done
no more than any President would have been compelled to do who should
have sought to do his duty. Mr. Douglas could have done no less, had he
been chosen President, and had rebellion followed his election, as we
believe would have been the fact. The Proclamation is not an "Abolition"
state-paper. Not one line of it is of such matter as any Abolitionist
would have penned, though all Abolitionists may be glad that it has
appeared, because its promulgation is a step in the right direction,--a
step sure to be taken, unless the first Federal efforts should also have
been the last, because leading to the defeat of the Rebels, and the
return of peace. The President nowhere says that he seeks the abolition
of slavery. The blow he has dealt is directed against slavery in the
dominions of the Confederacy. That Confederacy claims to be a nation,
and some of our acts amount to a virtual recognition of the claim which
it makes. Now, if we were at war with an old nation of which slavery was
one of the insti