Government of the United States.
Persons in _actual_ rebellion would be _most_ likely to have immediate
oversight of this species of their property; and the owners of slaves
in the States in _actual_ rebellion against the United States
Government would doubtless be as thoroughly prepared to take care of
slave property as the muskets in their rebellious hands.

_Fourth_, this emancipation proclamation (?) proposed to pay out of
the United States Treasury,--for all slaves of loyal masters lost in a
rebellion begun by slave-holders and carried on by slave-holders!

Under the condition of affairs no emancipation proclamation was
necessary. Treason against the United States is "levying war against
them," or "adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
The rebel States were guilty of treason; and from the moment Sumter
was fired upon, every slave in the Confederate States was _ipso facto_
free!

But it was an occasion for rejoicing. The President had taken a step
in the right direction, and, thank God! he never retraced it.

A severe winter had set in. The rebels had shown the kind-hearted
President no disposition to accept the mild terms of his proclamation.
On the contrary, it was received with gnashing of teeth and bitter
imprecations. On the 12th of January, 1863, the titular President of
the Confederate States, in his third Annual Message, gave attention to
the proclamation of the President of the United States. Mr. Davis
said:

"It has established a state of things which can lead to but one
of three possible consequences--the extermination of the slaves,
the exile of the whole white population of the Confederacy, or
absolute and total separation of these States from the United
States. This proclamation is also an authentic statement by the
Government of the United States of its inability to subjugate the
South by force of arms, and, as such, must be accepted by neutral
nations, which can no longer find any justification in
withholding our just claims to formal recognition. It is also, in
effect, an intimation to the people of the North that they must
prepare to submit to a separation now become inevitable; for that
people are too acute not to understand that a restitution of the
Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adoption of a
measure which, from its very nature, neither admits of retraction
nor can coexist with