the part of the slave-population to flock to their camps in
a way similar to what has already happened in the neighborhood of
Fortress Monroe; and this, again, by mustering them into our service,
arming and drilling them as part of the regular and effective force of
our armies, after the example of General Jackson in the defence of New
Orleans, and other Southern generals on various occasions in the South.
A step like this will be met by a nearly or precisely similar expedient
of desperate necessity by the military chieftains of the South. Either
with or without the offer of emancipation, they will muster the blacks
in great numbers into their army, arming, equipping, and drilling them
as thoroughly as the same offices are performed for the white soldiers.

'Things may seem to stand much upon this footing, and no great advantage
have been gained by the North through emancipation, until, in the event
of some great battle, or successively through a series of local
contests, the blacks in the Southern army will fraternize with those of
the North, and go over in a body to their Northern allies, so soon as
the course of events shall have informed them somewhat of the true state
of the case, and have given them confidence in the earnest intention of
the Northern troops to stand by them in the assertion of their freedom.
A defection of this kind would carry dismay and insure defeat throughout
the whole South, especially if it were vigorously followed up by the
same policy and by adequate military skill on the part of the North; and
the result of a war so inaugurated could hardly fail to be the rapid and
complete disorganization of the whole system of Southern industry and
the total revolution and final submission of the Southern States.

'No man can exactly foresee the consequences of so great a conflict, nor
predict with any certainty the course of events through such an untried
and tremendous pathway; but it is next to impossible to conceive that
the Southern war-spirit could in any way long survive the disasters
inevitably consequent upon the general prevalence of a claim to freedom
by the slaves, upon any legal basis, suddenly diffused throughout the
South. Should the alternative be forced upon the people of that region,
of submission, or servile in addition to civil war, their troubles will
thicken upon them to a degree calculated to calm their over-excited
imaginations, and to subdue their vaulting ambition. Panic will co