matic reserve which it will probably be found
difficult long to maintain.

The ever-recurring question continued to press for solution. On the 6th
of July the Act of Congress was approved, declaring that any person
claiming the labor of another to be due to him, and permitting such
party to be employed in any military or naval service whatsoever against
the Government of the United States, shall forfeit his claim to such
labor, and proof of such employment shall thereafter be a full answer
to the claim. This act was designed for the direction of the civil
magistrate, and not for the limitation of powers derived from military
law. That law, founded on _salus republicae_, transcends all codes,
and lies outside of forms and statutes. John Quincy Adams, almost
prophesying as he expounded, declared, in 1842, that under it slavery
might be abolished. Under it, therefore, Major-General Fremont, in a
recent proclamation, declared the slaves of all persons within his
department, who were in arms against the Government, to be freemen, and
under it has given title-deeds of manumission. Subsequently President
Lincoln limited the proclamation to such slaves as are included in the
Act of Congress, namely, the slaves of Rebels used in directly hostile
service. The country had called for Jacksonian courage, and its first
exhibition was promptly suppressed. If the revocation was made in
deference to protests from Kentucky, it seems, that, while the loyal
citizens of Missouri appeared to approve the decisive measure, they were
overruled by the more potential voice of other communities who professed
to understand their affairs better than they did themselves. But if, as
is admitted, the commanding officer, in the plenitude of military power,
was authorized to make the order within his department, all human beings
included in the proclamation thereby acquired a vested title to their
freedom, of which neither Congress nor President could dispossess them.
No conclusive behests of law necessitating the limitation, it cannot
rest on any safe reasons of military policy. The one slave who carries
his master's knapsack on a march contributes far less to the efficiency
of the Rebel army than the one hundred slaves who hoe corn on his
plantation with which to replenish its commissariat. We have not yet
emerged from the fine-drawn distinctions of peaceful times. We may
imprison or slaughter a Rebel, but we may not unloose his hold on a
person he has