ir safety and
progress; but they will be fixed in definite orbits, with the limits of
their authority distinctly circumscribed and established.

All social changes, sooner or later, produce their appropriate effects
on political institutions; and no results of the rebellion will be more
prominent and important than those which will follow the inevitable
disappearance of slavery. A new system of labor will be inaugurated in
the border States, as well as in those now in rebellion. The great act
of emancipation may not be immediate; nor is it by any means desirable
it should be. So radical a change in the condition of millions of
uneducated men would be quite as inconvenient, and, indeed, disastrous
to themselves, for the time being, as to their present owners. Society
itself would be thrown into the utmost confusion, and all the resources
of both parties would be temporarily much diminished, if not nearly
destroyed. But, whether suddenly or gradually, this fundamental change
must take place; for it is self-evident that slavery cannot survive the
present struggle. The proclamation of the President, which is to take
effect on the 1st of January next, will make emancipation more complete
and speedy; but the same result would have followed the stubborn
resistance of the rebels, even without that momentous act. It would be a
mischievous error to believe that emancipation was originally the aim
and object of the war on the part of the Union, and that the liberation
of slaves, which was sure to follow its progress, is the direct act of
our authorities, and not the proper consequence of the rebellion itself.
A war waged for and on account of slavery--for its increase and
perpetuation--necessarily, by its own nature, puts that institution at
stake, and risks it on the contingency of failure. Compelled, in defence
of the national unity, to carry the war into the heart of the Southern
States, the world acquiesces in that sound and necessary policy, which
releases the slaves, and sets them free forever, as fast as they come
within the protection of our armies. The proclamation is a measure of
the same nature, intended to destroy the resources of the enemy, and to
wound him in his most vulnerable point. But it can accomplish little
more than the previous policy; for the slumbering hopes of the slaves
were aroused by the first gun fired at Charleston in the beginning of
the struggle. Every movement of armies, and every bloody battle, wh