t want to issue a document that the whole
world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull
against the comet! Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even
enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is there a single court, or
magistrate or individual that would be influenced by it there? And what
reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon the
slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, and which offers
protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters who come within our
lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused a single slave to come
over to us. And suppose they could be induced by a proclamation of freedom
from me to throw themselves upon us, what should we do with them? How can
we feed and care for such a multitude? General Butler wrote me a few days
since that he was issuing more rations to the slaves who have rushed to
him than to all the white troops under his command. They eat, and that is
all; though it is true General Butler is feeding the whites also by the
thousand; for it nearly amounts to a famine there. If, now, the pressure
of the war should call off our forces from New Orleans to defend some
other point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing the blacks
to slavery again? for I am told that whenever the rebels take any black
prisoners, free or slave, they immediately auction them off. They did so
with those they took from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee River
a few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! For
instance, when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition
went out from Washington under a flag of truce to bury the dead and bring
in the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks who went along to help,
and sent them into slavery, Horace Greeley said in his paper that the
government would probably do nothing about it. What could I do?

Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good would
follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you desire? Understand, I
raise no objections against it on legal or constitutional grounds; for, as
commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in time of war I suppose I have
a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy; nor do I
urge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible consequences of
insurrection and massacre at the South. I view this matter as a practical
war measure, to be decided on according to the adv