t_, as
well as impending danger."

Our rights _as belligerents_, therefore, are ample for our security in
time to come. The Rebel States will not cease to be enemies by being
defeated and exhausted and disabled from continuing active hostilities.
They have invoked the laws of war, and they must abide the decision of
the tribunal to which they have appealed. We may hold them _as enemies_
until they submit to such reasonable terms of peace as we may demand.
Whether we shall require any indemnity for the vast expenditures and
losses to which we have been subjected is a question of great magnitude;
but it is of little importance compared with that of guarding against a
recurrence of the Rebellion, by removing _the cause_ of it. It would be
worse than madness to restore them to all their former rights under the
government they have done their utmost to destroy, and at the same time
permit them to retain a system that would surely involve us or our
children in another struggle of the same kind.

Slavery and freedom cannot permanently coexist under the same
government. There is an inevitable, perpetual, irrepressible conflict
between them. The present rebellion is but the culmination of this
conflict, long existing,--transferred from social and political life to
the camp and the battle-field. _In the new arena, we have all the rights
of belligerents in an international war._ Slavery has taken the sword;
let it perish by the sword. If we spare it, its wickedness will be
exceeded by our folly. As victors, the world concedes our right to
demand, for our own future peace, as the only terms of restoration, not
only the abolition of Slavery in all the Rebel States, but its
prohibition in all coming time. It cannot be, that, with the terrible
lessons of these passing years, we shall be so utterly destitute of
wisdom and prudence as to leave our children exposed to the dangers of
another rebellion, after entailing upon them the vast burdens of this,
by our national debt.

It has been said, that, if Slavery should be abolished, the States could
afterwards reestablish it. This is claimed, on the ground that every
State may determine for itself the character of its own domestic
institutions. The right to do so has been conceded to some of the new
States.

But it should be remembered that this right has been, to establish
Slavery _by bringing in slaves from the old States_,--not by taking
_citizens of the United States_, and reducing