tion of allegiance in the other, demands legal
possession. Even the fugitive slave is emancipated practically whilst in
Ohio, and whilst not yet demanded. Rebel soldiers daily leave their
plantations and abandon their negroes. _Pro tem_, at least, the latter
are then emancipated. Let them, when within Our lines, continue
emancipated.

_Mr. Welles._ Would you arm them?

_Mr. Stanton._ Yes, if exigencies of situation so demanded. The
beleaguered garrison at Lucknow armed every one about the place--natives
or not, servants or masters. Did General Washington spare the whisky
stills in the time of the insurrection in Western Virginia when they
were in his way? Yet the stills were universally agreed to be property,
and were not taken by due process of law. Shall we fight a rebel in
Charleston streets, and at the same time protect his negro by a guard in
the Charleston jail?

_Mr. Blair._ But what instructions would you give to the soldiers about
this _casus belli_?

_Mr. Stanton._ None at all. The soldier should know nothing about _casus
belli_. General Buell answered the correspondent well when he said, 'I
know nothing about the cause of this war. I am to fight the rebels and
obey orders.' Cries a general to a subaltern--'Yonder smokes a
battery--go and take it.' Do we issue specific instructions to the
troops about the women, the children, the chickens, the forage, the
mules-persons or property--whom they encounter? The circumstances and
the exigencies of the situation determine their conduct. A household
mastiff who will pin a rebel by the throat when he passes his kennel,
flying from pursuit, is just as serviceable as would prove a loyal
bullet sped to the rebel's brain. I believe that the acknowledged fact,
the necessary fact, that wherever our army advances, emancipation
practically ensues, will carry more terror to the slave-owner than any
other warlike incident. But I would have them understand that this
result is not our design, but a necessity of _their_ rebellion.

_Mr. Bates._ You are like the last witness upon the stand--subjected to
a vigorous cross-examination upon everything gone before. Have you ever
thought what is to be the upshot of the contention?

_Mr. Stanton._ Restoration of the Union!

_Mr. Bates._ Aye, but how to be brought about? Are not the pride and the
obstinacy growing stronger every day at the South?

_Mr. Stanton._ 'Men are but children of a larger growth.' Who of us has
not conquere