f remedy is rendered vain by the fact that
the public opinion of the North has invested a great political
error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief."

These, first put forth by South Carolina, afterwards indorsed by
each seceding State, are the causes officially declared to have
produced, and which are held to justify, the present
insurrection.]

All this is matter of history. And there would be as much propriety in
denying the connection between the sun and the light of day, as that
between Slavery and the Rebellion.

There _is_ a question upon which men differ: namely, whether emancipation
is the most prudent or the most effectual means to enforce violated law
and suppress the insurrectionary movement.

It is my opinion that a majority of the people of the loyal States
believe, at this moment, that emancipation is the necessary and proper
means to effect the above objects. But whether this opinion be well
founded or not is immaterial to the present question. According to
Chief-Justice Marshall's decision, when it is the right and duty of the
Government to perform an act, (as here to enforce law and suppress
insurrection,) it "must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed
to select the means." If Congress believes, that, in order to enforce law
and suppress insurrection, it is necessary and proper to take and cancel
all claims to life-long service or labor held in the Slave States, and if
claims to service or labor, whether for years or for life, held by one
inhabitant of the United States against another, be a species of property
not specially exempted by the Constitution from seizure for public use,
then an Act of Emancipation is strictly constitutional.

Congress is to be allowed to select the means; Congress is to be the judge
of the necessity and propriety of these means: Congress, not the Supreme
Court; not even the People in their primary meetings; but the People
constitutionally represented in their National Legislature; the People,
speaking by the voice of those whom their votes have elected to that
Legislature, there to act for them.

If Congress believes that Emancipation is no longer a question of
sectional interference, but of national preservation, it has the right to
judge, and the constitutional right to act upon that judgment. And if
Congress can properly allege, as motive for taking and cancelling a
multitude of life-long claims to service, the