general of this continent is with them or with us. I come, then, to emancipation. Not first,—although I shall not hesitate to say, before I close, that as a matter of justice to the slave, there should be emancipation,—but not first do I ask my countrymen to proclaim emancipation to the slaves in justice to them, but as a matter of necessity to ourselves; for, unless it be by accident, we are not to come out of this contest as one nation, except by emancipation. And first, emancipation in South Carolina. Not confiscation of the property of rebels: that is inadequate longer to meet the emergency. It might have done in March or April or May, or possibly in July; but, in December, or January of the coming year, confiscation of the property of the rebels is inadequate to meet the exigency in which the country is placed. You must, if you do anything, proclaim at the head of the armies of the republic, on the soil of South Carolina, FREEDOM,—and then enforce the proclamation as far and fast as you have an opportunity; and you will have opportunity more speedily then than you will if you attempt to invade South Carolina without emancipating her slaves. Unsettle the foundations of society in South Carolina; do you hear the rumbling? Not we, not we, are responsible for what happens in South Carolina between the slaves and their masters. Our business is to save the Union; to re-establish the authority of the Union over the rebels in South Carolina; and, if between the masters and their slaves collisions arise, the responsibility is upon those masters who, forgetting their allegiance to the Government, lent themselves to this foul conspiracy, and thus have been involved in ruin. As a warning, let South Carolina be the first of the States of the Republic in which emancipation to the enslaved is proclaimed.”
I left home for Washington the Monday following the
Sunday when the first battle of Bull Run was fought. When
