The President nowhere says that he seeks the abolition
of slavery. The blow he has dealt is directed against slavery in the
dominions of the Confederacy. That Confederacy claims to be a nation,
and some of our acts amount to a virtual recognition of the claim which
it makes. Now, if we were at war with an old nation of which slavery was
one of the institutions, it could not be said that we had not the
right to offer freedom to its slaves. Objection might be made to
the proclamation of an offer of the kind, but it would be based on
expediency. England would not accept a plan that was formed half a
century ago for the partition of the United States, and which had for
its leading idea the proclamation of freedom to American slaves; but
her refusal was owing to the circumstance that she was herself a great
slaveholding power, and she had no thought of establishing a precedent
that might soon have been used with fatal effect against herself. She
did not close her ears to the proposition because she had any doubt
as to her right to avail herself of an offer of freedom to slaves,
or because she supposed that to make such an offer would be to act
immorally, but because it was inexpedient for her to proceed to
extremities with us, due regard being had to her own interests.
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