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536      DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.      OCTOBER, 1861

extent of the exigency, and to strike boldly and efficiently to meet it.  The hearts of the people will warmly respond in gratitude to him for this timely interposition.

[St. Louis Correspondent of the N.Y. Tribune.]

Its appearance caused great sensation, and was generally recognized as turning a new leaf in the history of the war.  I have yet to hear of the first Union man in St. Louis who does not heartily indorse it.  From Chicago the echoes begin to come back by telegraph, saying, 'It ought to have been done weeks ago; the people are with Fremont, and will do everything to sustain him.'  Another dispatch reads: 'It is greeted here with loud cheers by all loyal men.  Fremont is the Columbus who is showing the savans how to make the egg stand on end.'

[St. Louis Correspondent of the Evening Post.]

There is not a dozen loyal men of my acquaintance who do not approve it.  In fact, it is the best step forward that has been made in this war, and the people admire its bold decisiveness, and are ready to back it up with zeal.  But I see in this, as in every thing else, the Administration is disposed to quibble and falter, and destroy the good effect of it by imposing modifications, making the Government become a slave trader.  If I judge correctly, the slave trade is not what the people are fighting for, and in confiscating and using negroes as property the Government becomes guilty of the damning sin that has caused all our trouble.  When this becomes the policy of the Government, it is not worth saving, and the quicker we have a new and true one the better.

IN THE EAST.

[From the N. Y. Evening Post.]

Mr. Fremont has done what the Government ought to have done from the beginning.  War is war.  It has certain necessities which cannot be overlooked.  It is our right and duty to strike a public enemy in his weakest point.  Slavery is the weakest point of the rebels, and when we declare their slaves exempt from obligations to obey them, we only act in self-defence.  The war power, in terms of actual hostility, may supersede the municipal law.  As John Quincy Adams long ago stated in the House of Representatives, 'when a country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the commanders of both armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in the invaded territory.'  The same speaker showed that this was no theoretic statement, but a practice frequently resorted to by military commanders.

[From the N.Y. Tribune.]

Wherever slavery is strong, there treason is active and furious.  Wherever slavery is weak, there rebellion has few adherents.  Gen. Fremont gives the slaveholders fair notice that so many of them as aid the rebels will lose their slaves if the rebellion does not succeed.  It strikes us that he understands their case, and that if there be such a thing as bringing them to reason, he is the man to do it.

[From the N. Y. Times]

Gen. Fremont has sounded the key-note of the campaign that will be closed wherever we have a soldier in arms.  He has taken a step which cannot fail to produce a very marked effect throughout the South..... Hereafter slavery will not be allowed to stand in the way of a vigorous prosecution of the war.--If slaves are employed against the Government, their masters will thereby lose all claim to their services.  It is very clear that Fremont's proclamation is, up to this time, by far the most important event of the war.

[From the Albany Journal.]

Gen. Fremont 'hits the nail on the head' exactly, and drives it home.  Martial law was indispensable in Missouri.  Without it there was neither protection nor safety for its citizens.  And he has, also, adopted a just, reasonable and timely policy in regard to the slaves belonging to traitors and rebels.  The property of traitors and rebels is, by law, declared confiscated to the State.  When slave owners are found with arms and taken prisoners, their slaves are confiscated, but the Government can neither hold nor sell slaves.  So they belong free from necessity.  And this is the act of their masters--a penalty for treason--righteous, but too light a penalty.

[From the Albany Statesman.]

If the popular sentiment of the North would have permitted it, the proclamation of Fremont issued to the whole South six months ago, would have saved the Border States and probably the entire South from the ruinous abyss of Secession.

[Washington Correspondent of the N. Y. Times.]

If anything could be received here with greater satisfaction than the success at Hatteras, it was the proclamation issued by Gen. Fremont.  I have not seen or heard of one man who does not warmly approve the declaration that the rebels must lose their property, and that the Government will hold its existence as paramount above all consideration for the individual rights of the rebels.

[From the N. Y. Herald.]

This is certainly important intelligence, yet considering the audacities and atrocities of the rebel invasion of Missouri and its local affiliations, Gen. Fremont has been driven to the extremities indicated...... The proclamation of emancipation in the rebellious Border slave States, to begin with, as a military movement, it may be contended, would strengthen the military arm of the Government, in calling home from Virginia the troops of the cotton States to look after their negroes.  It is enough for the present that the greatest dangers which have ever menaced Southern slavery are the dangers of this rebellion, and that while slavery, especially in the cotton and sugar States, will be perfectly safe under its restoration to the protection of the Union, it is all at sea, without pilot or rudder, under the spurious despotism of Jefferson Davis and his associates.

[From the N.Y. World]

Whatever complexion affairs may take elsewhere, in Missouri the hour has come--and the man.  Boldness of character is a great clarifier of the intellect; and Fremont, who never, in his life, 'let I dare not wait upon I would,' seems to have a clear perception of what is to be done within the limits of his own military department, and is so prompt in acting on his views that his course will have a marked influence on the subsequent management of the war.  Whether the Administration approve, or disapprove, of the decisive step which Gen. Fremont has now taken, his proclamation will prove more fruitful in consequences than any event that has yet transpired since the commencement of hostilities.

[From the N.Y. Independent]

At length the ax is laid at the root of the tree.  The proclamation of General Fremont strikes down the rebellion within the lines of his army of occupation.  Men in arms against the Government are not foreign enemies but rebels, to be tried by court-martial, and when convicted, TO BE SHOT .... But Gen. Fremont's proclamation strikes a yet deeper blow.  It not only disarms the rebels, it extirpates the very root of the rebellion, and makes it impossible for its agitators long to pursue it, or to renew it hereafter..... It is a tonic to the nation--bracing and exhilarating.  In another month we hope to hear him repeat it at Memphis, while Gen. Butler shall echo it from Savannah.  We shall be curious to observe the effect of this measure upon the English people.

[From the Boston Post.]

Of the policy of this decided proclamation, of this sending of the shaft home to the heart of the rebellion, there can be little doubt.  It is time that the rebels understood that, by their defiance and violation of all law, they have, by their own suicidal hands, struck the first blow to that institution which the political philosophy of Stephens and the sword of Davis would support.

[From the Rochester Union.]

It will unquestionably form the theme of general discussion both North and South, and to a considerable extent constitute the basis of divided opinions in the loyal States.  But we trust that when the true purpose of the proclamation, and the general policy of which it must form an important part, come to be fully explained and understood, there will remain no occasion for serious disagreements among these whose devotedness to the Union and the Constitution knows no conditions or qualifications.

[From the Rochester Express.]

Our readers will not fail to remember the wild hopes which the Southern slaves held in 1856 as the result of the election if John C. Fremont had succeeded in becoming President.  Their masters had invented the strange story that Fremont was coming with an army to free them, and false as this was, and much as they attempted to prevent it spreading among their slaves, yet in some portions of Tennessee, the report was so extensively circulated that an insurrection of unknown magnitude came near breaking out.  The slaves of that region of country, and in fact all along the Mississippi, have not forgotten these old hopes, and still confidently expect that Fremont will come with an army for their liberation.  Under such circumstances, it would not be surprising if the recent proclamation should produce a very great commotion among the slaves along the Mississippi.--The proclamation extends only to Missouri, but the practical effect will be nearly the same as if it reached throughout the entire Southern States, and we may soon expect as a consequence considerable excitement among the negro population.

[From the Rochester Democrat.]

The proclamation is a demonstration which is needed.  It strikes the right note, and will be responded to by loyal people everywhere, in the Border States as well as at the North.

[From the Erie True American.]

We have not seen a more hopeful indication that we are to come off conquerors in this contest, than is shadowed forth by the recent proclamation of Gen. Fremont.  There is an earnestness and thoroughness in that document which animates loyalty wherever found.  Gen. Fremont shows himself up to the emergency.  He puts the thing on its proper basis.  He crushes rebellious slaveholding on honorable grounds.

[From the Chester County (Pa) Times.]

In the midst of this general approval, comes up a faint rumbling cry of disaffection, because the slaves of rebels are declared to be FREE MEN.  Why, in the name of our country, is this kind of property to be held more sacred than any other?  Are they not laboring to raise provisions for the rebels?  Are they not employed on their fortifications, and even in a military capacity?  No other 'property' can be so important to the rebels.  Yet, we have some thin-skinned individuals who demur at this manifest duty of the bold mountaineer commander of our Western army.--The country and the world will commend him for it, and he will add to his fame by being the first to boldly declare such entire confiscation.

[Mrs. Stowe in the N.Y. Independent.]

The hero of the golden gate who opened the doors of that splendid new California world, has long been predestinated in the traditions of the slave as their coming liberator.  'Fremont and liberty' are words that have been coupled in many a song before now--and Fremont has made good the augury.  So far as we have seen and heard, this proclamation has met that universal response which the world always accords to a fitting deed done in the fullness of time.  We longed for a bold step--we sighed for a victory--and we got it!  It was something to take the shores of North Carolina.  Well and gallantly was it done.  But this proclamation is a greater victory than that; it will carry with it a swing and impulse--a moral force, which will be felt through all nations.  This will be a burning test of the sincerity of those in foreign lands who have said, All our sympathies are with this war when we shall see that it emancipates the slave.  Let us see if it proves so.  Let us see if they who carped Butler, though he freed thousands, because he used the legal technics of slave law to do it, will

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