December 7, 1861, page 770 (2)
Several of the newspapers are worrying themselves about
the slavery question, some of them insisting that our generals shall forthwith proceed to
emancipate the slaves, while others demand that slavery, alone of Southern interests,
shall be shielded from damage during the war.
Surely this discussion is irrelevant and idle at this
time. Events alone can shape the course of the war, including its bearing on the
institution of slavery. It is out of the power of the President or of his generals to
determine the nature and extent of the changes which the war must produce in Southern
society, Southern institutions, and Southern interests. We began the war with protests
against the employment of slaves, and our generals uniformly returned fugitives to their
masters. There has been no authoritative announcement of a change of policy; but no United
States general, with the single exception of General Halleck (who stands precisely where
M’Clellan, Heintzelman, and the others stood three months ago), now tolerates
slave-hunting in his camp. Military necessity has compelled them all to welcome
information brought in by fugitive slaves, and labor wrought by black as well as white
hands. Surely after such a beginning the enemies of slavery can afford to let time and
Providence work undisturbedly.
It is nonsense to talk of emancipating the slaves by
decree, or proclamation of any thing of the kind. You must first catch your hare. The bulk
of the Southern people thoroughly believe that our Government and our army are
abolitionists. A decree of emancipation would not surprise them or add to their dangers.
They are acting as though it had been already promulgated. They would laugh at a paper
decree of emancipation, and it would have no more effect than Frémont’s Brutum
fulmen, or the paper blockades of old. In effect, wherever our armies penetrate
emancipation becomes a fact, from the military necessities of the case; where rebel
bayonets rule slavery thrives despite all we may say or publish to the contrary.
The changes already wrought by events in the policy of our
generals with regard to Slavery are instructive. General M’Clellan is understood to
have been a Douglas man, and entered Virginia with a proclamation announcing his tender
regard for the peculiar institution. He has since discovered that the most reliable
information he can get comes from fugitives slaves, and slave-hunters don’t succeed,
about these times, in finding him at home. General Heintzelman, before Bull Run, was a
stout defender of slavery; but when he was placed in command of the most exposed division
of the army on Accotink Creek, facing Beauregard, a proper concern for his division
produced a wonderful change in his views. Slaves are received with open arms at his camp,
and their information has proved most useful. General Heintzelman is wise enough to know
that a slave may bring him news which may save the whole army. Virginian slave-owners
complain bitterly of his growing tendency toward abolitionism. General Halleck is destined
to go through the same improving education. When he finds himself on the march, within ten
miles of the enemy, and it is a matter of life and death for him to know the enemy’s
force and intentions, he will reconsider the order which now excludes fugitive slaves from
his camp for fear they should run back into slavery. Necessity is a most successful
schoolmaster.