I think I may assume, without contradiction, that the tender of money to Missouri for the sake of Emancipation is a war measure, to be vindicated as such under the Constitution of the United States. It is also an act of justice to an oppressed race. But it is not in this unquestionable character that it is now commended. If it were urged on no other ground, even if every consideration of philanthropy and of religion pleaded for it with rarest eloquence, I fear that it would stand but little chance in either House of Congress. Let us not disguise the truth. Except as a war measure to aid in putting down the Rebellion, this proposition could expect little hospitality here. Senators are ready to vote money--as the British Parliament voted subsidies--to supply the place of soldiers, or to remove a stronghold of the Rebellion, all of which is done by Emancipation. I do not overstate the case. Slavery is a stronghold, which through Emancipation will be removed, while every slave, if not every slave-master, becomes an ally of the Government. Therefore Emancipation is a war measure, and constitutional as the raising of armies or the occupation of hostile territory.
In vindicating Emancipation as a war measure, we must see that it is made under such conditions as to exercise a present, _instant_ influence. It must be immediate, not prospective. In proposing Prospective Emancipation, you propose a measure which can have little or no influence on the war. Abstractly Senators may prefer that Emancipation should be prospective rather than immediate; but this is not the time for the exercise of any abstract preference. Whatever is done as a war measure must be immediate, or it will cease to have this character, whatever you call it.
If I am correct in this statement,--and I do not see how it can be questioned,--then is the appropriation for Immediate Emancipation just and proper under the Constitution, while that for Prospective Emancipation is without sanction, except what it finds in the sentiments of justice and humanity.
It is proposed to vote ten million dollars to promote Emancipation ten years from now. Perhaps I am sanguine, but I cannot doubt that before the expiration of that period Slavery will die in Missouri under the awakened judgment of the people, even without the action of Congress. If our resources were infinite, we might tender this large sum by way of experiment; but with a treasury drained to the bottom, and a debt accumulating in fabulous proportions, I do not understand how we can vote millions, which, in the first place, will be of little or no service in the suppression of the Rebellion, and, in the second place, will be simply a largess in no way essential to the subversion of Slavery.
