Rendez-les libres,--et plus près que vous de la nature, ils vaudront beaucoup mieux que vous.--CONDORCET, _Note 109 aux Pensées de Pascal_.
When a leak is to be stopped, or a fire extinguished, do not all hands coöperate without distinction of sect or party? Or if I am fallen into a ditch, shall I not suffer a man to help me out, until I have first examined his creed?--BISHOP BERKELEY, _A Word to the Wise, or an Exhortation to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland_: Works (London, 1837), p. 360.
May Congress not say that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war?… Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of Slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free? And will they not be warranted by that power? This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point.--PATRICK HENRY. _Debates in the Virginia Convention on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution_: Elliot’s Debates, Vol. III. p. 590.
The natural strength of the country, in point of numbers, appears to me to consist much more in the blacks than in the whites. Could they be incorporated and employed for its defence, it would afford you double security. That they would make good soldiers I have not the least doubt.--MAJOR-GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE, _Letter to Governor Rutledge_: Johnson’s Life of Greene, Vol. II. p. 274.
The anxiety which prevailed so extensively was restored by the Proclamation of Emancipation, at last put forth by the President, September 22, 1862. Besides enjoining obedience to the Acts of Congress already passed against Slavery, it declared:--
“That, on the first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”[108]