'_'We say, then,_ says the _Times_ writer, '_that even if the National Government had the right to institute new civil measures against slavery, it would not be necessary. The unavoidable military operations of the war, and the free discussion which is sure to attend it, are enough of themselves to break down the institution. The Government has simply to stand quiet and let those influences work._'
All this, urged for the purposes for which it is here urged, is simply crying, Peace! peace! when there is no peace. If these influences, the presence of the war power and free discussion, be to continue, very good. Then, indeed, is there a chance, amounting almost to a certainty, that Slavery will have to succumb, and all of these considerations, urged as a reason why the war power should be retained for an adequate period over the Slave States, even after their nominal submission, and free discussion encouraged and protected by that power--which we understand to be the policy recommended by General Butler--are consequent, logical, and patriotic; but put forth as reasons why we should hasten to surrender the influence over the destiny of man which has been so providentially, and yet with such immense sacrifice, placed in our hands, they are practically hostile to the vital purposes of the war, however honest and simple minded may be the individuals who recommend them.
Again: _'Territorialize them because you hate slavery, and the inevitable result will be that you will only make them love slavery the more,'_ etc.
It is not our purpose to insist on the technical process of _territorializing_ the conquered rebel States. What we do insist on is that the military authority, which the nation has so laboriously asserted and acquired over them, shall not be withdrawn until the natural and necessary and appropriate consequences of the war shall have been attained; and that among these is the inauguration of Freedom instead of the reinstitution of that hideous anomaly of the nations, American Slavery. We insist that the rising, but as yet the feeble and timid Freedom Party of the South, including the blacks and a growing number of the poor whites, so fast as they become rightly informed, with a small number of enlightened, generous, and noble-minded men of the planter class, who sympathize with freedom, and are truly loyal in sympathy and soul to American principles and the American Government, be regarded and treated as the new and loyal South; and not a trumped-up party, which may arise any day, of as bitter traitors as ever lived, but who, seeing the hopelessness of their cause, which is, at bottom, Slavery, and nothing else, under the present issue of war, shall give in a hollow and pretended profession of loyalty, in order to secure, by other means, the same end. Does this truly loyal party at the South anywhere as yet wish the withdrawal of the protection of the General Government, and desire to be turned over to the tender mercies of their false and subtle enemy--which are unheard-of cruelties? Let the representation of the thousand loyal men from Middle Tennessee, recently made to the President of the United States, answer. On the contrary, there is nothing which those men so greatly dread--nothing which so checks their more rapid development as a party--as the fear that they may be so abandoned before their work is sufficiently advanced to secure its completion.