invasion of their territory, may possibly teach it to them. If so,
there is no breach of charity in hoping that this severe schooling may
promptly come. When men set themselves up, in defiance of the rest of
the world, to do the devil's work, no good can come of them until the
world has made them feel that this work cannot be suffered to be done
any longer. If this knowledge does not come to them for several years,
the abolition question will by that time have settled itself. For
assuredly Congress will very soon make up its mind to declare all
slaves free who belong to persons in arms against the Union. When that
is done, slavery, confined to a minority, will soon cure itself; and
the pecuniary value of the negroes belonging to loyal masters will
probably not exceed the amount of compensation which the United States
will be willing and able to give.

The assumed difficulty of governing the Southern States as free and
equal commonwealths, in case of their return to the Union, is purely
imaginary. If brought back by force, and not by voluntary compact,
they will return without the Territories, and without a Fugitive Slave
Law. It may be assumed that in that event the victorious party would
make the alterations in the Federal Constitution which are necessary
to adapt it to the new circumstances, and which would not infringe,
but strengthen, its democratic principles. An article would have to be
inserted prohibiting the extension of slavery to the Territories, or
the admission into the Union of any new Slave State. Without any other
guarantee, the rapid formation of new Free States would ensure to
freedom a decisive and constantly increasing majority in Congress. It
would also be right to abrogate that bad provision of the Constitution
(a necessary compromise at the time of its first establishment)
whereby the slaves, though reckoned as citizens in no other respect,
are counted, to the extent of three fifths of their number, in the