And what reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon
the Slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved and which
offers protection and Freedom to the Slaves of Rebel masters who came
within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused a single
Slave to come over to us.

"And suppose they could be induced by a Proclamation of Freedom from me
to throw themselves upon us, what should we do with them? How can we
feed and care for such a multitude? General Butler wrote me a few days
since that he was issuing more rations to the Slaves who have rushed to
him, than to all the White troops under his command. They eat, and that
is all; though it is true General Butler is feeding the Whites also, by
the thousand; for it nearly amounts to a famine there.

"If, now, the pressure of the War should call off our forces from New
Orleans to defend some other point, what is to prevent the masters from
reducing the Blacks to Slavery again; for I am told that whenever the
Rebels take any Black prisoners, Free or Slave, they immediately auction
them off! They did so with those they took from a boat that was aground
in the Tennessee river a few days ago.

"And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! For instance, when,
after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from
Washington, under a flag of truce, to bury the dead and bring in the
wounded, and the Rebels seized the Blacks who went along to help, and
sent them into Slavery, Horace Greeley said in his paper that the
Government would probably do nothing about it. What could I do?

"Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good would
follow the issuing of such a Proclamation as you desire? Understand, I