John Quincy Adams, on war power and emancipation

At the center, top of page 2 of the Liberator, October 11, 1861, John Quincy Adams is quoted:  “I lay this down as the law of nations.  I say that military authority, takes, for the time, the place of all municipal institutions, slavery among the rest.  Under that state of things, so far from its being true that the States where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the President of the United States, but commander of the army, has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves…..”

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