September 26, 1862
After the text of the Proclamation there are “Remarks”. “Though we believe that this Proclamation is not all that the exigency of the times and the consequent duty of the government require, — and therefore are not so jubilant over it as many others – still, it is an important step in the right direction, and an act of immense historic consequence…..
The objectionable features of the Proclamation are its avowed readiness to return to bloody stripes, and horrible torture, and life-long servitude, (if he be not killed outright,) any hunted bondsman on the mere oath of the villain claiming him, that he is loyal to the government – its seemingly contradictory talk (for the first portion of it is a characteristic jumble of words) about emancipating the slaves in all existing rebel States, on the first of January, 1863 (a time sufficient to enable Jeff. Davis and his traitorous confederates to anticipate that measure themselves, and thus secure their independence by foreign intervention) – its proposition to make a new overture to the Slave States to sell their slave system at a bargain – and its mean, absurd and proscriptive devices to expatriate the colored population from their native land.
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