It is conceded on all sides, that, wherever our armies have had occupancy, there slavery has been practically abolished. The fact was recognized by President Lincoln in his last appeal to the loyal Slave States to consummate emancipation. Another noticeable act of our Government in behalf of Liberty is the official provision it makes for the wants of the thousands of helpless human beings thus thrown upon our care. Taxed with the burden of an immense war, with the care of thousands of sick and wounded, the United States Government has cheerfully voted rations for helpless slaves, no less than wages to the helpful ones. The United States Government pays teachers to instruct them, and overseers to guide their industrial efforts. A free-labour experiment is already in successful operation among the beautiful sea-islands in the neighbourhood of Beaufort, which, even under most disadvantageous circumstances, is fast demonstrating how much more efficiently men will work from hope and liberty than from fear and constraint. Thus, even amid the roar of cannon and the confusion of war, cotton-planting, as a free-labour institution, is beginning its infant life, to grow hereafter to a glorious manhood. The amount received by the United States Government from the sale of cotton raised by two thousand families, is stated to exceed a million of dollars. Lastly, the great, decisive measure of the war has appeared,—_The President’s Proclamation of Emancipation_. This also has been much misunderstood and misrepresented in England. It has been said to mean virtually this:—Be loyal, and you shall keep your slaves; rebel, and they shall be free. But let us remember what we have just seen of the purpose and meaning of the Union to which the rebellious States are invited back. It is to a Union which has abolished slavery in the district of Columbia, and interdicted slavery in the Territories,—which vigorously represses the slave-trade, and hangs the convicted slaver as a pirate,—which necessitates emancipation by denying expansion to slavery, and facilitates it by the offer of compensation. Any Slaveholding States which should return to such a Union might fairly be supposed to return with the purpose of peaceable emancipation. The President’s Proclamation simply means this:—Come in, and emancipate peaceably with compensation; stay out, and I emancipate, nor will I protect you from the consequences.