Outside of the army, the general feeling is one of wonder that this act of direst portent to the rebellion has been so long delayed. Even the rebels share in this amazement. When secession was first openly mooted at the South, every Unionist argued that secession was practical abolition. It has puzzled them to comprehend the weary months through which their prophecies were left unfulfilled. They will be perplexed no longer. The Opposition in the loyal States is manifestly weakened by the Proclamation. Their dream is of wearing out the Unionists by disappointments and delays, restoring a Democratic ascendency in the government, and then buying back the rebels to an outward loyalty by new concessions and guaranties to slavery. Hence torpid campaigns, languid strategy, advances without purpose, and surrenders without necessity. But the policy of emancipation brings the quarrel to a speedy decision. The rebel States must promptly triumph or brave a social dissolution. Every Union advance into a rebel region henceforth clears a broad district of slaves. The few are hurried off by their masters; the many escape to a land of freedom. How signally this process will be accellerated after the first of January, few will yet believe. Let the war simply go on, with fluctuating fortunes, for a year or two longer, and the new slave empire will be nearly denuded of slaves. The process is at once inevitable and irresistible. Whether the able-bodied slaves thus escaping to the loyal States shall or shall not be used in whatever way they may be found most serviceable against the cruel despotism which so long robbed them of their earnings while crushing out their manhood, is purely a question of time. There are thousands who would last year have revolted against the employment of Blacks in any way in our struggle, who are now ripe for it: every week, as it transpires, adds to their number. Loyal men hesitated at first, believing that the rebellion would easily and speedily be put down. These have now discovered their mistake and amended it. An aristocracy of three hundred thousand generally capable, energetic persons, accustomed to rule, and recognizing a deadly foe in every opponent of their wishes, surrounded by twice so many shrewd and skilful parasites, and wielding the entire resources of ten millions of people, are not easily conquered. The poor Whites fill the ranks of their armies; the Blacks grow the food and perform the labor essential to the subsistence of those armies and of their families. Slavery unassailed is the strongest natural base of a gigantic rebellion: it easily adapts all the resources of a people to the stern exigencies of war. Slavery resisted and undermined is a very different affair, as the annals of this struggle are destined to prove.