They are acquainted with all the roads, paths, fords, and other natural features of the country, and they make excellent guides.

If this example were followed everywhere in our camps, we should at least save ourselves from shame, if we did not secure victory.

Other generals at the West think they do their duty best, when they serve Slavery.

Can we listen to such a statement and not feel indignant at the levity with which human freedom is treated?

The negro said he would sooner be killed on the spot than go back with his master, even if he knew he would not be punished.

He may possess military talent, he may be a thunderbolt of war; but it is clear that he wants that just comprehension of the times and that sympathy with humanity without which no officer can do his complete duty.

We will prove to them that we come to restore, not to violate, the Constitution and the laws.… The orders heretofore issued from this department in regard to pillaging, marauding, and the destruction of private property, and stealing and…

It does not belong to the military to decide upon the relation of master and slave: such questions must be settled by the civil courts.

In this order, so strangely inconsistent, absurd, unconstitutional, and inhuman, the General perversely perseveres.

It is inconsistent with itself, inasmuch as the General proclaims that he “comes to restore, not to violate, the Constitution and the laws,” and then proceeds to a direct violation of them.

But worse than its inconsistency is its absurdity.

They may come charged with knowledge of movements and plans; but the General will not receive them, because they are slaves.

If we have failed thus far in knowledge of the enemy’s designs, it is because this absurd policy has prevailed.

But worse than inconsistency or absurdity is its positive unconstitutionality.

What right, under the Constitution, has this General to set himself up as judge in cases of human freedom?

He assumes Slavery, when he ought to assume Freedom.

In the eye of the Constitution all are freemen until proved to be slaves, no matter of what color.

If loyal, then welcome to the hospitality and protection of our camps.

But worse than its unconstitutionality is the inhumanity of this order, so shocking to the moral sense.

This General, professing to fight the battle of the Constitution with the commission of the Republic, speaks of “the concealment of slaves” in the same class with “pillaging, marauding, and stealing.” I complain of this confusion of…

It is like those shameful advertisements which garnish Southern newspapers, where “the boy Tom” and “the girl Sally” are to be sold in the same lot with “horses, mules, cattle, and swine.” That such an order should be put forth in the name…

Other States must follow, in groups or singly, until our mighty galaxy is broken into separate stars or dissolved into the nebular compost of a people without form or name.

But I do protest against his perverse violation of the Constitution to carry out a miserable and disgraceful proslavery policy; and I protest against his being allowed to degrade the character of our country.

More than any defeat it will discredit us with posterity, and with the friends of liberal institutions in foreign lands.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.