Valley Spirit

The bill confiscating property of men in arms against the Government, was signed by President Lincoln with great reluctance. Wendell Phillips, in a recent speech, said the Senate had to go down on its knees to Mr. Lincoln to implore his signature. Mr. Russell, in a recent letter to the London Times, corroborates this. He says:

On the very last day of Congress the bill which sets free slaves belonging to rebels engaged in war was signed with reluctance by Mr. Lincoln, and was all but lost by lapse of time, for had he not been persuaded to overcome his scruples the Congress would have adjourned without the signature could not have been obtained, as the President at first refused peremptorily to put his name to the bill, alleging that "It will lose us Kentucky;" but there was a pressure of Senators put upon him, and he yielded at last, but ten minutes before the House rose. On such occasions the President comes down to his room in the Capital, and affixes his name, or receives the official visits of the legislators, and if the clock had not been put back, and the sittings carried on beyond the time agreed upon for the adjournment, this bill could not have been presented to the Senate.

The right of the Government to confiscate rebel property, says the Albany Argus, is admited [sic] on all sides. But the moment the slave question becomes mingled with it, it becomes embarrassing. The Secretary of War took the ground that only those slaves who had been employed upon batteries, or with regiments, or some other way contributing to the support of the war, should be confiscated. But the effect of this was to reward service against the country with the boon of emancipation! The ground was untenable and had to be abandoned.

It is now proposed to emancipate the slaves of all disloyal men in the rebellious States; and many imagine that this can be done with the concurrence of the loyal Union-loving population. But is it true? can half the slaves in Missouri be set free; and the other half be retained in servitude? Do not all Southern men recognize the impossibility of retaining a large free black population (especially one suddenly emancipated) in the midst of slave communities?

This feeling is certainly strong in the South, to make schemes of partial emancipation, very odious to even Union men. It is well to strike terror in the ranks of the rebels; but it is not well to sow distrust in the ranks of the loyal.

Measures of this kind must be judged by their effects; and the President should see to it that under the pretence of "confiscation," a scheme of emancipation is not attempted that would consolidate against us the sentiments of the now-divided South.