GRADUAL OR PROSPECTIVE EMANCIPATION.
There is another popular idea of emancipation, which is unjust, fallacious, and impossible of application. It is known by the specious though plausible appellation of gradual or prospective emancipation; by which it is proposed to destroy, by legislation, the productiveness and the value of this species of property, after a limited period, by declaring the confiscation of its increase. This has been tried by mistaken philanthropy, or by organized duplicity, with no other effect but to transfer the slaves from State to State, and from the North to the South; but while this process has been going on, the number of slaves in the United States has increased more than four-fold,—from less than one to more than four millions. This is emancipation with a vengeance. In this ratio, prospective or gradual emancipation would give us, in seventy years more, 16,000,000 slaves. It will be seen that this process is not emancipation, but merely transposition, or change of locality. The very name of emancipation, thus applied, is a misnomer.