It is amusing to observe the bewilderment of the pro-slavery Northern Democratic press, which has so earnestly claimed the Executive as ‘conservative,’ and on which this message has fallen like a thunder-clap.  They have, of course, at once cried out that, should it receive the sanction of Congress, it would still amount to nothing, because no legislature of a slave State will accept it; an argument as ridiculous as it is trivial.  That the South would, for the present, treat the proposal with scorn, is likely enough.  But the edge of the wedge has been introduced, and emancipation has been at least officially recognized as desirable.  While such a possible means of securing property exists, there will always be a strong party forming in the South, whether they attain to a majority or not, and this party will be the germ of disaster to the secessionists.  There are men enough, even in South Carolina, who would gladly be paid for their slaves, and these men, while maintaining secession views in full bluster, would readily enough find some indirect means of realizing money on their chattels.  It may work gradually—­but it will work.  As disaster and poverty increase in the South, there will increase with them the number of those who will see no insult or injury in the proposition to buy from them property which is becoming, with every year, more and more uncertain in its tenure.

Let it be remembered that this message was based on the most positive knowledge held by the Executive of the desires of the Union men in the South, and of their strength.  The reader who will reflect for a moment can not fail to perceive that, unless it had such a foundation, the views advanced in it would have been reckless and inexplicable indeed.  It was precisely on this basis, and in this manner, that the CONTINENTAL, in previous numbers, and before it the New York KNICKERBOCKER Magazine, urged the revival of the old WEBSTER theory of gradual remunerated emancipation, declaring that the strength of the Union party in the South was such as to warrant the experiment.[O] We have also insisted, in our every issue, that, while emancipation should be borne constantly in view and provided for as something which must eventually be realized for the sake of the advancing interests of WHITE labor and its expansion, everything should be effected as gradually as possible, so as to neither interfere with the plans of the war now waging, nor to stir up needless political strife.  We simply asked for some firmly-based official recognition of the rottenness of the ’slavery plank in the Southern platform,’ and trusted that the utmost caution and deliberation would be observed in eventually forwarding emancipation.  We were literally alone, as a publication, in these views, and were misrepresented both by the enemies who were behind us and the zealous friends who were before us.  We have never cried for that ‘unconditional and immediate emancipation