We are willing that the question of emancipation should have the widest scope, and, if expediency shall so dictate, that it should be realized in the most gradual manner.  We believe that, owing to the experiences of the past year, more than one slave State will, ere long, contain a majority of clear-headed, patriotic men, who will be willing to legalize the freedom of all blacks born within their limits, after a certain time; and if this time be placed ten years or even fifteen hence, it will make no material difference.  By that time the pressure of free labor, and the increase of manufacturing, will have rendered some such step a necessity.  Should the payment of all loyal slave-holders, in the border States, for their chattels, prove a better plan,—­and it could hardly fail to promptly reduce the rebellious circle to a narrow and uninfluential body,—­let it be tried.  If any of the arguments thus far adduced in favor of assuming slavery to be an institution which is never to be changed, and which must be immutably fixed in the North American Union, can be proved to be true, we would say, then let emancipation be forever forgotten—­for the stability of the Union must take precedence of everything.  But we can not see it in this light.  We can not see that peace and Union can exist while the slave-holder continues to increase in arrogance in the South, and while the abolitionists every day gather strength in the North.  Every day of this war has seen the enemies of slavery increase in number and in power, until to expect them to lose power and influence is as preposterous as to hope to see the course of nature change.  Should a peace be now patched up on the basis of immutable slavery, we should, to judge from every appearance, simply prolong the war to an infinitely more disastrous end than it now threatens to assume.  We should incur debts which would crush our prosperity; we should bequeath a heritage of woe to our children, which would prove their ruin.  While the great cause of all this dissension lies legalized and untouched, there will continue to be a party which will never cease to strive to destroy it.  The question simply is, whether we will be wounded now, or utterly slain by and by.

Meanwhile let us, before all things, push on with the war!  It is by our victories that slavery will be in the beginning most thoroughly attacked.  If the South, as it professes, means to fight to the last ditch, and to the black flag, all discussion of emancipation is needless; for in the track of our armies the contraband assumes freedom without further formula.  But we are by no means convinced that such will be the case.  The first ditches have, as yet, been by no means filled with martyrs to secession,—­armistices are already subjects of rumor,—­and it should not be forgotten that the Union men of the South are powerful enough to afford efficient aid in placing the question of ultimate emancipation on a basis suitable to all interests.