MR LINCOLN'S ANTI-SLAVERY PROCLAMATION.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 83, 21 August 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

MR LINCOLN'S ANTI-SLAVERY PROCLAMATION.

Mr Horace Greely's- fall from gnce in the matter of the perpetuity and efficacy of the President's proclamation has brought upon him the distrust and the reproaches, if not the enmity, of some of his fellow laborers in the cause. A meeting to condemn and disavow his interpretation of the document, and especially las assertion that if the Union were restored the Southern Slave holding States could legally re-enslave the negroes whom Mr Lincoln's proclamation set five, was held the night before iast at Mr Henry Ward Bee<;her's church, under the presidency of the Rev. Dr. Cheeve'r. The speakers were not very successful in their demolition of Mr G reply's logic and law, both of which have found an unexpected supporter in the Hon. R. H. Dana, Attorney-General of the slate of Massachusetts, and as the Tribune truly sayr, " one of the earliest, ablest, and firmist anti-slavery men" of that state. That gentleman, doubtless in order to help the government out of the dilemma into winch it thrust iiself hv the proclamation, and to gain back for it some portion of the Democratic Conservative support which it lias lost, declared in a speech at Providence, Rhode Island, "that if any man feared or hoped that the proclamation did, as matter of law. by its own force, alter ihe legal s&rfwsofoneslave in America on the Ist of January last, he huilt his fears or Impes on the sand. It v/asa military act, and not the decree of a legislator. It has no le°ral force on the status of the slave. "What is done by the strong arm is done; what the arm of' force docs not flo is not done." This was Mr Greely's assertion" in terser and more authoritative language thin he employed ; but no reply was made at ihe meeting-, which was otherwise only remarkable for the singularly awkward admission of one of the speakers, a Mr Gilbert, who is described as a Jeadinf member of the Church of the Puritans, declared that " the captive bird should he liberated, in order that it might fly oil' to its native air," or, in other words, that the slaves, when emancipated, sh ml d be sent back to Africa, which is Mr Lincoln's favorite scheme for settling ihe difficulty. The other admission was still more si»nicant of the designs of the party injpower — the real enemies of the freedom of the American people, ft was to the effect "thntthe national debt incurred by the war wculd create a consolidated sjovernment and sweep awny the old doctrine of State Rights." This gentleman went a little too fast. The debt threatens to be the instrument of disintegration rather than of consolidation. Already the subject of repudiation is openly discussed. It is declared by leading; lawyers of the Democratic party' that the debt was illegally contracted, and that the West and Northwest are beginning to murmur that whoever may be found to pay it they will not. \ But the speaker was too much in love with despotism to look the facts of liberty fairly in the face. He was too warmly attached to the idea of a centralised Go- ; vernment, powerful enough to denominate, the world, to tolerate the existing constir; tution of the States. He concluded his"; speech by saying;, <» that he would rejoice; to see the day of consolidation. When that period had arrived the Government] would be able to maintain a million of armed men, and might then say, ' Come on France ! Come on England 1 Come on: Copperheads I " Such is American Purfc-j tnnism, and, such ar • its ideas of l?epub-| lican liberty. A huge debt! An immense^ standing army! Defiance to the world!/ Denial of the right of free discussion to its own citizens, and deportation of the, negro race. And yet these people pretend! that in combating tlie South they ar^ fighting in behali of the great cause of human liberty and progress, and feel apf grieved when the English people withhold their sympathy. — Correspondent of Times\

Last Sunday morning, about 3 o'clock, & heavy gale of vrind burst over the Hogburnj aud levelled almost every tent to the grouiidf where it did not carry them bodily awayj; Barring this, the news from the HogburiV is most cheering. There are fully threq' thousand five hundred men on the groundr .and large quantities of gold have been obt tamed. Every day fresh auriferous areas ar| being discovered. I think I mentioned ii my last, that a valuable bed of lignite haj been found, from which a large supply of fiie has been obtained. : ' The Tuapeka, which has been built es pressly to run on the Molyneux, makes h^ first jpurne)' tliis afternoon, leaving tU: Dunedin jetty at one o'clock. sf:5 f: I ■,f