A Prediction – Negro Emancipation

The Washington correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, writing under date of April 4th makes the following prediction:

“CAN WE SUBDUE THE REBELS.”

“No, not until it becomes a military necessity to emancipate their slaves. Is there a thoroughly loyal man in Washington who believes it possible otherwise? If there is I cannot find him. In November 1860, when I insisted that the country would be involved in war before May, 1861, some good people were shocked at the sensational character of the prediction. I beg leave to submit another, to-wit: before the first day of January, 1863, the President will declare general emancipation of the slaves of rebels a military necessity. When conversation and discussions at the capital of the nation assume that phase as prominently as now, the fact may be considered significant.”

“Cleveland,” an old and noted correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer, assumes also the mouth of prophecy to the same effect. He says:

“As I have seldom failed in my predictions of the future, as I think your readers will bear me witness, I will make another, that this war will end in a proclamation of the freedom of the slave, and in the separation the Cotton States from the Union; or in their subjugation, with a change of our constitutional form of Government.”

– Published in the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Thursday, April 17, 1862 & the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862