demonstration of whatever character, will be for the present suspended Provost-marshals, officers and soldiers are enjoined to prevent any disturbance of the public peace. The slaves are advised to remain upon their plantations until their privileges shall have been definitely established. They may rest assured that whatever benefit the Government intends will be secured to them, but no man can be allowed in the present condition of affairs to take the law into his own hands. If they seek the protection of the Government they should wait its pleasure. Officers invested with command will be vigilant in the discharge of their duties. Leave of absence from camp will not be permitted except in cases of great emergency. Soldiers enrolled in the regiments of Native Guards will not be allowed for the present to visit the localities of their enlistment nor will visitors be received unnecessarily in their camps. These regulations, enforced with all troops of the United States in the localities where they are enlisted, are now imperatively necessary. These troops will be confined to the duty specified in general orders, and will not be charged with special authority in making searches, seizures, or arrests. It is my purpose to execute faithfully all the orders of the Government, and I assume the responsibility of these instructions as consistent therewith and require prompt and faithful execution thereof.

Public attention is called to the act of Congress cited in the proclamation which forbids the return of fugitives by officers of the Army. No encouragement will be given to laborers to desert their employers, but no authority exists, to compel them to return. It is suggested to planters that some plan be adopted by which an equitable proportion of the proceeds of the crops of the coming year, to be hereafter determined upon the judgment of honorable men justly representing the different interests involved, be set apart and reserved for the support and compensation of labor.

The war is not waged by the Government for the overthrow of slavery. The President has declared, on the contrary, that it is to restore the "constitutional relations between the United States and each of the States," in which that relation is or may be suspended. The resolutions passed by Congress before the war, with almost unanimous consent, recognized the rights of States in this regard. Vermont has recently repealed the statutes supposed to be inconsistent therewith; Massachusetts had done so before. Slavery existed by consent and constitutional guaranty; violence and war will inevitably bring it to an end. It is impossible that any military man, in the event of continued war, should counsel the preservation of slave property in the rebel States. If it is to be preserved war must cease and the former constitutional relations be again established. The first gun at Sumter proclaimed emancipation. The continuance of the contest there commenced will consummate that end, and the history of the age will leave no other permanent trace of the rebellion. Its leaders will have accomplished what other men could not have done. The boldest Abolitionist is a cipher when compared with the leaders of the rebellion. What mystery pervades the works of Providence! We submit to its decrees, but stand confounded at the awful manifestation of its wisdom and power. The great problem of the age, apparently environed with layrinthic complications is likely to be suddenly lifted out of human hands. We may control the incidents, of the contest, but we cannot circumvent or defeat the end. It will be left us only to assuage the horrors of internecine conflict and to procrastinate the processes of transition. Local and national interests are therefore alike dependent upon the suppression