crime of the prisoner, by reason of his conspicuous social and religious position has doubtless attracted the notice of a large number of the people of his State. His pardon, obtaining equal publicity, would, it is believed, be taken by the traitorous adherents of slavery as a tacit official declaration that the Government did not seriously intend to maintain the most momentous and vital of its was measures, and that the President consented to be understood as permitting to pass into a mockery that proclamation upon which, on the 1st day of January, 1863, he solemnly invoked "the considerate judgment of making and the gracious favor of Almighty God. "

This is believed to be the first case in which the violation of the proclamation of emancipation has been brought to the notice of the President. It is deemed fortunate for the great purposes of justice that the proof is so strong and the circumstances so marked. The offender is a prominent personage; the victims young and weak; the sale made with full knowledge of the law and the rights of freedom it bestowed; the transaction notorious and barely mercenary. It is fit to be made a test case, in which the Government may distinctly reassure the South of its unalterable purpose to enforce the decree which it has deliberately promulgated. If, while the able-bodied freedmen, attracted and encouraged by that decree, are enrolling themselves as soldiers under the standard which they recognize as the symbol and the guarantee of freedom, and are exposing themselves to the perils of battle on the field and to the horrors of massacre if captured, their late masters or suffered to sell and transport their helpless wives and children into renewed servitude without encountering the inflexible severity of adequate punishment, the Government cannot fail to stand before the world dishonored by such breach of faith, which, on the part of the unhappy race with whom it has been plighted, is being every-where bravely and loyally kept with their blood. If the Government could pardon this outrage upon its laws, or mitigate its punishment, how can it forget the wretched victims of the crime? The conviction is fully entertained that the question of pardoning or mitigation should not even be considered until these victims shall have been returned to within our military lines, and thus restored to the status of freedom which they there occupied.

J. HOLT,

Judge-Advocate-General.

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 24, 1864.

Brigadier General D. H. RUCKER,

Chief Quartermaster, Washington Depot:

GENERAL: The matter of furnishing Sibley tents to the prisoners at Point Lookout, on Colonel Hoffman's request by telegraph of yesterday's date, having been referred to Major-General Halleck, he has indorsed upon it:

The Quartermaster's Department will decide which kind can best be spared. Old tents, or even shanties, will all purposes for prisoners.

As old, common tents can be supplied sooner than shanties can be put up you will furnish them for 5,000 men.

CHS. THOMAS,

Acting Quartermaster-General.