Whether their slackness is of native growth, or is the consequence of instructions from Government, it is plain that adherence to it can never lead to the conquest of the Southrons.  There is now a particular reason why it should give way to something of a very different character.  The Proclamation has changed the conditions of the contest, and to be defeated now, driven out of the field for good and all, would be a far more mortifying termination of the war than it could have been, if we had already failed utterly.  We have committed the unpardonable sin against slavery, and to fail now would be to place ourselves in the same position that is held by the commander of a ship of war who nails his colors to the mast, and yet has to get them down in order to prevent his conqueror from annihilating him.  The action of the Confederate Congress with reference to the Proclamation, so far as we have accounts of it, shows that the President’s action has intensified the character of the conflict, and that the enemy are preparing to fight under the banner of the pirate, declaring that they will show no quarter, because they look upon the Proclamation as declaring that there shall be no quarter extended to them.  The President of the United States, they say, has avowed it to be his purpose to inaugurate a servile war in their country, and they call fiercely for retaliation.  They mean, by using the words “servile war,” to convey the impression that there is to be a general slaying and ravishing throughout the South, on and after the first of next January, under the special patronage of the American President, who has ordered his soldiers and his sailors, his ships and his corps, to be employed in protecting black ravishers of white women and black murderers of white children.  All they say is mere cant, and is intended for the European market, which they now supply as liberally with lies as once they did with cotton.  Our foolish foes in England accept every falsehood that is sent them from Richmond, and hence the torrent of misrepresentation that flows from that city to London.  Let it continue to flow.  It can do us no harm, if our action shall be in correspondence with our cause and our means.  If we succeed, falsehood cannot injure us; if we fail, we shall have something of more importance than libels to think of.  We should bear in mind that our armies are not to succeed because the slaves shall rise, but that the slaves are to be freed as a consequence of the success of our armies.  That our armies may succeed, there must be more energy displayed both by their commanders and by Government.  The Proclamation must be enforced, or it will come to nought.  There is nothing self-enforcing about it.  Its mere publication will no more put an end to the Rebellion than President Lincoln’s first proclamation, calling upon the Rebels to cease their evil-doings and disperse, could put an end to it.  Its future value, like that of all papers that deal with the leading interests of mankind, must depend altogether