The extreme moderation with which the President advanced to his design,—­his long-avowed expectant policy, as if he chose to be strictly the executive of the best public sentiment of the country, waiting only till it should be unmistakably pronounced,—­so fair a mind that none ever listened so patiently to such extreme varieties of opinion,—­so reticent that his decision has taken all parties by surprise, whilst yet it is the just sequel of his prior acts,—­the firm tone in which he announces it, without inflation or surplusage,—­all these have bespoken such favor to the act, that, great as the popularity of the President has been, we are beginning to think that we have underestimated the capacity and virtue which the Divine Providence has made an instrument of benefit so vast.  He has been permitted to do more for America than any other American man.  He is well entitled to the most indulgent construction.  Forget all that we thought shortcomings, every mistake, every delay.  In the extreme embarrassments of his part, call these endurance, wisdom, magnanimity, illuminated, as they now are, by this dazzling success.

When we consider the immense opposition that has been neutralized or converted by the progress of the war, (for it is not long since the President anticipated the resignation of a large number of officers in the army, and the secession of three States, on the promulgation of this policy,)—­when we see how the great stake which foreign nations hold in our affairs has recently brought every European power as a client into this court, and it became every day more apparent what gigantic and what remote interests were to be affected by the decision of the President,—­one can hardly say the deliberation was too long.  Against all timorous counsels he had the courage to seize the moment; and such was his position, and such the felicity attending the action, that he has replaced Government in the good graces of mankind.  “Better is virtue in the sovereign than plenty in the season,” say the Chinese.  ’Tis wonderful what power is, and how ill it is used, and how its ill use makes life mean, and the sunshine dark.  Life in America had lost much of its attraction in the later years.  The virtues of a good magistrate undo a world of mischief, and, because Nature works with rectitude, seem vastly more potent than the acts of bad governors, which are ever tempered by the good-nature in the people, and the incessant resistance which fraud and violence encounter.

The acts of good governors work at a geometrical ratio, as one midsummer day seems to repair the damage of a year of war.

A day which most of us dared not hope to see, an event worth the dreadful war, worth its costs and uncertainties, seems now to be close before us.  October, November, December will have passed over beating hearts and plotting brains:  then the hour will strike, and all men of African descent who have faculty enough to find their way to our lines are assured of the protection of American law.