General Government.

They looked with especial suspicion and distrust upon the guarded
utterances of the President upon all questions touching the future of
the Colored Race.

[At Faneuil Hall, Edward Everett is reported to have said, in
October of 1864:

"It is very doubtful whether any act of the Government of the
United States was necessary to liberate the Slaves in a State which
is in Rebellion. There is much reason for the opinion that, by the
simple act of levying War against the United States, the relation
of Slavery was terminated; certainly, so far as concerns the duty
of the United States to recognize it, or to refrain from
interfering with it.

"Not being founded on the Law of Nature, and resting solely on
positive Local Law--and that, not of the United States--as soon as
it becomes either the motive or pretext of an unjust War against
the Union--an efficient instrument in the hands of the Rebels for
carrying on the War--source of Military strength to the Rebellion,
and of danger to the Government at home and abroad, with the
additional certainty that, in any event but its abandonment, it
will continue, in all future time to work these mischiefs, who can
suppose it is the duty of the United States to continue to
recognize it.

"To maintain this would be a contradiction in terms. It would be
two recognize a right in a Rebel master to employ his Slave in acts