There have not been wanting men and newspapers to urge that the United States should reimburse the slave-holders of the South for the wholesale confiscation, so to speak, of their property.

True, these men and newspapers belong to that class of unrepentants who believed that slavery was a _Divine institution_ and that the slave-holder was a sort of vicegerent of heaven, a holy Moses, as it were.

But when we leave the absurdity of this claim, which lies upon the surface, there is much apparent reason in their representations.

It was the _Union_ which legalized the sale and purchase of slave property, thereby inviting capitalists to invest in it; and it was the _Union_ which declared such contracts null and void by the abolition of slavery, or confiscation of slave property.

As I said before, I have no sympathy with those who invested their money in slave property.