ernment which is not effected and sustained by force. The same reasoning applies to the Czar of Russia as to the President or the Congress. The Czar, by his edict, freed every serf in Russia; but even he, whose will is law, could not have emancipated a serf in his enemy's occupation. The proclamation was in the nature of legislation, an edict professing to rest upon war powers; but the thing it undertook to do can not be done in that way. It may be done by adequate force, subject to the contingencies of war, but it can not be done by anything which is a mere expression of will, even if that will be the will of an absolute sovereign. It was our policy to close all the Southern ports to foreign trade. It is surprising to remember how many persons thought at first that that could be effected by an act of Congress, and had to be taught that legislation could effect nothing beyond the line of bayonets, and that we could only close the ports by a blockade. So as to all other attempts to substitute will for force in an actual war. No one supposed the President could decree a victory, or proclaim territory to be within our military control and subject to our authority, which was not so in fact. Yet it is somewhat surprising to see how general has been the misapprehension respecting the character and effect of this proclamation. But, on further consideration, it is not matter of so much surprise. This leads us to revert to the state of things at that time, so well set forth by President Welling.

The border slaveholding States in the Union required careful treatment, and received great consideration. The President thoroughly adopted their policy, the object of which was to restore the Union without affecting slavery. In the free States there was a large political party supporting this policy, which, acting with the border slave States, it was feared might at any time obtain the control of Congress, and make a peace favorable to slavery. While this policy was in the ascendant we made little progress, suffered great reverses, and the public mind was in great agitation. The opinion increased rapidly that slavery was the real question at issue; that it formed the strength and gave the materials to the enemy, and was the one thing that held them closely together-more closely than anything could hold the North together, unless it should be a determination to destroy slavery under the military power. President Welling has described how great was the "pressure" which was brought to bear upon the President in this direction, and how deeply it affected him. We all remember that what was demanded was a change of the policy of the war from the Ken

tucky policy to the Massachusetts policy; from that of the border slave States and what may be called the border politicians in the free States, to that of the people who believed that nothing could be done effectually until we took hold upon slavery.

To this pressure the President yielded and issued the proclamation. Was this proclamation what was expected? It seems, from President Welling's quotations, that Mr. Chase, who had been most earnest for the change of policy, had limited his expectations by the rules of public law, and looked only for a military order which should carry emancipation wherever the flag went, and was surprised at the position taken. Mr. Seward seems to have favored practical emancipation, but to have opposed a proclamation. From Mr. Welles's letters, it is plain that he did not advise it. It would seem, therefore, that in this, as in many other cases, the Cabinet was not consulted. I believe that, if the President had issued a proclamation in the form of a military order, requiring all slaves to be emancipated as fast and as far as the flag advanced, and pledging to the emancipated slaves our utmost efforts to secure them in their freedom, and if he had expressed it with that power and pathos of language of which the untutored Abraham Lincoln was a master, it would have answered the expectations of the country, given him the just fame of a liberator, and raised no question under public law.

I remember that, after the preliminary proclamation of the 22d of September, 1862, I had an interview with Mr. Sumner upon the subject, just before his return to Washington. It was plain that the final proclamation was to come, and I feared, from the preliminary, that it would take the form it did. I presented to him substantially the objections which are now made, but I could not secure from him a serious consideration of the objections. He was under great excitement, and, it seemed to me, was under the impression that there was a necessity overruling all other considerations for freeing all the slaves in the country, and that the proclamation would give them the status of freedom. I can not but think that if Mr. Pierce shall continue his biography to the year 1863, we shall have more light than we now have as to who is responsible for the position taken in the proclamation, and for the pressure which led to its adoption. It is plain that Mr. Lincoln himself, in urging afterward the adoption of the amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, doubted the effect of his proclamation. A more careful examination of those biographies and letters which have

lately been brought to light may show whether he was not subject to the same doubts at the time he issued it. I talked with Mr. Seward on the subject after the proclamation appeared, but he made no explanation, and when I asked him why, if it was simply a war measure by the commander-in-chief, he countersigned it as Secretary of State, he replied that that was a compromise, not saying between whom or what, and I did not pursue the subject.

The slaves of the South seem to have made no mistake as to their status. They knew they were not free while their masters held them and the territory. They looked to the gunboats and the Stars and Stripes, and regarded the proclamation only as a promise which would fail or be made good according to the issue of the war. As to the people of the North, they were in no humor to "reason too precisely upon the event." They were impatient under the existing policy, and looked for a change. They saw that change in the proclamation, and cared little in what form it came or what else it undertook to do. They had been disgusted by the advice that had been offered them on constitutional questions by over-technical or semi-loyal men. Jurists had advised that the prize courts were unconstitutional, that no property could be taken, at sea or on land, except in the way of penalty for treason, after a jury-trial; that we could not blockade our own ports; that though an army and a militia were constitutional, volunteers and conscriptions were not; and, at the bottom of all, that the republic could not coerce a State. It is little wonder, therefore, that they were impatient of any criticism upon the proclamation. On the other hand, unquestionable patriots, educated in a narrow school of strict construction -chief among whom was Mr. Thaddeus Stevens-were telling the people that the only way to save the Union was to run the Constitution ashore; and, to ease the conscience of doubters, the phrase "extra constitutional" was invented-a phrase which, in logic, meant nothing, and was never heeded by men who studied the Constitution in the light of the letters of "The Federalist," the judgments of John Marshall, the essays of Story, and the speeches of Webster.

Fortunately, the proclamation was never brought to a test. There can be little doubt that foreign states and our own judiciary would have treated it as ineffectual. When the Southern armies surrendered and dispersed, and the Confederate Government had fallen through and was abandoned, and we were in military occupation of all the strongholds of what had been, in the sense of the laws of

war, enemy territory, we were competent, under the rules of war, to emancipate every existing slave. And no doubt the proclamation of January 1, 1863, though such were not its terms, brought about a system of progressive military emancipation, taking effect as we advanced. But for the prohibition of slavery thereafter in the conquered States, under their Constitutions, as well as in the loyal States, very different action was required. The abolition of the slave system, as it stood in the Constitutions of so many States, was beyond the reach of the mere military power of the President or of Congress. It called for the ultimate, sovereign legislative action of "we, the people of the United States," in the form of an amendment of the Constitution; and this, when adopted, precluded all question as to attempted past emancipation or abolition by proclamation.

I should regret extremely if what I have felt obliged to say should lead any one to think me disposed to join in attempts to detract from the fame of Abraham Lincoln. I never failed to sustain his Administration, when at one time the conservatives, and at another the radicals, stood in threatening or dubious attitudes. His fame as a statesman, an orator, and a liberator, as a man of kind heart and serious thought, is established. Nothing can be added to it by fiction, and it would be simply fiction to represent to the people that the proclamation, as conceived and issued, abolished slavery or emancipated a slave. Knowing, as all do, of the powers of Mr. Lincoln's mind and the sincerity of his purpose, we can not but earnestly desire that further research may furnish satisfactory explanations of what is now a curiosity of history.

RICHARD H. DANA.

THE CENSUS LAWS.

If the object of the framers of the Constitution had been to form either a consolidated Government, or a confederation of equal sovereign states, the general enumeration of all citizens would not have been a necessary provision of fundamental law. But since the States composing the Union are regarded as equal units in certain views and for certain purposes, while for others their rank and weight are determined by the number of their inhabitants, it became a political necessity to provide for a census at regular intervals. Advantage was early taken of the machinery created by law for this purpose, to gather in addition some statistics of industry and mortality. Before the close of the last century, the American Philosophical Society, of which Thomas Jefferson was president, memorialized Congress on this subject, representing that "the decennial census offered an occasion of great value for ascertaining sundry facts highly important to society and not otherwise, to be obtained." It therefore prayed that "the next census might be so taken as to present a more detailed view of the inhabitants of the United States under several different aspects." A similar memorial was presented by the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, through its president, Timothy Dwight.

Attention to the possibilities of the census having thus been drawn by thoughtful men, a series of tentative extensions of the work has followed. The population schedule was considerably enlarged in 1800, and in 1810 the Secretary of State, then charged with the execution of the work, made the first systematic endeavor to obtain the statistics of the industries of the country. Lack of experience and organization rendered the results of little value, and it was not until 1840 that any reasonable measure of exactness was obtained. The importance of the subject was, however, now so generally recognized, that in 1849 the law was carefully remodeled