LINCOLN'S SECOND PROCLAMATION OF FREEDOM.

255

ble that a still larger majority would | States in time of actual armed rebellion

have voted against Emancipation. From an early hour of the struggle, the public mind slowly and steadily gravitated toward the conclusion that the Rebellion was vulnerable only or mainly through Slavery; but that conclusion was scarcely reached by a majority before the occurrence of the New York Riots, in July, 1863. The President, though widely reproached with tardiness and reluctance in taking up the gage plainly thrown down by the Slave Power, was probably ahead of a majority of the people of the loyal States in definitively accepting the issue of Emancipation or Dis

union.

the United States, and as a fit and necessary against the authority and Government of war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above mentioned, order and desiguate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following: to wit:

"Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourchie, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, PrinHaving taken a long step in the cess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which exright direction, he never retracted nor cepted parts are, for the present, left preciseseemed to regret it; though he some-ly as if this proclamation were not issued. times observed that the beneficial results of the Emancipation policy were neither so signal nor so promptly realized as its sanguine promoters had anticipated. Nevertheless, on the day appointed, he issued his absolute Proclamation of Freedom, as follows:

Whereas, on the 22d day of September, in the year of our Lord 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United | States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the 1st day of January, ia the year of our Lond 1963, al persons hell as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then he ia rebelion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Goverment of the United States, including the military and nasal authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no get or sets to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their setual freedom."

That the Excentive will, on the first day of January

afres del, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shail on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at eleetions wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shal, in the absence of string countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.

"Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-inchief of the Army and Navy of the United

"And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval anthorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

"And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man yessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

"In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

"Done at the city of Washington, this 1st day of January, in the year of our [L. s.] Lord 1863, and of the independence of the United States the 87th.

On the abstract question of the | the Union-an efficient instrument in the

right of the Government to proclaim and enforce Emancipation, Edward Everett, in a speech in Faneuil Hall, Boston, October, 1864, forcibly said:

"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

hands of the Rebels for carrying on the war -a 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 to recognize a right in a Rebel master to employ his slave in acts of rebellion and treason. and the duty of the slave to aid and abet his master in the commission of the greatest crime known to the law. No such absurdity can be admitted; and any citizen of the United States, from the President down, who should, by any overt act, recognize the duty of a slave to obey a Rebel master in a hostile operation, would himself be giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

XII.

SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION IN CONGRESS.

ly growing consciousness steadily growing in the legislative as well as the popular' mind-that Slavery had closed with the Union in mortal strife-a struggle which both could not survive.'

THE XXXVIIth Congress, as we the extra session, evinced a steadihave seen-while endeavoring to evade or to avert its eyes from the fact that it was Slavery which was waging deadly war on the Uniondid yet give fair notice, through the guarded but decisive language of some of the more conservative Republicans, that, if the Rebellion were persisted in, it must inevitably result in the overthrow of Slavery. And the action of that Congress, even at

'Vol I., pp. 564-8.

"On the day after the Bull Run rout, the writer first heard this conviction openly declared. The credit of the avowal belongs to Gen. John Cochrane.

Hon. Elisha R. Potter, of Rhode Islandwho may be fairly styled the hereditary chief of the Democratic party of that State-made a speech on the War to the Senate thereof on the 10th of August, 1861. After distributing the blame of inciting the War between the Northern and the Southern 'ultras,' dilating on the resources of the South, and elucidating the nofighting, ‘anaconda' mode of warfare proposed

Still, President Lincoln hesitated and held back; anxious that the Union should retain its hold on the Border Slave States, especially on Kentucky; and apparently hoping by Gen. Scott, and apparently acceded to by the Cabinet, he proceeds:

"I have said that the war may assume another aspect, and be a short and bloody one. And to such a war-an anti-Slavery war-it seems to me we are inevitably drifting. It seems to me hardly in the power of human wisdom to prevent it. We may commence the war without meaning to interfere with Slavery; but let us have one or two battles, and get our blood excited, and we shall not only not restore any more slaves, but shall proclaim freedom wherever we go. And it seems to me almost judicial blindness on the part of the South that they do not see that this must be the inevitable result, if the contest is prolonged."