probable the assumption that its appearance was somewhat delayed, awaiting the issue of the struggle in Maryland, which terminated with the battle of Antietam."

There were some counterbalancing changes in the States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, as also in that of California, where the larger share of the Douglas vote of 1860 was in '62 cast for the Union tickets; but it was clear, at the close of the State Elections of that year, that the general ill success of the War for the Union, the wide-spread and increasing repugnance to Conscription, Taxation, a depreciated Currency, and high-priced Fabrics, were arraying Public Sentiment against the further prosecution of the contest. Of course, the Opposition inveighed against the management of the War and of the Finances, the treatment of Gen. McClellan, and the general inefficiency and incapacity of the Administration; but the strength of that Opposition inhered in popular repugnance to the sacrifices ex1860-PRESIDENT. 1862-GOV. OR CONGRESS. acted by and the perils involved in a 295,897 806,649 prosecution of the struggle, though

Whether the open adhesion of the President at last to the policy of Emancipation did or did not contribute to the general defeat of his supporters in the State Elections which soon followed, is still fairly disputable. By those elections, Horatio Seymour was made Governor of New York and Joel Parker of New Jersey: supplanting Governors Morgan and Olden; while Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, also gave Opposition majorities; and Michigan, Wisconsin, and most other Western States, showed a decided falling off in Administration strength. The general result of those elections is summed up in the following table:

States.

LINCOLN. All others. ADMIN. Opp.
312,510

New York.... 362.646

62.801

New Jersey...

58,324

46,710 61.807

215,616 219.140 its most general and taking clamor

178,755 184,332

118.517 128 160 deprecated only "The perversion of 62.102 the War for the Union into a War

120.116 186,662
68,716

66,801 67,985

50.98 for the Negro." Ignoring the sol

9266,014
15,754 11,442

1860-Lincoln maj.-41.

16

57

1862-Opposition maj., 10.

4

diers battling for the Union-of whom at least three-fourths voted

Republican at each election wherein they were allowed to vote at all; but who had not yet been enabled to vote in the field, while their absence created a chasm in the Administration 12 vote at home-it is quite probable that, had a popular election been i held at any time during the year following the Fourth of July, 1862, on the question of continuing the War or arresting it on the best attainable

14

9

8

67

NOTE-A new apportionment under the Census of 1860 terms, a majority would have voted

changed materially, between 1860 and 1862, the number

of Representatives from several of the States.

for Peace; while it is highly proba

"Fought Sept. 17th-Proclamation of Free- Wisconsin Soldiers' Vote: Admn., 8,373; Opp., dom, dated 22d. 2,046. No other States had yet authorized their

"Soldiers' vote: Admn., 14,874; Opp., 4,115. | soldiers in the field to vote.

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 tak-
ing 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 accept-
ing 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 pur-
pose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the
full period of one hundred days from the
day first above mentioned, order and des-
ignate as the States and parts of States
wherein the people thereof respectively are
States, the following: to wit:
this day in rebellion against the United

"Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, 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, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which ex

"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 authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

Having taken a long step in the right 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, in the year of our Lord 1563, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive

Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.'

That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, 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, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong 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 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 vessels 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. "By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

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.

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.'

SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION IN CONGRESS. 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

2

1 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."