"In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand 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 Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixtythree, and of the independence of the United States of America the eightyseventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

"WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

F. B. Carpenter, who painted the memorable scene of the first reading in Cabinet council of the Emancipation Proclamation, says:

66 First, is the 'Magna Charter' wrested by the Barons of England from King John; second, the Declaration of Independence; and third, worthy to be placed upon the tablets of history, side by side with the two first is Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation."

Bishop Simpson said, as he was about to commit the remains of its author to the tomb:

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'May we not assert that Abraham Lincoln, by his proclamation, liberated more enslaved people than Moses set free, and those ngt of his kindred or race. Such a power or such an opportunity, God has seldom given to man. When other events shall have been forgotten, when this world shall become a net work of republics, when every throne shall be swept from the face of the earth, when literature shall enlighten all minds, when the claims of humanity shall be recognized everywhere, this act shall still be conspicuous in the ages of history. We are thankful that God gave Abraham Lincoln the decision, wisdom and grace to issue that proclamation, which stands high above all other papers which have been penned by uninspired men.”

On one of the public squares in the Nation's capital stands a bronze group entitled "Emancipation." President Lincoln, holding in his hand the Emancipation Proclamation, looks tenderly down on a poor kneeling slave to whom he reaches a helping hand. The whips and the broken manacles of slavery lie scattered around. It is the finest piece of statuary that adorns the capital grounds, and was erected from funds given by the liberated slaves. The first contribution was from Charlotte Scott, a freed woman, who gave five dollars, being her first earnings in freedom and consecrated by her on the day she heard of Lincoln's, death, to build a monument to his memory. The pen of the historian is here powerless to express the blissful gratitude and the exultant joy of the long oppressed race as they gaze on this symbol of their freedom, and raise their tearful eyes to him who lifted them from the degradation of slavery to upright manhood.

CHAPTER XXX.

REASONS FOR EMANCIPATION-BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG.

The position and action of President Lincoln in regard to his policy and treatment of slavery was peculiar. Had he taken council of his own abstract opinions and sympathies and proclaimed emancipation at the beginning of the rebellion, and ratified the action of those department officers who assumed to do it themselves, the first effect would, without doubt, have been to have driven all the border States into union with the rebellious States, and have added their large forces to the armies of the Confederacy. Further results would have been to arouse the political opposition in the loyal States to renewed activity by giving it a fresh pretext for its secession, utterances and sentiments, and would have divided the great body of those who agreed in defending the Union, but who did not agree in regard to the abolition of slavery. Candid men who pay more regard to facts than to theory, and who can estimate with fairness the results of public action, will see that the probable results of these several influences would have given great strength to the Confederacy, and so have weakened the Union cause as to have overpowered the administration and have given to the rebellion success and victory. Time, the development of events, the ripening conviction of the necessity of such a measure were indispensable as preliminary conditions of its success, and by the awaiting of and the development of public opinion President Lincoln secured a support absolutely essential to success; and there are but few persons to be found, whatever may be their private opinion as to slavery, who will not concede that his measures in reference to that subject were adopted with sagacity, and prosecuted to completion with a patient wisdom which crowned them with final success. In the treatment of this subject, as upon every other, he aimed at practical results instead of indulgence in theory. He used no power over slavery until the necessity had arisen by which alone its exercise under the Constitution could be vindicated, and he went no further and no faster in the steps he took for its abolishment than public sentiment would warrant and sustain

him in doing. His policy secured the final abolition of slavery. It not only decreed the result but it secured it in such a way and by such successive steps each demanded by the special exigency of its own occasion as to command the acquiescence of most of the slave States.

The President, in his letter of April 4, 1864, to Mr. Hodges of Kentucky, states with characteristic force the motives by which his action had been governed. He said: “I did understand, however, that the very oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving by every indispensable means that Government-that Nation of which the Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the Nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save life, but a life is not wisely given to save a limb. I feel that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the Nation.

66 Right or wrong I assumed this ground, and now I avow it. I could not feel to the best of my ability I had ever tried to preserve the Constitution if to preserve slavery or any minor matter I should permit the wreck of Government, country and Constitution altogether.

"When early in the war General Fremont attempted military emancipation I forbade it because I did not think it an indispensable necessity. When still later General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had

come.

"When in March, May and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come unless averted by that measure.

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They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union and with it the Constitution, or laying strong hands on the colored element. I chose the latter."

After the battle of Fredericksburg in December, 1862, in which the Union army under General Burnside suffered a severe repulse, the Army of the Potomac remained inactive for several months. The military movements and events of 1863 were of signal importance, and the result gave hope and, confidence to the loyal people of the Union. On the 24th of January General Burnside was relieved by the appointment of General Hooker to the command of the Army of the Potomac ; but the inclemency of the season prevented any movement of the army until the 17th of April, when General Hooker, with three divisions of his army, crossed the Rappahanock and reached Chancellorville. General Stoneman had been sent with a strong cavalry to break the

railroads in the rear of the rebel army. In the meantime, a fourth division of the army had crossed the river and joined the army at Chancellorville, leaving one division under General Sedgwick opposite Fredericksburg. On the 2d day of May the left of the rebel army under General Jackson attacked the right of the Union army and gained a decided advantage of position, which was recovered before the day closed. In this day's battle General Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded. The battle was renewed the next day; the advantage remained with the enemy. In the meantime, General Sedgwick crossed the river with his division and occupied Fredericksburg, and attacked and carried the rebel fortifications on the heights in rear of the city. In consequence of the Union reverses at Chancellorville, on the night of the 5th General Hooker withdrew his army to the north bank of the river, having sustained a severe loss of men, killed and prisoners.

Both armies remained inactive until June 9, when it was ascertained that General Lee, with the rebel army, was moving up through the Shenandoah valley. They pressed General Milroy back on Harper's Ferry, and on the 14th of June the rebel army began to cross the Potomac and advanced to Hagerstown, Maryland, with the evident intention of invading Pennsylvania. This movement of the rebel army created the most intense excitement throughout the country. President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for one hundred thousand men from the States most directly menaced, New York being called upon for twenty thousand. As soon as the movement of the rebel forces from Fredericksburg was discovered, the Union army marched northward on a line parallel with the enemy, and on the 27th of June the Union army reached Frederick City, Maryland, being interposed between the rebel army and Baltimore and Washington, and were prepared to follow them into Pennsylvania. On the 27th General Hooker was relieved from the command of the army at his own request and the appointment was conferred on General Meade, who at once ordered an advance into Pennsylvania in the direction of Harrisburg, which place the rebels were rapidly approaching. On the 1st day of July, the Union army advance, consisting of the first and eleventh army corps under command of Generals Reynolds and Howard, came in contact with the enemy's advance in force near the town of Gettysburg, and attacked them with success. The rebels being reinforced later in the day, the Union forces were compelled to fall back to Cemetery hill, under General Howard, and await reinforcements. In this engagement General Reynolds was killed, and the advantage remained with the enemy. During the night, the second, third, fifth and twelfth corps arrived and were posted around and on Cemetery ridge to support the first and eleventh corps. At 2 o'clock P. M. on the second day the sixth corps arrived after a march of thirty-two miles, and were placed in reserve. At 3 o'clock P. M. the battle

was opened by a furious and determined onset by Lee, whose forces were massed in great strength on Seminary ridge about one mile in front of the Union troops. The attack was made upon the third corps, which was the left of the Union line, by the rebels, with all their enthusiastic bravado. The third corps met the shock with heroic firmness. General Sickels was severely wounded early in the action, and General Birney, who succeeded in command of the third corps, was finally pressed back in line with the Union forces, which position General Meade intended General Sickels with the third corps should have occupied early in the day. Here, aided by the first and sixth corps, the position was held until sunset, when the enemy was repelled with loss, leaving our troops in the position that General Meade intended they should hold. A desperate attempt was made by the enemy to take and hold Round Top, the left of the Union position, but General Sykes, with the fifth corps, was enabled, after a severe and bloody contest, to repulse the enemy and hold the hill against the repeated attempts to take it. On the Union's right the withdrawal of a division from Slocum's corps enabled Ewell with a superior force to crowd back Slocum considerably and seize some of the rifle pits; but this attack of the enemy on the Union forces gave them no advantage. The battle of the second day closed at dark; the results of the day gave the rebels encouragement and hopes that favorable results would follow, but subsequent events proved that their anticipations were illusive.

Lee, in his official report says: "After a severe struggle, Longstreet succeeded in getting possession of and holding the desired ground. Ewell also carried some of the strong positions which he assailed, and the result was such as to lead to the belief that he would be able to dislodge the enemy. The battle ceased at dark. These partial successes determined me to continue the assault the next day."

The battle opened the next morning, July 3, on the right of the Union line, where Slocum-his division having returned from the left of the Union line-pressed his corps forward to retake the rifle pits. He was successful, and after a severe contest, he re-established his line and held it during the day. Not here, but on the Union center, was the last, final effort to be made by the rebels to secure and maintain a foothold on free soil. They seemed to apprehend that their failure this day would decide the fate of their Confederacy. In the meantime Lee had reinforced Longstreet with three fresh brigades under Pickett, a division from Ewell, and two divisions from Hill's corps. The rebel left was firmly established, and its batteries planted on the ridge whence the Union forces had been forced back the previous day. The Union line was prepared for the coming contest. The Union soldiers were silent but anxious spectators, while the rebels were making their preparations