influence was great in his own State, and considerable throughout the Union. In a great speech made on the 23d of April, in opposition to the confiscation bill, he said:

"I voted against Mr. Lincoln, and opposed him honestly and sincerely, but Mr. Lincoln has won me to his side. There is a niche in the temple of fame, a niche near to Washington, which should be occupied by the statue of him who shall save this country. Mr. Lincoln has a mighty destiny. It is for him, if he will, to step into that niche. It is for him to be but a President of the people of the United States, and there will his statue be. But if he choose to be, in these times, a mere sectarian and a party man, that niche will be reserved for some future and better patriot. It is in his power to occupy a place next to Washington-the founder and the preserver, side by side. Sir, Mr. Lincoln is no coward. His not doing what the Constitution forbade him to do, and what all of our institutions forbade him to do, is no proof of his cowardice."

This Speech of Mr. Crittenden, was regarded as an appeal from the ablest, and most influential border State man, to Mr. Lincoln, to stay his hand; to withhold the proclamation of Emancipation, and save the imperiled institution of slavery.

The border State men were ready to crown him the peer of Washington, if he would save slavery. Lovejoy, who knew Mr. Lincoln well, and appreciated him, replied:

"The gentleman from Kentucky, says, he has a niche for Abraham Lincoln. Where is it? He points upwards. But sir. should the President follow the counsels of that gentleman, and become the defender and perpetuator of human slavery, he should point downward to some dungeon in the temple of Moloch, who feeds on human blood, and is surrounded with fires where are forged manacles and chains for human limbs in the crypts and recesses of whose temple, woman is scourged and man tortured, and outside the walls, are lying, dogs gorged with human flesh, as Byron describes them, stretched around Stamboul. 'That' said he, is a suitable place for the statue of one who would defend and perpetuate slavery.

"Sir, the friends of American slavery need not beslime the President with their praise. He is an anti-slavery man! He hates human bondage. The gentleman says he did not vote for him. Why did not the gentleman remind the House that he did vote for a man now among the rebels? I did vote for the occupant of the Executive Chair, and labored

for his election, as I never labored for that of any other man. If the gentleman wants to sustain the President in his administration in its stormy and perilous voyage, why did he not vote for his wise and patriotic message, hailed and approved, so far as I know, by the whole country, except slaveholders? I voted cordially for that message. Extreme men, as they are called, voted for that message. On saying as I have said, slavery must perish, I do not mean that it must perish at once necessarily. Nor while I say that the slaves can take care of themselves, and that they should be let alone, do I mean to preclude the idea of colonization that is not compulsory. The message of the President, therefore, presented ground where all might stand, the conservative and radical, and with common purpose and combined effort, put forth their exertions for the beneficent object of universal emancipation, accompanied by colonization, if just to the slave, and best for the country. Why did not the gentleman vote for it? I yield to no one in my honest belief in the pure patriotism of the President. I believe in these respects, he stands by the side of Washington.

that

"I too, have a niche for Abraham Lincoln; but it is in Freedom's holy fane, and not in the blood besmeared temple of human bondage; not surrounded by slave fetters and chains, but with the symbols of freedom; not dark with bondage, but radiant with the light of liberty. In that niche he shall stand proudly, nobly, gloriously, with shattered fetters and broken chains, and slave whips beneath his feet. If Abraham Lincoln pursues the path evidently pointed out for him in the providence of God, as I believe he will, then he will occupy the proud position I have indicated. That is a fame worth living for; aye, more, is a fame worth dying for, though that death led through the blood of Gethsemane, and the agony of the accursed tree. That is a fame which has glory and honor, and immortality and eternal life. Let Abraham Lincoln make himself, as I trust he will, the emancipator, the liberator, as he has the opportunity of doing, and his name shall not only be enrolled in this earthly temple, but it will be traced on the living stones of that temple which rears itself amid the thrones and hierarchies of Heaven, whose top stone is to be brought in with shouting of grace, grace, unto it.

"It is said that Wilberforce went up to the judgment seat with the broken chains of eight hundred thousand emancipated slaves. And it is not too much to believe that the slave liberated by the beneficent power of the President, should, in that future world, next to the God that made him, and the Savior who redeemed him, thank the benefactor who released him from the thraldom of slavery, and allowed him to learn the pathway to Heaven in the light of that volume which had to

him, been a sealed book. This is a fame worthy the aspirations of the noblest nature. But the soul recoils from the accursed and bloody fame to which the gentleman would consign the President as the champion of human bondage, and the preserver and perpetuator of American slavery."

Dark would his fame be! darker still
His immortality of ill.

These two speeches, from the champions of slavery and freedom, were read to Mr. Lincoln, in his library at the White House, a room to which he sometimes retired. He was moved by the picture which Lovejoy drew. The tremendous responsibilities growing out of the slavery question; how he ought to treat those sons of "unrequited toil," were questions, sinking deeper and deeper into his heart. With a purpose firmly to follow the path of duty, as God gave him to see his duty, he earnestly sought the divine guidance.

The Select Committee, to which the subject was referred, by Mr. Elliott, reported two bills: "a bill to confiscate the property of rebels," etc., and "a bill to free from servitude, the slaves of rebels engaged in abetting the existing rebellion against the United States." The latter bill declares a forfeiture of all claims to service by an armed rebel to the persons known as slaves, and makes them free. It declares that the fact that a claimant had been in arms against the United States in the rebellion, should be a good defence to any claim of service set up by him. It required every claimant to establish affirmatively, not only his claim to the service, but his own loyalty.

The passage of this bill was earnestly and ably pressed by Elliott, of Massachusetts, and Noell, of Missouri. This earnest patriot from the slave State of Missouri, urged the passage of the bill in the following terms:

"But it is the weakness of cowards, or sympathy for murderous traitors, that now while they confront us at all points with arms in their hands, and shoot down our fathers, sons, husbands, lovers and friends, that now lifts up weak hands in helpless horror and raise querulous voices in feeble wails and cries for mercy to the rebels. Mercy now, is treason, rape, arson, an infraction of the whole decalogue; and I suspect the brain or heart of him who now speaks of

forbearance towards them. But the legislation which we are now to enact, is to be enforced when the rebel is disarmed, and lies bound and helpless in our prison, to receive, in unquestioning silence, the blow we now lift over him. Do not talk to me of the danger of stimulating his hatred, or of aggravating his hostility by threatened severity; he has been at his murderous work for a twelvemonth. Do not talk to me of making him desperate; but we may with profit contemplate his changed fortune and temper, when subdued and abject, he awaits in chains, our utterance of his doom. We can deal with the rebels in only two ways; collectively in States, and severally as individuals.

"I would free the slave of every man and woman engaged in this rebellion. The guilt of the master should inure at least to the benefit of the slave, and from this huge crime should spring a greater beneficence."

Mr. Sedgwick, of New York, said:

"As the purpose of this war is to perpetuate slavery, and as this institution is the cause of the war, we will break it down, destroy and overthrow the institution. I am for destroying this hostile institution in every State that has made war upon the Government, and if we have military strength enough to reduce them to possession, I propose to leave not one slave in the wake of our advancing armies - not one!"

The bills passed the House on the 26th of May, and on the 23d of June, were taken up for consideration in the Senate. Finally, the Senate adopted its own bill as a substitute, and passed it. On the 3d of July, the House took up the confiscation bill as amended by the Senate, and refused to concur in the Senate amendment, and a conference committee was appointed. This committee reported a bill combining confiscation and emancipation in one bill. It provided that all slaves of persons who should give aid and comfort to the rebellion, who should take refuge within the lines of the army; all slaves captured from rebels, or deserted by rebels and being under the control of the Government, and all slaves of rebels found or being within places occupied by rebel forces, and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free and not again held as slaves; that fugitive slaves should not be surrendered to persons who had given aid and comfort to the rebellion; that no person engaged in the mili

tary or naval service should surrender fugitive slaves on pain of being dismissed from the service, and that the President should be authorized to employ persons of African descent to suppress the rebellion, and that he might organize and use them in such manner as he might deem best for the publie welfare. The report was accepted, and the bill, on the 17th of July, 1862, received the approval of the President, and became a law. This approval of the President, however, was not obtained until a joint resolution had been adopted by Congress, as follows:

"That the provisions of the third clause of the fifth section of ‘An Act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes,' shall be so construed as not to apply to any act or acts done prior to the passage thereof; nor to include any member of a State Legislature, or judge of any State court who has not, in accepting or entering upon his office taken an oath to support the Constitution of the so-called Confederate States of America; nor shall any punishment or proceedings under said act be so construed as to work a forfeiture of the real estate of the offender, beyond his natural life.”

This law has been justly characterized as the first great act of emancipation. Its importance has not been fully appreciated. How comprehensive its terms. It declares that every slave claimed or held by a rebel should be freed. There were comparatively few slaves other than those claimed by rebels. It declares that every slave who should flee to, or take refuge within the army, should be free. The army was to carry liberty to every man who came under the flag.

The President, on the day of the approval of this bill, sent to Congress a message, in which he stated that he considered the confiscation act, and the joint resolution explanatory of said act, as being substantially one, and he therefore approved and signed both. He also communicated to Congress the draft of a message stating his objections to the bill, without the explanatory resolutions. This act, on the part of Mr. Lincoln, was one of the same frank and open character which always marked his intercourse with Congress. It is known, however, that he subsequently modified his views of the powers of Congress upon the subject of confiscation, and