This letter was published on the 19th of August, and on the 22d, Mr. Lincoln issued from the Executive Mansion a reply. This answer, frank, open, generous and conscientious, unfolded to the people the motives which controlled his conduct. Mr. Lincoln was criticised for replying to the latter, as an act wanting in dignity. But this being a government of the people, he as their President, wished them fully to understand his motives. He said:

'My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would do it."

He was not yet quite prepared to issue a proclamation fraught with such momentous consequences; yet his mind was anxiously revolving the subject; he discussed it with all from whom he supposed he could obtain new suggestions or arguments, or from whom he could learn the drift of public opinion. He would often make suggestions, and argue the case against emancipation to obtain the views of others.

To personal friends of the Illinois delegation in Congress, who conferred with him on the subject, he said that, in his letter to Mr. Greeley, he meant that he would proclaim freedom to the slave just as soon as he felt assured he could do it effectively; that the people would stand by him, and that, by doing so, he could strengthen the Union cause. He was assured by them in reply, that the people would stand by him, and that they were impatient for it.

On the 13th of September, 1862, he received a delegation of the clergy of nearly all the religious denominations of Chicago, who waited upon him with a memorial, urging immediate emancipation.

For the purpose of fully eliciting their views, he started objections to the policy they urged, and in accordance with his old practice at the bar, he made an argument against his own views, and against the policy he had nearly or quite concluded to pursue. After a full conference and free discussion, the President said, "I have not decided against a

proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement; and I can assure you the matter is on my mind by day and by night, more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do."

While this momentous question was thus agitating the mind of the President, involving the existence of slavery in North America, while the civilized world was watching with interest the result, the intense feeling and anxiety on the subject, found expression in daily prayers, sent up from church, cottage, and cabin, all through the loyal North, beseeching the great God to guide the President to the right conclusion. Thousands believed that the fate not only of African slavery, but also of the Republic hung upon the issue. The friends of freedom from Europe, from France, Italy, Germany and Great Britain, sent messages to their friends on this side of the water, saying that recognition and intervention were iminent, and that the best and most efficient means of prevention, was to make the distinct issue with slavery. Some of our representatives at foreign Courts, advised the Secretary of State, that there was danger of intervention by foreign Governments, and that such danger could be best averted by emancipation.

The friends of the Union abroad had become somewhat indifferent. The organs of the rebellion in Europe, represented everywhere, that it was a mere struggle for empire, involving, no great principle. The policy of several of the military commanders towards the slaves, the concessions constantly made to the border slave States, disgusted many ardent friends of liberty at home and abroad; as a remedy for this, the friends of the Union and liberty urged that the President should proclaim " freedom throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof."

What, meanwhile, was the action and feelings of the negroes? They had long prayed for, hoped for freedom. The North star had often guided the panting fugitive to liberty. Armies had come to the slave from the free States, fighting their masters. The starry flag they now believed was to be the emblem of their liberty, as well as that of the white man. The Union soldiers had been always welcomed by the

negro. Food, guidance, information, succor and aid, to the extent of his limited and humble means were never sought from him in vain.

The millions of slaves from the Shenandoah to the rice. swamps of Carolina, and the cane-brakes of Louisiana, believed that their day of Jubilee approached. In the fastnesses of swamps and forests, the long enslaved and downtrodden negro prayed for " Massa Linkum," and liberty. Their hopes and prayers for freedom have been happily expressed by the poet Whittier from whom I quote:

We pray de Lord; he gib us signs

Dat some day we be free;

De Norf wind tell it to de pines,

De wild duck to de sea;

We tink it when de church bell ring,

We dream it in de dream;

De rice bird mean it when he sing,

De Eagle when he scream.

De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn:

Oh nebber you fear if nebber you hear

De driver blow his horn!

Sing on, poor hearts! your chant shall be

Our sign of blight or bloom

The vala-song of liberty,

Or death-rune of our doom!

Mr. Lincoln still seemed to hesitate; and the friends of emancipation renewed their efforts. They reminded the President of his own enunciation of the great truth, that freedom and slavery could not permanently exist together, and that our country would become "all free or all slave;" a truth that had been verified by the war which slavery was now waging. "Immortalize your Presidency," said they, "by yourself speaking the word which shall make it all free; slavery having brought on the war, it is fit it should die by the laws of war." It was urged that slavery before God and the world, stood responsible for all the calamities which the Republic was now suffering; every dollar expended, every suf fering endured, every drop of blood spilled, every wound, and every death on the battle-field, and in hospital, is the penalty, the American people are paying for the existence and toleration of slavery. As slavery now stood before the

world as a rebel and a traitor, the President was urged to declare it an outlaw under the Constitution and laws. He was reminded that there never had been a day since the existence of the Republic, when slavery was loyal to the Constitution and the Union. To day an open enemy striking at the heart of the Nation, as it had always heretofore been a secret, stealthy traitor, undermining the Constitution, and sapping the foundation of our liberties. His attention was called to the moral and material desolation caused by this institution; the extent to which it had retarded National growth, and retained in brutal ignorance, and reduced toward barbarism, the people of some of the fairest sections of our country, and a once noble race of men. The aggressions of the slave power were recalled to his mind. Before the war it had caused in one half of the Union, the destruction of liberty of speech and freedom of the press; its attempts to suppress the right of petition, its perfidious repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the story of its barbarous outrages in Kansas were recounted; he was reminded that slavery had, previous to 1860, revolutionized the Government, nullifying the great principles of magna charta and the Declaration of Independence, on which the Republic was based. Slavery was charged with all the treasure and blood-shed of the terrible war then pending. It had already dug the graves of the half million citizens, patriots, and rebels sacrificed in the struggle. "Pity and relieve," urged they, "the victims of unrequited toil." In the name of the dead, which slavery had caused to be slaughtered, in the name of the country which it had desolated, in the name of the Constitution, which it had sought to overthrow, in the name of liberty with which it was incompatible, in the name of God, whose justice it defied, he was urged to decree the final abolition of slavery. "Seize the thunderbolt of liberty," cried the advocates of emancipation, "and shatter slavery to atoms."

It was thus that the friends of freedom impeached slavery before Abraham Lincoln, and demanded that he should pass sentence of death upon it. It was affirmed that there could be no permanent peace while slavery lived. A truce there might be, but peace, never. "The implacable enemy of lib

erty and the Republic," they said to him, "now reels and staggers to its fall. It has by its own crime, placed itself in your power as military Commander-in-Chief. You cannot, if you would, and you ought not if you could, make any terms of permanent compromise with slavery. You have abolished it at the National Capital. You have prohibited it in all the territories. You will cause to be hung as a pirate, any man participating in the slave trade. You have carved off and made free West Virginia, from the slaveholding Old Dominion. You have enlisted and are enlisting negro soldiers, and they have carried your banner bravely in many a hard fought battle-field. You have pledged your faith to God, and to them, that they and their families shall be forever free. That promise having been made, none doubt you will sacredly keep. Here then we stand on the threshold of universal emancipation! You cannot retreat, and should not halt. Let slavery die!"

Why withhold the blow that shall strike down the cause of all this desolation, suffering and bloodshed? Why not let the suicide of slavery be consummated? "Annihilate," said they, "all rebel slaveholders by the emancipation of all slaves!"

Mr. Lincoln listened, not unmoved to such appeals, and seeking prayerfully the guidance of Almighty God, the proclamation of emancipation was prepared; it had been in fact, prepared in July, 1862. Late in that month, or early in August, Mr. Lincoln, in his own mind, and without consulting his Cabinet, resolved to issue the emancipation edict, and prepared a draft of the proclamation. He then called a meeting of his Cabinet, which at that time consisted of Seward, Stanton, Chase, Welles, Blair, Smith, and Bates. The President said to them, he had resolved upon his course, and he had called them together, not to ask their advice on this subject, but to lay the Proclamation before them. After it had been read, there was some discussion in the Cabinet. Mr. Blair expressed the fear that it would cause the loss of the fall elections. This did not at all shake the President's determination to issue it. Mr. Seward said: