governor of Kentucky, her senator in Congress, attorney-general of the United States, and now, in his old age, covered with honors, he accepted, like John Quincy Adams, a seat in Congress, that in this crisis he might help to save his country.

*

He was a sincere Union man, but believed it unwise to disturb slavery. In his speech he made a most eloquent and touching appeal, from a Kentuckian to a Kentuckian. He said, among other things, "There is a niche, near to that of Washington, to him who shall save his country. If Mr. Lincoln will step into that niche, the founder and the preserver of the Republic shall stand side by side." Owen Lovejoy, the brother of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had been mobbed and murdered because he would not surrender the liberty of the press, replied to Crittenden. After his brother's murder, kneeling upon the green sod which covered that brother's grave, he had taken a solemn vow, of eternal war upon slavery. Ever after, like, Peter the Hermit, with a heart of fire and a tongue of lightning, he had gone forth preaching his crusade against slavery. At length, in his reply, turning to Crittenden, he said, "The gentleman from Kentucky says he has a niche for Abraham Lincoln, where is it?"

Crittenden pointed toward heaven.

Lovejoy continuing said, "He points upward, but, sir! if the President follows the counsel of that gentleman, and becomes the perpetuator of slavery, he should point downward, to some dungeon in the temple of Moloch, who feeds on human blood, and where are forged chains for human limbs; in the recesses of whose temple woman

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is scourged and man tortured, and outside the walls are lying dogs, gorged with human flesh, as Byron describes them, lying around the walls of Stamboul." "That," said Lovejoy, "is a suitable place for the statue of him who would perpetuate slavery."

"I, too," said he, "have a temple for Abraham Lincoln, but it is in Freedom's holy fane,

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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 broken chains and slave's whips beneath his feet. That is a fame

*

*

worth living for, aye, more, it is a fame worth dying for, though that death led through Gethsemane and the agony of the accursed tree."

*

*

*

"It is said," continued he, "that Wilberforce went up to the judgment-seat with the broken chains of eight hundred thousand slaves! Let Lincoln make himself the Liberator, and his name shall be enrolled, not only in this earthly temple, but it shall be traced on the living stones of that temple which is reared amid the thrones of Heaven."

Lovejoy's prophecy has been fulfilled-in this world-you see the statues to Lincoln, with broken chains at his feet, rising all over the world, and-in that other worldfew will doubt that the prophecy has been realized.

In September, 1862, after the Confederates, by their defeat at the great battle of Antietam, had been driven back from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lincoln issued the Proclamation. It is a fact, illustrating his character, and showing that there was in him what many would call

a tinge of superstition, that he declared, to Secretary Chase, that he had made a solemn vow to God, saying, "if General Lee is driven back from Pennsylvania, I will crown the result with the declaration of FREEDOM TO THE SLAVE." The final Proclamation was issued on the first of January, 1863. In obedience to American custom, he had been receiving calls on that New Year's day, and, for hours, shaking hands. As the paper was brought to him by the Secretary of State, to be signed, he said, "Mr. Seward, I have been shaking hands all day, and my right hand is almost paralyzed. If my name ever gets into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the proclamation, those who examine the document hereafter, will say, 'he hesitated.""

Then, resting his arm a moment, he turned to the table, took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote Abraham Lincoln. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, he said, "that will do."

From this day, to its final triumph, the tide of victory seemed to set more and more in favor of the Union cause. The capture of Vicksburg, the victory of Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Lookout-Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Sheridan's brilliant campaign in the Valley of the Shenandoah; Thomas's decisive victory at Nashville; Sherman's march, through the Confederacy, to the sea; the capture of Fort McAllister; the sinking of the Alabama; the taking of Mobile by Farragut; the occupation of Columbus, Charlestown, Savannah; the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond; the surrender of Lee to Grant; the taking of Jefferson Davis a

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prisoner; the triumph everywhere of the national arms; such were the events which followed (though with delays and bloodshed) the "Proclamation of Emancipation."

THE AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION.

Meanwhile Lincoln had been triumphantly re-elected; Congress had, as before stated, abolished slavery at the Capital, prohibited it in all the territories, declared all negro soldiers in the Union armies, and their families, free, and had repealed all laws which sanctioned or recognized slavery, and the President had crowned and consummated all, by the Proclamation of Emancipation. One thing alone remained to perfect, confirm, and make everlastingly permanent these measures, and this was to embody in the Constitution itself, the prohibition of slavery everywhere within the republic.

To change the organic law required the adoption by a two-thirds vote of a joint resolution, by Congress, and that this should be submitted to, and ratified by, twothirds of the States.

The President, in his annual message and in personal interviews with members of Congress, urged the passage of such resolution. To test the strength of the measure, in the House of Representatives, I had the honor, in February, 1864, to introduce the following resolution:

"Resolved, That the Constitution should be so amended as to abolish slavery in the United States wherever it now exists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof forever" (Cong. Globe, vol. 50, p. 659). This was adopted by a decided vote, and was the first

resolution ever passed by Congress in favor of the entire abolition of slavery. But, although it received a majority, it did not receive a majority of two-thirds.

The debates on the Constitutional Amendment (perhaps the greatest in our congressional history, certainly the most important since the adoption of the Constitution) ran through two sessions of Congress. Charles Sumner, the learned Senator from Massachusetts, brought to the discussion, in the Senate, his ample stores of historical illustration, quoting largely in its favor from the historians, poets, and statesmen of the past.

The resolution was adopted in the Senate by the large vote of ayes, 38, noes, 6.

In the lower house, at the first session, it failed to obtain a two-thirds' vote, and, on a motion to reconsider, went over to the next session.

Mr. Lincoln again earnestly urged its adoption, and, in a letter to Illinois friends, he said, "The signs look better. Peace does not look so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time."

I recall, very vividly, my New Year's call upon the President, January, 1864. I said:

"I hope, Mr. President, one year from to-day I may have the pleasure of congratulating you on the occurrence of three events which now seem probable."

"What are they?" inquired he.

"1. That the rebellion may be entirely crushed.

"2. That the Constitutional Amendment, abolishing and prohibiting slavery, may have been adopted.