a considerable procession marched with music to CHAP. IV. the Executive Mansion to carry popular greetings to the President. In response to their calls, Mr. Lincoln appeared at a window and made a brief speech, of which only an abstract report was preserved, but which is nevertheless important as showing the searching analysis of cause and effect which this question had undergone in his mind, the deep interest he felt in, and the far-reaching consequences he attached to the measure and its

success.

He supposed the passage through Congress of the constitutional amendment for the abolishment of slavery throughout the United States was the occasion to which he was indebted for the honor of this call. The occasion was one of congratulation to the country and to the whole world. But there is a task yet before us -to go forward and have consummated by the votes of the States that which Congress had so nobly begun yesterday. He had the honor to inform those present that Illinois had already to-day done the work. Maryland was about half through, but he felt proud that Illinois was a little ahead. He thought this measure was a very fitting if not an indispensable adjunct to the winding up of the great difficulty. He wished the reunion of all the States perfected, and so effected as to remove all causes of disturbance in the future; and to attain this end it was necessary that the original disturbing cause should, if possible, be rooted out. He thought all would bear him witness that he had never shrunk from doing all that he could to eradicate slavery, by issuing an Emancipation Proclamation. But that proclamation falls far short of what the amendment will be when fully consummated. A question might be raised whether the proclamation was legally valid. It only to the ordinary cases of leg- 1865, pp. 629, 630. A similar islation. He has nothing to do inadvertence occurred when the with the proposition or adoption amendment of 1861 was passed; of amendments to the Constitu- it was signed by President tion."-"Globe," February 7, Buchanan.

CHAP. IV. might be urged that it only aided those that came into our lines, and that it was inoperative as to those who did not give themselves up; or that it would have no effect upon the children of slaves born hereafter; in fact, it would be urged that it did not meet the evil. But this amendment is a king's cure-all for all the evils. It winds the whole thing up. He would repeat that it was the fitting, if not the indispensable, adjunct to the consummation of the great game we are playing. He could not but congratulate all present― himself, the country, and the whole world-upon this great moral victory.

1865.

Widely divergent views were expressed by able constitutional lawyers in both branches of Congress as to what, in the anomalous condition of the country, would constitute a valid ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment; some contending that ratification by three-fourths of the loyal States would be sufficient, others that three-fourths of all the States, whether loyal or insurrectionary, would be necessary. We have seen that Mr. Lincoln, in his speech on Louisiana reconstruction, while expressing no opinion against the first proposition, nevertheless declared, with great argumentative force, that the latter "would be unquestioned and unquestionable"; and this view appears to have governed the action of his successor.

As Mr. Lincoln mentioned with just pride in his address, Illinois was the first State to ratify the amendment, taking her action on February 1, the day after the Joint Resolution was passed by the House of Representatives; and ratification by other States continued in the following order: Rhode Island, February 2, 1865; Michigan, February 2, 1865; Maryland, February 3, 1865; New York, February 3, 1865; West Virginia, February

3, 1865; Maine, February 7, 1865; Kansas, Feb- CHAP. IV. ruary 7, 1865; Massachusetts, February 8, 1865; Pennsylvania, February 8, 1865; Virginia, February 9, 1865; Ohio, February 10, 1865; Missouri, February 10, 1865; Indiana, February 16, 1865; Nevada, February 16, 1865; Louisiana, February 17, 1865; Minnesota, February 23, 1865; Wisconsin, March 1, 1865; Vermont, March 9, 1865; Tennessee, April 7, 1865; Arkansas, April 20, 1865; Connecticut, May 5, 1865; New Hampshire, July 1, 1865; South Carolina, November 13, 1865; Alabama, December 2, 1865; North Carolina, December 4, 1865; Georgia, December 9, 1865; Oregon, December 11, 1865; California, December 20, 1865; Florida, December 28, 1865; New Jersey, January 23, 1866; Iowa, January 24, 1866; Texas, February 18, 1870.

Without waiting for the ratification by the last six of these States, Mr. Seward, who remained as Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Johnson, made official proclamation on December 18, 1865, that the Legislatures of twenty-seven States, constituting three-fourths of the thirty-six States of the Union, had ratified the amendment, and that it had become valid as a part of the Constitution of the United States. It needs to be noted that four of the States constituting this number of twenty-seven were Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, whose reconstruction had been effected under the direction and by the authority of President Lincoln.

The profound political transformation which the American Republic had undergone can perhaps best be measured by contrasting for an instant the two constitutional amendments which Congress made

CHAP. IV. it the duty of the Lincoln Administration to submit officially to the several States. The first was that offered by Thomas Corwin, chairman of the Committee of Thirty-three, in February, 1861, and passed by the House of Representatives, yeas, 133; nays, 65; and by the Senate, yeas, 24; nays, 12. It was signed by President Buchanan as one of his last official acts, and accepted and indorsed by Lincoln in his inaugural address. The language of that amendment was:

Appendix,

p. 350.

แ "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any State with the doGlobe,mestic institutions thereof, including that of persons Mar. 21861, held to labor or service by the laws of said State." Between Lincoln's inaguration and the outbreak of war, the Department of State, under Seward, transmitted this amendment of 1861 to the several States for their action; and had the South shown a willingness to desist from secession and accept it as a peace offering, there is little doubt that the required three-fourths of the States would have made it a part of the Constitution. But the South refused to halt in her rebellion, and the thunder of Beauregard's guns against Fort Sumter drove away all further thought or possibility of such a ratification; and within four years Congress framed and the same Lincoln Administration sent forth the amendment of 1865, sweeping out of existence by one sentence the institution to which it had in its first proposal offered a virtual claim to perpetual recognition and tolerance. The "new birth of freedom," which Lincoln invoked for the nation in his Gettysburg address, was accomplished.

CHAPTER V

BLAIR'S MEXICAN PROJECT

HE triumphant reëlection of Mr. Lincoln in

November, 1864, greatly simplified the political conditions as well as the military prospects of the country. Decisive popular majorities had pointedly rebuked the individuals who proclaimed, and the party which had resolved, that the war was a failure. The verdict of the ballot-box not only decided the continuance of a war administration and a war policy, but renewed the assurance of a public sentiment to sustain its prosecution. When Congress convened on the 6th of December, and the President transmitted to that body his annual message, he included in his comprehensive review of public affairs a temperate but strong and terse statement of this fact and its potent significance. Inspired by this majestic manifestation of the popular will to preserve the Union and maintain the Constitution, he was able to speak of the future with hope and confidence. But with characteristic prudence and good taste, he uttered no word of boasting and indulged in no syllable of acrimony; on the contrary, in terms of fatherly kindness, he again offered the rebellious States the generous conditions he had previously tendered them by various acts and declarations, and specifi

CHAP. V.

1864.