Gen. McClellan was the Democratic candidate for President, and George H. Pendleton for Vice President.

During the height of the canvass, President Lincoln. on the eighteenth of July, issued a call for five hundred thousand men, naming the number required from each State, and including a proviso that if the number was not voluntarily made up, drafting should commence on the fifth of September. His friends feared that it would cost him his election, and urged him to delay it. His uniform reply was that the men were needed, and that it was his duty to call for them, and that he should do it whatever the effect might be upon himself.

November came, and with it the day of election. When the electoral vote was counted, at the time fixed by law, it was found that, of 233 votes, Lincoln and Johnson had received 212 as candidates for Pres- . ident and Vice President of the United States. McClellan and Pendleton received the other 21 votes. The total popular vote cast was 4,015,902, and the majority in favor of Lincoln was 411,428. In a few words, courteously spoken to some of his friends. who called upon him on the night of the election, he said: "I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one; but I give thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the people's resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity." On another occasion, soon after his election, he said: "It has demonstrated that a people's. government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility." This second election of President Lincoln destroyed the last hope of the rebellion. From that time their armies never gained a substantial victory.

9

The proclamation of President Lincoln, issued January 1, 1863, gave freedom to about three millions of human beings who, until that time, had been slaves; and declared that they might be enlisted in the military services of the United States. Much prejudice existed among Union men, and even with Union soldiers, against enrolling colored troops. Governor Andrew. of Massachusetts, made the initial move in the northern States. He received an order from the War Department, dated January 20, 1863, authorizing him to organize and equip regiments of colored men, to be called United States Colored Troops. As soon as this became known, colored men flocked to Massachusetts from many of the other States. The example of Massachusetts was followed by Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Kansas. In March, the Government sent Adjutant General Thomas to the Southwest for the purpose of organizing colored troops. It was but a short time after enlistment commenced until they were in the field. By their bravery in battle, they, at the same time, assisted in subduing the rebels and conquering the prejudices of the white soldiers.

Regarding slavery as the sole cause of the war, I select the following quotations from the annual message of President Lincoln to Congress, December 8, 1863. Speaking of our foreign relations, he says: "The supplemental treaty between the United States and Great Britain for the suppression of the African slave trade, made on the 17th day of February last, has been duly notified and carried into execution. It is believed that, so far as American ports and American citizens are concerned, that inhuman and odious traffic has been brought to an end." Referring to the condition of the country at the time of their annual meeting a year before, and contrasting it with the present, he said:

"The preliminary emancipation proclamation, issued in September, was running its assigned period to the beginning of the new year. A month later the final proclamation came, including the announcement that colored men of suitable condition would be received into the war service. The policy of emancipation and of employing black soldiers, gave to the future a new aspect, about which hope, and fear, and doubt, contended in uncertain conflict. According to our political system, as a matter of civil administration, the General Government had no lawful power to effect emancipation in any State; and for a long time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as a military measure. It was all the while deemed possible that the necessity for it might come, and that if it should, the crisis of the contest would then be presented. It came, and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and doubtful days. Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take another review. The rebel borders are pressed still further back, and by the complete opening of the Mississippi the country dominated by the rebellion is divided into distinct parts, with no practical communication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and influential citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation in their respective States. Of those States not included in the emancipation proclamationMaryland and Missouri-neither of which, three years ago, would have tolerated any restraint upon the extension of slavery into new Territories, only dispute now as to the best mode of removing it within their own limits. Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the rebellion, full one hundred thousand are now in the United States military service, about one half of which number actually bear arms in the ranks."

In the same message, speaking of the mode of reconstructing State governments where they had been overthrown, he advocated the policy of requiring a test oath to sustain the emancipation measures, in the following language:

"But if it be proper to require, as a test of admission to the poitical body, an oath of allegiance to the United States and to the Union under it, why not also to the laws and proclamations in regard to slavery? Those laws and proclamations were enacted and put forth for the purpose of aiding in the suppression of the rebellion. To give them their fullest effect, there had to be a pledge for their maintenance. In my judgment they have aided, and will further aid, the cause for which they were intended. To now abandon them would be, not only to relinquish a lever power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith. I may add at this point that, while I remain in my present position, I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation; nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress. For these and other reasons, it is thought best that support of these measures shall be included in the oath. * * * The movements by State action for emancipation in several of the States, not included in the emancipation proclamation, are matters of profound gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have so earnestly urged upon this subject, my general views and feelings remain unchanged, and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity of aiding these important steps to a great consummation."

An act to repeal all fugitive slave laws passed both houses of Congress, and was approved by President Lincoln, June 28, 1864. During the summer and autumn of that year elections were held in nearly all the loyal States for members of the 39th Congress, and in November for the election of a President and Vice President of the United States, which resulted, as previously stated, in the second election of Abraham Lincoln.

CHAPTER VI.

At the assembling of the second session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, December 6, 1864, President Lincoln referred to the fact that at the previous session a joint resolution passed the Senate to submit an amendment to the constitution of the United States abolishing slavery throughout the Union, to the Legislatures of the several States, but it failed in the House of Representatives for want of a two-thirds majority. He reminded them of the advanced position of the American people on the subject of abolishing slavery; and urged them to reconsider the question, and submit it to the action of the State Legislatures. He assured them that it must come to that, and the sooner it was done the better. In closing that message he says:

"I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that while I remain in my present position, I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by the acts of Congress. If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.

"In stating a single condition of peace, I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the Government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it."

Aside from the three million slaves liberated by the emancipation proclamation, there yet remained in bondage more than one million of the African race.