who were willing thus to march to their political graves in the service of their country and of the cause of human freedom.

And scarcely less honor is due the eight northern democrats who were absent when the vote was taken, of whom Mr. Blaine says, "It may be assumed that they assented to the amendment, but that they were not prepared to give it positive support.'

If four of those eight absentees had been present and voted in the negative it would have prevented the passage of the amendment. And to prevail upon them thus to remain away and refrain from voting was one of the most delicate and difficult of all the tasks of that campaign.

A striking and amusing contrast between an opponent and a supporter of the amendment was furnished by the declarations of two members of Congress while the measure was under consideration. When on the 8th of April, 1864, the senate passed the amendment, Senator Salisbury of Delaware, a zealous champion of slavery, arose and with great solemnity said: "I bid farewell to all hope for the restoration of the American Union." A few months after this ludicrous utterance Senator Salisbury saw the Union fully and permanently restored.

While the measure was under consideration in the House, Hon. Isaac N. Arnold of Illinois, with very impressive earnestness said: "In view of the long catalogue of wrongs which it has inflicted upon the country, I demand today the death of American slavery." And Mr. Arnold saw and participated in the execution of slavery.

On the evening of February 1st-the day following the passage of the amendment-President Lincoln in response to a serenade of congratulation, for the first time after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, spoke of that measure as insufficient for the destruction of slavery. He had always been unequivocal in the declaration of his belief in the va

Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. I., p. 538.

lidity of that proclamation, and he never referred to its limitations until this Constitutional amendment was passed, when in that serenade speech he said: "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 short of what the amendment will be when fully consummated. A question might be raised whether the proclamation was legally valid. It 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 evils."

998

The ratification of the amendment by the several states was a proceeding of very great interest. Before the measure was for the second time brought before the House it had been taken up and thoroughly considered by the people throughout the country who, at the Presidential election in November, pronounced their verdict very emphatically in its favor. So intense had become the popular interest in the measure that immediately after it was passed by Congress there was lively competition among the states for priority of action in its ratification. Illinois-the President's home state-was the first to take such action. On the 1st of February—the first day after the amendment passed the House and only a few hours after that event-the legislature of that state voted for its ratification. Other states followed in rapid succession. Rhode Island and Michigan on February 2nd; 8 Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. X., p. 353.

Maryland, New York and West Virginia on the 3rd; Maine and Kansas on the 7th; Massachusetts and Pennsylvania on the 8th; Virginia on the 9th; Ohio and Missouri on the 10th; Indiana and Nevada on the 16th, and so on until before the end of that short month seventeen states had taken action ratifying the amendment. Before the end of the calendar year, on the 18th of December, Secretary Seward, who had remained in the Cabinet after President Lincoln's death, announced by proclamation that twenty-seven states, being three-fourths of the thirty-six states in the nation, had officially ratified the amendment which had thus been made a part of the National Constitution.

It is interesting to note that four slave states-Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas-reconstructed under President Lincoln's direction and by his authority, were among the twenty-seven states constituting the three-fourths necessary to accomplish that ratification.

The Constitutional Amendment was as oil upon troubled waters in its influence upon the antislavery element of the nation. There were a few of the extreme radicals in Congress who seemed reluctant to forget that they had a chronic grudge against Mr. Lincoln because of his cautious and conservative movements against slavery and his great kindness and forbearance toward those who were in rebellion, but, although their fault-finding inclinations remained with them, they found little of which to complain. There was, however, one exception of which they promptly availed themselves. While the loyal states were all jubilant over the passage of the amendment, and the President's charming response to the serenade of congratulations, without any warning the nation was startled on the morning of February 3rd by the telegraphic announcement that the President was at Fortress Monroe to confer with Confederate commissioners respecting terms of peace. This gave the trouble-makers their last opportunity to pour the vials of wrath upon President Lincoln's devoted head.

A better spirit was shown by the extreme abolitionists, who seemed anxious to forget that they ever were out of harmony with the President and earnestly desired to atone for their past disapproval of the policies by which he had led them, and the nation, to the great antislavery consummation.

On the evening of the 4th of February, when the President had just returned from the Hampton Roads conference, before mentioned, William Lloyd Garrison, the leader and the greatest of the radical abolition element, at a large mass meeting in Boston said: "And to whom is the country more immediately indebted for this vital and saving amendment of the Constitution than, perhaps, to any other man? I believe I may confidently answer-to the humble railsplitter of Illinois-to the Presidential chain-breaker for millions of the oppressed-to Abraham Lincoln! (Immense and long-continued applause, ending with three cheers for the President.) I understand that it was by his wish and influence that that plank was made a part of the Baltimore platform; and taking his position unflinchingly upon that platform, the people have overwhelmingly sustained both him and it, in ushering in the year of jubilee.” ”

It does not detract from the merit or value of the efforts and achievements of others in securing the passage of this Constitutional Amendment to state that it was Abraham Lincoln who wrote that Article into the organic law of the nation. By his lifelong and consistent opposition to slavery, his clear, logical exposure of its injustice and wrong, his courageous demand for its restriction and “ultimate extinction," his wise and successful guidance of the movements that preceded and prepared the way for its downfall, his Proclamation of Emancipation and his early and hearty espousal of this Amendment, he is entitled to the designation by which he is known in all the world and by which he will evermore be remembered— The Emancipator!

• The Liberator, February 10th, 1865.