aten upon the decks of Mississippi River steamboats on their way to market. These horrors were first witnessed by him when he made his voyage on the flat-boat fr

during the war, and the picture was before his eyes when he wrote the Emancipation Pro

esse Head, the minister who married Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, was a bold abolitionist and boldly proclaimed the doctrine of human liberty wherever he went. Lincoln's father and mother were among his most devoted dis

Union, in spite of the ordinance of 1787 and the statutes which Lincoln read in his youth. Nor was the fact a secret. The

ry which lasted until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Abraham Lincoln, with the preparation I have described, was from the beginning an acti

ocieties were being organized in every city and village where the friends of human freedom existed in sufficient numbers to sustain themselves against the powerful proslavery sentiment. Occasionally there was a public discussion, but the controversy raged most fiercely at the corner groceries, at the county court-house, and at other places where thinking men were in the habit of assembling, and Lincoln was always ready and eager to enter the debates. His convictions were formed and grew firmer as he studied the questi

hat we highly disapprove of the formation of abolition societies and of the doctrines promulgated by them." Lincoln and five other members of the Legislature voted against these resolutions; and in order to make his position more fully understood by his cons

both branches of the General Assembly at its present session,

th injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abol

has no power under the Constitution to interfere wi

onstitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power

those contained in the said resolutions i

st the system of slavery that was made in any legislative b

proslavery mob, which murdered him and threw his press and type into the Mississippi River. In this case, as in many others, the blood of a martyr was the seed of the f

d, and as long as it existed must be obeyed. It recognized the right to hold slaves in certain States, and therefore that right could not be denied until the Constitution was appropriately amended. The friends of freedom were at liberty to denounce the great wrong, but they must proceed legally in securi

a territory as large as half of Europe. The slave-holders immediately demanded it for their own, but in the previous Congress the Whig and antislavery Democrats had succeeded in attaching to an appropriation bill an amendment known as the Wilmot Proviso, which prohibited the extension of slavery into the t

he determined to devote his best efforts to a removal of that scandal and reproach. Fifteen years later, in one of his speeches during the debate with Douglas, he described the slave-shambles of Washington, and said, "In view from the

prohibit the introduction of slaves within the limits of the District or the selling of them out of it, exception being made to the servants of officials of the government from the slave-holding States. The third section provides for the apprenticeship and gradual emancipation of children born of slave mothers afte

e other hand, the abolitionists, with that unreasonable spirit which usually governs men of radical views, condemned the measure as a compromise with wrong, and declared that they would never permit money from the public treasury to be expended for the purchase of human beings. No action was taken in Cong

l and intellectual attention of a people. Here and there appear curious phrases, startling predictions, vivid epigrams, and unanswerable arguments. For example, in 1855 he declared that "the autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown and proclaim free republicans sooner than will our American mas

er Lincoln uttered the same idea in almost the same phrase. In three Presidential campaigns, in two contests for the Senate, and in almost every local political contest after 184

r joke until he saw that it was becoming serious, and that many people actually believed that the abolitionists were proposing to do what Douglas had said. He attempted to remove this impression by a serious discussion of the doctrine of equality, and in one of his speeches declared, "I protest against the counterfei

LINCOL

h in the War Dep

an the snake, and it might bite them. Much more, it I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of gett

t afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us here in the free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored, contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such

e African slave-trade inevitably. Taking slaves into new Territories, and buying slaves in Africa, are identical things, identical rights or identical wrongs, and the argument which establishes one will establish the other. Try a thousand y

or he construed the attack upon Harper's Ferry with his habitual common sense. He argued that it was not a slave insurrection, but an attempt to organize one in which the slaves refused to participate, and he compared it with many attempts related in history to assassinate kings and emperors. "An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people until he fancies himself co

rious forms. The first movement of troops dislodged from the plantations of their owners a multitude of slaves, who found their way to the camps of the Union army and were employed as servants, teamsters, and often as guides. The Northern soldier took a sympathet

derate commanders were using negroes as laborers upon fortifications, under international law they were clearly contraband of war. A new word was coined. From that moment, and until the struggle was over, escaped negroes were known as "contrabands," and public opinion in the North decided that they were subject to release or confiscation by military right and usage. General Butler always assumed the credit of formulating that doctrine, and insisted that the correspondent had adopted a suggestion overheard at the mess-table; but, however it originated,

cky, and Missouri; so that President Lincoln was appealed to from all sides to order the execution of the fugitive-slave law in States which he was trying to keep in the Union. He believed that public sentiment was growing and would ultimately furnish a solution. He quoted the Methodist

ngton issued an order that "fugitive slaves will under no pretext whatever be permitted to reside, or be in any way harbored, in the quarters and camps of the troops serving in this department." This served to satisfy the comp

ir individual judgment soon got him into trouble, especially with his Secretary of War, for the latter, in his report to Co

erforming efficient military service, it is right, and may become the duty, of the government to arm and equip

mended, the report contained a simple declaration that fugitive and abandoned slaves, being an important factor in the military situation, would not be returned to disloyal

e Legislature." But while he was writing these guarded and ambiguous phrases he had already decided to propose a plan of voluntary abolition for the District of Columbia similar to that he had offered in Congress thirteen years before. It was a measure of expediency and delay. He evidently had no expectation that such a proposition would be adopted. He undou

ing to the several States from the public treasury sufficient funds "to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system." By this proposition he avoided the objections to the general government interfering with the domestic affairs of the States, and left the people of each State to arrange for emancipation in their own way. "It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice with them," he said in his message, and again called attention to the probable effects of the war upon the slave situation. The representatives of the border States in Congress took no heed of the warning, but the Nort

ted it by a two-thirds vote, although few of the members from Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri voted with the affirmative. A month later the resolution was concurred in by the Se

ition; history moved too fast for them. But Lincoln at once began a systematic campaign in Congress to secure legislation for

e border States were being led gradually to realize the inevitable, and if they had been wise they would promptly have accepted the generosity of t

s for the war; the Missouri Compromise was restored; slavery was forbidden in all Territories of the United States; appropriations were made for carrying into effect the treaty with Great Britain to suppress the slave-trade; the independence and sovereignty of Hayti and Liberia, two black republics, were formally recognized,

the States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. Lincoln promptly vetoed Hunter's order and declared it unauthorized and void, saying that he reserved to himself, "as Comma

e been a sufficient warning to the South, because as we r

them to the White House and read to them a carefully prepared argument in support of his plan to sell their slaves to the government. Two-thirds of them united in an explanation of their reasons for rejecting the scheme on account of

ics or lose the game; and I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy, and, without

d to criticise and attack him in a most abusive manner. A committee of clergymen from Chicago came to Washington to urge him to issue an emancipation proclamation. He received them respectfully, but did not tell them that their wishes would have been anticipated but for the defeat of the Union army at the second battle of Bull Run. He m

ters felt it his duty to make a more searching appeal to the President's

that it is a message to you from our Divine Master, through me, comman

for weeks and for months; but if it is, as you say, a message from your Divine Master, is it not odd tha

ked how many legs his calf would have if he called his tail a leg, replied, 'Five.' To

the Rebellion, never, until the tide of patriotic volunteering had ebbed and our soldiers saw their ranks rapidly melting away, could our colored troops have been added to their brigades without perilous dis

ley, and received appeals from loyal people of the South, to whom he replied, with his usual patience, "What is done and omitted about the sl

he border States would soon be willing to accept the act as a friendly as well as a necessary solution of a dilemma; and, finally, because of his profound respect for the Constitution which he had sworn to maintain. He would not free the negro because the Constitution stood in his way, and only for th

his struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and 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 also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it he

wn desire to yield to the influence of the good people of the North and protect himself from the clamor of his critics. His letter to Mr. Greeley was not an argument in a controversy, nor an apology for or defence of his policy; but he intended it to be a warning to pr

g evening and had an animated argument with the President; but the latter could not trust him with the momentous secret, and was compelled to wait until a Union victory offered a favorable opportunity to take the step he contemplated. As he told the Chicago pastors,

tion. "I have gotten you together to hear what I have written down," he said. "I do not want your advice about the main matter, because I have determined that m

1900, another guaranteeing freedom to all slaves that had been released by the chances of war, and a third authorizing Congress to provide a plan of colonization for them. His idea was to send them either to Africa, to the West Indies, or to Central America, and he encour

themselves in the South, especially in the States where the negroes are in preponderance in numbers, into guerilla parties, and we shall have down there a warfare between the whites and the negroes. In the course of the reconstruc

ct of thirty miles wide across the Isthmus of Panama for opening a ship canal. The enlistments of the negroes have all of them from two or three years to run. Why not send them all down there to dig the canal? They will withstand the climate, and the work can be done with less cost to the United States in that way than in any other. If you choose, I will take command of the expedition. We will take our arms with us, and

gestion, General Butler; there is meat in that suggestion. Go and talk

his jaw being broken, and he was confined to his bed until the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted murder

l suggestions which had been made by his Cabinet, but rigidly adhering to the spirit of the original. In his judgment, the time had now come for adopting this extreme measure, and "upon this

d raged for half a century. He carefully laid away the pen he had used for Mr. Sumner, who had promised to obtain it for George Livermore, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, an old abolitionist and the author of a work on slavery which had greatly interested Lincoln. It was a steel pen

om was written little more than a year later, to a friend, and should be carefully st

stand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government, that nation, of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution if, to save slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together. When, early in the war, Gen

ere it not for Lincoln's political skill and tact, it might never have been adopted. The work of ratification by the loyal States was not completed until December, 1865, when Mr. Seward, still Secretary of State, issued a proclamation announc

words form an accurate profile of Abraham Lincoln's face. The

about to have a convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in,-as, for instance, the very intelligent, an

L HAHN, FIRST FREE STAT

f John M. Crampton, Esq

called out by serenading parties, and on both occasions declined to give more than a few informal expressions of congratulation and gratitude; but, being pressed by the committee, he consented to deliver a formal address, a

, but in fact easier to do this without deciding, or even considering, whether those States have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us join in doing the acts necessary t

on the very intelligent and those who have served our cause as soldiers. Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it sta

gress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully committed to the Union and to perpetual freedom in the States-committed to the very things, and nearly all the things the nation wants-and they ask the nation's recognition and its assistance to make good the committal.... We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, fight for it, and feed it, and grow it,

negroes; but Lincoln held that the latter right rested exclusively with the States. In his amnesty proclamation of December 8, 1863, he said that any provision by which the States shall provide for the education and for the welfare of "the laboring landless and homeless class will not be objected to by the national Executive;" and Mr. Usher, his Secretary of the Interior, says, "From all that could be gathered by those who observed his co

endeavored to perfect and carry out, no provision was made for negro suffrage. This question was purposely left open for further consideration and for Congressional action, under such amendments of the Constitution as the changed condition of the country might render necessary. From some of his incidental expressions, and from his well-known opinions upon the subject of suffrage and the States' right to regulate it, my opinion is that he wou