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.

But a small number of these were held by men who were real friends to the Government in its efforts to crush out the great rebellion. Being in that part of the country bordering on the line between the original free and slave States, which territory was under the control of the civil authorities, and their owners nominally loval, the Government did not feel authorized to declare them free as a war measure. The conviction, however, steadily gained in the minds of the people, that peace could never be firmly established until slavery was totally and forever abolished. Various plans were proposed and discussed for compensated emancipation, and in the meantime slave property was becoming less secure.

On the 11th of January, 1864, Mr. Henderson. of Missouri, introduced a joint resolution into the Senate, proposing amendments to the constitution of the United States, which was read and referred to the Judiciary Committee. On the 10th of February, the committee made a report through its chairman, the Hon. Lyman Trumbull. The joint resolution was amended by the committee so as to provide for submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the constitution of the United States so that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall exist in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction; and also, that Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The report of this committee was taken up and discussed as many as thirteen times -some of them occupying whole days-until the 8th of April, when it was adopted, 38 to 8. Its title was amended so as to read

A joint resolution submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States:

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled two thirds of both Houses

concurring, That the following article be proposed to the Legis latures of the several States as an amendment to the constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of said constitution, namely:

ARTICLE XIII.

SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

SEC. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article with appropriate legislation.

After having passed the Senate, it was sent to the House, where it was defeated for want of a two-thirds majority. A motion to reconsider, entered by Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, was pending in the House when Congress adjourned. The elections of 1864 demonstrated, by largely increased Republican majorities, that the sentiments of the people were in favor of the entire abolition of slavery. Mr. Lincoln, in his last annual message, December, 1864, referred to the result of the elections as an indication of the popular will, and recommended that the subject be again taken up and passed.

On the 6th of January, 1865, Mr. Ashley called up his former motion to reconsider, and made an able speech in its favor.

The question was discussed at great length. Those speaking in the affirmative were Ashley, of Ohio; Orth, of Indiana; Kasson, of Iowa; Farnsworth, of Illinois; Jenckes, of Rhode Island; Woodbridge, of Vermont; Thayer, of Pennsylvania; Rollins, of Missouri; Garfield, of Ohio; Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, and others. Those speaking in the opposition were Townsend, of New York; Holman, Cravens and Vorhees, of Indiana; Mallory, of Kentucky; Fer

nando Wood, of New York; Pendleton, of Ohio, and others.

Very many eloquent passages might be culled from the speeches delivered on that resolution, but I will only give a few brief quotations from the Hon. Mr. Rollins, of Missouri, and Thad. Stevens, of Pennsylvania. Mr. Rollins had been a slaveholder, until a few days before they were all liberated by an amendment to the State constitution of Missouri. He said:

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"I am a believer in the Declaration of Independence, wherein it is asserted that 'all men are created equal.' I believe that when it says 'all men,' it means every man who was created in the ‘image of his Maker,' and walks on God's footstool, without regard to race, color or any accidental circumstance by which he may be surrounded. "An anti-slavery man in sentiment, and yet heretofore a large owner of slaves myself-not now, however-not exactly with my consent. The convention which recently assembled in my State, I learned from a telegram a morning or two ago, had adopted an amendment to our present State constitution for the immediate emancipation of all the slaves in the State. I am no longer the owner of a slave, and I thank God for it. If the giving up of my slaves, without complaint, shall be a contribution upon my part to promote the public good, to uphold the constitution of the United States, to restore peace and preserve this Union, if I had owned a thousand slaves, they would most cheerfully have been given up. I say, with all my heart, let them go, but let them not go without a sense of feeling and a proper regard on my part for the future of themselves and their offspring!"

Mr. Rollins concluded by saying

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"Let ours be the 'bright particular star' next to the star that led the shepherds to Bethlehem, which shall lead the downtrodden and oppressed of all the world into an harbor of peace, security and happiness; and let us, kneeling around the altar, all thank God that, although we have had our trials, we have saved

our country; that, although we have been guilty of sins, we have wiped them out, and that we at length stand up a great and powerful people, honored by all the earth, 'redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled by the genius of universal emancipation."

The venerable leader of the House arose to close the debate on this great measure, and the members gathered around him, filling the seats and aisles and every available spot near the "old man eloquent." Inteligence was sent to the Senate that Thad. Stevens was speaking on the constitutional amendment. Many of the Senators came in and the Judges of the Supreme Court to hear him speak on a measure that was to crown the labors of forty years with complete success. As soon as the vast audience could get into their places, all were hushed into silence.

Mr. Stevens commenced by narrating the progress of the anti-slavery cause from its feeble beginning. I can only find room for a few extracts from a speech which attracted the closest attention from the first to the last sentence. He said

"From my earliest youth I was taught to read the Declaration of Independence, and to receive its sublime principles. As I advanced in life, and became somewhat enabled to consult the writings of the great men of antiquity, I found in all their works which have survived the ravages of time, and come down to the present generation, one unanimous denunciation of tyranny and of slavery, and eulogy of liberty.

"In immortal language all denounced slavery as a thing which took away half of the man and degraded human beings, and sang praise in the noblest strains to the goddess of liberty; and my hatred of this infernal institution, and my love for liberty, was further inflamed as I saw the inspired teachings of Socrates and the divine inspirations of Jesus.

"Being fixed in these principles immovably and immutably, I took my stand among my fellow-citizens, and on all occasions, whether in public or in private, in season, and if there could be