exercise of his power.

Then he determined to emancipate the negro. Writing of the matter in 1864 he very simply and fully stated his own position: "I felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the Nation. When, early in the war, General Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, General Cameron, then secretary of war, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come."

The summer of 1862, however, found Lincoln convinced that the time had come when he must take the important step of emancipation. His first movement to this end was to secure the adoption by congress of laws formally adopting General Butler's "contraband of war doctrine." This was only by way of preparation, and antedated his own action by many months. He recognized that this theory, vigorously reduced to practice, would seriously cripple and in time perhaps destroy slavery; but he saw also its weakness-that it dealt only with individuals, lopping off branches and leaving the roots alive. What was needed was a blow at the principle of slavery in the rebellious areas.

To the end of striking this blow he prepared a preliminary proclamation and called a full cabinet meeting about the first of August. No member of the cabinet knew what was to be the subject considered. When his advisers were assembled he gave them an idea of the paper that was to be submitted to them, but allowed them from the first to clearly understand that, while he was open to suggestions, his general policy was settled, and he was quite determined to promulgate the proclamation.

The criticisms and suggestions were various, but only that advanced by Seward was effectual. He approved the form of the proclamation and the policy of making it, but urged that it be delayed until the arms of the north should be more fortunate. Pope was then confronting Lee with no success to his credit, and Seward wisely judged that the proclamation, if made at such a time, would be considered the last resort of a failing cause.

Lincoln listened to and was governed by this advice. He determined to defer making his proclamation until some success should have attended the arms of the north. Antietam was fought, Lee retired into Virginia, and the President deemed that his time had come. He called a cabinet meeting to hear his decision. As they sat about the table Chase, who sat next the President, heard him say, as if to himself, "And I have promised my God that I will do it."

Chase said: "Did I understand you correctly, Mr. President?"

"I made a solemn vow before God that if General Lee should be driven

back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slave."

The proclamation was issued on the twenty second day of September, 1862. It announced his intention to present to congress at its coming session a plan providing for the remuneration of persons in loyal states where provision might be made for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery and also to urge that the feasibility of the colonization of the blacks in Liberia or elsewhere should be investigated. That on the first day of January, 1863, all persons held in slavery in any state or section of a state then in rebellion against the authority of the government should become and forever remain free. That on the first day of January the President would designate by proclamation the states and parts of states so in rebellion, adopting the test of representation in the congress to determine the existing status.

The proclamation continued by calling attention to the various acts of congress and the articles of war upon the subject of "contrabands of war," and making provision for the definite prohibition of the return of fugitive slaves to the custody of their masters.

Though a future day was set for the formal accomplishment of this great work, the utterance of September was in cffect the Emancipation Proclamation. It was made in the face of an approaching election, and its effect was something tremendous, as well it might be, for it will stand in history beside the Declaration of Independence. The enemies of the government howled with rage, the more timid loyalists were terrified at the boldness of the stand taken, stump speakers condemned it and tried to persuade their audience that a Cæsar sat in the chair of Washington.

That Cæsar had another unpleasant surprise in store for the "Copperheads." He prepared and issued a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus in all cases where persons were imprisoned by martial law and in the cases of certain specified offenses. This was fighting the enemy in the rear with fire, and it gave the disloyal agitators something very tangible and personal to think about. That the President should assume the right to deny freedom of treasonable utterance in time of war was monstrous-worse than freeing the "niggers!" An outcry went up from every corner of the land against the "Despot of Washington," but it was the complaint of a noisy minority. The fight was taken into congress, and that body, forced to take a stand in the matter, confronted the President's position by necessary legislation. As some one has well said, congress always caught up with the President" in time. Somewhat later, when Clement L. Vallandigham became too noisy in Ohio, he was arrested and imprisoned. He might have been severely dealt with and become the martyr that Copperheading so much needed, but the President with grim

humor devised the new punishment of sending him through the lines to his friends, the rebels, and he became forever contemptible.

During the month of October, 1862, the President made a long and sociable visit to the army, with a special view to ascertain the feeling of the men. He found the rank and file steadfast and devoted. Among regimental and field officers there was a little too much tendency to talk politics, but the whole army was quite as ready to fight a war of emancipation as one of simple National defence. It may be said that the army as a whole chafed far more under McClellan's inaction than under any questions of public policy. McClellan had predicted that the army would not sustain the emancipation resort. As a matter of fact there was no hesitation in this, and so soon as Burnside had assumed command and McClellan was disposed of, the army forgot politics and turned its energies to the fighting which had been so long delayed.

It was natural, but unfortunate, that popular interest in America and abroad should be centered in the operations upon the Potomac. Had the people of the north adequately, and those of France and England at all, appreciated the importance of the movements in the west by which the border states were redeemed, the seat of war pushed southward to the Cumberland, while the fall of New Orleans and the reduction of a large part of Louisiana promised the opening of the Mississippi, the effect of the doubtful battles under Pope and McClellan would have been far less.

Lincoln's eye and mind were everywhere. He followed every movement in the west with the same minute and intelligent care that he gave to the army before Washington, and his directing intelligence was in even the minor movements of the most distant army.

The south had not yet given up the hope of bringing England into the fight. In November, 1862, two commissioners, Mason and Slidell, were appointed to push the fortunes of the south in Europe. Both were able men, formerly members of the United States senate. They escaped from Charleston to Cuba, and there embarked upon the British steamship Trent, for St. Thomas. On the following day the Trent was stopped by the United States war steamer San Jacinta, Captain Wilkes, and the two commissioners taken off by force and against the protest of the officers of the Trent.

The news of this arrest, which has passed into diplomatic history as the Trent affair, caused the greatest excitement elsewhere, and in England aroused the most furious indignation, and a war with Great Britain seemed inevitable. It seems to-day a matter of surprise that it was avoided. The south hoped and prayed for it as a means of crippling the government of the United States. England would then have regarded it as to her interest, and the people of the north, their blood afire with rage at the