with their appeals long unnoticed and hopes long deferred, were specially gratified. They regarded it as the consummation they had so devoutly wished, the something they had been longing for, looking for, and laboring for through the weary years of the irrepressible conflict, the ripe, rich fruitage of seed sown in days of darkness and storm. But they had never constituted more than an inconsiderable fraction of the whole. At the other extreme larger numbers received it with deadly and outspoken'opposition; while between these extremes the great body of even Union men doubted, hesitated, and were at best only "willing" that the slaves should be free. Its immediate practical effect did perhaps more nearly answer the apprehensions of the President than the expectations of those most clamorous for it. It did, as charged, very much "unite the South and divide the North." The cry of "the perversion of the war for the Union into a war for the negro" became the Democratic watchword, and was sounded everywhere with only too disastrous effect, as was plainly revealed by the fall elections with their large Democratic gains and Republican losses. Indeed, it was the opinion of Mr. Greeley, that, could there have been a vote taken at that time on the naked issue, a large majority would have pronounced against emancipation. But Mr. Lincoln did not falter. Notwithstanding these discouraging votes at the North, and the refusal of any Southern State to avail itself of the proffered immunity and aid of his Proclamation of September, he proceeded, at the close of the hundred days of grace allowed by it, to issue his second and absolute Proclamation, making all the slaves of the Rebel States and parts of States forever and irreversibly free. He began by reciting those portions of his first Proclamation which contained the conditional purpose of freeing the slaves in those portions of the country then in rebellion. "Now, therefore," he added, "I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual rebellion, as a fit and necessary war measure, . . . . and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly pro .... claimed for the full period of one hundred days. . . . order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively this day are in rebellion against the United States." Specifying such States and parts of States to be affected by the measure, he then proclaimed that all persons held as slaves therein " are and henceforward shall be free," and that the government in all its branches "will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons." Enjoining upon the people so declared to be free that they should "abstain from all violence unless in necessary selfdefence," and that, "when allowed, they labor for reasonable wages," he declared that they might be "received into the armed service of the United States." "And upon this act," he said, "sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." This last clause was suggested by Mr. Chase, and readily accepted by the President. Though the immediate effects of the Proclamation might not have answered all that was expected of it, it was not many months before its happy influences became manifest. Its tendency from the first was to unify and consolidate the antislavery and Christian sentiment of the land, to give dignity and consistency to the conflict. It took away the reproach, which had been freely cast upon the government, that the war. was a mere sectional strife for ascendency, and made it appear what it really had become,-a struggle for human rights, and a vindication of the primal truths of the Declaration of Independence. It strengthened, too, the cause immensely with other nations, secured the sympathy and moral support of Christendom, and diminished, if it did not entirely remove, the danger of foreign intervention. And yet there were many at the North who continued inflexibly and violently hostile to the measure, and who permitted no opportunity to pass unimproved of holding it up to popular odium. Not only did the Democrats universally condemn it in their conventions and through their presses, but Union men, even some Republicans, of whose loyalty there could be no question, doubted the expediency, if they did not deny the right, of its issuance. Even in the President's own State there was a mass meeting, in September, 1863, of those opposed. To this meeting he addressed a letter, in which, with much force and point and in his own inimitable manner, he vindicated his course, and showed how indefensible was the position of those whose carping criticisms he thus noticed. Assuming that they were all equally anxious for peace, he said that there were but three possible ways in which it could be secured, by the force of arms, which he was trying to effect; by giving up the Union, to which he was unalterably opposed; and by some compromise, which he deemed impossi ble with a maintenance of the Union, at least so long as the whole South was under the control of the Rebel army. Alluding to a probable difference that existed between them in their estimate of the negro, he admitted that personally he certainly desired his freedom, but claimed that he had adopted or proposed nothing for that purpose inconsistent with a simple desire to preserve the Union. To the wish that the Proclamation should be retracted on the plea that it was unconstitutional and unauthorized, and that it put in greater peril the Union cause, he replied that he had no question of his right to do it as Commander-in-chief in the exercise of the war power. Continuing his response to this objection, he said it was, or was not, valid. If it was not valid, it needed no retraction. If it was valid, it could not be retracted, "any more than the dead can be brought to life." To the plea that its retraction would increase the chances of Union success, said that the war had been prosecuted a year and a half without it, and that it had certainly "progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the Proclamation as before." To their avowed refusal to fight for negroes, he caustically replied: "Some of them seem willing to fight for you"; adding that what the black soldiers had done left "just so much less for the white soldiers to do to save the Union." But like others, he said, they did not act without motives; and he asked why they should do anything for us if we will do nothing for them. "If they stake their lives for us," he said, "they must be he prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of freedom, and the promise being made must be kept." Saying that the signs looked better, and that peace did not appear as distant as it did, and expressing the hope that "it will soon come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time," he closed with this sharp and significant rebuke: "And there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth, and steady eye and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation, while, I fear, there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it." CHAPTER XXIX. REPEAL OF FUGITIVE-SLAVE ACT. Most annoying legislation. — Conflict with Higher Law. - Early memorials.Resolution by Mr. Howe. Bills by Wilmot and Wilson. - Fruitless endeavors. XXXVIIIth Congress. - Bills in the House by Stevens, Ashley, and Julian. - Minority report. Bill debated and passed. Reconsidered. - Sherman's amendment and debate. Speech of Mr. Foster. - Van Winkle. — Whole subject deferred. Subject in the House. - Bill reported. - Debate. -Speech of Mallory. - Strenuous opposition. — Cox, King. — Passed. — Action of the Senate. — Sumner, Hendricks, Saulsbury, Hale, Powell, Davis. —Passed. Senate Committee of Seven. - Bill and Report by Mr. Sumner. - THE fact or phase of slavery most annoying and most exasperating to the freedom-loving men of the North was the obligation imposed, by both the Constitution and the statute, on every American citizen not only to allow, but to assist in, the pursuit of fugitives from service. That was both seen and felt to be a crime against themselves as well as against the slaves. As if it were not enough to know that there were millions of their countrymen grinding in the prison-house of their bondage, with its unparalleled wrongs and unutterable agonies, they were compelled to be personal participants in this great offence, by standing guard over these victims, preventing their escape, or joining in the pursuit, if escaping. The most abhorrent of all its infamous laws were its fugitiveslave laws, especially that of 1850, called, by way of eminence, the Fugitive-Slave Act,-the most villanous of the "sum of all villanies," the most unnatural and Heaven-defying, placing itself athwart the current of the soul's best affections, and compelling them to flow back upon itself or find their exercise only at great risks of personal loss and danger. The Great Teacher had taught and commanded, "Whatsoever ye would |