President Lincoln, Self-Pourtrayed (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 Excerpt: ... saddling or harnessing them at pleasure. The proclamation could thus be no more than a beginning of the good work, to be completed in every case by State action. Nor indeed did it or could it apply to the loyal Slave States--Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, with the excepted portions of Virginia and Louisiana, besides Tennessee. Slavery was thus left subsisting over an area which, at the Census of 1860, had contained between seven and eight hundred thousand human chattels; although that figure had been enormously reduced by the various events of the war--emigration South of planters with their slaves, escapes, confiscations. Still, the great word had been spoken. Upwards of 3,000,000 of slaves were declared entitled to immediate freedom. The chief magistrate of the United States proclaimed to his countrymen, to the world, that the freedom of 122 THE UNION CAUSE THAT OF FREEDOM. these 3,000,000 was not merely involved in the maintenance of the American Union, but was essential to it. Henceforth, none but the helplessly or wilfully blind could fail to see that the cause of freedom, in the great conflict which was raging on the American Continent, was the cause of the North. 123 CHAPTER III. From The Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863, To Mr. Lincoln's Death, April 15, 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation was warmly received by all in Europe whose sympathy with human freedom was genuine, and who had not suffered themselves to be misled by sophisms and mis-statements. The working men of Manchester, amongst others, --in the very midst of the cotton famine, --had met on the 31st December, and forwarded to the President a congratulatory address. His reply (January 19th, 1863), might well deserve to be quoted at full length. He indicated, as "the k...