deliberate decision. As a private citizen, the executive could not have consented that those institutions should perish, much less could he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he has so far done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours.'

On the sixteenth of August, 1861, President Lincoln issued his proclamation prohibiting intercourse with the States in insurrection, excepting West-Virginia and North-Carolina, as well as the parts of States which were loyal. On the thirty-first of March, 1863, he issued another proclamation on this subject, revoking the exceptions, save only West-Virginia and the four ports of New-Orleans, Key West, Port Royal, and Beaufort, N. C.

The impatience of some of his generals with the toleration of slave property among the rebels, which was used for the maintenance of the rebellion, either directly or indirectly, led them to issue general orders emancipating all the slaves of persons known to be in rebellion within their commands. General Fremont was the first to do this in Missouri, August thirty-first, 1861. The President, believing that matters were not ripe for such a movement, modified his order in a published letter. General Hunter repeated the act in May, 1862, extending it over a region where he possessed no military authority. The President repudiated his proclamation as injudicious and untimely, reserving to himself, however, the right to take such a step as commander-in-chief when it should become a military necessity. That period was fast approaching. In August, 1862, Horace Greeley, editor of the New-York Tribune, addressed him a letter in the columns of his paper, urging the necessity of taking the ground of emancipation. Mr. Lincoln replied, on the twenty-second of August, in a brief but characteristic letter, in which he avowed his determination to do all in his power for the salvation of the Union, proclaiming emancipation or not, as should seem to him most advisable for the attainment of that object. The progress of events, however, soon satisfied him of the necessity of such a movement, and on the twenty-second of September he issued a preliminary proclamation, announcing that on the first of January, 1863, he should declare the emancipation of all slaves in the States, or parts of States, which should then be in insurrection, but that he would except in his proclamation all States which should before that time return to their allegiance. The proclamation thus foreshadowed was issued on the New-Year's day, and soon after arrangements were made for the raising of colored regiments.

While the Border States and such portions of Tennessee, Louisiana, and WestVirginia as were loyal or under the control of the Union forces were specially exempted from the operations of this proclamation, it was the earnest desire of

President Lincoln that these States should adopt some plan of gradual emancipation, and this desire was manifested by him repeatedly during the year 1862 and subsequently. On the sixth of March, 1862, he sent a message to Congress, recommending the passage of a joint resolution pledging the coöperation of the United States in the way of pecuniary aid to any State which should adopt a system of gradual and compensated emancipation. On the twelfth of July he solicited and held an interview with the members of Congress from the Border slave States, in which he urged upon them the importance of the measure, and recommended it in his message of December third, 1862. These recommendations have taken and are still taking effect.

The increasing proportions of the rebellion requiring a larger force in the field, Mr. Lincoln, on the first of July, 1862, in accordance with the advice of the Governors of the loyal States, called for three hundred thousand more volunteers for three years or the war; and on the third of August called for a draft of three hundred thousand more for nine months. In most of the States this second quota was raised by volunteering, and the draft was resorted to for but a few thousands. The time of service of these troops, however, proved too short, and the arrangements for drafting were defective and unequal. Accordingly, on the twenty-eighth of February, 1863, Congress passed a carefully considered conscription law, and in the spring of that year the President gave notice of a draft for three hundred thousand men to serve for three years. There was considerable opposition to the draft, the provisions of which were not well understood at first, and, in some instances, there were considerable riots, but the President wisely insisted on its enforcement, and, in a letter to Governor Seymour, of New-York, assigned satisfactory reasons for so doing. The draft not bringing in a sufficiency of recruits, he called, on the twentieth of October, 1863, for three hundred thousand more volunteers.

In a letter, bearing date June thirteenth, 1863, addressed to a committee of Albany Democrats, who had protested against the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham and demanded his release, President Lincoln clearly and satisfactorily defended the principle of military arrests in time of civil war; and in another, addressed to the Springfield, Illinois, and Syracuse, New-York, Union Conventions, he justified, with singular ability, the employment of the negro to aid in putting down the rebellion.