the Amendment would depend solely upon Republican votes,
and the President was especially anxious that it should receive
Democratic support. Still another reason wrought upon the President's
mind. He believed the rebellion to be near its end, and no man
could tell how soon a proposition might come for the surrender of
the Confederate Armies and the return of the Rebel States to their
National allegiance. If such a proposition should be made, Mr.
Lincoln knew that there would be a wild desire among the loyal
people to accept it, and that in the forgiving joy of re-union they
would not insist upon the conditions which he believed essential
to the future safety and strength of the National Government.
Slavery had been abolished in the District of Columbia by a law of
Congress, and in Maryland by her own action. It still existed in
the other Border States and in Tennessee, and its abolition in the
remaining States of the Confederacy depended upon the validity of
the President's Proclamation of Emancipation.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.

Without discussing the validity of the Proclamation Mr. Lincoln
incidentally assumed it, with an emphatic assertion of his own
position, which came nearer the language of threat than his habitual
prudence and moderation had ever permitted him to indulge. "In
presenting the abandonment of armed resistance on the part of the
insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war,"
said the President, "I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery.
. . . 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 any of 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._." This was fair notice by Mr. Lincoln to all the
world that so long as he was President the absolute validity of
the Proclamation would be maintained at all hazards.

This position enabled the President to plead effectively with
Congress for the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment and the
consequent avoidance of all possible conflicts between different
departments of the Government touching the legal character of the
Proclamation. Recognizing the fact that he was addressing the same