eing a charter of freedom, would
have been a license for slaveholding.

The proclamation did not, in fact, whatever it may have otherwise
accomplished at the time it was issued, liberate a single slave. What
is more, slavery as an institution was altogether too securely rooted
in our system to be abolished by proclamation. The talk of such a
thing greatly belittles the magnitude of the task that was performed.
Its removal required a long preliminary work, involving, as is made to
appear in previous chapters of this work, almost incalculable toil and
sacrifice, to be followed by an enormous expenditure of blood and
treasure. Its practical extinguishment was the work of the army, while
its legal extirpation was accomplished by Congress and the
Legislatures of the States in adopting the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Federal Constitution, which forbids all slaveholding. That amendment
was a production of Congress and not of the Executive, whose official
approval was not even required to make it legally effective.

The story of the proclamation, with not a few variations, has often
been told; but the writer fancies that the altogether correct account
has not always been given. It may be presumptuous on his part, but he
will submit his version.

To understand the motive underlying the proclamation we must take into
account its author's feeling toward slavery. Notwithstanding various
unfriendly references of an academic sort to that institution, he was
not at the time the proclamation appeared, and never had been, an
Abolitionist.

Not very long before the time referred to the writer heard Mr.
Lincoln, in his debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois,
declare--laying unusual emphasis on his words: "I have on all
occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas against the
disposition to interfere with the existing institution of slavery."

Judge Douglas was what was then called a "dough-face" by the
Abolitionists--being a Northern man with Southern principles, or
"proclivities," as he called them.

Only a little earlier, and several years after Mr. Lincoln had claimed
to be a Republican, and a leader of the Republicans, he had, in a
speech at Bloomington, Illinois, asserted that, "the conclusion of it
all is that we must restore the Missouri Compromise."

Now the adoption of the Missouri Compromise was the hardest blow ever
inflicted on the cause of free soil in America. It did more to
encourage the supporters of