outh), and
which excepted parts are, for the present, left precisely as if
this proclamation were not issued.

"And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do
order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said
designated States and parts of States, are and henceforward shall
be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authorities thereof, will
recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

"And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, to
abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and
I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor
faithfully for reasonable wages.

"And I further declare and make known that such persons, of
suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of
the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and
other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

"And upon this act, 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.

"In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed.

"Done at the City of Washington, this 1st day of January, in the
year of our Lord 1863, and of the independence of the United
States the 87th.

[L. S.]

"By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
"WILLIAM H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_."

Even this proclamation--not a measure of humanity--to save the Union,
not the slave--left slaves in many counties and States at the South.
It was a war measure, pure and simple. It was a blow aimed at the most
vulnerable part of the Confederacy. It was destroying its
corner-stone, and the ponderous fabric was doomed to a speedy and
complete destruction. It discovered that the strength of this Sampson
of rebellion lay in its vast slave population. To the slave the
proclamation came as the song of the rejoicing angels to the shepherds
upon the plains of Bethlehem. It was like music at night, mellowed by
the distance, that rouses slumbering hopes, gives wings to fancy, and
peoples the brain with blissful thoughts. The notes of freedom came
careering to them across the red, bill