anuary 31, 1865, the Resolution was passed in the House by a
two-thirds majority with a few votes to spare, and the great crowd in
the galleries, defying all precedent, broke out in a demonstration of
enthusiasm which some still recall as the most memorable scene in their
lives. On December 18 of that year, when Lincoln had been eight months
dead, William Seward, as Secretary of State, was able to certify that
the requisite majority of States had passed the Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution, and the cause of that "irrepressible conflict" which
he had foretold, and in which he had played a weak but valuable part,
was for ever extinguished.

At the present day, alike in the British Empire and in America, the
unending difficulty of wholesome human relations between races of
different and unequal development exercises many minds; but this
difficulty cannot obscure the great service done by those who, first in
England and later and more hardly in America, stamped out that cardinal
principle of error that any race is without its human claim. Among
these men William Lloyd Garrison lived to see the fruit of his labours,
and to know and have friendly intercourse with Lincoln. There have
been some comparable instances in which men with such different
characters and methods have unconsciously conspired for a common end,
as these two did when Garrison was projecting the "Liberator" and
Lincoln began shaping himself for honourable public work in the vague.
The part that Lincoln played in these events did not seem to him a
personal achievement of his own. He appeared to himself rather as an
instrument. "I claim not," he once said in this connection, "to have
controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."
In 1864, when a petition was sent to him from some children that there
should be no more child slaves, he wrote, "Please tell these little
people that I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and
generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all
they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it
seems, He wills to do it." Yet, at least, he redeemed the boyish
pledge that has been, fancifully perhaps, ascribed to him; each
opportunity that to his judgment ever presented itself of striking some
blow for human freedom was taken; the blows were timed and directed by
the full force of his sagacity, and they were never restrained by
private ambition or fe