he settled and irrepealable Law of the
Republic, to be observed, obeyed, and enforced, by Army and Navy, and is
the irreversible voice of the Nation."

He also reviewed what had been done since the outbreak of the Rebellion,
by Congress and the President, by Laws and Proclamations; and, while
standing by the Emancipation Proclamations, declared that "the crowning
Act, in this series of Acts, for the restriction and extinction of
Slavery in America, is this proposed Amendment to the Constitution
prohibiting the existence of Slavery in the Republic of the United
States."

The Emancipation Proclamation, according to his view, only needed
enforcement, to give "Peace and Order, Freedom and Unity, to a now
distracted Country;" but the "crowning act" of incorporating this
Amendment into the Constitution would do even more than all this, in
that it would "obliterate the last lingering vestiges of the Slave
System; its chattelizing, degrading, and bloody codes; its malignant,
barbarizing spirit; all it was, and is; everything connected with it or
pertaining to it, from the face of the Nation it has scarred with moral
desolation, from the bosom of the Country it has reddened with the blood
and strewn with the graves of patriotism."

While the debate proceeded, President Lincoln watched it with careful
interest. Other matters, however, had, since the Battle of Chattanooga,
largely engrossed his attention.

The right man had at last been found--it was believed--to control as
well as to lead our Armies. That man was Ulysses S. Grant. The grade
of Lieutenant General of the Army of the United States--in desuetude
since the days of Washington, except by brevet, in the case of Winfield
Scott,--having been especially revived by Congress for and filled by the
appointment and confirmation of Grant, March 2, 1864, that great soldier
immediately came on to Washington, received his commission at the hands
of President Lincoln, in the cabinet chamber of the White House, on the
9th, paid a flying visit to the Army of the Potomac, on the 10th, and at
once returned to Nashville to plan future movements.

On the 12th, a General Order of the War Department (No. 98) was issued,
relieving Major-General Halleck, "at his own request," from duty as
"General-in-Chief" of the Army, and assigning Lieutenant-General U. S.
Grant to "the command of the Armies of the United States," "the
Headquarters of the Army" to be in Washington, and also with
Li