There was another reason why the experiment of emancipation could be best tried in the District of Columbia. Emancipation was evidently the ultimate end of this question. We had the power to try the experiment. It would be an example likely to be followed at the close of the war by many of the border states. I therefore made up my mind in favor of the measure, made a long speech for the bill and voted for it. It became a law on April 10, 1862.
At that early day, I believed that it was the duty of Congress to confiscate the slaves in the seceding states as the natural result of the war. These states had placed themselves in a position by rebellion where they had no constitutional rights which we were bound to observe. The war being open and flagrant to break up the Union, they were not entitled to the benefit of any stipulation made in their favor as states in the Union. I also favored the granting of aid to any policy of emancipation that might be adopted in the border states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, but Congress was indisposed to extend the provisions of the then pending measure beyond the District of Columbia.
The President of the United States, on September 22, 1862, issued his proclamation containing the following declaration:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state of designated part of a state, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
This was carried out in a subsequent proclamation of January 1, 1863, in which the President declared:
"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."
This was the beginning of the end of slavery.
In following the important financial measures of the 37th Congress, I have purposely passed by, in their order of time, other measures of vital interest that were acted upon in that Congress. The military measures adopted were on the same grand scale as the financial measures I have referred to. In 1861 the United States contained a population of 32,000,000 people, of whom about 10,000,000 were in the seceding states, some of whom were opposed to secession, but a greater number living in states that did not secede were in hearty sympathy with the rebellion. No preparation for war had been made in any of the loyal states, while in the disloyal states preparations had been made by the distribution of arms through the treachery of Secretary Floyd. When the seceding states organized a confederate government, the executive branch of the general government was under the management and control of those who favored the rebellion, or were so feeble or indifferent that they offered no resistance whatever to such organization. The President of the United States declared, in an executive message, that the general government had no power to coerce a state. On the accession of President Lincoln, the confederate government was better organized for resistance than the Union was for coercion. When war actually commenced, the capital at Washington was practically blockaded, and in the power of the Confederates.
The response of the loyal states to the call of Lincoln was perhaps the most remarkable uprising of a great people in the history of mankind. Within a few days the road to Washington was opened, but the men who answered the call were not soldiers, but citizens, badly armed, and without drill or discipline. The history of their rapid conversion into real soldiers, and of the measures adopted by Congress to organize, arm and equip them, does not fall within my province. The battles fought, the victories won, and the defeats suffered, have been recorded in the hundred or more volumes of "The Records of the Rebellion," published by the United States. The principal events of the war have been told in the history of Abraham Lincoln by Nicolay and Hay, and perhaps more graphically by General Grant, General Sherman, General Sheridan, Alexander H. Stephens, Fitz Hugh Lee, and many others who actively participated in the war, and told what they saw and knew of it.
The military committees of the two Houses, under the advice of accomplished officers, formulated the laws passed by Congress for the enlistment, equipment and organization of the Union armies. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, was chairman of the committee on military affairs of the Senate, and he is entitled to much of the praise due for the numerous laws required to fit the Union citizen soldiers for military duty. His position was a difficult one, but he filled it with hearty sympathy for the Union soldiers, and with a just regard for both officers and men.