One Nathaniel Gordon was already in prison in New York, and his trial was fast approaching. It came, and he was convicted of piracy in the United States District Court in the city of New York; the piracy consisting in having fitted out a slaver, and shipped nine hundred Africans at Congo River, with a view to selling them as slaves. The same man had been tried for the same offence before; but the jury failed to agree, and he accordingly escaped punishment for the time. Every effort was made which the ingenuity of able lawyers could invent, or the power of money could enforce, to save this miscreant from the gallows; but all in vain; for President Lincoln utterly refused to interfere in any way whatever, and Gordon was executed on the 7th of February.
This blow appeared to give more offence to the commercial Copperheads than even the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia; for it struck an effectual blow at a very lucrative branch of commerce, in which the New Yorkers were largely interested. Thus it will be seen that the nation was steadily moving on to the goal of freedom.
In September, 1862, the colored people of Cincinnati, Ohio, organized the “Black Brigade,” and rendered eminent service in protecting that city from the raids of John Morgan and other brigands.
On the first of January, 1863, President Lincoln put forth his Emancipation Proclamation, as follows:—
“Whereas, On the 22d day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following; to wit:
“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 or any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, henceforward, and forever, free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval force 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 effort they may make for their actual freedom; that the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people therein respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States.
“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in times of actual rebellion against the authorities and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war-measure for suppressing this rebellion, do on this, the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the date of the first above-mentioned order, designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States. The following, to wit:—
“Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.
“Louisiana (except the parishes of Placquemines, St. Mary, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Bernard, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not made.
“And by virtue of the power, 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 the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons.
“And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them, that, in all cases where allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
“And I further declare and make known, that such persons, if in 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, sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted by the constitution, and upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
“In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
“Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
(Signed) “Abraham Lincoln.”
CHAPTER XLV. BLACKS ENLISTED, AND IN BATTLE.
Attorney-General Bates had already given his opinion with regard to the citizenship of the negro, and that opinion was in the black man’s favor. The Emancipation Proclamation was only a prelude to calling on the colored men to take up arms, and the one soon followed the other; for the word “Emancipation” had scarcely gone over the wires, ere Adjutant-General Thomas made his appearance in the valley of the Mississippi. At Lake Providence, Louisiana, he met a large wing of the army, composed of volunteers from all parts of the country, and proclaimed to them the new policy of the administration.
The Northern regiments stationed at the South, or doing duty in that section, had met with so many reverses on the field of battle, and had been so inhumanly treated by the rebels, both men and women, that the new policy announced by Adjutant-General Thomas at Lake Providence and other places, was received with great favor, especially when the white soldiers heard from their immediate commanders that the freedmen when enlisted would be employed in doing fatigue-duty, when not otherwise needed. The slave, regarding the use of the musket as the only means of securing his freedom permanently, sought the nearest place of enlistment with the greatest speed.