Europe were uttered in accents of pity that we are too blind to
surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by a
few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores, and
we were threatened with such additions from the same quarter as would
sweep our trade from the sea and raise our blockade. We had failed
to elicit from European governments anything hopeful upon this
subject. The preliminary emancipation proclamation, issued in
September, was running its assigned period to the beginning of the
new year. A month later the final proclamation came, including the
announcement that colored men of suitable condition would be received
into the war service. The policy of emancipation and of employing
black soldiers gave to the future a new aspect, about which hope and
fear and doubt contended in uncertain conflict. According to our
political system, as a matter of civil administration, the General
Government had no lawful power to effect emancipation in any State,
and for a long time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be
suppressed without resorting to it as a military measure. It was all
the while deemed possible that the necessity for it might come, and
that if it should the crisis of the contest would then be presented.
It came, and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and
doubtful days. Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to
take another review. The rebel borders are pressed still farther
back, and by the complete opening of the Mississippi the country
dominated by the rebellion is divided into distinct parts, with no
practical communication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have
been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and influential
citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the
beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation in
their respective States. Of those States not included in the
emancipation proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which