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.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons, of 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 act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

    In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, 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 the eighty-seventh.

    By the President,
       ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

    WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
       Secretary of State.

It will be observed that the Proclamation was merely a war measure resting on the constitutional power of the President.  Its effects on the legal status of the slaves gave rise to much discussion; and it is to be noted that it did not apply to what is now West Virginia, to seven counties in Virginia, and to thirteen parishes in Louisiana, which districts had already come under Federal jurisdiction.  All questions raised by the measure, however, were finally settled by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and as a matter of fact freedom actually followed the progress of the Union arms from 1863 to 1865.

Meanwhile from the very beginning of the war Negroes were used by the Confederates in making redoubts and in doing other rough work, and even before the Emancipation Proclamation there were many Northern officers who said that definite enlistment was advisable.  They felt that such a course would help to destroy slavery and that as the Negroes had so much at stake they should have some share in the overthrow of the rebellion.  They said also that the men would be proud to wear the national uniform.  Individuals moreover as officers’ servants saw much of fighting and won confidence in their ability; and as the war advanced and more and more men were killed the conviction grew that a Negro could stop a bullet as well as a white man and that in any case the use of Negroes for fatigue work would release numbers of other men for the actual fighting.