The Journals of the House show how faithfully he began his labors at the present session. On the 14th of December he introduced a bill, whose title discloses its character: “A bill to give effect to the Declaration of Independence, and also to certain provisions of the Constitution of the United States.” It proceeds to recite that all men are created equal, and endowed by the Creator with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the fruits of honest toil; that the Government of the United States was instituted to secure those rights; that the Constitution declares that no person shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law, and also provides (Article six, clause two) that “this Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding”; that it is now demonstrated by the Rebellion that Slavery is absolutely incompatible with the union, peace, and general welfare for which Congress is to provide; and it therefore enacts that all persons heretofore held in slavery in any of the States or Territories of the United States are declared freedmen, and are forever released from slavery or involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime on due conviction. On the same day he introduced another bill, to protect freedmen and to punish any one for enslaving them. These were among his last public acts. And now they testify how honestly he dealt with that _question of questions_ in which all other questions are swallowed up. It is easy to see that he scorned the wicked fantasy that man can hold property in man. This pernicious delusion, which is the source of such intolerable pretensions on the part of slave-masters, and, worse still, of such intolerable irresolution on the part of many professing opposition to Slavery, could get no hold of him. He knew that it was a preposterous falsehood, as wicked as false, born of prejudice and supreme credulity, and therefore he brushed aside as cobweb all the fine-spun snares of law or Constitution so ingeniously woven in its support. Recognizing Freedom as the God-given birthright of all who wear the human form, he knew no duty higher than to protect it always; and to this end law and Constitution must minister.