“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. “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, 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, 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 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 the eighty-seventh. “By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. “W. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.” CHAPTER XIV. LAST SESSION OF THE THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. Situation of the Country--Opposition to the Administration-- President’s Message. Dark days for the friends of freedom in this country were those at the close of 1862. Prior to the autumn of that year the elections had shown a popular indorsement of the acts of the Administration. Then came a change. The three leading States--New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania--through manifestations and misrepresentations which it is unnecessary here to detail, had been induced to give majorities against the Government. Not the least singular of the many remarkable instances of inconsistency which our political annals afford, was furnished in the State first-named, which had actually elected a “Peace” man as its Governor, on the platform of “a more vigorous prosecution of the war.” The failure of the Peninsular Campaign was charged upon the President. The war, it was asserted, had been perverted from its original purpose. It was no longer waged to preserve the Union, but to free the slave; or, in the more elegant phraseology of the day, it had become “a nigger war.” With the ignorant and unthinking such statements passed as truths.