In the presidential election of 1860, the right of the slaveholder to take his slaves—property recognized by the Constitution and laws of the land—into the territories, was an issue made by the Republican party, but no question as to slavery where it already existed, was involved. On the other hand, Lincoln, in his inaugural address on the 4th of March, 1861, expressly declared that he had no authority to interfere with slavery in the States, and no intention of doing so. And not until the promulgation of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, which went into effect on the 1st of January, 1863, made without shadow of right or law, and in direct violation of his solemn declaration and oath of office, was this issue raised, as a war measure, to strengthen the Union cause, which was then on the wane, among the abolitionists at home and abroad. The New England Yankees, who first imported the negro to America, and who had sold their slaves to the Southern planters, because slave labor was unprofitable at the North, and who had engaged in the African slave trade until this was prohibited by law, at the instigation of the South and against the protest of New England shipping interests which was largely engaged in the African slave trade, and had become rabid abolitionists, now demanded emancipation as the price of their loyalty to the Union cause. France had all the while been friendly inclined towards the South, and was urging England to join her in the recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent nation. England, who had years before abolished slavery in all her provinces, and was known to be a nation of abolitionists, was now appealed to, and urged to stand for emancipation in not recognizing the independence of the South. The cotton factories of England were closed, the Southern ports being blockaded, the operatives were clamoring for work or food; bread riots prevailed in the manufacturing cities, the people urging the recognition of the South, so that the ports could be opened and cotton, work, and food procured. Henry Ward Beecher and other abolitionists went to England, faced and spoke to these howling mobs, appealing to them in behalf of the Union cause and the Southern slaves. Not so much, I opine, for the good of the slaves as for the success of the Union cause. They all knew if the Southern ports were opened the South would be victorious.