The office of commissioner of internal revenue has fortunately been filled, as a rule, by gentlemen of standing and character of a high order of intelligence, and their work has been of great service to the United States. This important bureau ought to be, and no doubt will be, retained as a part of the organized machinery of the government, and the taxes collected by it will be necessary as long as our public debt remains, and until the list of pensioners will be obliterated by the hand of time. CHAPTER XIV. LINCOLN'S EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. Slavery in the District of Columbia Abolished--Law Goes Into Effect on April 10, 1862--Beginning of the End of Slavery--Military Measures in Congress to Carry on the War--Response to the President's Call --Beneficial Effects of the Confiscation Act--Visits to Soldiers' Camps--Robert S. Granger as a Cook--How I Came to Purchase a Washington Residence--Increase of Compensation to Senators and Members and Its Effect--Excitement in Ohio over Vallandigham's Arrest--News of the Fall of Vicksburg and Defeat of Lee at Gettysburg --John Brough Elected Governor of Ohio--Its Effect on the State. Another question of grave political significance was presented to the 37th Congress early in this session, that of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I had from the beginning declared my opposition to any interference with slavery in the District, but the changed condition of the country demanded a change of public policy in this respect. Slavery was made the pretext for, and, I believe, was, the real cause of the war. It had a foothold in the District of Columbia, but it existed there in its mildest form. By the census of 1860 there were, in the District of Columbia, 11,107 free negroes, 3,181 slaves, and 60,785 white people. It was considered the paradise of free negroes, where they were almost exclusively employed as laborers in household service.