While the people have been working in their individual capacity to right the wrongs of generations, our constituted authorities have been moving on steadfastly to the same end. Military necessity has emancipated thousands of slaves, and civil power has pressed ever nearer and nearer to the abolition of slavery. In all the confusion of war, the trumpet-tones of justice have rung through our national halls with no uncertain sound. With a pertinacity most exasperating to tyrants and infidels, but most welcome to the friends of human rights, Northern Senators and Representatives have presented the claims of the African race. With many a momentary recession, the tide has swept irresistibly onward. Hopes have been baffled only to be strengthened. Measures have been defeated only to be renewed. Defeat has been accepted but as the stepping-stone to new endeavor. Cautiously, warily, Freedom has lain in wait to rescue her wronged children. Her watchful eyes have fastened upon every weakness in her foe: her ready hand has been upraised wherever there was a chance to strike. Quietly, almost unheard amid the loud-resounding clash of arms, her decrees have gone forth, instinct with the enfranchisement of a race. The war began with old customs and prejudices under full headway, but the new necessities soon met them with fierce collision. The first shock was felt when the escaping slaves of Rebel masters were pronounced free, and our soldiers were forbidden to return them. Then the blows came fast and furious, and the whole edifice, reared on that crumbling corner-stone of Slavery, reeled through all its heaven-defying heights. The gates of Liberty opened to the slave, on golden hinges turning. The voice of promise rang through Rebel encampments, and penetrated to the very fastnesses of Rebellion. The ranks of the army called the freedman to the rescue of his race. The courts of justice received him in witness of his manhood. Before every foreign court he was acknowledged as a citizen of his country, and as entitled to her protection. The capital of our nation was purged of the foul stain that dishonored her in the eyes of the nations, and that gave the lie direct to our most solemn Declaration. The fugitive-slave acts that disfigured our statute-book were blotted out, and fugitive-slave-stealer acts filled their vacant places. The seal of freedom, unconditional, perpetual, and immediate, was set upon the broad outlying lands of the republic, and from the present Congress we confidently await the crowning act which shall make slavery forever impossible, and liberty the one supreme, universal, unchangeable law in every part of our domains.