It was significant that even this early Abraham Lincoln himself was suggesting limited Negro suffrage. Already he was thinking of the reconstruction of the states; Louisiana had been in Union hands for two years and Lincoln wrote to Governor Hahn, March 13th, 1864: “Now you are about to have a convention, which, ... will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest, for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.”[151] Here again the development had been logical. The Negroes were voting in many Northern states. At least one-half million of them were taking part in the war, nearly 200,000 as armed soldiers. They were beginning to be reorganized in industry by the army officials as free laborers. Naturally the question must come sooner or later: Could they be expected to maintain their freedom, either political or economic, unless they had a vote? And Lincoln with rare foresight saw this several months before the end of the war. The year 1865 brought fully to the front the question of Negro suffrage and Negro free labor. They were recognized January 16th, when Sherman settled large numbers of Negroes on the Sea Islands. His order said: “The Islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles from the sea, and the country bordering the St. John’s river, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the Negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.