"Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take another view * * * Of those who were Slaves at the beginning of the Rebellion, full one hundred thousand are now in the United States Military service, about one half of which number actually bear arms in the ranks; thus giving the double advantage of taking so much labor from the Insurgent cause, and supplying the places which otherwise must be filled with so many White men. So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any. "No servile insurrection, or tendency to violence or cruelty, has marked the measures of Emancipation and arming the Blacks. These measures have been much discussed in Foreign Countries, and contemporary with such discussion the tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At home, the same measures have been fully discussed, supported, criticised, and denounced, and the annual elections following are highly encouraging to those whose official duty it is to bear the Country through this great trial. Thus we have the new reckoning. The crisis which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is past." After alluding to his Proclamation of Amnesty, issued simultaneously with this Message, to all repentant Rebels who would take an oath therein prescribed, and contending that such an oath should be (as he had drawn it) to uphold not alone the Constitution and the Union, but the Laws and Proclamations touching Slavery as well, President Lincoln continued: "In my judgment they have aided and will further aid, the Cause for which they were intended. To now abandon them, would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith." And, toward the close of the Message, he added: "The movements by State action, for Emancipation, in several of the States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, are matters of profound gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have heretofore so earnestly urged upon the subject, my general views remain unchanged; and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity of AIDING THESE IMPORTANT STEPS TO A GREAT CONSUMMATION." Mr. Lincoln's patient but persistent solicitude, his earnest and unintermitted efforts--exercised publicly through his Messages and speeches, and privately upon Members of Congress who called upon, or whose presence was requested by him at the White House--in behalf of incorporating Emancipation in the Constitution, were now to give promise, at least, of bearing good fruit.