Scope of Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation--Amendment of the Constitution to abolish slavery--First proposals by Wilson, of Iowa, and Henderson, of Missouri--Trumbull reports the Thirteenth Amendment from the Senate Judiciary Committee--His argument thereon--Speeches of Senators Henderson and Reverdy Johnson--Amendment passes the Senate, but fails in the House--Second attempt in the House successful by a trade with Democrats--Amendment ratified--Objections raised by Southern States explained away by Seward 222 CHAPTER XV RECONSTRUCTION Death of Lincoln--Conflict of opinions concerning the status of the seceding states--Lincoln's proclamation of December, 1863--Reconstruction of Louisiana in pursuance thereof--Trumbull reports a joint resolution admitting that state--Sumner prevents the Senate from voting on it--Lincoln's last speech on Reconstruction--His plan indorsed by William Lloyd Garrison--Andrew Johnson as President adopts it--Recognizes Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas as restored to the Union--Issues an executive order appointing a governor of North Carolina to call a constitutional convention--Negroes not included in the list of voters--Similar orders issued for the other seceding states--Wendell Phillips sounds a blast against President Johnson--Northern newspapers at first favorable to Johnson--Desperate industrial condition of the South 231 CHAPTER XVI ANDREW JOHNSON'S FIRST MESSAGE Excellent tone and temper of Johnson's first communication to Congress--Written by George Bancroft--Eulogy of the New York _Nation_--Johnson's early life and training--A first-rate stump-speaker--Sumner attacks Johnson for "whitewashing" the ex-slaveholders--Acts of Southern legislatures passed to keep the negroes in order--Senator Wilson moves that all such acts establishing inequality of civil rights be declared invalid--Trumbull argues for postponement of such legislation until the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified--Debate between Trumbull and Saulsbury--Reports of General Grant and General Carl Schurz on the condition and temper of the Southern people--Letter from J. L. M. Curry on the same 244 CHAPTER XVII THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU AND CIVIL RIGHTS BILLS