In his message to Congress in December, 1864, just after his re-election, President Lincoln, in his message of December 6th, let himself out, in plain, unmistakable terms, to the effect that the freedmen should never be placed in bondage again. “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” of December 24th, 1864, printed the cartoon we herewith reproduce, the text underneath running in this way:
UNCLE ABE: “Sambo, you are not handsome, any more than myself, but as to sending you back to your old master, I’m not the man to do it—and, what’s more, I won’t.” (Vice President’s message.)
Congress, at the previous sitting, had neglected to pass the resolution for the Constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery, but, on the 31st of January, 1865, the resolution was finally adopted, and the United States Constitution soon had the new feature as one of its clauses, the necessary number of State Legislatures approving it. President Lincoln regarded the passage of this resolution by Congress as most important, as the amendment, in his mind, covered whatever defects a rigid construction of the Constitution might find in his Emancipation Proclamation.
After the latter was issued, negroes were allowed to enlist in the Army, and they fought well and bravely. After the War, in the reorganization of the Regular Army, four regiments of colored men were provided for—the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry. In the cartoon, Sambo has evidently been asking “Uncle Abe” as to the probability or possibility of his being again enslaved.
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