e, and their work has been of great service to
the United States. This important bureau ought to be, and no doubt
will be, retained as a part of the organized machinery of the
government, and the taxes collected by it will be necessary as long
as our public debt remains, and until the list of pensioners will
be obliterated by the hand of time.

CHAPTER XIV.
LINCOLN'S EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
Slavery in the District of Columbia Abolished--Law Goes Into Effect
on April 10, 1862--Beginning of the End of Slavery--Military Measures
in Congress to Carry on the War--Response to the President's Call
--Beneficial Effects of the Confiscation Act--Visits to Soldiers'
Camps--Robert S. Granger as a Cook--How I Came to Purchase a
Washington Residence--Increase of Compensation to Senators and
Members and Its Effect--Excitement in Ohio over Vallandigham's
Arrest--News of the Fall of Vicksburg and Defeat of Lee at Gettysburg
--John Brough Elected Governor of Ohio--Its Effect on the State.

Another question of grave political significance was presented to
the 37th Congress early in this session, that of the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia. I had from the beginning
declared my opposition to any interference with slavery in the
District, but the changed condition of the country demanded a change
of public policy in this respect. Slavery was made the pretext
for, and, I believe, was, the real cause of the war. It had a
foothold in the District of Columbia, but it existed there in its
mildest form. By the census of 1860 there were, in the District
of Columbia, 11,107 free negroes, 3,181 slaves, and 60,785 white
people. It was considered the paradise of free negroes, where they
were almost exclusively employed as laborers in household service.

When the war broke out a considerable number of slaves ran away
from disloyal masters in Virginia and Maryland, seeking safety
within our lines and finding employment in the District of Columbia.
As the war approached, most of the slaves in the District were
carried away by their owners into Virginia, and other southern
states, so that in 1862 it was estimated there were not more than
1,500, and probably not 1,000, slaves in the District, while the
number of free negroes increased to 15,000. As a matter of course,
when Virginia seceded no attempt was made to recapture runaway
slaves from that state, and they became practically free. It was
known that there was at that