cessary to free all the slaves in order to save the Union he
would take that course.

The anti-slavery men were continually urging Mr. Lincoln to set the
slaves free, but he paid no attention to their petitions and demands
until he felt that emancipation would help him to preserve the Union of
the States.

The outlook for the Union cause grew darker and darker in 1862, and Mr.
Lincoln began to think, as he expressed it, that he must "change
his tactics or lose the game." Accordingly he decided to issue the
Emancipation Proclamation as soon as the Union army won a substantial
victory. The battle of Antietam, on September 17, gave him the
opportunity he sought. He told Secretary Chase that he had made a
solemn vow before God that if General Lee should be driven back from
Pennsylvania he would crown the result by a declaration of freedom to
the slaves.

On the twenty-second of that month he issued a proclamation stating
that at the end of one hundred days he would issue another proclamation
declaring all slaves within any State or Territory to be forever free,
which was done in the form of the famous Emancipation Proclamation.

HARD TO REFUSE PARDONS.

In the conduct of the war and in his purpose to maintain the Union,
Abraham Lincoln exhibited a will of iron and determination that could
not be shaken, but in his daily contact with the mothers, wives and
daughters begging for the life of some soldier who had been condemned to
death for desertion or sleeping on duty he was as gentle and weak as a
woman.

It was a difficult matter for him to refuse a pardon if the slightest
excuse could be found for granting it.

Secretary Stanton and the commanding generals were loud in declaring
that Mr. Lincoln would destroy the discipline of the army by his
wholesale pardoning of condemned soldiers, but when we come to examine
the individual cases we find that Lincoln was nearly always right, and
when he erred it was always on the side of humanity.

During the four years of the long struggle for the preservation of
the Union, Mr. Lincoln kept "open shop," as he expressed it, where
the general public could always see him and make known their wants and
complaints. Even the private soldier was not denied admittance to the
President's private office, and no request or complaint was too small or
trivial to enlist his sympathy and interest.

A FUN-LOVING AND HUMOR-LOVING MAN.

It was once said of Shakespeare that the g