|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
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.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
Stories and Anecdotes About the Life of Abraham Lincoln
|
|