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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 275

nate, no change would be made in the relation of master and slave." Upon
this pro-slavery platform the war against the rebellion had been waged during
almost two years. It had not been a war of conquest, but rather a war of
conciliation. McClellan, in command of the army, had been trying, apparently,
to put down the rebellion without hurting the rebels, certainly without
hurting slavery, and the government had seemed to cooperate with him in
both respects. Charles Sumner, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips,
Gerritt Smith, and the whole anti-slavery phalanx at the North, had denounced
this policy, and had besought Mr. Lincoln to adopt an opposite one, but in
vain. Generals, in the field, and councils in the Cabinet, had persisted in
advancing this policy through defeats and disasters, even to the verge of
ruin. We fought the rebellion, but not its cause. The key to the situation was
the four million of slaves; yet the slave who loved us, was hated, and the
slaveholder who hated us, was loved. We kissed the hand that smote us, and
spurned the hand that helped us. When the means of victory were before
us, — within our grasp, — we went in search of the means of defeat. And now,
on this day of January 1st, 1863, the formal and solemn announcement was
made that thereafter the government would be found on the side of emancipation.
This proclamation changed everything. It gave a new direction to the
councils of the Cabinet, and to the conduct of the national arms. I shall leave
to the statesman, the philosopher, and historian, the more comprehensive
discussion or this document, and only tell how it touched me, and those in
like condition with me at the time. I was in Boston, and its reception there
may indicate the importance attached to it elsewhere. An immense assembly
convened in Tremont Temple to await the first flash of the electric wires
announcing the "new departure." Two years of war prosecuted in the interests
or slavery, had made free speech possible in Boston, and we were now
met together to receive and celebrate the first utterance of the long-hoped-for
proclamation, if it came, and, if it did not come, to speak our minds freely;
for, in view of the past, it was by no means certain that it would come. The
occasion, therefore, was one of both hope and fear. Our ship was on the open
sea, tossed by a terrible storm; wave after wave was passing over us, and
every hour was fraught with increasing peril. Whether we should survive or
perish, depended in large measure upon the coming of this proclamation. At
least so we felt. Although the conditions on which Mr. Lincoln had promised
to withhold it, had not been complied with, yet, from many considerations,
there was room to doubt and tear. Mr. Lincoln was known to be a man of
tender heart, and boundless patience: no man could tell to what length he
might go, or might refrain from going in the direction of peace and reconcili-