With this victory of Fredericksburg the hopes of the Confederates
rose high. They believed that the war would soon end triumphantly
for them, and that the South would henceforth be a separate republic.
There was no need for them, they thought, to listen to the commands
of the President of the North, and not one state paid any heed to
Lincoln's demand that the slaves should be set free.
Nevertheless on New Year's Day, 1863, Lincoln signed the great
Proclamation of Freedom.
He had first held a great reception, and had shaken hands with so
many people that his right hand was trembling. "If they find my
hand trembling," he said to the Secretary of State, as he took up
his pen, "they will say, 'He hesitated,' but anyway it is going to
be done."
Then very carefully and steadily he wrote his name. It was the
greatest deed of his life. "If my name is ever remembered," he
said, "it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it."
And thus slavery came to an end. From the beginning of the war there
had been a danger that France and Britain might help the South.
Lincoln had now made that impossible by making the war one against
slavery as well as one for Union. For both France and Britain were
against slavery, and could not well help those who now fought to
protect it.
Now that they were free, many negroes entered the army.
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