 He said that he would emancipate all the slaves. Now, that certainly surprised no one. As many of you know, in January of 63, he had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all the slaves in secession territory. And indeed, by February of 65, we had passed the 13th Amendment. It had not yet been ratified, but we were well on the way to eradicating this terrible blot, the blot of slavery, which lay upon our Constitution.