Vii.
The disorganization of the slave system, and the exigencies of civil war, have thrown thousands of freedmen upon the charity of the nation: to relieve their immediate needs, and to aid them through the transition period, the 38th Congress established a Bureau of Freedmen. The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, its abolition in the District of Columbia, the freedom of Colored soldiers, their wives and children, emancipation in Maryland, West Virginia, and Missouri, and by the reorganized State authorities of Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana, and the President's Emancipation Proclamation, disorganized the slave system, and practically left few persons in bondage; but slavery still continued in Delaware and Kentucky, and the slave codes remain unrepealed in the Rebel States. To annihilate the slave system, its codes and usages; to make slavery impossible, and freedom universal—the 38th Congress submitted to the people the anti-slavery amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The adoption of that crowning measure assures freedom to all.
