Now you are about to have a convention which among other things will probably define the elective franchise.

I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as for instance the very intelligent and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks.

They would probably help in some trying time in the future to keep the jewel of Liberty in the family of Freedom." The form of the closing expression, quite unusual in Mr.Lincoln's compact style, may have been pleonastic, but his meaning was one of deep and almost prophetic significance.

It was perhaps the earliest proposition from any authentic source to endow the negro with the right of suffrage, and was an indirect but most effective answer to those who subsequently attempted to use Mr.
Lincoln's name in support of policies which his intimate friends instinctively knew would be abhorrent to his unerring sense of justice.
The scheme of reconstruction in Louisiana was completed by the assembling of a convention to form a constitution for the State.

The convention was organized early in April, and its most important act was the prompt incorporation of an anti-slavery clause in the organic law.