Relations with Europe—Foreign Views of the War—The Slaves—Proclamation of Emancipation—Arrest of Rebel Commissioners—Black Troops.

With so much to call for his care in the field, President Lincoln was not less busy in the Cabinet. The relations of the Federal Government with Europe were of great importance. “The rebels,” says Arnold, with truth, “had a positive, vigorous organisation, with agents all over Europe, many of them in the diplomatic service of the United States.” They were well selected, and they were successful in creating the impression that the Confederacy was eminently “a gentleman’s government”—that the Federal represented an agrarian mob led by demagogues—that Mr. Lincoln was a vulgar, ignorant boor—and that the war itself was simply an unconstitutional attempt to force certain states to remain under a tyrannical and repulsive rule. The great fact that the South had, in the most public manner, proclaimed that it seceded because the North would not permit the further extension of slavery, was utterly ignored; and the active interference of the North with slavery was ostentatiously urged as a grievance, though, by a strange inconsistency, it was deemed expedient by many foreign anti-slavery men to withdraw all sympathy for the Federal cause, on the ground that its leaders manifested no eagerness to set the slaves free until it became a matter of military expediency. Thus the humane wisdom and moderation, which inspired Lincoln and the true men of the Union to overcome the dreadful obstacles which existed in the opposition of the Northern democrats to Emancipation, was most sophistically and cruelly turned against them. To a more cynical class, the war was but the cleaning by fire of a filthy chimney which should have been burnt out long before, and its Iliad in a nutshell amounted to a squabble which concerned nobody save as a matter for amusement. And there were, finally, not a few—to judge from the frank avowal of a journal of the highest class—who looked forward with joy to the breaking up of the American Union, because “their sympathies were with men, not with monsters, and Russia and the United States are simply giants among nations.” All this bore, in due time, its natural fruit. Whether people were to blame for this want of sympathy, considering the ingenuity with which Southern agents fulfilled their missions, is another matter. Time, which is, happily, every day modifying old feelings, cannot change truths. And it cannot be denied that hostilities had hardly begun, and that only half the Slave States were in insurrection, when the English and French Governments, acting in concert, recognised the government at Montgomery as an established belligerent power. As to this recognition, Mr. Charles F. Adams, the United States Minister to England, was instructed by Mr. Seward to the effect that it, if carried out, must at once suspend all friendly relations between the United States and England. When, on June 15th, the English and French ministers applied to Mr. Seward for leave to communicate to him their instructions, directing them to recognise the rebels as belligerents, he declined to listen to them. The United States, accordingly, persisted until the end in regarding the rebellion as a domestic difficulty, and one with which foreign governments had no right to interfere. At the present day, it appears most remarkable that the two great sources of encouragement held out to the rebels—of help from Northern sympathisers, and the hope of full recognition by European powers—proved in the end to be allurements which led them on to ruin. Had it not been for the defeat at Bull Run, slavery would perhaps have still existed; and but for the hope of foreign aid, the South would never have been so utterly conquered and thoroughly exhausted as it was. It must, however, be admitted that the irritation of the Union-men of the North against England at this crisis was carried much too far, since they did not take fully into consideration the very large number of their sincere friends in Great Britain who earnestly advocated their cause, and that among these were actually the majority of the journalists. To those who did not understand American politics in detail, the spectacle of about one-third of the population, even though backed by constitutional law, opposing the majority, seemed to call for little sympathy. And if the motto of Emancipation for the sake of the white man offended the American Abolitionists, who were unable to see that it was a ruse de guerre in their favour, it is not remarkable that the English Abolitionists should have been equally obtuse.

A much more serious trouble than that of European indifference soon arose in the negro question. There were in the rebel states nearly 4,000,000 slaves. In Mr. Lincoln’s party, the Republican, were two classes of men—the Abolitionists, who advocated immediate enfranchisement of all slaves by any means; and the much larger number of men who, while they were opposed to the extension of slavery, and would have liked to see it legally abolished, still remembered that it was constitutional. Slave property had become such a sacred thing, and had been legislated about and quarrelled over to such an extent, that, even among slavery-haters, it was a proof of honest citizenship to recognise it. Thus, for a long time after the war had begun, General M‘Clellan, and many other officers like him, made it a point of returning fugitive slaves to their rebel masters. These slaves believed “the Yankees” had come to deliver them from bondage. “They were ready to act as guides, to dig, to work, to fight for liberty,” and they were welcomed, on coming to help their country in its need, by being handed back to the enemy to be tortured or put to death. So great were the atrocities perpetrated in this way, and so much did certain Federal officers disgrace themselves by hunting negroes and truckling to the enemy, that a bill was soon passed in Congress, declaring it was no part of the duty of the soldiers of the United States to capture and return fugitive slaves. About the same time, General B. F. Butler, of the Federal forces, shrewdly declared that slaves were legally property, but that, as they were employed by their masters against the Government, they might be seized as contraband of war, which was accordingly done; nor is it recorded that any of the slaves who were by this ingenious application of law confined within the limits of freedom ever found any fault with it. From this time, during the war, slaves became popularly known as contrabands.

It should be distinctly understood that there were now literally millions of staunch Union people, who, while recognising the evils of slavery, would not be called Abolitionists, because slavery was as yet legal, and according to that constitution which they properly regarded as the very life of all for which were fighting. And they would not, for the sake of removing the sufferings of the blacks, bring greater misery on the whites. Badly as the South had behaved, it was still loved, and it was felt that Abolition would bring ruin on many friends. But as the war went on, and black crape began to appear on Northern bell-handles, people began to ask one another whether it was worth while to do so much to uphold slavery, even to conciliate the wavering Border States. Step by step, arguments were found for the willing at heart but unwilling to act. On the 1st January, 1862, the writer established in Boston a political magazine, called “The Continental Monthly,” the entire object of which was expressed in the phrase, Emancipation for the sake of the white man, and which was published solely for the sake of preparing the public mind for, and aiding in, Mr. Lincoln’s peculiar policy with regard to slavery. As the writer received encouragement and direction from the President and more than one member of the Cabinet, but especially from Mr. Seward, he feels authorised, after the lapse of so many years, to speak freely on the subject. He had already, for several months, urged the same principles in another and older publication (the New York “Knickerbocker”). The “Continental” was quite as bitterly attacked by the anti-slavery press as by the pro-slavery; but it effected its purpose of aiding President Lincoln, and the editor soon had the pleasure of realising that many thousands were willing to be called Emancipationists who shrunk from being classed as Abolitionists.

In this great matter, the President moved with a caution which cannot be too highly commended. He felt and knew that the emancipation of the slaves was a great and glorious thing, not to be frittered away by the action of this or that subordinate, leaving details of its existence in every direction to call for infinite legislation. It is true that for a time he temporised with “colonisation;” and Congress passed a resolution that the United States ought to co-operate with any state which might adopt a gradual emancipation of slavery, placing 600,000 dollars at the disposition of the President for an experiment at colonisation. Some money was indeed spent in attempts to colonise slaves in Hayti, when the project was abandoned. But this was really delaying to achieve a definite purpose. On August 22nd, 1862, in reply to Horace Greeley, Mr. Lincoln wrote:—

“My paramount object is to save the Union, and not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.... I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish, that all men everywhere could be free.”

He had, meanwhile, his troubles with the army. On May 9th, 1862, General Hunter issued an order, declaring the slaves in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina to be for ever free; which was promptly and properly repudiated by the President, who was at the time urging on Congress and the Border States a policy of gradual emancipation, with compensation to loyal masters. General Hunter’s attempt at such a crisis to take the matter out of the hands of the President, was a piece of presumption which deserved severer rebuke than he received in the firm yet mild proclamation in which Lincoln, uttering no reproof, said to the General—quoting from his Message to Congress—

“I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of the signs of the times, ranging, if it may be, far above partisan and personal politics.

“This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it?”

General J. C. Fremont, commanding the Western Department, which comprised Missouri and a part of Kentucky, had also issued an unauthorised order (August 31st, 1861), proclaiming martial law in Missouri, and setting the slaves, if rebels, free; which error the President at once corrected. This was taken off by a popular caricature, in which slavery was represented as a blackbird in a cage, and General Fremont as a small boy trying to let him out, while Lincoln, as a larger boy, was saying, “That’s my bird—let him alone.” To which General Fremont replying, “But you said you wanted him to be set free,” the President answers, “I know; but I’m going to let him out—not you.”

To a deputation from all the religious denominations in Chicago, urging immediate emancipation, the President replied, setting forth the present inexpediency of such a measure. But, meanwhile, he prepared a declaration that, on January 1st, 1863, the slaves in all states, or parts of states, which should then be in rebellion, would be proclaimed free. By the advice of Mr. Seward, this was withheld until it could follow a Federal victory, instead of seeming to be a measure of mere desperation. Accordingly, it was put forth—September 22nd, 1862—five days after the battle of Antietam had defeated Lee’s first attempt at invading the North, and the promised proclamation was published on the 1st January following. The text of this document was as follows:—

By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:—

That, on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward and for ever, free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the naval and military authority thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the states and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of this United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.

Now therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war-measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above-mentioned, order and designate as the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit—Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are left for the present precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases where allowed, they labour faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favour of Almighty God.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

L. S. Done at the City of Washington this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh, By the President, Abraham Lincoln. William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

A true copy, with the autograph signatures of the President and the Secretary of State.

John G. Nicolay,
Priv. Sec. to the President.

The excitement caused by the appearance of the proclamation of September 22nd, 1862, was very great. The anti-slavery men rejoiced as at the end of a dreadful struggle; those who had doubted became at once strong and confident. Whatever trials and troubles might be in store, all felt assured, even the Copperheads or rebel sympathisers, that slavery was virtually at an end. The newspapers teemed with gratulations. The following poem, which was the first written on the proclamation, or on the day on which it appeared, and which was afterwards published in the “Continental Magazine,” expresses the feeling with which it was generally received.

THE PROCLAMATION.—Sept. 22, 1862.

The original draft of the proclamation of Emancipation was purchased by Thos. B. Bryan, of Chicago, for the Sanitary Commission for the Army, held at Chicago in the autumn of 1863. As it occurred to the writer that official duplicates of such an important document should exist, he suggested the idea to Mr. George H. Boker, subsequently United States Minister to Constantinople and to St. Petersburg, at whose request the President signed a number of copies, some of which were sold for the benefit of the Sanitary Fairs held in Philadelphia and Boston in 1864, while others were presented to public institutions. One of these, bearing the signatures of President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, with the attesting signature of John Nicolay, Private Secretary to the President, may be seen hanging in the George the Third Library in the British Museum. This document is termed by Mr. Carpenter, in his history of the proclamation, “the third great State paper which has marked the progress of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. First is the Magna Carta, wrested by the barons of England from King John; second, the Declaration of Independence; and third, worthy to be placed upon the tablets of history by the first two, Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation.”

On the 7th November, Messrs. J. M. Mason and John Slidell, Confederate Commissioners to England and France, were taken from the British mail steamer Trent by Commodore Wilkes, of the American frigate San Jacinto. There was great rejoicing over this capture in America, and as great public irritation in England. War seemed imminent between the countries; but Mr. Lincoln, with characteristic sagacity, determined that so long as there was no recognition of the rebels as a nation, not to bring on a war. “One war at a time,” he said. In a masterly examination of the case, Mr. Seward pointed out the fact that “the detention of the vessel, and the removal from her of the emissaries of the rebel Confederacy, was justifiable by the laws of war, and the practice and precedents of the British Government itself; but that, in assuming to decide upon the liability of these persons to capture, instead of sending them before a legal tribunal, where a regular trial could be had, Captain Wilkes had departed from the rule of international law uniformly asserted by the American Government, and forming part of its most cherished policy.” The Government, therefore, cheerfully complied with the request of the British Government, and liberated the prisoners. No person at all familiar with American law or policy could doubt for an instant that this decision expressed the truth; but the adherents of the Confederacy, with their sympathisers, everywhere united in ridiculing President Lincoln for cowardice. Yet it would be difficult to find an instance of greater moral courage and simple dignity, combined with the exact fulfilment of what he thought was “just right,” than Lincoln displayed on this occasion. The wild spirit of war was by this time set loose in the North, and it was felt that foreign enemies, though they might inflict temporary injury, would soon awake a principle of union and of resistance which would rather benefit than injure the country. In fact, this new difficulty was anything but intimidating, and the position of President Lincoln was for a time most embarrassing. But he could be bold enough, and sail closely enough to the law when justice demanded it. In September, 1861, the rebels in Maryland came near obtaining the passage of an act of secession in the Legislature of that state. General M‘Clellan was promptly ordered to prevent this by the arrest of the treasonable legislators, which was done, and the state was saved from a civil war. Of course there was an outcry at this, as arbitrary and unconstitutional. But Governor Hicks said of it, in the Senate of the United States, “I believe that arrests, and arrests alone, saved the State of Maryland from destruction.”

When Mr. Lincoln had signed the Proclamation of Emancipation, he said, “Now we have got the harpoon fairly into the monster slavery, we must take care that, in his extremity, he does not shipwreck the country.” But the monster only roared. The rebel Congress passed a decree, offering freedom and reward to any slave who would kill a Federal soldier; but it is believed that none availed themselves of this chivalric offer. On the contrary, ere long there were brought into the service of the United States nearly 200,000 black troops, among whom the loss by all causes was fully one-third—a conclusive proof of their bravery and efficiency. Though the Confederates knew that their fathers had fought side by side with black men in the Revolution and at New Orleans, and though they themselves raised negro regiments in Louisiana, and employed them against the Federal Government, they were furious that such soldiers should be used against themselves, and therefore in the most inhuman manner put to death, or sold into slavery, every coloured man captured in Federal uniform.