The efforts of Union minorities in Tennessee, in Louisiana and in Arkansas to establish governments in harmony with the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the agency of President Lincoln in effecting that result, have been somewhat particularly described in the preceding pages. The principal events which marked the progress of secession in those States, the military successes which brought Federal authorities to consider the restoration of loyal governments within their borders, and the operation of those causes which ultimately overthrew rebellion have been more rapidly sketched. To trace the successive steps which led to the emancipation of slaves in the seceding States a somewhat more ample narrative will be required. This subject is not only of intrinsic interest but its culmination in the proclamation of September 22, 1862, marks the introduction into the President’s plan of restoration of an element hitherto left out of account.

In December, 1859, when John Brown, for his rash though courageous attempt to liberate slaves, was hanged by the authorities of Virginia a great majority of even Northern people looked on with indifference or with approval. The inhabitants of the free States, however, were rather law-abiding than pitiless and came in time to revere the memory of that stern old Puritan. Ideas in those times matured with amazing rapidity, and fourteen months had scarcely elapsed when James B. McKean, a Representative from New York, introduced into Congress, three days before the Confederate government was organized, the following resolution:

Whereas the “Gulf States” have assumed to secede from the Union, and it is deemed important to prevent the “border slave States” from following their example; and whereas it is believed that those who are inflexibly opposed to any measure of compromise or concession that involves, or may involve, a sacrifice of principle or the extension of slavery, would nevertheless cheerfully concur in any lawful measure for the emancipation of slaves: Therefore,

Resolved, That the select committee of five be instructed to inquire whether, by the consent of the people, or of the State governments, or by compensating the slaveholders, it be practicable for the General Government to procure the emancipation of the slaves in some, or all, of the “border States”; and if so, to report a bill for that purpose.^[213]

Mr. Burnett, of Kentucky, desiring to discuss the proposition, it was laid on the table and received no further consideration. Whether Mr. Lincoln had much reflected upon the principle of this resolution or the reasoning in its preamble, he had not become on March 4 a convert to its essential idea, for in his inaugural address he was content, in expressing his sentiments on the institution of slavery, to re-affirm a declaration which he had formerly made. “I have no purpose,” said he, “directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”^[214] Even if the occasion had not demanded the language of conciliation we might easily credit this solemn assurance. Indeed, for an entire year after this announcement he refrained in his public utterances from taking any attitude hostile to the continuance of slavery. The influences which forced him to adopt other opinions may be briefly related.

On May 22, 1861, General Butler arrived at Fortress Monroe and at once took command of the Department of Virginia; next day he sent a reconnoitering party to Hampton, and in the terror and confusion occasioned by the presence of Yankee soldiers three slaves of Colonel Mallory, a Confederate officer, effected their escape; during the afternoon they remained in concealment and at night reached the Union pickets. The following morning they were brought before the Federal commander, whom they informed of their master’s purpose to employ them in military operations in North Carolina. On the next day Major John B. Cary, also of the Confederate army, and a former delegate with Butler in the Baltimore Convention, came to the fort with a flag of truce, and as a representative of Colonel Mallory demanded the surrender of these runaways pursuant to the provisions of the Federal Constitution under which the Union commander claimed to act. With characteristic readiness came the reply that the Fugitive Slave Law could not be invoked in this case; Virginia assumed to be a foreign State and she must count it among the disadvantages of her position if, so far at least, she was taken at her word. These negroes further informed General Butler or his officers that if they were not returned others would come next day. On the 26th eight slaves were before him awaiting an audience; one squad of forty-seven came early on the 27th and another lot of a dozen arrived during the same day. Then they came by twenties, thirties and forties both to Fortress Monroe and Newport News.^[215]

Thus arose an important question on which the Government had yet developed no policy. As the acts for the rendition of fugitive slaves were not repealed till June, 1864, the views of individual commanders temporarily prevailed. Without precedent or instructions General McDowell by an order entirely excluded them from his lines. Caprice, too, entered into a settlement of the problem, and even a whimsical solution was sometimes attempted. A felicitous invention for determining these controversies between master and bondman is ascribed to the colonel of a Massachusetts regiment. Both the claimant and the claimed were put outside his tent for a trial of speed; the negro, proving the fleeter, was never heard of again.^[216] An institution which had practically determined both the foreign and domestic policy of the United States for an entire generation was suddenly become the sport of a subordinate officer of volunteers! The wise should have heeded these signs.

While the Federal commander in Virginia was exchanging arguments with Confederate officers, General McClellan at his headquarters in Cincinnati was considering a proclamation which on May 26 he issued to the Union men of western Virginia. This document, among other things, says: “All your rights shall be religiously respected, notwithstanding all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to believe our advent among you will be signalized by an interference with your slaves. Understand one thing clearly: not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand crush any attempt at insurrection on their part.”^[217]

Scarcely less explicit in its announcement concerning slavery was General Patterson’s proclamation of June 3, 1861, to troops of the Department of Pennsylvania. “You must bear in mind,” says its concluding paragraph, that “you are going for the good of the whole country, and that, while it is your duty to punish sedition, you must protect the loyal, and, should the occasion offer, at once suppress servile insurrection.”^[218]

Butler’s interview with Major Cary had been promptly communicated to the War Department, whose chief, Mr. Cameron, expressed in his reply of May 30 approval of the General’s action. The Secretary, however, endeavored to distinguish between interference with slave property and the surrender of negroes that came voluntarily within Federal lines. The commander was further directed to “employ such persons in the services to which they may be best adapted, keeping an account of the labor by them performed, of the value of it, and the expenses of their maintenance,”^[219] the question of their final disposition to be reserved for future determination.

In defence of his attitude toward masters of fugitives who had been employed in the batteries or on the fortifications of the enemy, international law supplied General Butler with an analogy that he skillfully applied to the novel conditions which had arisen. Articles of assistance in military operations cannot in time of war be imported by neutrals into an enemy’s country, and the attempt to introduce such goods renders them liable to seizure as lawful prize. It did not greatly embarrass this versatile lawyer that the term contraband applies exclusively to relations between a belligerent and a neutral, or that the decision of a prize court might be necessary to determine whether a particular article had been so designated. No doubt he believed firmly in the doctrine that the wants of war are contraband of war. In his correspondence with General Scott he had observed that “as a military question, it would seem to be a measure of necessity” to deprive disloyal masters of the services of their slaves, and this, on the pretext that they were contraband of war, he proceeded to do by refusing to surrender any negroes coming inside his lines.^[220] This method of settling the difficulty was what Secretary Cameron had approved. But this phase presented the question in its extreme simplicity. A refusal to return the slaves of Confederate officers or of Confederate sympathizers was one thing; similar treatment of loyal slaveholders would not be so readily overlooked by authority. Though such cases were more likely to occur in Maryland, Kentucky or Missouri, that fact did not prevent the subject from assuming very great importance even in Virginia. Whole families escaped from their masters, and General Butler soon had on his hands negroes from three months to almost fourscore years of age.

Attorney-General Bates, writing July 23, 1861, to United States Marshal J. L. McDowell, of Kansas, who had asked whether he should give his official service in executing the fugitive slave law, said in response to the inquiry:

It is the President’s constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” That means all the laws. He has no right to discriminate, no right to execute the laws he likes, and leave unexecuted those he dislikes. And of course you and I, his subordinates, can have no wider latitude of discretion than he has. Missouri is a State in the Union. The insurrectionary disorders in Missouri are but individual crimes, and do not change the legal status of the State, nor change its rights and obligations as a member of the Union.

A refusal by a ministerial officer to execute any law which properly belongs to his office, is an official misdemeanor, of which I have no doubt the President would take notice.^[221]

The Attorney-General in this instance merely amplified a suggestion contained in the inaugural.

Toward the close of July, 1861, the number of “contrabands” had increased to nine hundred, and the Union commander again requested instructions.^[222] Secretary Cameron’s reply on the 8th of August following merely authorized, what General Butler had all along been doing, employing them at such labor as they were adapted to and keeping a complete record, so that when peace was restored the essential facts of each case could easily be ascertained.^[223] His tact in dealing with this question appears from an act of Congress approved August 6 in which his extension of meaning to the word contraband is adopted. This declared that if persons held to labor or service were employed in hostility to the United States, the right to their services should be forfeited and such persons be discharged therefrom.^[224]

Exclusion of fugitive slaves from the quarters and camps of troops serving in the Department of Washington was provided by a general order of July 17, 1861, and a few weeks later, August 10, the departure by railway of negroes from the District of Columbia was prevented unless evidence of freedom could be adduced.^[225]

Far more important, however, than these prudent regulations of the Adjutant-General was the celebrated proclamation of Fremont, dated St. Louis, August 31, 1861, which declared martial law throughout the entire State of Missouri and expressed a purpose both to confiscate the property and free the negroes of all persons in the State who should take up arms against the United States or who were shown to have taken an active part with their enemy in the field.^[226] The President, in a communication of September 2 following, wrote General Fremont expressing anxiety concerning the effects of this proclamation: “I think there is great danger,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky.^[227]

“Allow me therefore to ask that you will, as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the act of Congress entitled, ‘An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,’ approved August 6, 1861, and a copy of which act I herewith send you.

“This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of censure.”^[228]

Though General Fremont had acted wholly on his own responsibility he refused so to modify that portion of his proclamation relative to emancipating slaves as to conform to the act of Congress referred to, and in a letter requested the President “openly to direct” him “to make the correction.” Referring to this part of his communication Mr. Lincoln replied on the 11th: “Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on your part that I should make an open order for the modification, which I very cheerfully do. It is therefore ordered that the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed, as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject contained in the act of Congress” approved August 6, 1861.^[229]

As late as October 14 the War Department was guided by the principles developed in its correspondence with Butler, the instructions of that date to General T. W. Sherman being based upon this policy.^[230] A month later inhabitants of the eastern shore of Virginia were informed by General Dix that “special directions have been given not to interfere with the condition of any person held to domestic service;” to prevent any such occurrence slaves were not permitted to come within his lines.^[231]

Besides those who favored military emancipation, a large class seriously expected that the war would not only preserve the integrity of the Union, but in some way result in a general liberation of slaves. This feeling, manifested in various ways, was rapidly gathering strength, and as early as November 8 found enthusiastic expression at a public meeting of two thousand citizens held in Cooper Institute, New York city. This assembly, which convened at the suggestion of Mr. Lincoln, was presided over by Hon. George Bancroft and attended by many distinguished persons of both the nation and the State. Besides the remarks of its illustrious chairman addresses were made by William Cullen Bryant, General Ambrose Burnside, Professor Francis Lieber and others. Shortly before the speakers arrived a gentleman arose in the audience, and in a ringing voice proposed “Three cheers for John C. Fremont!” These were given, says a newspaper account, “with electrical effect and without a murmur of dissent.” The meeting was evidently not in entire sympathy with the President’s order modifying that General’s proclamation of the preceding August.

North Carolina, as is well known, was not so ardent for secession as most of her sister States in the South; forced to take sides, however, she imitated the example of her neighbors. Even then all her people did not share the opinions of their leaders, and when Federal troops landed in the vicinity of Hatteras nearly four thousand loyal inhabitants of the coast flocked to their lines and readily took the oath of allegiance to the United States; for this conduct they incurred the extreme hatred of secessionists, who soon reduced them to a condition of distress. To relieve their destitution, by supplies of food and clothing, the meeting was called in Cooper Institute. Resolutions of sympathy were unanimously adopted; a committee of relief was appointed to collect from the city and elsewhere such funds as were necessary for the purchase of supplies, which were to be forwarded and distributed in the most judicious manner.

“If the President,” said Mr. Bancroft, “has any doubt under the terrible conflict into which he has been brought, let him hear the words of one of his predecessors. Alien nullification raised itself in South Carolina. Andrew Jackson, in the watches of the night, as he sat alone finishing that proclamation, sent the last words of it to Livingston, his bosom friend and best adviser. He sent it with these words; I have had the letter in my own hands, handed to me by the only surviving child of Mr. Livingston. I know the letter which I now read is a copy: ‘I submit the above as the conclusion of the proclamation for your amendment and revision. Let it receive your best flight of eloquence to strike to the heart and speak to the feelings of my deluded countrymen of South Carolina. The Union must be preserved without blood if this be possible; but it must be preserved at all hazards and at any price.’” Mr. Bancroft added: “We send the army into the South to maintain the Union, to restore the validity of the Constitution. If any one presents claims under the Constitution, let him begin by placing the Constitution in power, by respecting it and upholding it.”

Francis Lieber referred to slavery as “that great anachronism, out of time, out of place in the nineteenth century,” and Rev. Doctor Tyng said, “if slavery is in the way of the Union, then tread slavery down into the dust.”^[232] These sentiments were received with applause.

Mr. Bancroft a week later wrote to the President:

Following out your suggestion, a very numerous meeting of New-Yorkers assembled last week to take measures for relieving the loyal sufferers of Hatteras. I take the liberty to enclose you some remarks which I made on the occasion. You will find in them a copy of an unpublished letter of one of your most honored predecessors, with which you cannot fail to be pleased.

Your administration has fallen upon times which will be remembered as long as human events find a record. I sincerely wish to you the glory of perfect success. Civil War is the instrument of Divine Providence to root out social slavery. Posterity will not be satisfied with the result unless the consequences of the war shall effect an increase of free States. This is the universal expectation and hope of men of all parties.^[233]

On the 18th Mr. Lincoln sent this reply:

I esteem it a high honor to have received a note from Mr. Bancroft inclosing the report of proceedings of a New York meeting taking measures for the relief of Union people of North Carolina. I thank you and all others participating for this benevolent and patriotic movement.

The main thought in the closing paragraph of your letter is one which does not escape my attention, and with which I must deal in all due caution, and with the best judgment I can bring to it.^[234]

We have here the key to President Lincoln’s treatment of the slavery question down to the hour of his lamented death. As the hostile employment of negroes constituted by act of August 6 a full answer to any claim for service General McClellan was informed by Secretary Seward, December 4, 1861, that the arrest of such persons as fugitives from labor “should be immediately followed by the military arrest of the parties making the seizure.” These instructions were called forth by intelligence that Virginia slaves engaged in hostility to the United States frequently escaped from the enemy and took refuge within the lines of the Army of the Potomac. Coming afterward into the District of Columbia, such persons upon the presumption arising from color, were liable to be arrested by the Washington police.^[235]

On December 3, 1861, in his first annual message to Congress, Mr. Lincoln discussed without especial emphasis the question of aiding those slaves who had been freed under the act of August 6; he observed that this class was dependent upon the United States; it was believed that, for their own benefit, many of the States would enact similar laws; he therefore recommended Congress to provide for accepting such persons from the States,

according to some mode of valuation, in lieu, pro tanto, of direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on with such States respectively; that such persons, on such acceptance by the General Government, be at once deemed free; and that, in any event, steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first mentioned, if the other shall not be brought into existence) at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.

To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be expended in the territorial acquisition. Having practiced the acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years, the question of constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one with us. The power was questioned at first by Mr. Jefferson, who, however, in the purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples on the plea of great expediency. If it be said that the only legitimate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men, this measure effects that object; for the emigration of colored men leaves additional room for white men remaining or coming here. Mr. Jefferson, however, placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on political and commercial grounds than on providing room for population.

On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to absolute necessity—that without which the Government itself cannot be perpetuated?

The war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection, I have been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have, therefore, in every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action of the Legislature.

In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade of the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force, by proclamation, the law of Congress enacted at the last session for closing those ports.

So, also, obeying the dictates of prudence as well as the obligations of law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the act of Congress to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly considered. The Union must be preserved; and hence all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.^[236]

The President’s mastery of national affairs is seen in the ability and thoroughness with which he treated a great variety of important public questions; though his message touches with the utmost delicacy the paramount issue of slavery it really marked an advance in his position. However, he was not yet abreast of the aggressive anti-slavery party in the 37th Congress, which had just commenced its first regular session.

The “increase of free States,” which Mr. Bancroft hoped would result from the war, and which President Lincoln’s reply shows had not escaped his attention, was not to be effected by military emancipation in the field but by the voluntary action of the States themselves. The caution and judgment which he brought to bear on this subject are apparent from even a casual examination of the message, which refers to the number of slaves that had been freed by the incidents of war, and to the extreme probability that still others would be liberated in its progress. It contained also a recommendation of colonization, a topic which had long been familiar to Americans both North and South. To any new law emancipating slaves for the participation of their masters in rebellion, he promised to give due consideration. This part of the message had the additional merit of being easily expanded into a more definite policy. It was this characteristic prudence that led the President to suppress the following remarks in a report which the Secretary of War had prepared for the opening of Congress in December, 1861:

If it shall be found that the men who have been held by the rebels as slaves are capable of bearing arms and performing efficient military service, it is the right, and may become the duty, of this government to arm and equip them, and employ their services against the rebels, under proper military regulation, discipline, and command.^[237]

Any legislation, or even any extended debate, on these recommendations was prevented by questions deemed more urgent by Congress. Indeed, the President does not appear to have seriously expected favorable action at this time upon his suggestions, for he resumed certain efforts which he had been carefully considering. He believed that by the pressure of war necessities the border States might be induced to take up the idea of voluntary emancipation if the General Government would pay their citizens the full property value of the slaves they were asked to liberate; and this experiment seemed most feasible in the small State of Delaware, which retained only the merest fragment of a property interest in the institution.

Even before the appearance of his message a plan of compensated abolishment had taken definite form in the mind of the President, for about November 26 he had prepared a draft of a bill for gradual emancipation in Delaware.^[238] Through Congressman George P. Fisher the proposition was laid before the General Assembly of that State and received favorable consideration in the lower House. By the Senate, which convened November 25, 1861, it was taken up for discussion on February 7 succeeding. Upon the question, 4 voted in favor and 4 against concurring in the action of the more popular branch of the Legislature. The remaining Senator, McFerran, was absent or silent and is not accounted for in the journal of this special session. Therefore the measure was returned non-concurred in to the other chamber. The following preamble and joint resolution relative to the proposed emancipation bill are self-explanatory. The Federal suggestion was repelled as an unwarranted interference in the domestic concerns of that State:

Whereas, There has been circulating among the members of this General Assembly a printed draft for a law to be entitled “An act for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the State of Delaware with just compensation to their owners”; and whereas many of the members of this General Assembly have been requested to support it, the said draft being in the following words: [Then follows the title, together with the twenty-one sections composing the bill. To which is added:] And whereas it is uncertain that said proposition will be submitted to this General Assembly for its action, nevertheless, viewing it to be unworthy of their support, they desire to place upon record the grounds of their condemnation; therefore

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met, That the members of this Legislature were not elected with a view to the passage of any act for the emancipation of slaves, but with the understanding, either expressed or implied, that legislation upon the distracting subject of slavery was hostile to the public peace, and therefore to be avoided; that the passage of the act drafted as aforesaid, inasmuch as it renders Congressional action necessary, would, upon the apparent application of the State of Delaware, introduce the slavery question into Congress, would encourage the abolition element therein, and fortify it in its purpose to destroy entirely all property in slaves, and furthermore, would be injurious to the quiet and harmony that prevail in this State.

Be it further resolved by the authority aforesaid, That it is the opinion of this General Assembly, that Congress has no right to appropriate a dollar for the purchase of slaves, and that such a proposal, coming from the source to which it is traceable, evinces a design on the part of those having control of our national affairs to abolish slavery in the States.

Resolved further, That this General Assembly having in mind the interests of the people of Delaware, are not willing, especially at a time of financial embarrassment, to make the State of Delaware a guarantor of any debt the payment of which depends upon the mere pledge of public faith; that the confidence of the people of this State that nothing would ever be done to promote a disunion of our National system, but that it would remain, as expressed by Webster “one and inseparable, now and forever,” having been impaired by the events of the last two years, we are and should be very cautious in resting our obligations on the mere faith of others; that by accepting the terms to be offered by the United States, we should, upon grounds of the plainest equity, be held to have pledged the faith of Delaware for the payment of nine hundred thousand dollars as mentioned in the draft aforesaid; that, keeping in mind the fact that the power of the nation is now put forth to suppress a rebellion prevailing throughout a very large portion of its territory, and that in consequence of such rebellion and the uncertainty of its being speedily quelled, the stocks of the United States, which heretofore brought in the market a sum far beyond the par value thereof, are now selling at a continually increasing rate of discount, we are unwilling to pledge the faith of Delaware (a faith which has never been violated) that the proposed mode of payment is safe and proper.

Resolved further, That when the people of Delaware desire to abolish slavery within her borders, they will do so in their own way, having due regard to strict equity; that any interference from without, and all suggestions of saving expense to the people, or others of like character, are improper to be made to an honorable people, such as we represent, and are hereby repelled—that though the State of Delaware is small, and her people not of the richest, they are beyond the reach of any who would promote an end by improper interference and solicitations.

Resolved further, That a copy of the foregoing resolutions, duly attested, be transmitted to each of our Senators, and to our Representative in Congress, to be laid before their respective houses.^[239]

Thus ended, so far as Delaware was concerned, the question of compensated emancipation. Precisely why the offer of Federal assistance was rejected nowhere clearly appears except in the records of the General Assembly. The high ground assumed in the resolutions was, of course, the only one in harmony with public opinion in the State. There are, however, some facts in the history of that Commonwealth which afford a partial explanation of the action of its Legislature. When the Federalist party as a political force had disappeared everywhere outside of New England its principles and traditions still lingered on in Delaware. The same conservative tendency, the same distrust of innovation is seen again in the prudent manner in which the authorities of the State invested and improved her portion of the surplus revenue distributed among the States in 1837. With a half dozen exceptions the shares allotted to other members of the Union have disappeared, in some instances expended patriotically, in others squandered on projects more or less visionary. It has frequently been observed, too, that a community whose population is chiefly agricultural is apt to view with suspicion any financial proposition of great magnitude. Whatever the true explanation of her opposition to the policy of the President, the question at once sank to rest in Delaware; it was soon to be revived elsewhere, however, as will presently be seen.

Meanwhile army officers continued to determine, on their own authority, very important questions relative to the surrender of fugitive slaves. Major-General Halleck declared in a proclamation of February 23, 1862, that “it does not belong to the military to decide upon the relation of master and slave. Such questions must be settled by the civil courts. No fugitive slave will therefore be admitted within our lines or camps, except when specially ordered by the General commanding.”^[240] General Halleck’s order No. 3 of November 20 preceding, as it cut off an opportunity for the escape of thousands, occasioned much bitter discussion both in and out of Congress. By Halleck it was explained in these words: “Unauthorized persons, black or white, free or slaves, must be kept out of our camps, unless we are willing to publish to the enemy everything we do or intend to do.” This statement, however, does not altogether harmonize with the spirit of his order.^[241]

General Buell up to March 6 appears to have uniformly returned this class of persons, and on the 26th of that month General Hooker permitted nine citizens of Maryland to search for negroes supposed to have taken refuge with some of the regiments in his division. Notwithstanding the commander desired that no obstacles be thrown in their way, trouble occurred when the claimants showed their authority and demanded the surrender of their slaves. They were driven from camp because fears for their safety were entertained by some of the officers. The anger of the soldiers appears to have been especially aroused by the fact that when within a few yards of camp the slaveholders fired two pistol shots at a negro who was running past them.^[242]

General Doubleday’s opinion, as stated April 6, 1862, by the Assistant Adjutant-General, was, “that all negroes coming into the lines of any of the camps or forts under his command, are to be treated as persons and not as chattels.

“Under no circumstances,” continues this regulation, “has the commander of a fort or camp the power of surrendering persons claimed as fugitive slaves, as it cannot be done without determining their character.

“The additional article of war recently passed by Congress positively prohibits this.”^[243]

Notwithstanding the unmistakable tone of the above, General Williams announced two months later from his headquarters at Baton Rouge that commanders of the camps and garrisons in that part of Louisiana were required to turn all fugitives beyond the limits of their guards and sentinels because of “the demoralizing and disorganizing tendencies to the troops of harboring runaway negroes.”^[244]

Enough has been said to show the divergence of sentiment among Federal commanders on the rendition of fugitive slaves. The party preferences of officers served as a rather reliable index to the treatment of the fugitive in any particular case. This confusion, it is scarcely necessary to add, arose from the failure of Congress to pass a law on the subject, and to a considerable degree from the absence of any clearly expressed policy by the Administration. Of the changing opinions of the President, however, we catch an occasional glimpse. Though the contrabands at Fortress Monroe had, no doubt, brought before him the entire question of slavery, the sagacity of General Butler had postponed the necessity of any announcement in May, 1861; but the subject could not always be avoided, and the imprudence of Fremont forced a declaration in September following. The events of another year were destined to produce changes which even the wisest could not then foresee.

A new phase of this troublesome question resulted from the capture, November 7, of Hilton Head, South Carolina, and the Federal occupation of the Sea Islands, where the labor of slaves abandoned by their masters was organized under authority of the Treasury Department by Mr. E. L. Pierce. This was, probably, intended as nothing more than an experiment, to be extended if successful. To interest Government officials at Washington in the work among these freedmen, Mr. Pierce, at the suggestion of Secretary Chase, called, February 15, 1862, upon the President, who seemed rather annoyed at the visit, and, after listening a few moments, said somewhat impatiently that he did not think he ought to be troubled with such details; that “there seemed to be an itching to get negroes into our lines.” To this Mr. Pierce replied that the negroes were domiciled there when the Union forces took possession. The President then handed his visitor a card by which Mr. Chase was authorized to give what instructions he thought judicious relative to Port Royal contrabands.^[245] This impatience Mr. Pierce explains by saying that the President was in expectation of a personal bereavement. This certainly accounts for the anxiety and apparent annoyance of Mr. Lincoln, but his remark that there seemed to be an “itching” to get negroes inside Federal lines shows that he had not yet deliberately considered the novel case of abandoned slaves; abandoned masters had hitherto claimed his attention. Though slowly, as it may have appeared to radical members of his own party, the President was surely approaching the great question, and on March 6, 1862, sent to Congress a message which recommended the adoption, and even proposed the form, of a joint resolution declaring:

That the United States ought to coÖperate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.^[246]

As one of the most efficient means of self-preservation it was recommended by the Executive to the coÖrdinate branch of Government; for to deprive the cotton States of the hope of being joined by the border States would, he said, “substantially end the rebellion; and the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it. The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that while the offer is equally made to all, the more Northern shall, by such initiation, make it certain to the more Southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy.” Gradual emancipation he believed better for all concerned. The current expenditures of the war would soon purchase, at a fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State. However, it was proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice. “In the annual message, last December,” continued the President, “I thought fit to say, ‘the Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed.’ I said this not hastily, but deliberately. War has been made and continues to be an indispensable means to this end. A practical re-acknowledgment of the national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which may attend and all the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem indispensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency, toward ending the struggle, must and will come.”

The message inquired “whether the pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned than are the institution and property in it, in the present aspect of affairs?”^[247]

This was really a great step in advance; by many it was regarded as a direct and positive interference with the domestic institutions of the States; it was certainly a preliminary movement to get rid of slavery. The deliberate opinion of the Delaware Legislature has already been noticed.

Easily distinguished in principle from the opposition in Delaware were the sentiments expressed in Virginia when the equitable and generous proposal of the President came up for consideration in the Richmond Legislature. Mr. Collier submitted to that body a preamble and resolution relative to the proposition. In the former it was said that negro slaves having been the property of their masters for two hundred and forty years, by use and custom at first, and subsequently by recognition of the public law, ought not to be, and could not justly be, interfered with in such property relation by the State, by “the people in convention assembled to alter an existing constitution, or to form one for admission into the confederacy, nor by the representatives of the people of the State in the Confederate Legislature, nor by any means or mode which the popular majority might adopt; and that the State, whilst remaining republican in the structure of its government, can lawfully get rid of that species of property, if ever, only by the free consent of the individual owners.” For the State to deprive an individual of this species of property would contravene the indispensable principles of free government. This view, as further explained by its author, denied the power of even a majority, in making a new State constitution, to disturb a preËxisting and resident property.^[248]

Three days after sending his recommendation to Congress, the President wrote privately to Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times:

I am grateful to the New York journals and not less so to the “Times” than to others, for their kind notices of the late special message to Congress.

Your paper, however, intimates that the proposition, though well intentioned, must fail on the score of expense. I do hope you will reconsider this. Have you noticed the facts that less than one-half day’s cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at $400 per head—that eighty-seven days’ cost of this war would pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri at the same price? Were those States to take the step, do you doubt that it would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days, and thus be an actual saving of expense?

Please look at these things and consider whether there should not be another article in the “Times.”^[249]

By his request those Congressmen from the border States then in Washington called, March 10, on Mr. Lincoln, who explained that his recent message was not inimical to the interests they represented. In the progress of the war, slaves would come into camps and continual irritation be thus maintained. In the border States that condition kept alive a feeling of hostility to the Government. He told them further “that emancipation was a subject exclusively under the control of the States, and must be adopted or rejected by each for itself.”^[250]

Relative to this interview a memorandum of the Hon. John W. Crisfield, one of the Maryland Representatives present, contains the following entry: “He [the President] was constantly annoyed by conflicting and antagonistic complaints; on the one side a certain class complained if the slave was not protected by the army; persons were frequently found who, participating in these views, acted in a way unfriendly to the slave-holder; on the other hand, slaveholders complained that their rights were interfered with, their slaves induced to abscond and protected within the lines; these complaints were numerous, loud and deep; were a serious annoyance to him and embarrassing to the progress of the war ... [they] strengthened the hopes of the Confederates that at some day the border States would unite with them, and thus tend to prolong the war; and he was of opinion, if this resolution should be adopted by Congress and accepted by our [the border slaveholding] States, these causes of irritation and these hopes would be removed, and more would be accomplished toward shortening the war than could be hoped from the greatest victory achieved by Union armies; ... that he did not claim nor had this Government any right to coerce them” to accept the proposition.

To Mr. Noell’s remark that the New York Tribune favored the measure and understood it to mean that gradual emancipation must be accepted or the border States would get something worse, the President replied that he must not be expected to quarrel with that journal before the right time; he hoped never to have to do it. The message having said that “all indispensable means must be employed” to preserve the Union, Mr. Crisfield inquired pointedly, what would be the effect of the refusal of a State to accept this proposal. Did the President, he asked, look “to any policy beyond the acceptance or rejection of this scheme.” Mr. Lincoln candidly replied that he had “no designs beyond the action of the States on this particular subject,” though he should lament their refusal to accept it. Mr. Crisfield said “he did not think the people of Maryland looked upon slavery as a permanent institution; and he did not know that they would be very reluctant to give it up if provision was made to meet the loss and they could be rid of the race; but they did not like to be coerced into emancipation, either by the direct action of the Government or by indirection, as through the emancipation of slaves in this District, or the confiscation of Southern property as now threatened; and he thought before they would consent to consider this proposition they would require to be informed on these points.” The President answered that “unless he was expelled by the act of God or the Confederate armies, he should occupy that house for three years; and as long as he remained there Maryland had nothing to fear either for her institutions or her interests on the points referred to.” Representative Crisfield immediately added: “Mr. President, if what you now say could be heard by the people of Maryland, they would consider your proposition with a much better feeling than I fear without it they will be inclined to do.” To this Mr. Lincoln said that a publication of his sentiments would not do; it would force him before the proper time into a quarrel which was impending with the Greeley faction. This he desired to postpone, or, if possible, altogether to avoid.

To an objection of Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, he said that the resolution proposed would be considered rather as the expression of a sentiment than as involving any constitutional question. He did not know how the project was received by the members from the free States; some of them had spoken to him and received it kindly; but for the most part they were as reserved and chary as the border State delegations; he could not tell how they would vote.^[251]

To James A. McDougall, of California, who was making some opposition in the Senate, he sent, March 14, this private communication while the resolution was still pending:

As to the expensiveness of gradual emancipation with the plan of compensation, proposed in the late message, please allow me one or two brief suggestions.

Less than one half day’s cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at four hundred dollars per head.

Again, less than eighty-seven days’ cost of this war would, at the same price, pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri.

Do you doubt that taking the initiatory steps on the part of those States and this District would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days, and thus be an actual saving of expense?

A word as to the time and manner of incurring the expense. Suppose, for instance, a State devises and adopts a system by which the institution absolutely ceases therein by a named day—say January 1, 1882. Then let the sum to be paid to such a State by the United States be ascertained by taking from the census of 1860 the number of slaves within the State, and multiplying the number by four hundred—the United States to pay such sums to the State in twenty equal annual installments, in six per cent. bonds of the United States.

The sum thus given, as to time and manner, I think, would not be half as onerous as would be an equal sum raised now for the indefinite prosecution of the war; but of this you can judge as well as I. I enclose a census table for your convenience.^[252]

On the same day of the conference with the border State delegations, March 10, the resolution, in precisely the language suggested by the President, was introduced by Roscoe Conkling, and on the following day by a vote of 89 to 31 passed the House.^[253] The Senate by 32 yeas to 10 nays took favorable action upon it on the 2d of April succeeding.^[254]

It is important to notice that at this time, March, 1862, the Government set up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery within the limits of a State; also that public opinion in the North had advanced to the position occupied by Representative McKean more than a year before, when he introduced into Congress his resolution for compensated emancipation.^[255]

At a session, May 28, 1862, of the Union Convention of Baltimore its Business Committee reported a series of resolutions which were adopted unanimously, among them one approving the wise and conservative policy proposed by the President in his message of March 6; that it was not only the duty but the interest of the loyal people of Maryland to accept the offer of pecuniary aid tendered by the Government to inaugurate an equitable plan of emancipation and colonization.^[256] This was the dawn of emancipation in Maryland.

The President approved, April 16, six days after the passage of his cherished measure, an act prohibiting slavery and liberating slaves in the District of Columbia. It included both compensation to owners and the principle of colonization.^[257]

Shortly before its passage, April 17, a resolution was favorably considered by the House to appoint a committee of nine empowered to report whether any plan could be proposed and recommended for the gradual emancipation of all African slaves and the extinction of slavery in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri by the people or local authorities thereof, and how far and in what way the United States could and ought equitably to aid in facilitating either of the above objects. This measure was adopted by a vote of 67 to 52, and one week later a committee was appointed by the Speaker.

General Hunter by an order of April 25 had extended martial law over South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Two weeks later he proclaimed persons in those States heretofore held as slaves forever free. “Slavery and martial law in a free country” he declared “altogether incompatible.” The President in his proclamation of May 19, 1862, rescinding this order once more reveals his sentiments on the slavery question. The act of the Department commander, he said, was wholly unauthorized. The document continues: “I further make known that, whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether, at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field.”^[258]

Mr. Lincoln took this opportunity to point out to those most nearly concerned the unmistakable signs of the times, and earnestly appealed to them to embrace the offer of compensated abolishment, quoting upon that subject the joint resolution of Congress. The order of General Hunter, so far as it concerned the President, could have been dismissed by its disavowal; but he went farther: he not only took advantage of this occasion earnestly to urge upon the border States very serious consideration of the principle of compensated emancipation, but he raised, without pausing to discuss it, the question of his right as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy to declare the freedom of slaves within the limits of a State should such a measure become indispensable to the maintenance of the Union.

For refusing to employ his regiment in returning fugitive slaves of disloyal masters, Colonel Paine, of the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteers, was placed under arrest in the summer of 1862; about the same time Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony was similarly disciplined both for refusing permission to search his camp and for ordering the arrest of those hunting for slaves.^[259]

Instructions from the War Department, dated July 22, and applying to all the States in rebellion except South Carolina and Tennessee, authorized the employment as laborers of so many persons of African descent as the military and naval commanders could use to advantage, and the payment of reasonable wages for their labor.^[260]

On May 12, 1862, Representative Lovejoy proposed a bill, a substitute for one previously reported by him and introduced by Mr. Isaac N. Arnold:

To the end that freedom may be and remain forever the fundamental law of the land in all places whatsoever, so far as it lies within the powers or depends upon the action of the Government of the United States to make it so: Therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That slavery or involuntary servitude, in all cases whatsoever (other than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted) shall henceforth cease, and be prohibited forever in all the Territories of the United States, now existing, or hereafter to be formed or acquired in any way.^[261]

This measure passed by 85 yeas to 50 nays. In the Senate, June 9, it was reported amended by inserting this substitute: “That from and after the passage of this act there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the Territories of the United States now existing, or which may at any time hereafter be formed or acquired by the United States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” In this form it passed by a vote of 28 to 10 and the House concurred by 72 yeas to 38 nays.^[262]

Charles Sumner, writing June 5, 1862, to a correspondent who was impatient at what seemed the short-comings of the President, says:

Your criticism of the President is hasty. I am confident that, if you knew him as I do, you would not make it.

Of course, the President cannot be held responsible for all the misfeasances of subordinates, unless adopted or at least tolerated by him. And I am sure that nothing unjust or ungenerous will be tolerated, much less adopted, by him.

I am happy to let you know that he has no sympathy with Stanly in his absurd wickedness, closing the schools, nor again in his other act of turning our camp into a hunting ground for slaves. He repudiates both—positively. The latter point has occupied much of his thought; and the newspapers have not gone too far in recording his repeated declarations, which I have often heard from his own lips, that slaves finding their way into the national lines are never to be re-enslaved. This is his conviction, expressed without reserve.

Could you have seen the President—as it was my privilege often—while he was considering the great questions on which he has already acted—the invitation to emancipation in the States, emancipation in the District of Columbia, and the acknowledgment of the independence of Hayti and Liberia—even your zeal would have been satisfied, for you would have felt the sincerity of his purpose to do what he could to carry forward the principles of the Declaration of Independence. His whole soul was occupied, especially by the first proposition, which was peculiarly his own. In familiar intercourse with him, I remember nothing more touching than the earnestness and completeness with which he embraced this idea. To his mind, it was just and beneficent while it promised the sure end of slavery. Of course, to me who had already proposed a bridge of gold for the retreating fiend, it was most welcome. Proceeding from the President, it must take its place among the great events of history.

I wish that you really knew the President, and had heard the artless expression of his convictions on these questions which concern you so deeply. You might, perhaps, wish that he were less cautious, but you would be grateful that he is so true to all that you have at heart. Believe me, therefore, you are wrong, and I regret it the more because of my desire to see all our friends stand firmly together.^[263]

The President requested and obtained, July 12, 1862, an interview with the border State delegations. The near adjournment of Congress would deprive him of an opportunity of seeing them for several months. He believed they held more power for good than any other equal number of members, and felt that the duty of making an appeal to them could not be waived. This he did by reading a carefully prepared paper.

The Confederate States, he said, would cling to the hope of an ultimate union with the border States as long as they perpetuated the institution of slavery. If the members had supported his plan of gradual emancipation in the preceding March the rebellion would now, 1862, be substantially ended.

Looking to the stern facts in the case he inquired whether they could do better for their States than to follow the course which he urged. If the war continued long, the institution “will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion,”—by the incidents of war much of its value was already gone. He did not speak of immediate emancipation, “but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually.” Room for colonization could be procured in South America ample and cheap enough. When their numbers increased sufficiently to be company for one another the freed people would not be so reluctant to go. His repudiation of General Hunter’s proclamation had given offence to some whose support the Government could not afford to lose. The pressure from such persons was still upon him and the Congressmen from the border slave States could relieve him and the country. He begged them to reexamine his message of March 6, and commend it to the consideration of their constituents. The peril of their common country demanded the loftiest views and the boldest action if they desired to perpetuate popular government.^[264]

It was represented to him, in a conversation which followed this appeal, that the resolution of Congress, being no more than an expression of sentiment, could not be regarded by them as a basis for substantial action. Mr. Lincoln admitted that, as a condition of taking into consideration a proposition so nearly affecting their social system, the border slave States were entitled to expect a substantial pledge of pecuniary aid.

It was further represented at this conference that the people of the border States were interested in knowing the great importance which Mr. Lincoln attached to the policy in question, while it was equally due to the country, to the President and to themselves that they should publicly announce the motives under which they were called to act, and the considerations of public policy urged upon them and their constituents. With a view to such a statement of their position the members met in council to deliberate on the reply they should make, and two days later the majority sent the following paper to the President:

“The undersigned ... have listened to your address with the profound sensibility naturally inspired by the high source from which it emanates, the earnestness which marked its delivery, and the overwhelming importance of the subject of which it treats. We have given it our most respectful consideration, and now lay before you our response....

“... Repudiating the dangerous heresies of the secessionists, we believed, with you, that the war on their part is aggressive and wicked, and the objects for which it was to be prosecuted on ours, defined by your message at the opening of the present Congress, to be such as all good men should approve. We have not hesitated to vote all supplies necessary to carry it on vigorously....”

This support, continues the response, was yielded “in the face of measures most distasteful to us and injurious to the interests we represent, and in the hearing of doctrines, avowed by those who claim to be your friends, [which] must be abhorrent to us and our constituents.”

The greater number of them did not, however, vote for the measure recommended in his message of March 6, and they proceeded to state the principal reasons which influenced their action. First, it proposed a radical change in their social system; it was hurried through both Houses with undue haste; and was passed without any opportunity whatever for consultation with their constituents, whose interests it deeply involved. “It seemed,” said the majority, “like an interference by this Government with a question which peculiarly and exclusively belonged to our respective States, on which they had not sought advice or solicited aid. Many of us doubted the constitutional power of this Government to make appropriations of money for the object designated, and all of us thought our finances were in no condition to bear the immense outlay which its adoption and faithful execution would impose upon the national Treasury. If we pause but a moment to think of the debt its acceptance would have entailed, we are appalled by its magnitude. The proposition was addressed to all the States and embraced the whole number of slaves.”

The census of 1860 showed a slave population of nearly 4,000,000; from natural increase the number in 1862 exceeded that. “At even the low average of $300, the price fixed by the emancipation act for the slaves of this District, and greatly below their real worth, their value runs up to the enormous sum of $1,200,000,000; and if to that we add the cost of deportation and colonization, at $100 each, which is but a fraction more than is actually paid by the Maryland Colonization Society, we have $400,000,000 more. They were not willing nor could the country bear a tax sufficient to pay the interest on that sum in addition to the vast and daily increasing debt already fixed upon them by the exigencies of the war. The proposition is nothing less than the deportation from the country of $1,600,000,000 worth of producing labor and the substitution of an interest-bearing debt of the same amount. Even if it were expected that only the border States would accept the proposition, that involved a sum too great for the financial ability of the Government at this time. The total number of slaves in those States according to the late census was 1,196,112. The same rate of valuation with expenses of deportation and colonization gives the enormous sum of $478,038,133.

“We did not feel that we should be justified in voting for a measure which, if carried out, would add this vast amount to our public debt at a moment when the Treasury was reeling under the enormous expenditure of the war.”

To them the resolution seemed no more than the enunciation of a sentiment. “No movement was then made to provide and appropriate the funds required to carry it into effect; and we were not encouraged to believe that funds would be provided. And our belief has been fully justified by subsequent events. Not to mention other circumstances, it is quite sufficient for our purpose to bring to your notice the fact that, while this resolution was under consideration in the Senate our colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, moved an amendment appropriating $500,000 to the object therein designated, and it was voted down with great unanimity. What confidence, then, could we reasonably feel that if we committed ourselves to the policy it proposed, our constituents would reap the fruits of the promise held out; and on what ground could we, as fair men, approach them and challenge their support?”

They denied that if, as the President alleged, they had supported the resolution of March 6, the war would be substantially ended, and they added, “The resolution has passed and if there be virtue in it, it will be quite as efficacious as if we had voted for it.”

The war, they asserted, was prolonged not by reason of their conduct, but because of the union of all classes in the South. Those who wished to break down national independence and set up State domination, the State-rights party, could not be reconciled; but the large class who believed their domestic interests had been assailed by the Government might be if only they were convinced “that no harm is intended to them and their institutions,” but that the Government was simply defending its legitimate authority.

“Twelve months ago,” adds this response, “both Houses of Congress, adopting the spirit of your message, then but recently sent in, declared with singular unanimity the objects of the war, and the country instantly bounded to your side to assist you in carrying it on. If the spirit of that resolution had been adhered to, we are confident that we should before now have seen the end of this deplorable conflict. But what have we seen?

“In both Houses of Congress we have heard doctrines subversive of the principles of the Constitution, and seen measure after measure founded in substance on those doctrines proposed and carried through which can have no other effect than to distract and divide loyal men, and exasperate and drive still further from us and their duty the people of the rebellious States. Military officers, following these bad examples, have stepped beyond the just limits of their authority in the same direction, until in several instances you have felt the necessity of interfering to arrest them.... The effect of these measures was foretold, and may now be seen in the indurated state of Southern feeling.”

To these causes, and not to the failure of the border delegations to support the measure, they attributed the terrible earnestness of those in arms against the Government. Nor was the institution of slavery the source of insurgent strength, but rather the apprehension that the powers of a common Government would be wielded against the institutions of the Southern States.

The reply concludes: “If Congress, by proper and necessary legislation, shall provide sufficient funds and place them at your disposal, to be applied by you to the payment of any of our States or the citizens thereof who shall adopt the abolishment of slavery, either gradual or immediate, as they may determine, and the expense of deportation and colonization of the liberated slaves, then will our State[s] and people take this proposition into careful consideration, for such decision as in their judgment is demanded by their interest, their honor, and their duty to the whole country.”^[265]

The minority, seven in number, in their reply of the 15th declared themselves ready to make any sacrifice to save the Government and the institutions of their fathers, and promised to ask the people of their States calmly, deliberately and fairly to consider the recommendations of the President; they were encouraged to assume this position because the leaders of the rebellion had offered to abolish slavery among them as a condition of foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation.^[266]

Horace Maynard, though not representing a border State proper, expressed his approval of the President’s policy and stated the physical impossibility of submitting to the consideration of his people that or any other proposition until Tennessee had first been freed from hostile arms.^[267]

A fourth paper submitted to the President was that of Senator J. B. Henderson, of Missouri, who had cheerfully supported the measure at the time of its introduction; he believed the proposition would have received the approbation of a large majority of the border State delegations if they could have foreseen that the war would have been protracted a twelvemonth and had felt assured that the dominant party in Congress would, like the President, be as prompt in practical action as they had been in the expression of a sentiment. “In this period of the nation’s distress,” says Senator Henderson, “I know of no human institution too sacred for discussion; no material interest belonging to the citizen that he should not willingly place upon the altar of his country, if demanded by the public good.”^[268]

Mr. Henderson did not agree with the opinion of the President that “the war would now be substantially ended” had the members from the border States supported the measure in the preceding March. Personally he was favorable to the proposition, but remembered that he was the servant not the master of the people of Missouri.

To the sudden and unexpected collapse of McClellan’s Richmond campaign has been ascribed the determination of President Lincoln to adopt general military emancipation so much sooner than he otherwise would have done. The great and decisive element of military strength in the slave population which he saw so clearly a little later could not even then, June and July, 1862, have been altogether concealed from his keen insight into affairs. His personal appeal to the border Congressmen was made July 12; the result of that conference he easily anticipated. Nor was the receipt of their written replies necessary to inform him that his offer would be rejected. So much he could readily collect from their oral objections and verbal criticisms. The decision to give notice of his intention to issue a proclamation concerning slavery was probably made within a few hours after he had assured Mr. Crisfield that the emancipation policy extended no farther than to a refusal of the border States to accept his tender of pecuniary aid to any commonwealth voluntarily adopting the plan of gradual abolishment. However this may be, he confided on the following day, July 13, 1862, to Secretaries Seward and Welles his intention to emancipate slaves by proclamation if their masters did not cease to make war on the Government. From the diary of the latter, we learn under what circumstances this important communication was made.

President Lincoln [writes Mr. Welles] invited me to accompany him in his carriage to the funeral of an infant child of Mr. Stanton. Secretary Seward and Mrs. Frederick Seward were also in the carriage. Mr. Stanton occupied at that time, for a summer residence, the house of a naval officer, some two or three miles west or northwesterly of Georgetown. It was on this occasion and on this ride that he first mentioned to Mr. Seward and myself the subject of emancipating the slaves by proclamation in case the rebels did not cease to persist in their war on the Government and the Union, of which he saw no evidence. He dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy of the movement; said he had given it much thought, and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity, absolutely essential for the salvation of the nation, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued, etc., etc. This was, he said, the first occasion where he had mentioned the subject to any one, and wished us to frankly state how the proposition struck us. Mr. Seward said the subject involved consequences so vast and momentous that he should wish to bestow on it mature reflection before giving a decisive answer; but his present opinion inclined to the measure as justifiable, and perhaps he might say expedient and necessary. These were also my views. Two or three times on that ride the subject, which was of course an absorbing one for each and all, was adverted to, and before separating, the President desired us to give the subject special and deliberate attention, for he was earnest in the conviction that something must be done. It was a new departure for the President, for until this time, in all our previous interviews, whenever the question of emancipation or the mitigation of slavery had been in any way alluded to, he had been prompt and emphatic in denouncing any interference by the General Government with the subject. This was, I think, the sentiment of every member of the Cabinet, all of whom, including the President, considered it a local domestic question appertaining to the States respectively, who had never parted with their authority over it. But the reverses before Richmond, and the formidable power and dimensions of the insurrection, which extended through all the slave States and had combined most of them in a confederacy to destroy the Union, impelled the Administration to adopt extraordinary measures to preserve the national existence. The slaves, if not armed and disciplined, were in the service of those who were, not only as field laborers and producers, but thousands of them were in attendance upon the armies in the field, employed as waiters and teamsters, and the fortifications and intrenchments were constructed by them.^[269]

The session of Congress was drawing to a close, but before adjournment the Confiscation Act, passed July 17, 1862, was approved by the President. This with kindred laws increased the number of forfeitures of title to slaves for the crimes of treason and rebellion. These penalties were by him considered just and their imposition constitutional.

Within five days after the adjournment of Congress the President, July 21, 1862, reached his final conclusions on the subject of emancipation. The diary of Secretary Chase contains the following record:

[Having received notice of a Cabinet meeting, Mr. Chase says:] I went to the President’s at the appointed hour and found that he was profoundly concerned at the present aspect of affairs, and had determined to take some definite steps in respect to military action and slavery. He had prepared several orders, the first of which contemplated authority to commanders to subsist their troops in the hostile territory; the second, authority to employ negroes as laborers; the third, requiring that both in case of property taken and negroes employed, accounts should be kept with such degree of certainty as would enable compensation to be made in proper cases. Another provided for the colonization of negroes in some tropical country.

A good deal of discussion took place upon these points. The first order was unanimously approved. The second was also unanimously approved; and the third by all except myself. I doubted the expediency of attempting to keep accounts for the benefit of inhabitants of rebel States. The colonization project was not much discussed.

The Secretary of War presented some letters from General Hunter, in which General Hunter advised the Department that the withdrawal of a large proportion of his troops to reËnforce General McClellan rendered it highly important that he should be immediately authorized to enlist all loyal persons without reference to complexion. Mr. Stanton, Mr. Seward, and myself expressed ourselves in favor of this plan, and no one expressed himself against it. Mr. Blair was not present. The President was not prepared to decide the question, but expressed himself as averse to arming negroes.^[270]

This Cabinet meeting came to no final conclusion, and, as we learn from the same source, the discussion was resumed on the following day, July 22, when the question of arming the slaves was brought up.

I advocated it warmly [writes Secretary Chase].^[271] The President was unwilling to adopt this measure, but proposed to issue a proclamation on the basis of the Confiscation Bill, calling upon the States to return to their allegiance—warning rebels that the provisions of the act would have full force at the expiration of sixty days—adding, on his own part, a declaration of his intention to renew, at the next session of Congress, his recommendation of compensation to States adopting gradual abolishment of slavery—and proclaiming the emancipation of all slaves within States remaining in insurrection on the first day of January, 1863.^[272]

Mr. Chase promised the measure his cordial support, but preferred that no new expression on the subject of compensation be made at that time. Secretary Chase, in the diary mentioned, says: “The impression left upon my mind by the whole discussion was, that, while the President thought that the organization, equipment, and arming of negroes, like other soldiers, would be productive of more evil than good, he was not unwilling that commanders should, at their discretion, arm for purely defensive purposes, slaves coming within their lines.”^[273] On the kindred policy of emancipation, however, the President had reached a definite conclusion which was in advance of the opinions entertained by even the most radical members of his Cabinet. When, therefore, he read to them, on July 22, his draft of an emancipation proclamation they were for the most part taken completely by surprise. This momentous document deserves to be reproduced entire.

In pursuance of the sixth section of the act of Congress entitled “An act to suppress insurrection and to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved July 17, 1862, and which act and the joint resolution explanatory thereof are herewith published, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion, or any rebellion, against the Government of the United States, and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States, on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.

And I hereby make known that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure for tendering pecuniary aid to the free choice or rejection of any and all States which may then be recognizing and practically sustaining the authority of the United States, and which may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, gradual abolishment of slavery within such State or States; that the object is to practically restore, thenceforward to be maintained, the constitutional relation between the General Government and each and all the States wherein that relation is now suspended or disturbed; and that for this object the war, as it has been, will be prosecuted. And as a fit and necessary military measure for effecting this object, I as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States, do order and declare 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 States wherein the constitutional authority of the United States shall not then be practically recognized, submitted to, and maintained, shall then, thenceforward, and forever be free.^[274]

The diary of Secretary Chase, as well as the President’s endorsement on his draft, shows the emancipation proclamation to have been read to the Cabinet July 22, 1862. Various suggestions were offered; but except an objection of Secretary Seward they had all been fully anticipated by Mr. Lincoln and settled in his own mind. Secretary Seward said: “Mr. President, I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear the effect of so important a step. It may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted Government, a cry for help; the Government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the Government.”

Speaking afterwards of this incident, Mr. Lincoln said: “Seward’s idea was ‘that it would be considered our last shriek on the retreat. Now,’ added Mr. Seward, ‘while I approve the measure, I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue, until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war!’ The wisdom of this view,” said Mr. Lincoln in recalling the occasion, “struck me with very great force. It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I had entirely overlooked. The result was that I put the draft of the proclamation aside, as you do your sketch for a picture, waiting for a victory.”^[275]

Instead of the proclamation so carefully discussed, a short one was published three days later, of which the most important part is as follows:

In pursuance of the sixth section of the act of Congress entitled “An act to suppress insurrection and to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved July 17, 1862, and which act, and the joint resolution explanatory thereof, are herewith published, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion, or any rebellion, against the Government of the United States, and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States, on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.^[276]

This warning was required by the sixth section of the act mentioned.

During the following month President Lincoln waited patiently for tidings of some unquestioned success that would justify the publication of his proclamation, but when instead he received in the closing days of August intelligence of the second disaster at Manassas his anxiety must have become intense. This victory, together with the succession of others recently attending Confederate arms, encouraged General Lee’s invasion of Maryland. An army, notwithstanding its late reverses, still formidable in numbers and once more thoroughly reorganized marched leisurely from the vicinity of Washington to locate and destroy him. When, where or how the battle-cloud would break was uncertain. All eyes were turned on McClellan, again in command of the Union forces and strengthened by every soldier that could be spared from the defences of the Federal capital. It was in this state of suspense, and on the very day, September 13, that Lee’s victorious legions entered Frederick City that the President gave audience to a deputation from the religious denominations of Chicago, presenting a memorial for the immediate issue of an emancipation proclamation, which was enforced by some remarks from the chairman. The President replied that he had for weeks past, even for months, thought much upon the subject of their memorial.

“I am approached,” said he, “with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps, in some respect, both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.”

The difficulties of the subject and the impossibility of even anti-slavery men, in or out of Congress, agreeing upon any measure of emancipation were then referred to. However, he would discuss the merits of the case and asked pointedly:

“What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative.... Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is there a single court, or magistrate, or individual that would be influenced by it there?”

He admitted to his visitors, however, that he raised no objections to such a proclamation as they desired on legal or on constitutional grounds; for, continued he, “as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, in time of war I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy, nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible consequences of insurrection and massacre at the South. I view this matter as a practical war measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.”

The committee replied, and the President added, “I admit that slavery is at the root of the rebellion.... I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition. I grant, further, that it would help somewhat at the North, though not so much, I fear, as you and those you represent imagine.... Unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by drawing off their laborers, which is of great importance; but I am not so sure we could do much with the blacks.”^[277] The President, too, called attention to the fact that the border slave States had 50,000 bayonets in the Union army. It would be a serious matter if in consequence of such a proclamation they should go over to the South. In conclusion he said that he had not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but held the matter under advisement and assured them that the subject was on his mind by day and by night more than any other.

It was currently reported among anti-slavery men in Illinois that the emancipation proclamation was extorted from the President by the pressure of such delegations as this from the Christian Convention.^[278] To determine how little foundation there is for this opinion it is only necessary to recall what had occurred in the Cabinet on July 22 preceding.

The repulse of Lee’s veterans at Antietam, September 17, 1862, raised somewhat the hopes of the President. On the 19th General McClellan telegraphed an account of his victory, and Mr. Lincoln three days later announced his intention to issue the postponed proclamation.

All the Cabinet members, having been summoned by messenger from the State Department, were in attendance at the White House on September 22, 1862. After some talk of a general nature, and the reading by Mr. Lincoln of a humorous chapter from a book by Artemus Ward, the conversation assumed a more serious tone. What subsequently transpired on that eventful occasion we learn from the following record in the diary of Secretary Chase:

“Gentlemen, [said the President] I have, as you are aware, thought a great deal about the relation of this war to slavery, and you all remember that, several weeks ago, I read to you an order I had prepared upon the subject, which, on account of objections made by some of you, was not issued. Ever since then my mind has been much occupied with this subject, and I have thought all along that the time for acting on it might probably come. I think the time has come now. I wish it was a better time. I wish that we were in a better condition. The action of the army against the rebels has not been quite what I should have best liked. But they have been driven out of Maryland, and Pennsylvania is no longer in danger of invasion. When the rebel army was at Frederick I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of emancipation, such as I thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing to any one, but I made a promise to myself and [hesitating a little] to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfill that promise. I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for myself. This I say without intending anything but respect for any one of you. But I already know the views of each on this question. They have been heretofore expressed, and I have considered them as thoroughly and as carefully as I can. What I have written is that which my reflections have determined me to say. If there is anything in the expressions I use or in any minor matter which any one of you thinks had best be changed, I shall be glad to receive your suggestions. One other observation I will make. I know very well that many others might, in this matter as in others, do better than I can; and if I was satisfied that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any one of them than by me, and knew of any constitutional way in which he could be put in my place, he should have it. I would gladly yield it to him. But though I believe that I have not so much of the confidence of the people as I had some time since, I do not know that, all things considered, any other person has more; and, however this may be, there is no way in which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here. I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take.”

The President then proceeded to read his Emancipation Proclamation, making remarks on the several parts as he went on, and showing that he had fully considered the subject in all the lights under which it had been presented to him.

After he had closed, Governor Seward said: “The general question having been decided, nothing can be said further about that. Would it not, however, make the proclamation more clear and decided to leave out all reference to the act being sustained during the incumbency of the present President; and not merely say that the Government recognises, but that it will maintain the freedom it proclaims?”

I followed, saying: “What you have said, Mr. President, fully satisfies me that you have given to every proposition which has been made a kind and candid consideration. And you have now expressed the conclusion to which you have arrived clearly and distinctly. This it was your right, and, under your oath of office, your duty to do. The proclamation does not, indeed, mark out the course I would myself prefer; but I am ready to take it just as it is written and to stand by it with all my heart. I think, however, the suggestions of Governor Seward very judicious, and shall be glad to have them adopted.”

The President then asked us severally our opinions as to the modifications proposed, saying that he did not care much about the phrases he had used. Every one favored the modification, and it was adopted. Governor Seward then proposed that in the passage relating to colonization some language should be introduced to show that the colonization proposed was to be only with the consent of the colonists, and the consent of the states in which the colonies might be attempted. This, too, was agreed to, and no other modification was proposed. Mr. Blair then said that the question having been decided, he would make no objection to issuing the proclamation; but he would ask to have his paper, presented some days since, against the policy, filed with the proclamation. The President consented to this readily. And then Mr. Blair went on to say that he was afraid of the influence of the proclamation on the border States and on the army, and stated, at some length, the grounds of his apprehensions. He disclaimed most expressly, however, all objections to emancipation per se, saying he had always been personally in favor of it—always ready for immediate emancipation in the midst of slave States, rather than submit to the perpetuation of the system.^[279]

The foregoing account from the diary of Secretary Chase is fully corroborated by a narrative of Mr. Welles describing the same event.^[280] Mr. Blair, as already observed, believed the time inopportune for issuing the proclamation and feared as a result that the border States would go over to secession. The President, however, thought the difficulty not to act as great as to act. There were two sides, he said, to that question. For months he had labored to get those States to move in this matter, convinced in his own mind that it was their true interest to do so, but his labors were vain. “We must take the forward movement,” he declared. “They would acquiesce, if not immediately, soon; for they must be satisfied that slavery had received its death-blow from slave-owners—it could not survive the rebellion.”^[281]

When the Cabinet had concluded its deliberations the document was duly attested, the seal affixed and the President’s signature added. On the following morning, September 23, 1862, the proclamation was published in full by all the leading newspapers of the loyal States, where it excited the most profound surprise. Indicating, as it does, the progress of opinion, it was the first great landmark of the war; behind it lay the old, before it the new order of things. The successive steps by which Mr. Lincoln reached this position have been sketched in the present chapter with fullness and, it is believed, with accuracy. It has been shown how fugitive slaves escaping to the Federal lines were at first surrendered to their masters; how soon afterward, as in the case of General Butler’s command, they were protected by the army and employed as laborers; how in a later stage, certain Union commanders who proposed to confiscate slave property or to arm negroes as soldiers were gently rebuked and their acts disavowed by the President. This forbearance, however, was without effect on the Southern people, whose hatred was quite as likely to ascribe it to Yankee cowardice as to Yankee magnanimity.

With this account of the introduction into the problem of reconstruction of a novel and very perplexing element we are prepared to examine the various theories of State status held by those whose position and ability made them leaders of public opinion. That subject will be more properly discussed in a separate chapter.