There was some slavery in the Northwest Territory to which Lincoln moved with his father from Kentucky, for although that section had been dedicated to freedom by the Ordinance of 1787, slavery in a modified form existed there for three reasons. The Ordinance was not considered emancipatory so far as it regarded the British slaves held in such service prior to 1795, those of French masters prior to 1763 and those already in that condition when the Ordinance was passed. Furthermore, after separating from the Indiana Territory, Illinois legalized slavery by indenture, provided for the hiring of slaves from Southern States to supply labor in its various industries, and at the same time passed a stringent law to prohibit the immigration of free Negroes into that State. Later there followed an attempt to open the State to slavery by the Legislature of 1822-1823, but the slave party was def Bated by the election of Governor Coles, who would not permit the reactionary element to reduce that commonwealth to a mediaeval basis.¹ Such slavery as existed in Illinois, however, differed, widely from that in the South where it had become economic rather than patriarchal as it then existed in certain parts of the North.

     On a trip by way of the Sangamon and the Mississippi to New Orleans in May 1831, Abraham Lincoln got his first impression of economic slavery when he “saw Negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and scourged.”² He made no mention of this spectacle until a decade later when journeying from Louisville to St. Louis he saw ten or twelve slaves shackled together on a boat. This was sufficient to convince him that this institution was not only an

economic evil but a disgrace to a country pretending to be free. Lincoln, therefore, early decided within himself that if he ever attained a position of sufficient power to do something for the extermination of this institution, he would count it the opportunity of his life.

     There soon followed an occasion when Lincoln had an opportunity to show his constituents his position on this important question. As a result of the murder of Lovejoy the question of slavery was brought up at the session of the legislature held in 1837 and was referred to a committee. The report of this committee expressed disapproval of abolition societies and carried a declaration to the effect that the Federal Constitution secured the right of property in slaves, and the Government of the United States could not abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of its citizens. After much heated debate and filibustering these resolutions were finally passed, although Lincoln and five other members voted in the negative. Then there followed from Lincoln and Daniel A. Stone a protest, questioning and attacking the moral support of slavery, yet recognizing all the constitutional guarantees that protected it.³

     Lincoln, as an Illinois Representative in Congress, resorted to a similar procedure in that national body. At this time there was almost a pitched battle between the slave States and the free commonwealths, each one endeavoring to develop more strength than the other in the effort to dictate the policy of the nation with reference to the States to be formed out of the remaining western territory. Lincoln did not take any active part in the discussion of slavery during the first session of his service in Congress, but he always voted against any measure providing for the extension of the institution. However, he still adhered to his position as set forth in the protest in the Illinois Legislature, that Congress had power under the Constitution to regulate or prohibit slavery in all territory

subject to its jurisdiction, provided that such power be exercised with due regard to constitutional rights. He, therefore, decided to test the question whether it was possible to remove from the seat of the Federal Government the offensive traffic in human beings. In formulating his plans to carry out this policy, he consulted the leading citizens of the District of Columbia and certain prominent men in Congress.

     Having secured the approval of Mayor Seaton of Washington, a representative of the intelligent slave-holding citizens of the District of Columbia, and also the support of Joshua Giddings, the leading abolition member of Congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to this effect. Thereupon Giddings made these remarks: “This evening (January 11th) our whole mess remained in the dining room after tea, and conversed upon the subject of Mr. Lincoln’s bill to abolish slavery. It was approved by all; I believe it as good bill as we could get at this time, and am willing to pay for slaves to save them from the southern market, as I suppose every man in the District would sell his slaves if he saw that slavery was to be abolished.”⁴

     In the meantime a less radical bill providing also for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia had been introduced by Representative Gott of New York. Lincoln, therefore, moved as an amendment on January 16, 1849, that a committee report a bill for the emancipation of all slaves in the District of Columbia. This measure prohibited the bringing of slaves into and selling them out of the District except in the case of those temporarily serving persons representing slave-holding States. It made provision for a tentative system of apprenticeship and the eventual emancipation of children born of slave mothers after January 1, 1850. It further provided for the manumission of slaves by the Government of the United States with compensation to the owners who might make application therefor, for the return of fugitive slaves from Washington

and Georgetown, and finally for the submission of the bill to popular vote in the District of Columbia. This measure, however, and its probability of success so excited the proslavery members of Congress and the slave owners in the District of Columbia that a violent opposition thereto followed. So many influential forces were arrayed against the measure that its friends did not further endeavor to pilot it through the House.⁵ This unsuccessful effort marked the expiration of Lincoln’s term in Congress.

     Declining to become a candidate for renomination to Congress, Lincoln returned to Springfield, partially withdrew from politics, and devoted himself largely to the practice of law. He reappeared as an active participant in politics in Illinois in 1854, when there appeared a new aspect of the question as reflected by the debate incident to the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. At this time Lincoln was called for in all directions to deliver addresses to inform the people on the issue of the day. In this connection he demonstrated his inalterable opposition to the extension of slavery.⁶ He objected to the iniquitous doctrine of the Nebraska Bill in that it assumed that there was moral right in the enslaving of one man by another, and, further, that it tended to be unmistakably subversive of the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln was of the opinion that the salvation of the Union was dependent upon the extension or the restriction of slavery. Realizing the futility and the hopelessness of voluntary emancipation, he asserted that the “Autocrat of all the Russias” would resign his crown, and proclaim freedom to all his subjects sooner than the “American masters” would voluntarily give up their slaves.⁷ It is remarkable that Lincoln’s speculative affirmation was followed by what he thought an impossibility, for on the day preceding Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration the “Autocrat of all the Russias,” Alexander II, by an imperial decree emancipated his serfs;

“while six weeks after the inauguration, the proslavery element, headed by Jefferson Davis, began the Rebellion to perpetuate and to spread the institution of slavery.”

     In 1857 came the Dred Scott decision, in which Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court dragged that tribunal into politics, aiming to settle the question of slavery in the territories, but it stimulated rather than suppressed the discussion of slavery, as was evident by its outburst in the debates between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stephen A. Douglas.⁸ The main question was whether, according to the Constitution, Congress could prohibit slavery in the territories. Lincoln contended that it could but Douglas was evasive, as he hoped to reconcile his popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. Lincoln, on the other hand, showed that the public estimate of the Negro had become decidedly lower than it was prior to the industrial revolution, when masters could emancipate their bondmen of their own volition. Since then it had become common for the State Legislature, which in the exercise of the sovereignty of the State had the power to abolish slavery within its limits, to withhold that power and to make legal restraints tantamount to prohibition.

     Lincoln opposed Mr. Douglas in 1858 when he contested the latter’s, reelection to the United States Senate. Toward this end he launched a more determined antislavery program than ever before, advancing the doctrine that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” and likewise that “the Union could not endure permanently, half slave and half free.”⁹ He further declared that either the advocates of slavery would push the institution forward until it became alike lawful in both North and South, or the opponents thereof would arrest its extension. Douglas had charged the Republicans with the intent to abolish slavery in the States and had asserted that their opposition to the Dred Scott decision marked their desire for Negro equality

and amalgamation.¹⁰ To this charge Lincoln replied that the Republicans were not directing their efforts toward abolition in the slave States, but toward the exclusion of slavery from the territories. He forcibly denied the accusation that the Republicans solicited social equality and amalgamation with the Negro, declaring that there was a physical difference between the two races, which probably would forever forbid their living together on equal footing; and that, inasmuch as it became a necessity that there must be a difference, he, like Douglas, favored his race for the superior position. Lincoln admitted that in some respects the Negro, according to the Declaration of Independence, was not the white man’s equal; that in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity the Negro was not on a par with the white man; but that that instrument did, with tolerable distinctness, consider “all men created equal” with certain inalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”¹¹ Lincoln held that, notwithstanding all these facts, there was no reason why the Negro was not entitled to all the natural rights embraced by the Declaration of Independence, which are enjoyed by the white man.¹² He interpreted the standard maxim that “all men are created equal” as being of no practical use in effecting the separation of the thirteen Colonies from Great Britain, and, on the contrary, contended that it was placed in the Declaration of Independence for future use in the attainment of democracy.

     Lincoln failed to defeat Douglas for the United States Senate but he continued to discuss the constitutionality of the restriction of slavery. On more than one instance he limited his remarks to this question, irrespective of the type of his audience or character of the occasion. He persistently reiterated the doctrine that there was no provision

in the Constitution that precluded the right of the Federal Government to control slavery in the territories.¹³ The crisis between 1850 and 1860 brought Lincoln’s ideas before larger groups. Until that year the Democrats had apparently remained united. At the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, in April, 1860, there was a division.¹⁴ The Northern Democrats, unable to comply with the demands of the slave power that the convention should adopt a platform requiring Congress to protect slavery in the territories and the Northerners to acknowledge and advocate the moral right of slavery, forced the South to the radical position of withdrawing from the Convention. Since no candidate could then be nominated, the Convention adjourned to Baltimore, in the hope that time would bring about a reconciliation; but in the end the Northern Democrats nominated Douglas, and the Southerners nominated Breckenridge.¹⁵

     The Republican Convention was held in Chicago in May 1860, and there was adopted a moderate platform, with a denial of the right of Congress to interfere with slavery in the States. The Republicans reaffirmed the Declaration of Independence and declared that Congress should prohibit slavery in the territories. They repudiated the Dred Scott decision and advocated a protective system. Their most difficult problem was the selection of a candidate for the presidency. Inasmuch as Seward and Chase had alienated certain elements by their bold advocacy of advanced principles and Lincoln was comparatively unknown, the managers of the party finally accepted him because of his availability. This choice was received with much indignation among the antislavery leaders, for even Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison railed against the nominee and portrayed him as an obscurity.¹⁶

     Lincoln’s election forced slavery into the foreground.

Without waiting for his inauguration, several Southern States, acting in accordance with their previous threats that they would secede if a Republican President were elected, withdrew from the Union. Others soon followed their example. Congress hastened to offer various concessions to the seceding States,¹⁷ but these efforts for compromise were in vain. The die was cast. When Lincoln asserted that his oath of office bound him to preserve the Union at any cost, civil war became inevitable. The pro-slavery element opened fire on the American flag at Fort Sumter and forced its surrender April 14.¹⁸ On the next day Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers. 500,000 others were later called to defend the honor of the nation.

     The emancipation of Negroes during the Civil War could not be kept down. It appeared first in the acceptance of Negroes in the Union army camps as contraband, on the ground that they were being used by the Confederates to build fortifications and the like and, if returned to the seceding territory, would be of further use in opposing the Federal troops. General Butler set this precedent when he was in charge of the forces at Fortress Monroe. At first there was some hesitation as to whether the administration should adopt such a policy. Butler’s course, however, was approved by Cameron, the Secretary of War, May 30, 1861, although Lincoln was not pleased with it; for he did not desire to alienate the border slave States by radical steps toward emancipation. He was hoping that the nation would trust him, “as having the more commanding view, gradually to fix the attitude of the Government toward the subject,”¹⁹ as the conquest of the Confederacy proceeded. The Federal troops, however, did not at first make much headway in the East, but events west of the Alleghenies progressed favorably for the Union cause, especially in Missouri. Taking advantage of this state of affairs, General

John C. Fremont, in charge of this district, proclaimed military emancipation in that State on August 30, 1861. All persons with arms were to be tried by court martial and shot. Their property would be confiscated, and their slaves would thereby be declared free. He appointed a military commission, whose business it was to hear evidence and to issue personal deeds of the manumission of slaves.

     When Lincoln was apprised of this proclamation, he forthwith took action. He feared, that the provisions of General Fremont’s drastic order, providing for the confiscation of property and the emancipation of slaves of traitorous owners, would alarm the Southern friends of the Union, would drive them over to the seceding faction, and perhaps would be instrumental in the loss of the border slave States. Fremont’s action was diametrically opposed to Lincoln’s policy, in that such emancipation was purely administrative and political, one of civil administration that could not be justified by military necessity. Consequently Lincoln issued an order instructing Fremont to modify his proclamation by striking out the disturbing provisions of the proclamation and substituting therefor the act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes, passed by Congress on August 6, 1861, which authorized the President to cause property used or employed in aid of insurrection to be seized, confiscated, or condemned, providing, however, that such condemnation be made by judicial procedure.²⁰

     Lincoln, nevertheless, hoped to increase the number of free States through compensated emancipation, which he expected to come through voluntary action on the part of the slave States at the suggestion of the Federal Government. In his next annual message to Congress, however, he made no direct reference to any specific plan of emancipation, but discussed its practical necessities in general terms so as to leave himself in a position to decide later on

a definite policy.²¹ He endeavored to keep before Congress new and possible contingencies and emphasized the fact that, by virtue of the Confiscation Act, many of the slaves thus liberated were already dependent upon the United States for maintenance, and that they must be provided for. He recommended, therefore, that Congress provide for accepting such persons from States so affected in lieu of direct taxes, and that such persons accepted by the General Government be declared free immediately.

     With his plan for compensated emancipation in mind, it was quite natural that Lincoln should look for a field of experimentation in a small State, such as Delaware, especially since there was in Congress from that State, Representative George E. Fisher, who was a staunch Unionist and a friend of the President. Fisher gladly cooperated with Lincoln in carrying out this plan. The Congressman tried to have the Legislature of Delaware pass an act for the gradual compensated emancipation of the 1,798 slaves which that State claimed according to the census of 1861, on the condition that the United States would pay the Delaware slaveholders $400 for each slave. During November of 1861, Lincoln wrote drafts of two separate bills to effect such an agreement.²² The first bill provided that, on the passage of the act, all Negroes over thirty-five years of age should become free; that all born after the passage of the measure should remain free; and that the rest, after suitable apprenticeship for children, should become free in 1893, while the State in the meanwhile should prohibit the selling of Delaware slaves elsewhere. By the provisions of the second bill the United States Government should pay the State of Delaware $23,200 a year for thirty-one years and all Negroes born after the passage of the act should be declared free, while all others should automatically become free at thirty-five years of age until January, 1893, when all remaining slaves of all ages should become

free, subject to apprenticeship for minors born of slave mothers up to the respective ages of eighteen and twenty-one.

     One of the drafts was rewritten by the friends of the measure that it might embrace the details and alterations to conform with local opinion and law. It was printed and circulated among the members of the Legislature of Delaware and a special session of that body was called to consider the proposal. The bill, however, was never introduced, because it was feared that it would be voted down by the hostile proslavery majority. The proslavery element, moreover, prepared resolutions to the effect that the bill would encourage the abolition element in Congress, that it bore evidence of an effort to abolish slavery in the States, that Congress had no right to appropriate money for the purchase of slaves, that it was not desirable to make Delaware guarantee the public faith of the United States, that the suggestion of saving expenses to the people by compensated emancipation was a bribe, and that Delaware would abolish slavery of its own volition at a time when its lawmakers would deem it advisable. But these resolutions did not fare much better than Lincoln’s bill, for in spite of the fact that they passed the House they were lost in the Senate.²³

     Although disappointed over the failure of his plans for compensated emancipation in Delaware, Lincoln, encouraged by the victories of Thomas and Grant in the west took his next step through Congress to the States.²⁴ Accordingly, on March 6, 1862, he sent to that body a special message, recommending the adoption of the joint resolution that the United States would cooperate with any State which might adopt gradual emancipation, giving such State compensation for all inconveniences produced by the change of any system within its confines.²⁵ Lincoln had figured out that less than the cost of the war for a half

day would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at $400 each, and that less than eighty-seven days’ cost of the war would compensate the slaveowners of Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri for all the slaves at the same rate.

     The next step took the form of Roscoe Conkling’s joint resolution to this effect recommended by Lincoln in his special message of March 6. At the same time Lincoln assembled the Congressmen from the border slave States of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri at the Executive Mansion, where a prolonged discussion of the subject ensued.²⁶ Lincoln tried to convince these Congressmen of the good faith of the administration, and suggested to them that they take this question of gradual abolition into serious consideration, for the Government of the United States had no right to coerce them. He asserted that emancipation was exclusively a State affair; and that his purpose was simply to present the proposition. Yet probably one reason for the failure of these Congressmen of the border slave States to make a favorable reply or to commit themselves in any way was that they were well aware of Lincoln’s determination, according to his special message of March 6, to use all means to save the Union; and they, furthermore, understood the hint that necessity might force him to resort to extreme measures. While this proposition gained no headway with the border slave States, the joint resolution was approved by Congress and received the signature of the President on April 10.

     Congress then passed an important measure, the expediency of which Lincoln urged in 1849. This was emancipation in the District of Columbia. Lincoln made no specific recommendations relative to this in his annual message, but later sent a special message to Congress March 6, 1862, taking up the subject in its more extensive aspects. This bill provided for the immediate emancipation

of slaves in the District of Columbia, and empowered a commission to distribute to slave-holders for their manumitted slaves a compensation not to exceed an aggregate of three hundred dollars a head, with an additional appropriation for $100,000 for expenses of voluntary emigration of freedmen to Haiti and Liberia.²⁷ Lincoln did not heartily approve this measure, however, for he did not want this to interfere with his policy of compensated emancipation in the border slave States. Even after the bill had been amended, according to his suggestions, he still hesitated and some of his friends thought that he might never sign it, but he did.

     The question of emancipation appeared in another form when, upon the capture of Port Royal the previous November, many slaves, abandoned by the fleeing slave-holders, sought protection in the Union army. These slaves, thus dislodged by the misfortunes of war, outnumbered the whites five to one and had to be organized in groups for government protection. Relief societies in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia sent funds and teachers for the slaves. This educational enterprise received the official sanction of Secretary Chase at President Lincoln’s request. Wishing further to improve their condition, General David Hunter, commander of the Department of the South, issued on May 9, 1862, an order of military emancipation, proclaiming the Department of the South under martial law and declaring persons in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, heretofore held as slaves, forever free.²⁸ Hunter regarded this an act of military necessity, not an instrument of political import as General Fremont’s proclamation in Missouri, for Hunter’s forces were insufficient for offensive movements, and he was doing this as the first step toward training and arming Negroes within his lines. Assuming that the instructions of the War Department conferred the necessary authority he proclaimed the order without delay.

     The news of this proclamation did not travel rapidly. It was published in the newspapers one week later, owing to the slow mail by sea from the South. By this means even Lincoln first learned of this decree, on account of which he was being assailed in many parts. When the news reached Lincoln he took decisive and prompt action. On May 19, he published a proclamation in which he revoked the order of emancipation and recited that the Government had no knowledge of such a decree nor had it authorized General Hunter to give such an order.

     Lincoln, however, used this occasion for an admonition to the border slave States, although he carefully distinguished between the limited powers of the commanders in the field and his full executive authority. He reminded the border States of the joint resolution passed by Congress, to authorize compensated emancipation, and he warned them not to neglect this opportunity to obtain financial indemnity, for the “signs of the times” were multiplying to a degree that should have convinced the border States that slavery was doomed.

     In the very beginning of the Thirty-seventh Congress there came a series of antislavery measures which constituted a complete and decisive reversal of the policy of the Federal Government.³⁰ On March 13, 1862, Congress approved an act, which prohibited all military and naval officers and enlisted personnel from returning fugitive slaves. Section 10 of the Confiscation Act, virtually an amendment of the Fugitive Slave Law, which withheld from the claimant the right to use his authority until he had taken an oath of allegiance, and made it tantamount to a crime for any person in the army or navy to surrender a fugitive slave or attempt to validate the owner’s claim, was rigidly enforced. Wishing to see Liberia and Haiti welcomed into the family of nations, moreover, Lincoln in his annual message in the previous December recommended the recognition of their independence and the establishment of diplomatic

relations with the new nations. This resolution was passed by a Congress and approved June 5, 1862. Lincoln then effected the passage of a measure to carry into execution; the treaty between Great Britain and the United States for the suppression of the African slave trade. Soon thereafter followed an act to secure freedom to all persons within the territories of the United States. The Republican party had thus carried out its platform by its restoration of the Missouri Compromise, its extension and application to all Territories, and as a logical result the rejection and condemnation of the Dred Scott decision and the subversive property theory of the secessionists.³¹

     Then followed the Confiscation Act, the discussion of which was closely followed by Lincoln, who had his views incorporated therein by pointing out its defects and suggesting amendments. Whereas the act of August 6, 1861, freed slaves actually employed in military service, the new Confiscation Act of 1862 proved to be a law to destroy slavery under the powers of war. In conjunction with provisions for punishing treason or rebellion it declared free all slaves of persons guilty and convicted of these crimes, and provided that slaves deserted by rebels escaping from them or coming under control of the United States and slaves of rebels found on Union soil should be deemed captives and set free. Then again, there were enacted other provisions, which by implication permitted the employment of slaves in the United States army that they might work their own enfranchisement. Under this law the President was empowered to enroll and employ contrabands in such service as they were fitted for. Their mothers, wives, and children, if owned by rebels, should be declared free by virtue of such service. The eleventh section of the Confiscation Act authorized the President to employ as many Negroes as he might deem necessary for the suppression of the rebellion. The organization of the earliest Negro regiments resulted from this legislation.

     Lincoln had some hesitation about signing this bill, however, for it had to be changed to conform to his views. But he signed it and also an anticipatory resolution of Congress to remedy its defects, placing himself on record by transmitting with his approval a copy of his intended veto, had certain defects remained. Mr. Lincoln objected to the expression that Congress could free a slave within a State, whereupon he suggested that it be changed to read that the ownership of the slave would be transferred to the nation, and that Congress would then liberate him.³² The Democrats opposed this act, but antislavery opinion gained momentum by increasing accessions to the ranks of freedom and by that unusual ability of the highly talented patriotic membership of Congress. Yet to the proslavery element and the conservative Unionists, Lincoln’s proposal of gradual compensated emancipation was a daring innovation upon practical politics. “In point of fact,” say Nicolay and Hay, “the President stood sagaciously midway between headlong reform and blind reaction. His steady, cautious direction and control of the average public sentiment of the country alike held back rash experiment and spurred lagging opinion.”³³

     Four months after Lincoln’s proposal of compensated emancipation to the border slave States and its sanction by Congress, the situation seeming more complicated by the vicissitudes of war, Lincoln saw the necessity for uniting the sentiment of the North for a practical solution of the slavery problem. Looking forward into the future, therefore, Lincoln readily realized that the North must present a united front contending for a plain, practical policy, relative to things both political and military.

     Consequently he again met the border State delegations on July 12, and made a second appeal to them to accept compensation for the emancipation of the slaves in their respective States while the opportunity was yet at hand.³⁴

He pointed out to them that the war would have been ended, had they considered the acceptance of the provisions of his first appeal for gradual emancipation, and that this plan would not be a slow and weak means of ending the war. Dissuading them from secession, he failed not to apprise them of the fact that, if the rebellion continued, their institution would be destroyed without any sort of indemnity or reparation. Again he referred to his revoking General Hunter’s proclamation of military abolition, with the hope that he might possibly win them over to his plan, but his effort was futile. Most of them replied with a qualified refusal; twenty of them later presented a written reply, pledging themselves to continue loyal, but at the same time giving the reasons why they could not accept the plan of compensated emancipation.

     In the meantime the capture of strategic points like Vicksburg and New Orleans had given the control of the lower Mississippi to the Union,³⁵ General Grant had crippled and driven back the Confederates in the West,³⁶ and prospects for military success in the East seemed to require some such a measure as military emancipation. After the refusal. of compensated emancipation by the border slave States the President decided to emancipate the slaves of rebellious commonwealths by military order.³⁷ While riding with Mr. Seward and Mr. Welles one day, Mr. Lincoln made mention of emancipating the slaves by proclamation, if the rebels did not lay down their arms. He believed that such action could be guaranteed only as a military necessity. He thought that the slaves must be liberated, or the Union would be exterminated. Lincoln reached a final conclusion and called the cabinet together on July 21, the day preceding the close of that session of Congress.³⁸ Since he was at the end of his tether, he determined to take a more definite and decisive step. Accordingly,

he prepared several orders which gave authority to commanders in the field to subsist their troops in hostile territory and to employ Negroes as paid laborers, and further provided for the colonization of Negroes in some tropical country.³⁹

     As this discussion led to no definite conclusion, the subject was resumed at a meeting on the following day; but Lincoln decided that the time was inopportune. While he thought that more evil than good would be derived from the wholesale arming of Negroes, yet he was not unwilling that the commanders arm, purely for defensive purposes, those slaves who came within the Union lines. But the President had reached a decision on the correlated policy of emancipation with which it appears that his cabinet was not in accord. They were surprised when he read to them the first draft of a proclamation warning the rebels of the penalties provided by the Confiscation Act, suggesting the renewal of his proposition of compensation to the loyal States, and adding a summary order that, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, he would declare free the slaves of all States that might be in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The Cabinet was somewhat “bewildered by the magnitude and boldness of this proposal.”⁴⁰

     Only two members of the cabinet concurred in the proposal. Secretary Chase favored this plan of military emancipation, but could not approve the method of execution. Blair, the Postmaster General, deprecated this policy on the ground that it would cost the administration the fall elections. Secretary Seward approved it and yet questioned the expediency of its issue at that stage of the war, owing to the depression of the public mind and the repeated reversals for the Union armies. He further deemed it to be a last measure of an exhausted government that was crying for help, stretching forth its arms to Ethiopia instead of awaiting a reverse appeal from Ethiopia.

Consequently he urged a postponement of the issue of the proclamation until the country was supported by military success. Lincoln, struck by the wisdom of Seward’s views, which he had entirely overlooked, laid it away and postponed the proclamation on July 22 until the Union forces reported a victory. Instead, after a three-day interval, he issued a short announcement that contained warnings as required by the provisions of the Confiscation Act.

     Lincoln’s postponement of the issue of the proclamation was wise. Military reversals made the situation more serious for the President’s supporters. The radicals and the conservatives, resorted to incessant criticism, railing against him and his policy. Lincoln, however, kept up appearances of indecision, even though his own course had been clearly and inalterably mapped out; but circumstances did not admit a revelation. His main object was to restrain impatience and zeal, and yet maintain the loyalty of both factions.⁴¹

     Horace Greeley attacked Lincoln unmercifully in The New York Tribune and accused him of being responsible for the deplorable results coming from his failure to enforce the Confiscation Act. Lincoln, on the contrary, lost no time in replying to Greeley, and declared that he intended to save the Union by the shortest possible way in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution; that his paramount object in the struggle was to preserve the Union and not either to preserve or destroy slavery; that he would save the Union, either without liberating any slaves, or by freeing all the slaves, or by freeing some and leaving others in servitude; that, at any rate, he would save the Union; and that his efforts at emancipation would be determined by its bearing on the more important question of saving the Union.

     The expected easy victory did not follow; but, on the contrary, came sad and humiliating defeat of Pope in the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862. At this juncture

Lincoln was urged by both individuals and delegations to follow one or the other decision relative to emancipation, but his attitude remained the same. On September 13, he informed a Chicago delegation that he was unable to free slaves by the Constitution, especially when the Constitution could not be enforced in the rebel States, and declared that any emancipation proclamation would at that time be as effective, and operative as “the Pope’s bull against the comet.”⁴² What the antislavery group wanted was not granted; but wholesale emancipation was going on by virtue of the provisions of the Confiscation Act, slavery had been abolished in the District of Columbia, and the territories had been restored to freedom. Lincoln, moreover, left himself a margin for action according to his declaration, in his interview with the Chicago delegation, that, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, he had the right to take any measure which might best subdue the enemy.⁴³

     Upon hearing of the Union victory at Antietam three days after, Lincoln immediately seized this opportunity to announce the policy upon which he had already decided. He had promised to withhold his Emancipation Proclamation until the rebels were out of Frederick. Now that they had been driven from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lincoln was ready to carry out his plan. On September 22, 1862, therefore, he announced, read, and published his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.⁴⁴ It embraced propositions that provided for the renewal of the plan of compensated emancipation, voluntary colonization, military emancipation of all slaves in rebellious States on January 1, 1863, and the ultimate recommendation of compensation to loyal owners.

     Although this proclamation was endorsed by an assembly of Governors from the Northern States, who had already convened at Altoona, Pennsylvania, to consider

emergency measures for the protection of their respective States,⁴⁵ the political test of this announcement of military emancipation came, as expected, in the autumn elections. Popular discontent had arisen as the result of military failure. The Democrats boldly declared that the war of the Union had been changed to a war for abolition of slavery. Party conflicts became bitter and resulted in a loss to the Republicans although they still retained a majority.

     In his next annual message, however, President Lincoln did not discuss the Emancipation Proclamation, but he renewed his argument for compensated emancipation. On December 11, 1862, George H. Yeaman of Kentucky introduced in the House of Representatives a resolution dubbing the President’s proclamation as unwarranted by the Constitution and a useless and dangerous war message. This resolution was tabled by a vote of ninety-four to forty-five. Four days later Representative S. C. Fessenden of Maine, on the contrary, offered a resolution putting into affirmative form the identical phraseology of Mr. Yeaman’s proposition, and secured its passage by a test vote of seventy-eight to fifty-four. No other action of consequence then followed except a manifestation of interest in compensated emancipation in Missouri.

     At a cabinet meeting on the last day of December, 1862, Lincoln read the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and invited criticism. He made some revision of a minor nature but rejected the proposal to eliminate from the order the provision that the freedmen be armed. In this form the Proclamation was issued the following day, January 1, 1863. The constitutionality of this document has been questioned. It is conceded, however, that it did actually abolish slavery within the rebellious area and as a moral stimulus to the struggle for freedom, it proved to be of great value.