[Illustration: Stephen A. Douglas]
American Statesmen
STANDARD LIBRARY EDITION
[Illustration: _The Home of Abraham Lincoln_]
* * * * *
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
BY
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
1899
* * * * *
CONTENTS
I. EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS
II. THE SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA
III. THE THIRD AND CLOSING ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA
IV. THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862, AND THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION
V. BATTLES AND SIEGES: DECEMBER, 1862-DECEMBER, 1863
VI. SUNDRIES
VII. THE TURN OF THE TIDE
VIII. RECONSTRUCTION
IX. RENOMINATION
X. MILITARY SUCCESSES, AND THE REËLECTION OF THE PRESIDENT
XI. THE END COMES INTO SIGHT: THE SECOND INAUGURATION
XII. EMANCIPATION COMPLETED
XIII. THE FALL OF RICHMOND, AND THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN
INDEX
* * * * *
ILLUSTRATIONS
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS
From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State Department at
Washington.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston Public Library.
The vignette of Mr. Lincoln's home, corner Eighth and Jackson streets,
Springfield, Ill., is from a photograph.
SIMON CAMERON
From a photograph by Mr. Le Rue Lemer, Harrisburg, Pa.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston Public Library.
LINCOLN SUBMITTING THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION TO HIS CABINET
From the painting by Carpenter in the Capitol at Washington.
ISAAC N. ARNOLD
From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State Department at
Washington.
Autograph from one furnished by his daughter, Mrs. Mary A. Scudder,
Chicago, Ill.
MONTGOMERY BLAIR
From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State Department at
Washington.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston Public Library.
* * * * *
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
EMANCIPATION AND POLITICS
During the spring and summer of 1861 the people of the North presented
the appearance of a great political unit. All alleged emphatically that
the question was simply of the Union, and upon this issue no Northerner
could safely differ from his neighbors. Only a few of the more
cross-grained ones among the Abolitionists were contemptuously allowed
to publish the selfishness of their morality, and to declare that they
were content to see the establishment of a great slave empire, provided
they themselves were free from the taint of connection with it. If any
others let Southern proclivities lurk in the obscure recesses of their
hearts they were too prudent to permit these perilous sentiments to
appear except in the masquerade of dismal presagings. So in appearance
the Northern men were united, and in fact were very nearly so--for a
short time.
This was a fortunate condition, which the President and all shrewd
patriots took great pains to maintain. It filled the armies and the
Treasury, and postponed many jeopardies. But too close to the surface to
be long suppressed lay the demand that those who declared the Union to
be the sole issue should explain how it came about that the Union was
put in issue at all, why there was any dissatisfaction with it, and why
any desire anywhere to be rid of it. All knew the answer to that
question; all knew that if the war was due to disunion, disunion in turn
was due to slavery. Unless some makeshift peace should be quickly
patched up, this basic cause was absolutely sure to force recognition
for itself; a long and stern contest must inevitably wear its way down
to the bottom question. It was practical wisdom for Mr. Lincoln in his
inaugural not to probe deeper than secession; and it was well for
multitudes to take arms and contribute money with the earnest
asseveration that they were fighting and paying only for the integrity
of the country. It was the truth, or rather it was _a_ truth; but there
was also another and a deeper truth: that he who fought for the
integrity of the country, also, by a necessity inherent in the case and
far beyond the influence of his volition, fought for the destruction of
slavery. Just as soon as this second truth came up and took distinct
shape beside the other, angry political divisions sundered the
Unionists. Abolition of slavery never displaced Union as a purpose of
the war; but the two became mingled, in a duality which could not
afterward be resolved into its component parts so that one could be
taken and the other could be left. The union of the two issues meant the
disunion of the people of the Middle and even of the Northern States.
In the Border States a considerable proportion of the people was both
pro-slavery and pro-Union. These men wished to retain their servile
laborers under their feet and the shelter of the Union over their heads.
At first they did not see that they might as well hope to serve both God
and Mammon. Yet for the moment they seemed to hold the balance of power
between the contestants; for had all the pro-slavery men in the Border
States gone over in a mass to the South early in the war, they might
have settled the matter against the North in short order. The task of
holding and conciliating this important body, with all its Northern
sympathizers, became a controlling purpose of the President, and caused
the development of his famous "border-state policy," for which he
deserved the highest praise and received unlimited abuse.
The very fact that these men needed, for their comfort, reiterated
assurances of a policy not hostile to slavery indicated the jeopardy of
their situation. The distinct language of the President alleviated their
anxiety so far as the Executive was concerned, but they desired to
commit the legislative branch to the same doctrine. Among all those who
might have been Secessionists, but were not, no other could vie in
respect and affection with the venerable and patriotic John J.
Crittenden of Kentucky. This distinguished statesman now became the
spokesman for the large body of loyal citizens who felt deeply that the
war ought not to impinge in the least upon the great institution of the
South. In the extra session of Congress, convened in July, 1861, he
offered a resolution pledging Congress to hold in mind: "That this war
is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any
purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor with any purpose of overthrowing
or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those [the
revolted] States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the
Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality,
and rights of the several States unimpaired." After the example of the
Constitution, this resolution was carefully saved from the contamination
of a certain offensive word; but every one knew its meaning and its
purpose; and with this knowledge all the votes save two in the House of
Representatives, and all save five in the Senate, were given for it.[1]
"It was," says Mr. Blaine, "a fair reflection of the popular sentiment
throughout the North." So Mr. Lincoln's inaugural was ratified.
But events control. The Northern armies ran against slavery immediately.
Almost in the very hours when the resolution of Mr. Crittenden was
gliding so easily through the House, thousands of slaves at Manassas
were doing the work of laborers and servants, and rendering all the
whites of the Southern army available for fighting. The handicap was so
severe and obvious that it immediately provoked the introduction of a
bill freeing slaves belonging to rebels and used for carrying on the
war. The Democrats and the men of the Border States generally opposed
the measure, with very strong feeling. No matter how plausible the
reason, they did not wish slavery to be touched at all. They could not
say that this especial bill was wrong, but they felt that it was
dangerous. Their protests against it, however, were of no avail, and it
became law on August 6. The extreme anti-slavery men somewhat
sophistically twisted it into an assistance to the South.
The principle of this legislation had already been published to the
country in a very fortunate way by General Butler. In May, 1861, being
in command at Fortress Monroe, he had refused, under instructions from
Cameron, to return three fugitive slaves to their rebel owner, and he
had ingeniously put his refusal on the ground that they were "contraband
of war." The phrase instantly became popular. General Butler says that,
"as a lawyer, [he] was never very proud of it;" but technical inaccuracy
does not hurt the force of an epigram which expresses a sound principle.
"Contraband" underlay the Emancipation Proclamation.
Thus the slaves themselves were forcing the issue, regardless of
polities and diplomacy. With a perfectly correct instinctive insight
into the true meaning of the war, they felt that a Union camp ought to
be a place of refuge, and they sought it eagerly and in considerable
numbers. Then, however, their logical owners came and reclaimed them,
and other commanders were not so apt at retort as General Butler was.
Thus it came to pass that each general, being without instructions,
carried out his own ideas, and confusion ensued. Democratic commanders
returned slaves; Abolitionist commanders refused to do so; many were
sadly puzzled what to do. All alike created embarrassing situations for
the administration.
General Fremont led off. On August 30, being then in command of the
Western Department, he issued an order, in which he declared that he
would "assume the administrative powers of the State." Then, on the
basis of this bold assumption, he established martial law, and
pronounced the slaves of militant or active rebels to be "free men." The
mischief of this ill-advised proceeding was aggravated by the "fires of
popular enthusiasm which it kindled." The President wrote to Fremont,
expressing his fear that the general's action would "alarm our Southern
Union friends, and turn them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair
prospect in Kentucky." Very considerately he said: "Allow me, therefore,
to ask that you will, as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as
to conform to" the Act of August 6. Fremont replied, in substance, that
the President might do this, but that he himself would not! Thereupon
Mr. Lincoln, instead of removing the insubordinate and insolent general,
behaved in his usual passionless way, and merely issued an order that
Fremont's proclamation should be so modified and construed as "to
conform with and not to transcend" the law. By this treatment, which
should have made Fremont grateful and penitent, he was in fact rendered
angry and indignant; for he had a genuine belief in the old proverb
about laws being silent in time of war, and he really thought that
documents signed in tents by gentlemen wearing shoulder-straps were
deserving of more respect, even by the President, than were mere Acts of
Congress. This was a mistaken notion, but Fremont never could see that
he had been in error, and from this time forth he became a vengeful
thorn in the side of Mr. Lincoln.
Several months later, on May 9, 1862, General Hunter proclaimed martial
law in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, and said: "Slavery and
martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons
in these States, heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared
forever free." At once, though not without reluctance, Mr. Lincoln
revoked this order, as unauthorized. He further said that, if he had
power to "declare the slaves of any State or States free," the propriety
of exercising that power was a question which he reserved exclusively to
himself. These words he fully made good. The whole country, wild with
excitement and teeming with opinions almost co-numerous with its
citizens, threatened to bury him beneath an avalanche of advice. But
while all talked and wrote madly and endlessly, he quietly held his
peace, did what he chose when he chose, and never delegated any portion
of his authority over this most important business to any one. He took
emancipation for his own special and personal affair; it was a matter
about which he had been doing much thinking very earnestly for a long
while, and he had no notion of forming now any partnership for managing
it.
The trend, however, was not all in one direction. While Butler, Fremont,
and Hunter were thus befriending the poor runaways, Buell and Hooker
were allowing slave-owners to reclaim fugitives from within their lines;
Halleck was ordering that no fugitive slave should be admitted within
his lines or camp, and that those already there should be put out; and
McClellan was promising to crush "with an iron hand" any attempt at
slave insurrection. Amid such confusion, some rule of universal
application was sorely needed. But what should it be?
Secretary Cameron twice nearly placed the administration in an
embarrassing position by taking very advanced ground upon the negro
question. In October, 1861, he issued an order to General Sherman, then
at Port Royal, authorizing him to employ negroes in any capacity which
he might "deem most beneficial to the service." Mr. Lincoln prudently
interlined the words: "This, however, not to mean a general arming of
them for military service." A few weeks later, in the Report which the
secretary prepared to be sent with the President's message to Congress,
he said: "As the labor and service of their slaves constitute the chief
property of the rebels, they should share the common fate of war.... It
is as clearly a right of the government to arm slaves, when it becomes
necessary, as it is to use gunpowder taken from the enemy. Whether it is
expedient to do so is purely a military question." He added more to the
same purport. He then had his report printed, and sent copies, by mail,
to many newspapers throughout the country, with permission to publish it
so soon as the telegraph should report the reading before Congress. At
the eleventh hour a copy was handed to Mr. Lincoln, to accompany his
message; and then, for the first time, he saw these radical passages.
Instantly he directed that all the postmasters, to whose offices the
printed copies had been sent on their way to the newspaper editors,
should be ordered at once to return these copies to the secretary. He
then ordered the secretary to make a change, equivalent to an omission,
of this inflammatory paragraph. After this emasculation the paragraph
only stated that "slaves who were abandoned by their owners on the
advance of our troops" should not be returned to the enemy.
When the Thirty-seventh Congress came together for the regular session,
December 2, 1861, anti-slavery sentiment had made a visible advance.
President Lincoln, in his message, advised recognizing the independence
of the negro states of Hayti and Liberia. He declared that he had been
anxious that the "inevitable conflict should not degenerate into a
violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle," and that he had,
therefore, "thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union
prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part." Referring
to his enforcement of the law of August 6, he said: "The Union must be
preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed." The
shadow which pro-slavery men saw cast by these words was very slightly,
if at all, lightened by an admission which accompanied it,--that "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."
Further he said that already, by the operation of the Act of August 6,
numbers of persons had been liberated, had become dependent on the
United States, and must be provided for. He anticipated that some of the
States might pass similar laws for their own benefit; in which case he
recommended Congress to "provide for accepting such persons from such
States, according to some mode of valuation, in lieu, _pro tanto_, of
direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on." He desired that
these negroes, being "at once deemed free," should be colonized in some
"climate congenial to them," and he wished an appropriation for
acquiring territory for this purpose. Thus he indicated with sufficient
clearness the three cardinal points of his own theory for emancipation:
voluntary action of the individual slave States by the exercise of their
own sovereign power; compensation of owners; and colonization. Congress
soon showed that it meant to strike a pace much more rapid than that set
by the President; and the friends of slavery perceived an atmosphere
which made them so uneasy that they thought it would be well to have the
Crittenden resolution substantially reaffirmed. They made the effort,
and they failed, the vote standing 65 yeas to 71 nays. All which this
symptom indicated as to the temper of members was borne out during the
session by positive and aggressive legislation. Only a fortnight had
passed, when Henry Wilson, senator from Massachusetts, introduced a bill
to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia, and to pay a
moderate compensation to owners. The measure, rightly construed as the
entering point of the anti-slavery wedge, gave rise to bitter debates in
both houses. The senators and representatives from the slave States
manifested intense feeling, and were aided with much spirit by the
Democrats of the free States. But resistance was useless; the bill
passed the Senate by a vote of 29 to 14, and the House by 92 to 38. On
April 16 the President signed it, and returned it with a message, in
which he said: "If there be matters within and about this Act which
might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to my judgment, I
do not attempt to specify them. I am gratified that the two principles
of compensation and colonization are both recognized and practically
applied in the Act." It was one of the coincidences of history that by
his signature he now made law that proposition which, as a member of the
House of Representatives in 1849, he had embodied in a bill which then
hardly excited passing notice as it went on its quick way to oblivion.
The confused condition concerning the harboring and rendition of
fugitive slaves by military commanders, already mentioned, was also
promptly taken in hand. Various bills and amendments offered in the
Senate and in the House were substantially identical in the main purpose
of making the recovery of a slave from within the Union lines
practically little better than impossible. The shape which the measure
ultimately took was the enactment of an additional article of war,
whereby all officers in the military service of the United States were
"prohibited from using any portion of the forces under their respective
commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor;"
any officer who should violate the article was to be dismissed from the
service. Again the men from the Border States, rallying their few
Democratic allies from the North to their assistance, made vehement
opposition, and again they were overwhelmed beneath an irresistible
majority: 83 to 42 in the House, 29 to 9 in the Senate. The President
signed the bill on March 13, 1862, and thereafter "nigger hunting" was a
dangerous sport in the Union camps.
On March 24, Mr. Arnold[2] of Illinois introduced a bill ambitiously
purporting "to render freedom national and slavery sectional." It
prohibited slavery wherever Congress could do so, that is to say, in all
Territories, present and future, in all forts, arsenals, dockyards,
etc., in all vessels on the high seas and on all national highways
beyond the territory and jurisdiction of the several States. Both by its
title and by its substance it went to the uttermost edge of the
Constitution and, in the matter of Territories, perhaps beyond that
edge. Mr. Arnold himself supported it with the bold avowal that slavery
was in deadly hostility to the national government, and therefore must
be destroyed. Upon a measure so significant and so defended, debate
waxed hot, so that one gentleman proposed that the bill should be sent
back to the committee with instructions not to report it back "until the
cold weather." The irritation and alarm of the Border States rendered
modification necessary unless tact and caution were to be wholly thrown
to the winds. Ultimately, therefore, the offensive title was exchanged
for the simple one of "An Act to secure freedom to all persons within
the Territories of the United States," and the bill, curtailed to accord
with this expression, became law by approval of the President on June
19.
A measure likely in its operation to affect a much greater number of
persons than any other of those laws which have been mentioned was
introduced by Senator Trumbull of Illinois. This was "for the
confiscation of the property of rebels, and giving freedom to the
persons they hold in slavery." It made the slaves of all who had taken
up arms against the United States "forever thereafter free." It came up
for debate on February 25, and its mover defended it as "destroying to a
great extent the source and origin of the rebellion, and the only thing
which had ever seriously threatened the peace of the Union." The men of
the Border States, appalled at so general a manumission, declared that
it would produce intolerable conditions in their States, leading either
to reënslavement or extermination. So strenuous an anti-slavery man as
Senator Hale also suggested that the measure was unconstitutional.
Similar discussion upon similar propositions went forward
contemporaneously in the House. For once, in both bodies, the Democrats
won in many skirmishes. Ultimately, as the outcome of many amendments,
substitutes, recommitments, and conferences, a bill was patched up,
which passed by 27 to 12 in the Senate and 82 to 42 in the House, and
was approved by the President July 17. It was a very comprehensive
measure; so much so, that Mr. Blaine has said of it: "Even if the war
had ended without a formal and effective system of emancipation, it is
believed that this statute would have so operated as to render the slave
system practically valueless."
The possibility of enlisting negroes as soldiers received early
consideration. Black troops had fought in the Revolution; why, then,
should not black men now fight in a war of which they themselves were
the ultimate provocation? The idea pleased the utilitarian side of the
Northern mind and shocked no Northern prejudice. In fact, as early as
the spring of 1862 General Hunter, in the Department of the South,
organized a negro regiment. In July, 1862, pending consideration of a
bill concerning calling forth the militia, reported by the Senate
Committee on Military Affairs, amendments were moved declaring that
"there should be no exemption from military service on account of
color," permitting the enlistment of "persons of African descent," and
making "forever thereafter free" each person so enlisted, his mother,
his wife, and his children. No other measure so aroused the indignation
of the border-state men. Loyalty to the Union could not change their
opinion of the negro. To put arms into the hands of slaves, or
ex-slaves, was a terrible proposition to men who had too often vividly
conceived the dread picture of slave insurrection. To set black men
about the business of killing white men, to engage the inferior race to
destroy the superior race, seemed a blasphemy against Nature. A few
also of the Northerners warmly sympathized with this feeling. Black men
shooting down white men was a spectacle which some who were friends of
the black men could not contemplate without a certain shudder. Also many
persons believed that the white soldiers of the North would feel
degraded by having regiments of ex-slaves placed beside them in camp and
in battle. Doubts were expressed as to whether negroes would fight,
whether they would not be a useless charge, and even a source of peril
to those who should depend upon them. Language could go no farther in
vehemence of protest and denunciation than the words of some of the
slave-state men in the House and Senate. Besides this, Garrett Davis of
Kentucky made a very effective argument when he said: "There is not a
rebel in all Secessia whose heart will not leap when he hears that the
Senate of the United States is originating such a policy. It will
strengthen his hopes of success by an ultimate union of all the slave
States to fight such a policy to the death." It was, however, entirely
evident that, in the present temper of that part of the country which
was represented in Congress, there was not much use in opposing any
anti-slavery measure by any kind of argument whatever; even though the
special proposition might be distasteful to many Republicans, yet at
last, when pressed to the issue, they all faithfully voted Yea. In this
case the measure, finally so far modified as to relate only to slaves
of rebel owners, was passed and was signed by the President on July 17.
Nevertheless, although it thus became law, the certainty that, by taking
action under it, he would alienate great numbers of loyalists in the
Border States induced him to go very slowly. At first actual authority
to enlist negroes was only extorted from the administration with much
effort. On August 25 obstinate importunity elicited an order permitting
General Saxton, at Hilton Head, to raise 5,000 black troops; but this
was somewhat strangely accompanied, according to Mr. Wilson, with the
suggestive remark, that it "must never see daylight, because it was so
much in advance of public sentiment." After the process had been on
trial for a year, however, Mr. Lincoln said that there was apparent "no
loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment,
none in our white military force,--no loss by it anyhow or anywhere." On
the other hand, it had brought a reinforcement of 130,000 soldiers,
seamen, and laborers. "And now," he said, "let any Union man who
complains of this measure test himself by writing down in one line that
he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms, and in the next that
he is for taking these 130,000 men from the Union side, and placing them
where they would be best for the measure he condemns." Yet so
ineradicable was the race prejudice that it was not until the spring of
1864, after all efforts for action by Congress had failed, that the
attorney-general declared black soldiers to be entitled to the same pay
as white soldiers. Regarding a soldier merely as a marketable commodity,
doubtless the white was worth more money; yet life was about the same to
each, and it was hard to see why one should be expected to sell his life
for fewer dollars than satisfied the other.
Besides these measures, Congress gave evidence of its sentiments by
passing an act for appointing diplomatic representatives to Hayti and
Liberia; also further evidence by passing certain legislation against
the slave trade.
The recital of all these doings of the legislators sufficiently
indicates the hostility of Congress towards slavery. In fact, a large
majority both in the Senate and in the House had moved out against it
upon nearly every practicable line to the extremity of the
constitutional tether. Neither arguments, nor the entreaties of the
border-state men, nor any considerations of policy, had exercised the
slightest restraining influence. It is observable that this legislation
did not embody that policy which Mr. Lincoln had suggested, and to which
he had become strongly attached. On the contrary, Congress had done
everything to irritate, where the President wished to do everything to
conciliate; Congress made that compulsory which the President hoped to
make voluntary. Mr. Lincoln remained in 1862, as he had been in 1858,
tolerant towards the Southern men who by inheritance, tradition, and
the necessity of the situation, constituted a slaveholding community. To
treat slave-ownership as a crime, punishable by confiscation and ruin,
seemed to him unreasonable and merciless. Neither does he seem ever to
have accepted the opinion of many Abolitionists, that the negro was the
equal of the white man in natural endowment. There is no reason to
suppose that he did not still hold, as he had done in the days of the
Douglas debates, that it was undesirable, if not impossible, that the
two races should endeavor to abide together in freedom as a unified
community. In the inevitable hostility and competition he clearly saw
that the black man was likely to fare badly. It was by such feelings
that he was led straight to the plan of compensation of owners and
colonization of freedmen, and to the hope that a system of gradual
emancipation, embodying these principles, might be voluntarily
undertaken by the Border States under the present stress. If the
executive and the legislative departments should combine upon the policy
of encouraging and aiding such steps as any Border State could be
induced to take in this direction, the President believed that he could
much more easily extend loyalty and allegiance among the people of those
States,--a matter which he valued far more highly than other persons
were inclined to do. Such were his views and such his wishes. To discuss
their practicability and soundness would only be to wander in the
unprofitable vagueness of hypothesis, for in spite of all his efforts
they were never tested by trial. It must be admitted that general
opinion, both at that day and ever since, has regarded them as
visionary; compensation seemed too costly, colonization probably was
really impossible.
After the President had suggested his views in his message he waited
patiently to see what action Congress would take concerning them. Three
months elapsed and Congress took no such action. On the contrary,
Congress practically repudiated them. Not only this, it was
industriously putting into the shape of laws many other ideas, which
were likely to prove so many embarrassments and obstructions to that
policy which the President had very thoughtfully and with deep
conviction marked out for himself. He determined, therefore, to present
it once more, before it should be rendered forever hopeless. On March 6,
1862, he sent to Congress a special message, recommending the adoption
of a joint resolution: "That the United States ought to cooperate 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 inconvenience, both public and private, produced by
such change of system." The first paragraph in the message stated
briefly the inducements to the North: "The Federal government would find
its highest interest in such a measure, as one of the most efficient
means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing insurrection
entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be forced to
acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region, and
that all the slave States north of such part will then say: 'The Union
for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with
the Southern section.' To deprive them of this hope substantially ends
the rebellion; and the initiation of Emancipation completely deprives
them of it as to all the States initiating it. The point is that ... the
more northern [States] 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. I say 'initiation,' because in my judgment
gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for all. In the mere
financial or pecuniary view, any member of Congress, with the census
tables and Treasury reports before him, can readily see for himself how
very soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase, at fair
valuation, all the slaves in any named State."
The second paragraph hinted at that which it would have been poor tact
to state plainly,--the reasons which would press the Border States to
accept the opportunity extended to them. "If 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 proposition now
made, though an offer only, I hope it may be esteemed no offense to ask
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." The suggestion,
between the lines, to the border slave-owners could not be
misunderstood: that they would do better to sell their slaves now than
to be deprived of them later. The President's proposition was not
cordially received. Pro-slavery men regarded it as an underhand movement
against the institution. Mr. Crittenden expressed confidence in the
President personally, but feared that the resolution "would stir up an
emancipation party" in the loyal slave States. Thus the truth was made
plain that emancipation, by any process, was not desired. In a debate
upon a cognate measure, another Kentuckian said that there was "no
division of sentiment on this question of emancipation, whether it is to
be brought about by force, by fraud, or by purchase of slaves out of the
public treasury." Democrats from Northern States, natural allies of the
border-state men, protested vehemently against taxing their constituents
to buy slave property in other States. Many Republicans also joined the
Democracy against Mr. Lincoln, and spoke even with anger and insult.
Thaddeus Stevens, the fierce and formidable leader of the Radicals, gave
his voice against "the most diluted milk-and-water gruel proposition
that had ever been given to the American nation." Hickman of
Pennsylvania, until 1860 a Democrat, but now a Republican, with the
characteristic vehemence of a proselyte said: "Neither the message nor
the resolution is manly and open. They are both covert and insidious.
They do not become the dignity of the President of the United States.
The message is not such a document as a full-grown, independent man
should publish to the nation at such a time as the present, when
positions should be freely and fully defined." In the Senate, Mr. Powell
of Kentucky translated the second paragraph into blunt words. He said
that it held a threat of ultimate coercion, if the cooperative plan
should fail; and he regarded "the whole thing" as "a pill of arsenic,
sugar-coated."
But, though so many insisted upon uttering their fleers in debate, yet,
when it came to voting, they could not well discredit their President by
voting down the resolution on the sole ground that it was foolish and
ineffectual. So, after it had been abused sufficiently, it was passed by
about the usual party majority: 89 to 34 in the House; 32 to 10 in the
Senate. Thus Congress somewhat sneeringly handed back to the President
his bantling, with free leave to do what he could with it.
Not discouraged by such grudging and unsympathetic permission, Mr.
Lincoln at once set about his experiment. He told Lovejoy and Arnold,
strenuous Abolitionists, but none the less his near friends, that they
would live to see the end of slavery, if only the Border States would
cooperate in his project. On March 10, 1862, he gathered some of the
border-state members and tried to win them over to his views. They
listened coldly; but he was not dismayed by their demeanor, and on July
12 he again convened them, and this time laid before them a written
statement. This paper betrays by its earnestness of argument and its
almost beseeching tone that he wrote it from his heart. The reasons
which he urged were as follows:--
"Believing that you of the Border States hold more power for good than
any other equal number of members, I felt it a duty which I cannot
justifiably waive to make this appeal to you.
"I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my
opinion, if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual
emancipation message of last March, the war would now be substantially
ended.
"And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift
means of ending it. Let the States which are in rebellion see definitely
and certainly that in no event will the States you represent ever join
their proposed Confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the
contest. But you cannot divest them of their hope to ultimately have you
with them as long as you show a determination to perpetuate the
institution within your own States; beat them at election as you have
overwhelmingly done, and, nothing daunted, they still claim you as
their own. You and I know what the lever of their power is. Break that
lever before their faces, and they can shake you no more forever. Most
of you have treated me with kindness and consideration; and I trust you
will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your own,
when, for the sake of the whole country, I ask: can you, for your
States, do better than to take the course I urge? Discarding punctilio
and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the
unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do better in any
possible event? You prefer that the constitutional relation of the
States to the nation shall be practically restored without disturbance
of the institution; and if this were done, my whole duty in this respect
under the Constitution and my oath of office would be performed. But it
is not done, and we are trying to accomplish it by war.
"The incidents of the war cannot be avoided. If the war continues long,
as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your
States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion,--by the mere
incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing
valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How much
better for you and your people to take the step which at once shortens
the war, and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to
be wholly lost in any other event. How much better to thus save the
money which else we sink forever in the war. How much better to do it
while we can, lest the war erelong render us pecuniarily unable to do
it. How much better for you, as seller, and the nation, as buyer, to
sell out and buy out that without which the war never could have been,
than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting
one another's throats. I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a
decision at once to emancipate gradually."
He closed with an ardent appeal to his hearers, as "patriots and
statesmen," to consider his proposition, invoking them thereto as they
"would perpetuate popular government for the best people in the world."
Thirty gentlemen listened to this paper and took two days to consider
it. Then twenty of them signed a response which was, in substance, their
repudiation of the President's scheme. They told him that hitherto they
had been loyal "under the most discouraging circumstances and in face of
measures most distasteful to them and injurious to the interests they
represented, and in the hearing of doctrines, avowed by those who
claimed to be his friends, most abhorrent to themselves and their
constituents." They objected that the measure involved "interference
with what exclusively belonged to the States;" that perhaps it was
unconstitutional; that it would involve an "immense outlay," beyond what
the finances could bear; that it was "the annunciation of a sentiment"
rather than a "tangible proposition;" they added that the sole purpose
of the war must be "restoring the Constitution to its legitimate
authority." Seven others of the President's auditors said politely, but
very vaguely, that they would "ask the people of the Border States
calmly, deliberately, and fairly to consider his recommendations."
Maynard, of the House, and Henderson, of the Senate, alone expressed
their personal approval.
Even this did not drive all hope out of Mr. Lincoln's heart. His
proclamation, rescinding that order of General Hunter which purported to
free slaves in certain States, was issued on May 19. In it he said that
the resolution, which had been passed at his request, "now stands an
authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and
people most interested in the subject-matter. To the people of these
States I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue; I beseech you to make the
arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the
signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of
them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics.
This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no
reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it
contemplates would come gently as the dews from Heaven, not rending or
wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been
done by one effort in all past time as in the providence of God it is
now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament
that you have neglected it!"
This eloquent and beautiful appeal sounds deeply moving in the ears of
those who read it in these days, so remote from the passions and
prejudices of a generation ago; but it stirred little responsive feeling
and no responsive action in 1862. In fact, the scheme was not
practicable.
It may be--it probably must be--believed that compensated emancipation
and colonization could never have been carried out even if Northern
Republicans had been willing to pay the price and Southern slave-owners
had been willing to accept it, and if both had then cordially united in
the task of deporting the troublesome negro from the country. The vast
project was undoubtedly visionary; it was to be criticised, weighed, and
considered largely as a business enterprise, and as such it must be
condemned. But Mr. Lincoln, who had no capacity for business, was never
able to get at this point of view, and regarded his favorite plan
strictly in political and humanitarian lights. Yet even thus the general
opinion has been that the unfortunate negroes, finding themselves amid
the hard facts which must inevitably have attended colonization, would
have heartily regretted the lost condition of servitude. Historically
the merits of the experiment, which the Southern Unionists declined to
have put to the test of trial, are of no consequence; it is only as the
scheme throws light upon the magnanimity of Mr. Lincoln's temperament
and upon certain limitations of his intellect, that the subject is
interesting. That he should rid himself of personal vindictiveness and
should cherish an honest and intense desire to see the question, which
had severed the country, disposed of by a process which would make
possible a sincere and cordial reunion, may be only moderately
surprising; but it is most surprising to note the depth and earnestness
of his faith that this condition could really be reached, and that it
could be reached by the road which he had marked out. This confidence
indicated an opinion of human nature much higher than human nature has
yet appeared entitled to. It also anticipated on the part of the
Southerners an appreciation of the facts of the case which few among
them were sufficiently clear-minded to furnish. It is curious to observe
that Lincoln saw the present situation and foresaw the coming situation
with perfect clearness, at the same time that he was entirely unable to
see the uselessness of his panacea; whereas, on the other hand, those
who rejected his impracticable plan remained entirely blind to those
things which he saw. It seems an odd combination of traits that he
always recognized and accepted a fact, and yet was capable of being
wholly impractical.
In connection with these efforts in behalf of the slaveholders, which
show at least a singular goodness of heart towards persons who had done
everything to excite even a sense of personal hatred, it may not be
seriously out of place to quote a paragraph which does not, indeed,
bear upon slavery, but which does illustrate the remarkable temper which
Mr. Lincoln maintained towards the seceding communities. In December,
1861, in his annual message to this Congress, whose searching
anti-slavery measures have just been discussed, he said:--
"There are three vacancies on the bench of the Supreme Court.... I have
so far forborne making nominations to fill these vacancies for reasons
which I will now state. Two of the outgoing judges resided within the
States now overrun by revolt; so that if successors were appointed in
the same localities, they could not now serve upon their circuits; and
many of the most competent men there probably would not take the
personal hazard of accepting to serve, even here, upon the Supreme
Bench. I have been unwilling to throw all the appointments northward,
thus disabling myself from doing justice to the South on the return of
peace; although I may remark that to transfer to the North one which has
heretofore been in the South would not, with reference to territory and
population, be unjust."[3] To comment upon behavior and motives so
extraordinary is, perhaps, as needless as it is tempting.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Also in the House Thaddeus Stevens and Lovejoy, and in the Senate
Sumner, did not vote.
[2] Lincoln's intimate personal and political friend, and afterward his
biographer.
[3] Annual Message to Congress, December, 1861.