THE AUTUMN ELECTIONS OF 1862, AND THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION
The chapter which has been written on "Emancipation and Politics" shows
that while loyalty to the Union operated as a bond to hold together the
people of the North, slavery entered as a wedge to force them asunder.
It was not long before the wedge proved a more powerful force than the
bond, for the wedge was driven home by human nature; and it was
inevitable that the men of conservative temperament and the men of
progressive temperament should erelong be easily restored to their
instinctive antagonism. Of those who had been stigmatized as "Northern
men with Southern principles," many soon found their Southern
proclivities reviving. These men, christened "Copperheads," became more
odious to loyal Northerners than were the avowed Secessionists. In
return for their venomous nickname and the contempt and hatred with
which they were treated, they themselves grew steadily more rancorous,
more extreme in their feelings. They denounced and opposed every measure
of the government, harangued vehemently against the war and against all
that was done to prosecute it, reviled with scurrilous and passionate
abuse every prominent Republican, filled the air with disheartening
forecasts of defeat, ruin, and woe, and triumphed whenever the miserable
prophecies seemed in the way of fulfillment. General Grant truly
described them as auxiliaries to the Confederate army, and said that the
North would have been much better off with a hundred thousand of these
men in the Southern ranks, and the rest of their kind at home thoroughly
subdued, as the Unionists were at the South, than was the case as the
struggle was actually conducted. In time the administration found itself
forced, though reluctantly, to arrest and imprison many of the
ringleaders in this Northern disaffection. Yet all the while the
Copperheads resolutely maintained their affiliations with the Democratic
party, and though they brought upon it much discredit which it did not
deserve, yet they could not easily be ejected from it. Differences of
opinion shaded into each other so gradually that to establish a line of
division was difficult.
Impinging upon Copperheadism stood the much more numerous body of those
who persistently asserted their patriotism, but with equal persistence
criticised severely all the measures of the government. These men
belonged to that well-known class which is happily described as being
"for the law, but ag'in the enforcement of it." They were for the Union,
but against saving it. They kept up a disapproving headshaking over
pretty much everything that the President did. With much grandiloquent
argument, in the stately, old-school style, they bemoaned the breaches
which they charged him with making in the Constitution. They also hotly
assumed the role of champions of General McClellan, and bewailed the
imbecility of an administration which thwarted and deposed him.
Protesting the purest and highest patriotism, they were more evasive
than the outspoken Copperheads, and as their disaffection was less
conspicuous and offensive, so also it was more insidious and almost
equally hurtful. They constituted the true and proper body of Democracy.
In a fellowship, which really ought not to have existed, with these
obstructionists, was the powerful and respectable body of war Democrats.
These men maintained a stubborn loyalty to the old party, but prided
themselves upon being as hearty and thorough-going war-men as any among
the Republicans. A large proportion of the most distinguished generals,
of the best regimental officers, of the most faithful soldiers in the
field, were of this political faith. The only criticism that Republicans
could reasonably pass upon them was, that they did not, in a political
way, strengthen the hands of the government, that they would not uphold
its authority by swelling its majorities, nor aid its prestige by giving
it their good words.
Over against this Democracy, with its two very discordant wings, was
arrayed the Republican party, which also was disturbed by the ill-will
of those who should have been its allies; for while the moderate
Abolitionists generally sustained the President, though only imperfectly
satisfied with him, the extreme Abolitionists refused to be so
reasonable. They were a very provoking body of pure moralists. They
worried the President, condemned his policy, divided the counsels of the
government, and introduced injurious personal enmities and partisanship
with reckless disregard of probable consequences. To a considerable
extent they had the same practical effect as if they had been avowed
opponents of the Republican President. They wished immediately to place
the war upon the footing of a crusade for the abolition of slavery.
Among them were old-time Abolitionists, with whom this purpose was a
religion, men who had hoped to see Seward the Republican President, and
who said that Lincoln's friends in the nominating convention had
represented a "superficial and only half-hearted Republicanism." Beside
these men, though actuated by very different and much less honorable
motives, stood many recruits, some even from the Democracy, who were so
vindictive against the South that they desired to inflict abolition as a
punishment.
All these critics and dissatisfied persons soon began to speak with
severity, and sometimes with contempt, against the President. He had
said that the war was for the Union; but they scornfully retorted that
this was to reduce it to "a mere sectional strife for ascendency;" that
"a Union, with slavery spared and reinstated, would not be worth the
cost of saving it." It was true that to save the Union, without also
removing the cause of disunion, might not be worth a very great price;
yet both Union and abolition were in serious danger of being thrown away
forever by these impetuous men who desired to pluck the fruit before it
was ripe, or rather declared it to be ripe because they so wanted to
pluck it.
It is not, here and now, a question of the merits and the usefulness of
these men; undoubtedly their uncompromising ardor could not have been
dispensed with in the great anti-slavery struggle; it was what the steam
is to the engine, and if the motive power had been absent no one can say
how long the United States might have lain dormant as a slave-country.
But the question is of their present attitude and of its influence and
effect in the immediate affairs of the government. Their demand was for
an instant and sweeping proclamation of emancipation; and they were
angry and denunciatory against the President because he would not give
it to them. Of course, by their ceaseless assaults they hampered him and
weakened his hands very seriously. It was as an exercise of the
President's war-power that they demanded the proclamation; and the
difficulty in the way of it was that Mr. Lincoln felt, and the great
majority of Northern men were positive in the opinion, that such a
proclamation at this time would not be an honest and genuine exercise of
the war-power, that it would be only falsely and colorably so called,
and that in real truth it would be a deliberate and arbitrary change of
the war from a contest for Union to a contest for abolition. Mr. Lincoln
could not _make_ it a war measure merely by _calling_ it so; it was no
mere matter of political christening, but distinctly a very grave and
substantial question of fact. It may be suspected that very many even of
the Abolitionists themselves, had they spoken the innermost conviction
of their minds, would have admitted that the character of the measure as
a wise military transaction, pure and simple, was very dubious. It was
certain that every one else in all the country which still was or ever
had been the United States would regard it as an informal and misnamed
but real change of base for the whole war. No preamble, no _Whereas_, in
Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, reciting as a fact and a motive that which
he would have known, and ninety-nine out of every hundred loyal men
would have believed, not to be the true fact and motive, could make the
rest of his proclamation lawful, or his act that of an honest ruler.
Accordingly no pressure could drive him to the step; he preferred to
endure, and long did endure, the abuse of the extreme Abolitionists, and
all the mischief which their hostility could inflict upon his
administration. Yet, in truth, there was not in the North an
Abolitionist who thought worse of the institution of slavery than did
the man who had repeatedly declared it to be "a moral, a social, and a
political evil." Referring to these times, and the behavior of the
Abolitionists, he afterward wrote:[33]--
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never
understood that the presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right
to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I
took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the
office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an
oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood,
too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to
practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question
of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways.
And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere
deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did
understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the
best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every
indispensable means, that government,--that nation, of which that
Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and
yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be
protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a
life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures,
otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming
indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the
preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and
now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had
even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery or any
minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and
Constitution all together. When, early in the war, General Fremont
attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then
think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, General
Cameron, then secretary of war, suggested the arming of the blacks, I
objected because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity.
When, still later, General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I
again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable
necessity had come."
None could deny that the North could abolish slavery in the South only
by beating the South in the pending war. Therefore, by his duty as
President of the Union and by his wishes as an anti-slavery man, Mr.
Lincoln was equally held to win this fight. Differing in opinion from
the Abolitionists, he believed that to turn it, at an early stage, into
a war for abolition rather than to leave it a war for the Union would be
to destroy all hope of winning. The step would alienate great numbers at
the North. The "American Society for promoting National Unity" had
lately declared that emancipation "would be rebellion against Providence
and destruction to the colored race in our land;" and it was certain
that this feeling was still widely prevalent in the loyal States. In
July, 1862, General McClellan said, warningly, that a declaration of
radical views on the slavery question would rapidly disintegrate and
destroy the Union armies. Finally, it seemed hardly doubtful that fatal
defections would take place in the Border States, even if they should
not formally go over to the Confederacy. No man saw the value of those
Border States as Mr. Lincoln did. To save or to lose them was probably
to save or lose the war; to lose them and the war was to establish a
powerful slave empire. Where did abolition come in among these events?
It was not there!
[Illustration: Simon Cameron]
Painfully, therefore, untiringly, with all the skill and tact in his
power, Mr. Lincoln struggled to hold those invaluable, crucial States.
His "border-state policy" soon came to be discussed as the most
interesting topic of which men could talk wherever they came together.
Savage were the maledictions which emancipationists uttered against it,
and the intensity of their feeling is indicated by the fact that, though
that policy was carried out, and though the nation, in due time,
gathered the ripe and perfect fruit of it both in the integrity of the
country and the abolition of slavery, yet even at the present day many
old opponents of President Lincoln, survivors of the Thirty-seventh
Congress, remain unshaken in the faith that his famous policy was "a
cruel and fatal mistake."
By the summer of 1862 the opinions and the action of Mr. Lincoln in all
these matters had brought him into poor standing in the estimation of
many Republicans. The great majority of the politicians of the party and
sundry newspaper editors, that is to say, those persons who chiefly make
the noise and the show before the world, were busily engaged in
condemning his policy. The headquarters of this disaffection were in
Washington. It had one convert even within the cabinet, where the
secretary of the treasury was thoroughly infected with the notion that
the President was fatally inefficient, laggard, and unequal to the
occasion. The feeling was also especially rife in congressional circles.
Mr. Julian, than whom there can be no better witness, says: "No one at a
distance could have formed any adequate conception of the hostility of
Republican members toward Mr. Lincoln at the final adjournment [the
middle of July], while it was the belief of many that our last session
of Congress had been held in Washington. Mr. Wade said the country was
going to hell, and that the scenes witnessed in the French Revolution
were nothing in comparison with what we should see here." If most of the
people at the North had not had heads more cool and sensible than was
the one which rested upon the shoulders of the ardent "Ben" Wade, the
alarming prediction of that lively spokesman might have been fulfilled.
Fortunately, however, as Mr. Julian admits, "the feeling in Congress was
far more intense than [it was] throughout the country." The experienced
denizens of the large Northern cities read in a critical temper the
tirades of journalist critics, who assumed to know everything. The
population of the small towns and the village neighborhoods, though a
little bewildered by the echoes of denunciation which reached them from
the national capital, yet by instinct, or by a divine guidance, held
fast to their faith in their President. Thus the rank and file of the
Republican party refused to follow the field officers in a revolt
against the general. No better fortune ever befell this very fortunate
nation. If the anti-slavery extremists had been able to reinforce their
own pressure by the ponderous impact of the popular will, and so had
pushed the President from his "border-state policy" and from his general
scheme of advancing only very cautiously along the anti-slavery line, it
is hardly conceivable either that the Union would have been saved or
that slavery would have been destroyed.
On August 19, 1862, the good, impulsive, impractical Horace Greeley
published in his newspaper, the New York "Tribune," an address to the
President, to which he gave an awe-inspiring title, "The Prayer of
20,000,000 of People." It was an extremely foolish paper, and its title,
like other parts of it, was false. Only those persons who were agitators
for immediate emancipation could say amen to this mad prayer, and they
were far from being even a large percentage of "20,000,000 of people."
Yet these men, being active missionaries and loud preachers in behalf of
a measure in which they had perfect faith, made a show and exerted an
influence disproportioned to their numbers. Therefore their prayer,[34]
though laden with blunders of fact and reasoning, fairly expressed
malcontent Republicanism. Moreover, multitudes who could not quite join
in the prayer would read it and would be moved by it. The influence of
the "Tribune" was enormous. Colonel McClure truly says that by means of
it Mr. Greeley "reached the very heart of the Republican party in every
State in the Union;" and perhaps he does not greatly exaggerate when he
adds that through this same line of connection the great Republican
editor "was in closer touch with the active loyal sentiment of the
people than [was] even the President himself." For these reasons it
seemed to Mr. Lincoln worth while to make a response to an assault
which, if left unanswered, must seriously embarrass the administration.
He therefore wrote:--
"DEAR SIR,--I have just read yours of the 19th instant, addressed to
myself through the New York 'Tribune.'
"If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may
know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them.
"If there be any inferences which I believe to be falsely drawn, I do
not now and here argue against them.
"If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I
waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always
supposed to be right.
"As to the policy 'I seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have not meant
to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in
the shortest way under the Constitution.
"The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union
will be,--the Union as it was.
"If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at
the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.
"If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at
the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.
"_My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or
destroy slavery_.
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.
And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. And if
I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would also
do that.
"What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it
helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not
believe it would help to save the Union.
"I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and
shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.
"I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall
adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
"I have here stated my purpose, according to my view of official duty,
and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish, that all
men everywhere could be free."
This reply, placing the Union before all else, did "more to steady the
loyal sentiment of the country in a very grave emergency than anything
that ever came from Lincoln's pen." It was, very naturally,
"particularly disrelished by anti-slavery men," whose views were not
modified by it, but whose temper was irritated in proportion to the
difficulty of meeting it. Mr. Greeley himself, enthusiastic and
woolly-witted, allowed this heavy roller to pass over him, and arose
behind it unaware that he had been crushed. He even published a retort,
which was discreditably abusive. A fair specimen of his rhetoric was his
demand to be informed whether Mr. Lincoln designed to save the Union "by
recognizing, obeying, and enforcing the laws, or by ignoring,
disregarding, and in fact defying them." Now the precise fact which so
incensed Mr. Greeley and all his comrades was that the President was
studiously and stubbornly insisting upon "recognizing, obeying, and
enforcing the laws;" and the very thing which they were crying for was a
step which, according to his way of thinking, would involve that he
should "ignore, disregard, and defy" them. They had not shrunk from
taking this position, when pushed toward it. They had contemned the
Constitution, and had declared that it should not be allowed to stand in
the way of doing those things which, in their opinion, ought to be done.
Their great warrior, the chieftain of their forces in the House of
Representatives, Thaddeus Stevens, was wont to say, in his defiant
iconoclastic style, that there was no longer any Constitution, and that
he was weary of hearing this "never-ending gabble about the sacredness
of the Constitution." Yet somewhat inconsistently these same men held as
an idol and a leader Secretary Chase; and he at the close of 1860 had
declared: "At all hazards and against all opposition, the laws of the
Union should be enforced.... The question of slavery should not be
permitted to influence my action, one way or the other." Later, perhaps
he and his allies had forgotten these words. Still many persons hold to
the opinion that the emancipationists did not give Mr. Lincoln fair
play.[35]
On September 13 a body of clergymen from Chicago waited upon Mr. Lincoln
to urge immediate and universal emancipation. The occasion was made
noteworthy by his remarks to them.
"I am approached 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 subject is difficult,
and good men do not agree.
... "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, like the
Pope's bull against the comet! 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? And what reason is there to think it would have any greater
effect upon the slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved,
and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters
who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused a
single slave to come over to us.
... "Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good
would follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you desire?
Understand, I raise no objections against it on legal or constitutional
grounds, for, 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.
... "Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned these objections.
They indicate the difficulties that have thus far prevented my action in
some such way as you desire. I have not decided against a proclamation
of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement. And I
can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more
than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will I will do. I
trust that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views I have
not in any respect injured your feelings."
Whether or not the clerical advisers winced under the President's irony,
at least they must have appreciated the earnestness and sincerity with
which he considered the subject.
All this while that newspaper writers, religious teachers, members of
Congress, and political busy-bodies generally were tirelessly
enlightening Mr. Lincoln concerning what was right, what was wise, what
was the will of the people, even what was the will of God, he was again
quietly making good that shrewd Southerner's prophecy: he was "doing his
own thinking;" neither was he telling to anybody what this thinking was.
Throngs came and went, and each felt called upon to leave behind him
some of his own wisdom, a precept, advice, or suggestion, for the use of
the President; perhaps in return he took away with him a story which was
much more than full value for what he had given; but no one found out
the working of the President's mind, and no one could say that he had
influenced it. History is crowded with tales of despots, but it tells of
no despot who thought and decided with the tranquil, taciturn
independence which was now marking this President of the free American
Republic. It is a little amusing for us, to-day, to know that while the
emancipationists were angrily growling out their disgust at the ruler
who would not abolish slavery according to their advice, the rough draft
of the Emancipation Proclamation had already been written. It was
actually lying in his desk when he was writing to Greeley that letter
which caused so much indignation. It had been communicated to his
cabinet long before he talked to those Chicago clergymen, and showed
them that the matter was by no means so simple as they, in their
one-sided, unworldly way, believed it to be.
It is said to have been on July 8 that the President wrote this rough
draft, on board the steamboat which was bringing him back from his visit
to McClellan at Harrison's Landing. He then laid it away for the days
and events to bring ripeness. By his own statement he had for some time
felt convinced that, if compensated emancipation should fail,
emancipation as a war measure must ensue. Compensated emancipation had
now been offered, urged, and ill received; therefore the question in his
mind was no longer _whether_, but _when_ he should exercise his power.
This was more a military than a political question. His right to
emancipate slaves was strictly a war-power; he had the right to exercise
it strictly for the purpose of weakening the enemy or strengthening his
own generals; he had not the right to exercise it in the cause of
humanity, if it would not either weaken the enemy or strengthen his own
side. If by premature exercise he should alienate great numbers of
border-state men, while the sheet of paper with his name at its foot
would be ineffectual to give actual liberty of action to a single black
man in the Confederacy, he would aid the South and injure the
North,--that is to say, he would accomplish precisely the reverse of
that which alone could lawfully form the basis of his action. The
question of _When_, therefore, was a very serious one. At what stage of
the contest would a declaration of emancipation be hurtful to the
Southern and beneficial to the Northern cause?
Schuyler Colfax well said that Mr. Lincoln's judgment, when settled,
"was almost as immovable as the eternal hills." A good illustration of
this was given upon a day about the end of July or beginning of August,
1862, when Mr. Lincoln called a cabinet meeting. To his assembled
secretaries he then said, with his usual simple brevity, that he was
going to communicate to them something about which he did not desire
them to offer any advice, since his determination was taken; they might
make suggestions as to details, but nothing more. After this imperious
statement he read the preliminary proclamation of emancipation. The
ministers listened in silence; not one of them had been consulted; not
one of them, until this moment, knew the President's purpose; not even
now did he think it worth while to go through any idle form of asking
the opinion of any one of them.[36] He alone had settled the matter, and
simply notified them that he was about to do the most momentous thing
that had ever been done upon this continent since thirteen British
colonies had become a nation. Such a presentation of "one-man-power"
certainly stood out in startling relief upon the background of popular
government and the great free republican system of the world!
One or two trifling verbal alterations were made. The only important
suggestion came from Mr. Seward, who said that, in the "depression of
the public mind consequent upon our repeated adverses," he feared that
so important a step might "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." He dreaded that "it would be considered our last shriek on
the retreat." Therefore he thought it would be well to postpone issuing
the proclamation till it could come before the country with the support
of some military success. Mr. Lincoln, who had not committed himself
upon the precise point of time, approved this idea. In fact, he had
already had in mind this same notion, that a victory would be an
excellent companion for the proclamation. In July Mr. Boutwell had said
to him that the North would not succeed until the slaves were
emancipated, and Mr. Lincoln had replied: "You would not have it done
now, would you? Had we not better wait for something like a victory?"
This point being accordingly settled to the satisfaction of all, the
meeting then dissolved, with the understanding that the secret was to be
closely kept for the present; and Mr. Lincoln again put away his paper
to await the coming of leaden-footed victory.
For the moment the prospects of this event were certainly sufficiently
gloomy. Less than three weeks, however, brought the battle of Antietam.
As a real "military success" this was, fairly speaking, unsatisfactory;
but it had to serve the turn; the events of the war did not permit the
North to be fastidious in using the word victory; if the President had
imprudently been more exacting, the Abolitionists would have had to wait
for Gettysburg. News of the battle reached Mr. Lincoln at the Soldiers'
Home. "Here," he says, "I finished writing the second draft. I came to
Washington on Saturday, called the cabinet together to hear it, and it
was published on the following Monday, the 22d of September, 1862."
The proclamation was preliminary or monitory only, and it did not
promise universal emancipation. It stated that, on January 1, 1863, "all
persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State,
the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United
States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free;" also, that "the
Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation,
designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people
thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United
States."
The measure was entirely Mr. Lincoln's own. Secretary Chase reports that
at the cabinet meeting on September 22 he said: "I must do the best I
can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I
ought to take." It has been said that he acted under a severe specific
pressure, emanating from the calling of the famous conference of
governors at Altoona. This, however, is not true. On September 14
Governor Curtin invited the governors of loyal States to meet on
September 24 to discuss the situation and especially the emergency
created by the northward advance of General Lee. But that this meeting
was more than a coincidence, or that the summons to it had any influence
in the matter of the proclamation, is disproved by all that is known
concerning it.[37] The connection with the battle is direct, avowed, and
reasonable; that with the gubernatorial congress is supposititious and
improbable. Governor Curtin says distinctly that the President, being
informed by himself and two others that such a conference was in
preparation, "did not attempt to conceal the fact that we were upon the
eve of an emancipation policy," in response to which statement he
received from his auditors the "assurance that the Altoona conference
would cordially indorse such a policy." As matter of fact, at the
meeting, most of the governors, in a sort of supplementary way, declared
their approval of the proclamation; but the governors of New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would not unite in this
action. If further evidence were needed upon this point, it is furnished
by the simple statement of President Lincoln himself. He said: "The
truth is, I never thought of the meeting of the governors at all. When
Lee came over the Potomac I made a resolve that, if McClellan drove him
back, I would send the proclamation after him. The battle of Antietam
was fought Wednesday, but I could not find out until Saturday whether we
had won a victory or lost a battle. It was then too late to issue it on
that day, and on Sunday I fixed it up a little, and on Monday I let them
have it." Secretary Chase, in his Diary, under date of September 22,
1862, gives an account in keeping with the foregoing sketch, but casts
about the proclamation a sort of superstitious complexion, as if it were
the fulfillment of a religious vow. He says that at the cabinet meeting
the President said: "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 the 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." About an event so important and so picturesque
small legends will cluster and cling like little barnacles on the solid
rock; but the rock remains the same beneath these deposits, and in this
case the fact that the proclamation was determined upon and issued at
the sole will and discretion of the President is not shaken by any
testimony that is given about it. He regarded it as a most grave
measure, as plainly it was; to a Southerner, who had begged him not to
have recourse to it, he replied: "You must not expect me to give up this
government without playing my last card."[38] So now, on this momentous
twenty-second day of September, the President, using his own judgment in
playing the great game, cast what he conceived to be his ace of trumps
upon the table.
The measure took the country by surprise. The President's secret had
been well kept, and for once rumor had not forerun execution. Doubtless
the reader expects now to hear that one immediate effect was the
conciliation of all those who had been so long reproaching Mr. Lincoln
for his delay in taking this step. It would seem right and natural that
the emancipationists should have rallied with generous ardor to sustain
him. They did not. They remained just as dissatisfied and distrustful
towards him as ever. Some said that he had been _forced_ into this
policy, some that he had drifted with the tide of events, some that he
had waited for popular opinion at the North to give him the cue, instead
of himself guiding that opinion. To show that he was false to the
responsibility of a ruler, there were those who cited against him his
own modest words: "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess
plainly that events have controlled me." Others, however, put upon this
language the more kindly and more honest interpretation, that Mr.
Lincoln appreciated that both President and people were moved by the
drift of events, which in turn received their own impulse from an agency
higher than human and to which they must obediently yield. But whatever
ingenious excuses were devised by extremists for condemning the man who
had done the act, the Republican party faithfully supported the act
itself. In the middle of December the House passed a resolution
ratifying the President's policy as "well adapted to hasten the
restoration of peace," and "well chosen as a war measure."
The President himself afterward declared his "conviction" that, had the
proclamation been issued six months earlier, it would not have been
sustained by public opinion; and certainly it is true that
contemporaneous political occurrences now failed to corroborate the
soundness of those assertions by which the irreconcilable
emancipationist critics of Mr. Lincoln had been endeavoring to induce
him to adopt their policy earlier. They themselves, as Mr. Wilson
admits, "had never constituted more than an inconsiderable fraction" of
the whole people at the North. He further says: "At the other extreme,
larger numbers received it [the proclamation] with deadly and outspoken
opposition; while between these extremes the great body even of Union
men doubted, hesitated.... Its immediate practical effect did perhaps
more nearly answer the apprehensions of the President than the
expectations of those most clamorous for it. It did, as charged, very
much 'unite the South and divide the North.'"
In the autumn of 1862 there took place the elections for Representatives
to the Thirty-eighth Congress. The most ingenious sophist could hardly
maintain that strenuous anti-slavery voters, who had been angry with the
government for backwardness in the emancipation policy, ought now to
manifest their discontent by voting the Democratic ticket. If there
should be a Democratic reaction at the polls it could not possibly be
construed otherwise than as a reaction against anti-slavery; it would
undeniably indicate that Congress and the administration had been too
hostile rather than too friendly towards that cause of the strife, that
they had outstripped rather than fallen behind popular sympathy. It soon
became evident that a formidable reaction of this kind had taken place,
that dissatisfaction with the anti-slavery measures and discouragement
at the military failures, together, were even imperiling Republican
ascendency. Now all knew, though some might not be willing to say, that
the loss of Republican ascendency meant, in fact, the speedy settlement
of the war by compromise; and the South was undoubtedly in earnest in
declaring that there could be no compromise without disunion. Therefore,
in those elections of the autumn months in 1862 the whole question of
Union or Disunion had to be fought out at the polls in the loyal States,
and there was an appalling chance of its going against the Unionist
party. "The administration," says Mr. Blaine, "was now subjected to a
fight for its life;" and for a while the fortunes of that mortal combat
wore a most alarming aspect.
The Democracy made its fight on the ground that the anti-slavery
legislation of the Republican majority in the Thirty-seventh Congress
had substantially made abolition the ultimate purpose of the war. Here,
then, they said, was a change of base; were or were not the voters of
the loyal States willing to ratify it? Already this ground had been
taken in the platforms of the party in the most important Northern
States, before Mr. Lincoln issued his proclamation. Was it unreasonable
to fear that this latest and most advanced step would intensify that
hostility, stimulate the too obvious reaction, and aggravate the danger
which, against his judgment,[39] as it was understood, Congress had
created? Was it not probable that Mr. Blair was correct when he warned
the President that the proclamation would "cost the administration the
fall elections"? Naturally it will be asked: if this was a reasonable
expectation, why did the President seize this critical moment to ally
the administration with anti-slavery? Mr. Blaine furnishes a probable
explanation: "The anti-slavery policy of Congress had gone far enough to
arouse the bitter hostility of all Democrats, who were not thoroughly
committed to the war, and yet not far enough to deal an effective blow
against the institution." The administration stood at a point where
safety lay rather in defying than in evading the ill opinion of the
malcontents, where the best wisdom was to commit itself, the party, and
the nation decisively to the "bold, far-reaching, radical, and
aggressive policy," from which it would be impossible afterward to turn
back "without deliberately resolving to sacrifice our nationality."
Presumably the President wished to show the people that their only
choice now lay between slavery on the one hand and nationality on the
other, so that, of the two things, they might take that one which they
deemed the more worthy. The two together they could never again have.
This theory tallies with the well-known fact that Mr. Lincoln was always
willing to trust the people upon a question of right and wrong. He never
was afraid to stake his chance upon the faith that what was
intrinsically right would prove in the long run to be politically safe.
While he was a shrewd politician in matters of detail, he had the wisdom
always in a great question to get upon that side where the inherent
morality lay. Yet, unfortunately, it takes time--time which cannot
always be afforded--for right to destroy prejudice; the slow-grinding
mill of God grinds sometimes so slowly that man cannot help fearing that
for once the stint will not be worked out; and in this autumn of 1862
there was one of these crises of painful anxiety among patriots at the
North.
Maine held her election early in September, and upon the vote for
governor a Republican majority, which usually ranged from 10,000 to
19,000, was this year cut down to a little over 4000; also, for the
first time in ten years, a Democrat secured a seat in the national House
of Representatives. Then came the "October States." In that dreary month
Ohio elected 14 Democrats and 5 Republicans; the Democrats casting, in
the total, about 7000 more votes than the Republicans. Indiana sent 8
Democrats, 3 Republicans. In Pennsylvania the congressional delegation
was divided, but the Democrats polled the larger vote by about 4000;
whereas Mr. Lincoln had had a majority in the State of 60,000! In New
York the famous Democratic leader, Horatio Seymour, was elected governor
by a majority of nearly 10,000. Illinois, the President's own State,
showed a Democratic majority of 17,000, and her congressional delegation
stood 11 Democrats to 3 Republicans. New Jersey turned from
Republicanism to Democracy. Michigan reduced a Republican majority from
20,000 to 6000. Wisconsin divided its delegation evenly.[40] When the
returns were all in, the Democrats, who had had only 44 votes in the
House in the Thirty-seventh Congress, found that in its successor they
would have 75. Even if the non-voting absentees in the army[41] had been
all Republicans, which they certainly were not, such a reaction would
have been appalling.
Fortunately some other Northern States--New England's six, and Iowa,
Kansas, Minnesota, California, and Oregon--held better to their
Republican faith. But it was actually the border slave States which, in
these dark and desperate days, came gallantly to the rescue of the
President's party. If the voters of these States had seen in him a
radical of the stripe of the anti-slavery agitators, it is not
imaginable that they would have helped him as they now did. Thus was his
much maligned "border-state policy" at last handsomely vindicated; and
thanks to it the frightened Republicans saw, with relief, that they
could command a majority of about twenty votes in the House. Mr. Lincoln
had saved the party whose leaders had turned against him.
Beneath the dismal shadow of these autumnal elections the
Thirty-seventh Congress came together for its final session, December 1,
1862. The political situation was peculiar and unfortunate. There was
the greatest possible need for sympathetic coöperation in the Republican
party; but sympathy was absent, and coöperation was imperfect and
reluctant. The majority of the Republican members of Congress
obstinately maintained their alienation from the Republican President;
an enormous popular defection from Republicanism had taken place in its
natural strongholds; and Republican domination had only been saved by
the aid of States in which Republican majorities had been attainable
actually because a large proportion of the population was so disaffected
as either to have enlisted in the Confederate service, or to have
refrained from voting at elections held under Union auspices. Therefore,
whether Mr. Lincoln looked forth upon the political or the military
situation, he beheld only gloomy prospects. But having made fast to what
he believed to be right, he would not, in panic, cast loose from it. In
the face of condemnation he was not seen to modify his course in order
to conciliate any portion of the people; but, on the contrary, in his
message he returned to his plan which had hitherto been so coldly
received, and again strenuously recommended appropriations for gradual,
compensated emancipation and colonization. The scheme had three especial
attractions for him: 1. It would be operative in those loyal States and
parts of States in which military emancipation would not take effect.
2. In its practical result it would do away with slavery by the year
1900, whereas military emancipation would now free a great number of
individuals, but would leave slavery, as an institution, untouched and
liable to be revived and reinvigorated later on. 3. It would make
emancipation come as a voluntary process, leaving a minimum of
resentment remaining in the minds of slaveholders, instead of being a
violent war measure never to be remembered without rebellious anger.
This last point was what chiefly moved him. He intensely desired to have
emancipation effected in such a way that good feeling between the two
sections might be a not distant condition; the humanity of his
temperament, his passion for reasonable dealing, his appreciation of the
mischief of sectional enmity in a republic, all conspired to establish
him unchangeably in favor of "compensated emancipation."
For the accomplishment of his purpose he now suggested three articles of
amendment to the Constitution. He spoke earnestly; for "in times like
the present," he said, "men should utter nothing for which they would
not willingly be responsible through time and eternity." Beneath the
solemnity of this obligation he made for his plan a very elaborate
argument. Among the closing sentences were the following:--
"The plan would, I am confident, secure peace more speedily, and
maintain it more permanently, than can be done by force alone; while
all it would cost, considering amounts, and manner of payment, and times
of payment, would be easier paid than will be the additional cost of the
war, if we rely solely upon force. It is much, very much, that it would
cost no blood at all.
... "Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would
shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood?
Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national
prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we
here--Congress and Executive--can secure its adoption? Will not the good
people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they,
by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure these vital
objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not 'Can _any_ of us
_imagine_ better?' but; 'Can we _all do_ better?' Object whatsoever is
possible, still the question recurs, 'Can we do better?' The dogmas of
the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is
piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our
case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall
ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
"Fellow citizens, _we_ cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and
this administration, will [shall] be remembered in spite of ourselves.
No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another
of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in
honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We _say_ we are for the
Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save
the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We--even _we
here_--hold the power and bear the responsibility. In _giving_ freedom
to the _slave_ we _assure_ freedom to the _free_,--honorable alike in
what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose,
the last, best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not
fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just,--a way which, if
followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
Beautiful and impressive as was this appeal, it persuaded few or none.
In fact, no effort on the President's part now, or at any time, could
win much approval for his plan. Not many were ever pleased by it; but
afterward, in the winter of 1863, many members of the Thirty-eighth
Congress were willing, without believing in it, to give him a chance to
try it in Missouri. Accordingly a bill then passed the House
appropriating $10,000,000 to compensate slave-owners in that State, if
abolition of slavery should be made part of its organic law. The Senate
made the sum $15,000,000 and returned the bill to the House for
concurrence. But the representatives from Missouri were tireless in
their hostility to the measure, and finally killed it by parliamentary
expedients of delay.
This was a great disappointment to Mr. Lincoln. While the measure was
pending he argued strenuously with leading Missourians to induce them to
put their State in the lead in what he hoped would then become a
procession of slave States. But these gentlemen seemed to fear that, if
they should take United States bonds in payment, they might awake some
morning in these troublous times to find their promiser a bankrupt or a
repudiationist. On the other hand, such was the force of habit that a
slave seemed to them very tangible property. Mr. Lincoln shrewdly
suggested that, amid present conditions, "_bonds_ were better than
_bondsmen_," and "two-legged property" was a very bad kind to hold. Time
proved him to be entirely right; but for the present his argument,
entreaty, and humor were all alike useless. Missouri would have nothing
to do with "compensated emancipation;" and since she was regarded as a
test case, the experiment was not tried elsewhere. So it came to pass
afterward that the slaveholders parted with their slaves for nothing
instead of exchanging them for the six per cent. bonds of the United
States.
* * * * *
The first day of January, 1863, arrived, and no event had occurred to
delay the issue of the promised proclamation. It came accordingly. By
virtue of his power as commander-in-chief, "in time of actual armed
rebellion,... and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing
said rebellion," the President ordered that all persons held as slaves
in certain States and parts of States, which he designated as being then
in rebellion, should be thenceforward free, and declared that the
Executive, with the army and navy, would "recognize and maintain the
freedom of said persons." The word "maintain" was inserted at Seward's
suggestion, and somewhat against Mr. Lincoln's wish. He said that he had
intentionally refrained from introducing it, because it was not his way
to promise what he was not entirely _sure_ that he could perform. The
sentence invoking the favor of God was contributed by Secretary Chase.
The paper was signed after the great public reception of New Year's Day.
Mr. Lincoln, as he took the pen, remarked to Mr. Seward that his
much-shaken hand was almost paralyzed, so that people who, in time to
come, should see that signature would be likely to say: "He hesitated,"
whereas, in fact, his whole soul was in it. The publication took place
late in the day, and the anti-slavery critics grumbled because it was
not sent out in the morning.
The people at large received this important step with some variety of
feeling and expression; but, upon the whole, approval seems to have far
outrun the dubious prognostications of the timid and conservative class.
For the three months which had given opportunity for thinking had
produced the result which Mr. Lincoln had hoped for. It turned out that
the mill of God had been grinding as exactly as always. Very many who
would not have advised the measure now heartily ratified it. Later,
after men's minds had had time to settle and the balance could be fairly
struck, it appeared undeniable that the final proclamation had been of
good effect; so Mr. Lincoln himself said.
It is worth noting that while many Englishmen spoke out in generous
praise, the rulers of England took the contrary position. Earl Russell
said that the measure was "of a very strange nature," "a very
questionable kind," an act of "vengeance on the slave-owner," and that
it did no more than "profess to emancipate slaves, where the United
States authorities cannot make emancipation a reality." But the English
people were strongly and genuinely anti-slavery, and the danger of
English recognition of the Confederacy was greatly diminished when the
proclamation established the policy of the administration.
The proclamation contained a statement that ex-slaves would be "received
into the armed service of the United States." Up to this time not much
had been done in the way of enlisting colored troops. The negroes
themselves had somewhat disappointed their friends by failing to take
the initiative, and it became evident that they must be stirred by
influences outside their own race. The President now took the matter in
hand, and endeavored to stimulate commanders of Southern departments to
show energy concerning it. By degrees successful results were obtained.
The Southerners formally declared that they would not regard either
negro troops or their officers as prisoners of war; but that they would
execute the officers as ordinary felons, and would hand over the negroes
to be dealt with by the state authorities as slaves in insurrection.
Painful and embarrassing questions of duty were presented by these
menaces. To Mr. Lincoln the obvious policy of retaliation seemed
abhorrent, and he held back from declaring that he would adopt it, in
the hope that events might never compel him to do so. But on July 30 he
felt compelled, in justice to the blacks and those who led them, to
issue an order that for every Union soldier killed in violation of the
laws of war a rebel soldier should be executed; and for every one
enslaved a rebel soldier should be placed at hard labor on the public
works. Happily, however, little or no action ever became necessary in
pursuance of this order. The Southerners either did not in fact wreak
their vengeance in fulfillment of their furious vows, or else covered
their doings so that they could not be proved. Only the shocking
incident of the massacre at Fort Pillow seemed to demand stern
retaliatory measures, and even this was, too mercifully, allowed
gradually to sink away into neglect.[42]
[Illustration: Lincoln Submitting the Emancipation Proclamation to His
Cabinet.]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] To A.G. Hodges, April 4, 1864, N. and H. vi. 430; and see Lincoln
to Chase, September 2, 1863; _ibid._ 434.
[34] "It was," says Mr. Arnold, "full of errors and mistaken inferences,
and written in ignorance of many facts which it was the duty of the
President to consider." _Life of Lincoln_, 254. But, _per contra_, Hon.
George W. Julian says: "It was one of the most powerful appeals ever
made in behalf of justice and the rights of man." _Polit. Recoil._ 220.
Arnold and Julian were both members of the House, and both
thorough-going Abolitionists. Their difference of opinion upon this
letter of Mr. Greeley illustrates well the discussions which, like the
internecine feuds of Christian sects, existed between men who ought to
have stood side by side against the heretics and unbelievers.
[35] For views contrary to mine, see Julian, _Polit. Recoil._ 221.
[36] The story that some members of the cabinet were opposed to the
measure was distinctly denied by the President. Carpenter, _Six Months
in the White House_, 88.
[37] For interesting statements about this Altoona conference see
McClure, _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 248-251.
[38] Blaine, i. 439.
[39] It was understood that he had not favored the principal
anti-slavery measures of the Thirty-seventh Congress, on the ground
measures of the Thirty-seventh Congress, on the ground that they were
premature.
[40] The foregoing-statistics have been taken from Mr. Elaine, _Twenty
Years of Congress_, i. 441-444.
[41] Later, legislation enabled the soldiers in the field to vote; but
at this time they could not do so.
[42] For account of these matters of retaliation and protection of
negroes, see N. and H. vol. vi. ch. xxi.