4 these pregnant words: in time of war, I suppose I have a right to | President closed the conference with The deputation responded, urging that an Emancipation policy would greatly strengthen us in Europe, and would justify us in appealing to the God of the oppressed and down-trodden for His blessing on our future efforts to crush the Rebellion. The President rejoined: "I admit that Slavery is at the root of the Rebellion, or at least its sine qua non. The arms would be in the hands of the Rebels; Slave States. It would be a serious matter if, in consequence of a proclamation such as you desire, they should go over to the Rebels. I do not think they all would-not so many, indeed, as a year ago, or as six months ago-not so many to-day as yesterday. Every day increases their Union feeling. They are also getting their pride enlisted, and want to beat the Rebels. Let me say one thing more: I think you should admit that we already have an important principle to rally and unite the people, in the fact that constitutional government is at stake. This is a fundamental idea, going down about as deep as any thing." The deputation again developed and enforced their views; and the "Do not misunderstand me because I can assure you that the subject is on my The deputation had scarcely re- meeting of Congress, to again recommend the year of our Lord one thousand eight forever free; and the Executive Govern { LINCOLN'S FIRST PROCLAMATION OF FREEDOM. 253 military and naval authority thereof, will Rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. "That the Executive will, on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States. and no person engaged in the military or naval service of "And I do hereby enjoin upon and order "And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States, who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the Rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States and their respective States and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves. "In witness whereof, I have hereunto set iny hand and caused the seal of the United "That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled 'An Act to make ❘ States to be affixed. "Done at the City of Washington, ""Be it enacted by the Senate und House of Repre- [L. S.] sentatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such: ""SECTION 1. All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due; and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service. "SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage.' "Also, to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled 'An Act to Suppress Insurrection, to Punish Treason and Rebellion, to Seize and Confiscate Property of Rebels, and for other Purposes,' approved July 16, 1862; and which sections are in the words and figures following: ""SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them and coming under the control of the Government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on [or] being within any place occupied by Rebel forces and afterward occupied by forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. "SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offense against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "By the President: "WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State." It has been alleged that the appearance of this document was hastened by confidential representations from our Embassadors at the Courts of Western Europe, that a recognition of the Confederacy was imminent, and could hardly be averted otherwise than by a policy of Emancipation. The then Attorney-General has been quoted as authority for this statement; but it is still generally regarded as apocryphal. It has been likewise asserted that the President had fully decided on resorting to this policy some weeks before the Proclamation appeared, and that he only withheld it till the military situation should assume a brighter the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive aspect. Remarks made long after is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present ward in Congress render highly ** Edward Bates, of Missouri. • probable the assumption that its appearance was somewhat delayed, awaiting the issue of the struggle in Maryland, which terminated with the battle of Antietam.31 Whether the open adhesion of the President at last to the policy of Emancipation did or did not contribute to the general defeat of his supporters in the State Elections which soon followed, is still fairly disputable. By those elections, Horatio Seymour was made Governor of New York and Joel Parker of New Jersey: supplanting Governors Morgan and Olden; while Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, also gave Opposition majorities; and Michigan, Wisconsin, and most other Western States, showed a decided falling off in Administration strength. The general result of those elections is summed up in the following table: States. 1860-PRESIDENT. 1862-GOV. OR CONGRESS. LINCOLN. All others. ADMIN. New York.... 362,646 312,510 New Jersey... 58,324 62,801 Pennsylvania.. 265,030 208,412 Ohio..... .... 231,610 210,831 Indiana..... ....... 139,033 133,110 Illinois........ 172,161 16(4,215 Michigan ..... 88,480 66,267 Wisconsin 86,110 .... 66,070 Iowa.... 70,409 57,922 12,668 ..... .... Minnesota 22,069 Opp. 46,710 61,307 There were some counterbalancing changes in the States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, as also in that of California, where the larger share of the Douglas vote of 1860 was in '62 cast for the Union tickets; but it was clear, at the close of the State Elections of that year, that the general ill success of the War for the Union, the wide-spread and increasing repugnance to Conscription, Taxation, a depreciated Currency, and high-priced Fabrics, were arraying Public Sentiment against the further prosecution of the contest. Of course, the Opposition inveighed against the management of the War and of the Finances, the treatment of Gen. McClellan, and the general inefficiency and incapacity of the Administration; but the strength of that Opposition inhered in popular repugnance to the sacrifices exacted by and the perils involved in a 295,897 806,649 prosecution of the struggle, though 215,616 219,140 its most general and taking clamor 118,517 123,160 deprecated only "The perversion of 68,716 62,102 the War for the Union into a War 10 States.....1,498,872 1,290,806 1,192,896 1,228,677 1860-Lincoln's maj.-208,066. 1862-Opp. maj.-35,781. The Representatives in Congress chosen from these States were politically classified as follows: Republican at each election wherein they were allowed to vote at all; but who had not yet been enabled to vote in the field, while their absence cre17 ated a chasm in the Administration 12 vote at home-it is quite probable 4 14 9 1860. REPUB. Dem. ADMIN. Opp. 23 10 14 2 8 1 18 7 12 13 8 5 Indiana.. 4 Illinois. Michigan 4 Wisconsin Iowa...... 2 6 Minnesota. ........ ........ ....... .............. ....... ... 67 1862-Opposition maj., 10. 1860-Lincoln maj.-41. NOTE-A new apportionment under the Census of 1860 changed materially, between 1860 and 1862, the number of Representatives from several of the States. 31 Fought Sept. 17th-Proclamation of Freedom, dated 22d. *2 Soldiers' vote: Admn., 14,874; Opp., 4,115, that, had a popular election been i held at any time during the year following the Fourth of July, 1862, on the question of continuing the War or arresting it on the best attainable terms, a majority would have voted for Peace; while it is highly probaWisconsin Soldiers' Vote: Admn., 8,373; Opp., 2,046. No other States had yet authorized their soldiers in the field to vote. LINCOLN'S SECOND PROCLAMATION OF FREEDOM. 255 ble that a still larger majority would have voted against Emancipation. From an early hour of the struggle, the public mind slowly and steadily gravitated toward the conclusion that the Rebellion was vulnerable only or mainly through Slavery; but that conclusion was scarcely reached by a majority before the occurrence of the New York Riots, in July, 1863. The President, though widely reproached with tardiness and reluctance in taking up the gage plainly thrown down by the Slave Power, was probably ahead of a majority of the people of the loyal States in definitively accepting the issue of Emancipation or Dis union. Having taken a long step in the right direction, he never retracted nor seemed to regret it; though he sometimes observed that the beneficial results of the Emancipation policy were neither so signal nor so promptly realized as its sanguine promoters had anticipated. Nevertheless, on the day appointed, he issued his absolute Proclamation of Freedom, as follows: "Whereas, on the 22d day of September, in the year of our Lord 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following: to wit: "Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. "And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive Governinent of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. ""That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord 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; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.' "That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.' "And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. "And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. "In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. "Done at the city of Washington, this 1st day of January, in the year of our [L. S.] Lord 1863, and of the independence of the United States the 87th. "Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in"By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. chief of the Army and Navy of the United | "WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State." * On the abstract question of the | the Union-an efficient instrument in the right of the Government to proclaim and enforce Emancipation, Edward Everett, in a speech in Faneuil Hall, Boston, October, 1864, forcibly said: hands of the Rebels for carrying on the war "It is very doubtful whether any act of the Government of the United States was necessary to liberate the slaves in a State | contradiction in terms. It would be to re which is in rebellion. There is much reason cognize a right in a Rebel master to employ XII. SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION IN CONGRESS. THE XXXVIIth Congress, as we | the extra session, evinced a steadihave seen-while endeavoring to ly growing consciousness--steadily evade or to avert its eyes from the growing in the legislative as well as fact that it was Slavery which was waging deadly war on the Uniondid yet give fair notice, through the guarded but decisive language of some of the more conservative Republicans, that, if the Rebellion were persisted in, it must inevitably result in the overthrow of Slavery. And the action of that Congress, even at Vol I., pp. 564-8. the popular mind-that Slavery had Still, President Lincoln hesitated * On the day after the Bull Run rout, the writer first heard this conviction openly declared. The credit of the avowal belongs to Gen. John Cochrane. "I have said that the war may assume another aspect, and be a short and bloody one. And to such a war-an anti-Slavery war-it seems to me we are inevitably drifting. It seems to me hardly in the power of human wisdom to prevent it. We may commence the war without meaning to interfere with Slavery; but let us have one or two battles, and get our blood excited, and we shall not only not restore any more slaves, but shall proclaim freedom wherever we go. And it seems to me almost judicial blindness on the part of the South that they do not see that this must be the inevitable result, if * Hon. Elisha R. Potter, of Rhode Islandwho may be fairly styled the hereditary chief of the Democratic party of that State-made a speech on the War to the Senate thereof on the 10th of August, 1861. After distributing the blame of inciting the War between the Northern and the Southern 'ultras,' dilating on the resources of the South, and elucidating the nofighting, 'anaconda' mode of warfare proposed | the contest is prolonged." 1 |