Chapter XI: The Slavery Question

Situation of the President--His Policy--Gradual Emancipation
Message--Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia--
Repudiation of General Hunter’s Emancipation Order--Conference
with Congressmen from the Border Slave States--Address to the
same--Military Order--Proclamation under the Confiscation Act.

What was to be the final disposition of the question of slavery could not be thrust aside. The intimate connection of this institution with our military operations, was perpetually forcing it upon the attention of the nation. This subject had, since it had been rendered patent to all, that it was to be no holiday struggle in which we were engaged, but a life and death grapple with desperate and determined foes, been ever present to Mr. Lincoln’s mind. His action was, however, to a certain extent, not suffered to be independent. Could he have boldly assumed the initiative, assured that the great mass of the people were at his back, he could have acted far otherwise than he was necessitated to act, considering the delicate nature of the question, the utter lack of precedents, the intertwining of interests, the dangers resulting from a single misstep, the divisions on this point, existing in the ranks even of his own political supporters, and the conflicting views held by men whose loyalty and devotion to the country were unimpeachable.

He chose not to go far ahead of popular indications; he deemed it the wiser statesmanship, in the existing state of affairs, to keep in the lead but a little, feeling, so to speak, his way along--making haste slowly. That this would dissatisfy many of his political friends he well knew; but he, upon mature deliberation, decided that it was for the interest of the country, and that to that consideration everything else must yield.

On the 6th of March, 1862, he sent to the Congress the following message concerning this question, the resolution embodied in which, was passed by both Houses:

“FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--I
recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable
bodies, which shall be substantially as follows:

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

“If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the
approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it
does command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States
and people immediately interested, should be at once distinctly
notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to
accept or reject it. 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 not that _all_ the States tolerating
slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation, but
that, while the offer is equally made to all, the more northern
shall, by such initiation, make it certain to the more southern
that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their
proposed confederacy. 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.
Such a proposition on the part of the general Government sets up
no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery
within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control of
the subject in each case to the State and its people immediately
interested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice
with them.

“In the annual message last December, I thought fit to say, ‘the
Union must be preserved; and hence all indispensable means must be
employed.’ I said this not hastily, but deliberately. War has been
made, and continues to be an indispensable means to this end. A
practical re-acknowledgment of the national authority would render
the war unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however,
resistance continues, the war must also continue, and it is
impossible to foresee all the incidents which may attend, and all
the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem indispensable, or
may obviously promise great efficiency toward ending the struggle,
must and will come.

“The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it may be
esteemed no offence to ask whether the pecuniary consideration
tendered would not be of more value to the States and private
persons concerned, than are the institutions and property in it, in
the present aspect of affairs.

“While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution
would be merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical
measure, it is recommended in the hope that it would soon
lead to important practical results. In full view of my great
responsibility to my God and to my country, I earnestly beg the
attention of Congress and the people to the subject.

“March 6, 1862. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”

A bill abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia having passed both Houses of Congress early in April, the President, in communicating his approval of the measure, judged it necessary to accompany the same with the following message:

“FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--The
act entitled ‘An act for the release of certain persons held to
service or labor in the District of Columbia,’ has this day been
approved and signed.

“I have never doubted the constitutional authority of Congress
to abolish slavery in this District, and I have ever desired to
see the National Capital freed from the institution in some
satisfactory way. Hence there has never been, in my mind, any
question upon the subject except the one of expediency, arising in
view of all the circumstances. 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.

“In the matter of compensation it is provided that claims may be
presented within ninety days from the passage of the act, ‘but not
thereafter,’ and there is no saving for minors, _femes-covert_,
insane or absent persons. I presume this is an omission by mere
oversight, and I recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or
supplemental act.

“April 16, 1862. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”

The President’s repudiation, by the following proclamation, of an emancipation order of General Hunter, was conclusive evidence that he was determined to keep the control of this vexed question in his own hands, and to suffer no military commander to exercise jurisdiction over it:

“WHEREAS, There appears in the public prints what purports to be
a proclamation of Major-General Hunter, in the words and figures
following, to wit:

‘Head-Quarters, Department of the South,

‘_Hilton Head, S. C._, May 9th, 1862.

‘GENERAL ORDERS No. 11.

‘The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina,
comprising the Military Department of the South, having
deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of
the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the
said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them
under martial law. This was accordingly done on the twenty-fifth
day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country
are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States,
Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, heretofore held as slaves,
are therefore declared forever free.

‘DAVID HUNTER, _Major-General Commanding_.

‘Official:

‘ED. W. SMITH, _Acting Assistant Adjutant-General_.’

“AND WHEREAS, The same is producing some excitement and misunderstanding,

“_Therefore_, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim and declare that the government of the United States had no knowledge or belief of an intention, on the part of General Hunter, to issue such a proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that the document is genuine; and further, that neither General Hunter nor any other commander or person has been authorized by the government of the United States to make proclamation declaring the slaves of any State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.

“I further make known, that whether it be competent for me as commander-in-chief of the army and navy to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether at any time, or in any case, it shall become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.

“On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as follows:

“_Resolved_, That the United States ought to coöperate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.’

“The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately 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 of Heaven, not rending or wrecking any thing. 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.

“In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

“Done at the City of Washington, this nineteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.

“By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

“WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.”

A short time before the adjournment of Congress, while the country was in a state of great despondency, owing to the miscarriage of the Peninsular Campaign, the President, knowing that whatever measures events should point out as necessary to put down the rebellion must be adopted, and anticipating that a blow directed at the institution of slavery would, probably, at no distant period have to be dealt, invited the Senators and Representatives of the Border Slave States to a conference, for the purpose of preparing their minds for the happening of such a contingency. On this occasion he read to them the following carefully prepared address, to which he received an approving response from but nine of the twenty-nine:

“GENTLEMEN:--After the adjournment of Congress, now near, I shall
have no opportunity of seeing you for several months. Believing
that you of the Border States held more power for good than any
other equal number of members, I feel it a duty which I can not
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 can not much longer maintain the contest. But you can not
divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with them so long
as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within
your own States. Beat them at elections, 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 relations 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 can not 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 for 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, ere
long, 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 could never 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. Room in South America for colonization can
be obtained cheaply and in abundance, and when numbers shall be
large enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the
freed people will not be so reluctant to go.

“I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned--one which
threatens division among those who, united, are none too strong. An
instance of it is known to you. General Hunter is an honest man. He
was, and I hope still is, my friend. I valued him none the less for
his agreeing with me in the general wish that all men everywhere
could be freed. He proclaimed all men free within certain States,
and I repudiated the proclamation. He expected more good and less
harm from the measure than I could believe would follow. Yet, in
repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction, if not offence, to many
whose support the country can not afford to lose. And this is not
the end of it. The pressure in this direction is still upon me, and
is increasing. By conceding what I now ask you can relieve me, and,
much more, can relieve the country in this important point.

“Upon these considerations, I have again begged your attention to
the Message of March last. Before leaving the Capitol, consider
and discuss it among yourselves. You are patriots and statesmen,
and as such, I pray you consider this proposition, and, at the
least, commend it to the consideration of your States and people.
As you would perpetuate popular government for the best people in
the world, I beseech you that you do in no wise omit this. Our
common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and
boldest action to bring a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of
government saved to the world, its beloved history and cherished
memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured and
rendered inconceivably grand. To you, more than to any others,
the privilege is given to assure that happiness, and swell that
grandeur, and to link your own names therewith forever.”

On the twenty-second of July, the following order was issued:

“WAR DEPARTMENT, _Washington_, July 22d, 1862.

“_First._ Ordered that military commanders within the States of
Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, in an ordinary manner seize and
use any property, real or personal, which may be necessary or
convenient for their several commands, for supplies, or for other
military purposes; and that while property may be destroyed for
proper military objects, none shall be destroyed in wantonness or
malice.

“_Second._ That military and naval commanders shall employ as
laborers, within and from said States, so many persons of African
descent as can be advantageously used for military or naval
purposes, giving them reasonable wages for their labor.

“_Third._ That, as to both property, and persons of African
descent, accounts shall be kept sufficiently accurate and in detail
to show quantities and amounts, and from whom both property and
such persons shall have come, as a basis upon which compensation
can be made in proper cases; and the several departments of this
government shall attend to and perform their appropriate parts
toward the execution of these orders.

“By order of the President.

“EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.”

And on the twenty-fifth of July, by proclamation, the President warned all persons to cease participating in aiding, countenancing, or abetting the rebellion, and to return to their allegiance, under penalty of the forfeitures and seizures provided by an act “to suppress insurrections, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved July 17th, 1862.