CH. XVII.] EMANCIPATION WITH COMPENSATION 67 cluded an honorable and efficient treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the African slave trade.1 How the government could treat slavery and the slaves to redound to the advantage of the Union cause was made the overpowering question in Lincoln's mind by his visit of July 8 to the Army of the Potomac at Harrison's Landing, which brought home to him with telling force the disastrous event of the Peninsular campaign. Gradual emancipation of the slaves, compensation of their owners, and colonization of the freed negroes, this is the policy that he adopted. So vital did he deem some action of this kind that he could not allow the senators and representatives of the border slave States to go home on the adjournment of Congress before he had brought the matter again to their attention. July 12 he called them to the White House, and asked them earnestly if they would not adopt his policy and accept compensation for their slaves. He spoke of the hope entertained by "the States which are in rebellion" that their sister slave communities would join their Confederacy. "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. . . . If the war continues long. . . the institution in the institution in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion- by the mere incidents of war. . . . 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." He then told them and the public of a difficulty he had to contend with," one which threatens division among those who, united, are none too strong." Out of the non-enforcement of the laws against it, see DuBois, pp. 154, 162, 178, 180-187. 1 Ratified by the Senate, April 24, without dissent. "Sumner hastened to the State Department to inform the Secretary of the vote. Seward leaped from his lounge, where he had been sleeping, and exclaimed: 'Good God! the Democrats have disappeared! This is the greatest act of the administration."" - Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 68. "In General Hunter's order the discord had lately arisen. repudiating it," Lincoln continued, "I gave dissatisfaction if not offence to many whose support the country cannot afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure in this direction is still upon me and increasing." In conclusion he averred that "our common country is in great peril," and besought them to help him save our form of government.1 A majority of the representatives of Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, and Maryland in the two houses of Congress, twenty in number, replied that the policy advocated seemed like an interference of the national government in a matter belonging exclusively to the States; they questioned the constitutional power of Congress to make an appropriation of money for such a purpose; they did not believe that the country could bear the expense proposed; they doubted the sincerity of Congress in making the offer, and thought that funds for the compensation of slave owners should be placed at the disposal of the President before the border States were called upon to entertain such a proposition. One other objection must have weighed with them, which is only hinted at in their reply. It was a 1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 109. 2 McPherson, Political History of the Great Rebellion, p. 215. In the course of their reply they said: "It seems to us that this resolution [of March, see vol. iii. p. 631] was but the annunciation of a sentiment which could not or was not likely to be reduced to an actual tangible proposition. No movement was then made to provide and appropriate the funds required to carry it into effect; and we were not encouraged to believe that funds would be provided." Senator Henderson, who made an individual reply favorable to the President's views, wrote: "I gave it [the resolution of March] a most cheerful support, and I am satisfied it would have received the approbation of a large majority of the border States delegations in both branches of Congress, if, in the first place, they had believed the war with its continued evils- the most prominent of which, in a material point of view, is its injurious effect on the institution of slavery in our Statescould possibly have been protracted for another twelve months; and if In the second place they had felt assured that the party having the majority in Congress would, like yourself, be equally prompt in practical action as in the expression of a sentiment." Minority replies favorable to the President's position were made by seven representatives and by Horace Maynard of Tennessee, as well as by Senator Henderson. McPherson, p. 217 et seq. CH. XVII.] THE SLAVES MUST BE FREED 1 69 part of the plan that payment for the slaves should be made in United States bonds, and while negro property had become admittedly precarious 1 the question must have suggested itself, whether, in view of the enormous expenditure of the government, the recent military reverses, and the present strength of the Confederacy, the nation's promises to pay were any more valuable. Gold, which June 2 was at three and onehalf per cent. premium, fetched now, owing to McClellan's defeat and the further authorized issue of paper money,2 seventeen per cent.: its price from this time forward measures the fortunes of the Union cause. During a drive to the funeral of Secretary Stanton's infant son, the day after his interview with the border State representatives, Lincoln opened the subject, which was uppermost in his mind, to Seward and to Welles. The reverses before Richmond, the formidable power of the Confederacy, made him earnest in the conviction that something must be done in the line of a new policy. Since the slaves were growing the food for the Confederate soldiers, and served as teamsters and laborers on intrenchments in the army service, the President had "about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity, absolutely essential for the salvation of the nation, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued." In truth, he was prepared to go as far in the path to liberation as were the radical Republicans of Congress. The inquiry therefore is worth making, why he did not recommend to Congress some measure to this end, which, with his support, would undoubtedly have been carried. It would appear reasonable that if the President under the rights of war could emancipate the slaves, Congress with the executive approval 1 Henderson said that in Missouri "a third or more of the slaves owned at the time of the last census" had been lost. -McPherson, p. 219. 2 The Act approved July 11 authorized the additional issue of $150,000,000 United States legal-tender notes. Sunday, July 13. ↑ Diary of Secretary Welles, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 121; Welles's article in the Galaxy, Dec. 1872. C. E. Hamlin says that Lincoln read to the Vice-President, June 18, a draft of a proclamation freeing the slaves. — Life of Hannibal Hamlin, p. 429. should have the same power; but Lincoln evidently believed action in this matter to lie outside of the province of the legislative body. Ready as he himself was to declare free the slaves in all the States which continued "in rebellion" after Jan. 1, 1863, he remarked in the message submitted with the proposed veto of the Confiscation Act, "It is startling to say that Congress can free a slave within a State." An edict of the President would be more impressive and would influence public opinion in the country and in Europe more than could a legislative act that was passed only after long debate and the consideration of various amendments, and was in the end perhaps a compromise in conference committee. Moreover a sagacious statesman in the position of chief magistrate, could better time the stroke. Again it is possible that Lincoln intended to secure gradually the co-operation of Congress in his policy, and began by proposing this further step towards compensation for the offer of compensation was an indispensable part of his plan - which would meet one objection of the border State men. July 14, the day after his conversation with Seward and Welles, he asked the Senate and the House to pass a bill placing at his disposal a certain sum in six per cent. bonds to be used by him in paying for slaves in any State that should lawfully abolish slavery. This request was not well received in the Senate. 1 As an indication of sentiment in Congress, I quote from Sumner's speech in the Senate of June 27: "There are senators who claim these vast War Powers for the President and deny them to Congress. The President, it is said, as commander-in-chief may seize, confiscate, and liberate under the Rights of War, but Congress cannot direct these things to be done. . . . Of the pretension that all these enormous powers belong to the President and not to Congress I try to speak calmly and within bounds. . . . But a pretension so irrational and unconstitutional, so absurd and tyrannical, is not entitled to respect. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade]. . . has branded it as slavish. . . . Such a pretension would change the National Government from a government of law to that of a military dictator. That this pretension should be put forward in the name of the Constitution is only another illustration of the effrontery with which the Constitution is made responsible for the ignorance, the conceit, and the passions of men." -Works, vol. vii. p. 139. ... ... FIRST EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 71 CH. XVII.] Grimes and Sherman did not recognize the right of the President "to introduce a bill here," and it was only after an effort on the part of Sumner that the message and the bill were referred to the Committee on Finance. Sumner also proposed that Congress defer their adjournment in order to consider the subject, but could not get his resolution before the Senate.1 On the day before the adjournment of Congress there was introduced in the House of Representatives from the select committee of emancipation a bill providing for the issue of bonds to the amount of $180,000,000 to be used for the compensation of loyal owners of slaves in the border States and in Tennessee, when any one of them should by law abolish slavery, and for the appropriation of $20,000,000 to be expended in colonizing the freed negroes. Owing to the lateness of the session, the bill was not considered.2 July 17 Congress adjourned. Five days later Lincoln read to his cabinet, to the surprise of all, probably, except Seward and Welles, a proclamation of emancipation which he purposed to issue. In it he said that he intended to recommend to Congress, at its next meeting, the adoption of a practical measure of compensation. He reiterated that the object of the war was the restoration of the Union; "and as a fit and necessary military measure for effecting this object," he declared that on January 1, 1863, all slaves in States wherein the constitutional authority of the United States was not recognized should be thenceforward and forever free. Various suggestions were offered, but all of the cabinet except Blair gave the policy proposed a full or qualified support. Blair demurred, on the ground that it would cost the administration the fall elections. Seward pleaded for delay, saying, in substance: "Mr. President, I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear the effect of so 1 Cong. Globe, p. 3322 et seq. 2 Ibid., p. 3394. |