Download Wallace Lincoln and Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
Brian A. Wallace
For Lincoln, the issue of emancipation was always on the front of his mind.
Lincoln had to balance the issue of his own personal feelings that slavery was morally
wrong and should be abolished, along with that of saving the Union at the onset of the
Civil War. Emancipation would continue to haunt him through his presidency as he was
pressured from all sides about the issue. Lincoln always felts that slavery was wrong and
should be abolished, but at the same time, respect that it was constitutionally protected.
Once elected president, he faced Democrats and conservative Republicans who did not
want emancipation, radical Republicans who did, along with moral pressure from the
blacks themselves which Lincoln did not expect.1 Lincoln put all his personal feelings
aside, as strong as they were, and set off to preserve the Union. In doing so, he was
presented with a possibility of emancipation through the war powers granted to him as
commander-in-chief as provided for in the Constitution.
Lincoln’s Personal Feelings on Emancipation
“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”2 Lincoln personally believed that
slavery was wrong, and that the institution of slavery should cease to exist. But he did
not necessarily speak for the victims of slavery: the Africans. As an Illinois state
senator, Lincoln found disgust in the state legislature’s resolve in January 1837 that
1
2
Guelzo, “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President,” 332
Guelzo, “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” 23
“property in slaves is sacred to the slave-holding states by the Federal Constitution.”3
Lincoln protested the resolution and felt that slavery was both bad policy and an injustice.
Yet, Lincoln’s personal views never took him completely to side of immediate
emancipation of the enslaved. When asked if he was an abolitionist by a Springfield
neighbor, Lincoln’s replied that he was “mighty near one” and that was exactly Lincoln’s
point: he was mighty near to abolition as well much of the North. What Lincoln did not
agree with were the terms of the abolitionists.
Lincoln saw slavery as a disease that needed to be dealt with, but how it should be
dealt with was the ever present question of the nation. Lincoln had his own plan for
emancipation, but it never included the immediate emancipation that many abolitionists
demanded. He felt that “gradual emancipation represented his views better than those
who are in favor of immediate emancipation.”4 Lincoln’s plan laid out three main
features “gradual – compensation – and the vote of the people.” Lincoln continued this
plan with a possible fourth component, colonization. Lincoln was involved early on in
the idea of colonization of the freed Africans and belonged to the American Colonization
Society. While with the society in 1854, Lincoln explained that his first impulse “would
be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia – to their own native land.” Lincoln
knew though that this would near impossible to execute.5
Lincoln had the “deepest, strongest desire of the soul” to free the slaves and
“hoped and expected to the Liberator of the slaves.”6 Lincoln believed with his election
Guelzo, “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” 23
Guelzo, “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” 23
5
Guelzo, “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” 24
6
Guelzo, “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” 26
3
4
in 1860 that the national rage against slavery had reached a point where the dismantling
of Slave Power could begin. Dismantling Slave Power and the hold it had over the nation
meant there would have to be some kind of emancipation but the question was when and
what kind of emancipation could happen without disrupting the Union. South Carolina’s
secession after his election, and the attack on Ft. Sumter would put off the issue of
emancipation and turn Lincoln’s attention to saving the Union.
Saving the Union and Emancipation
As soon as the Civil War began, the Union policy on what to do with the
disposition of captured rebel property, including slaves was debated. Slaves began
running behind Union lines from the onset of the war, and some Union commanders
considered them to be contra-band and could be put to work for the Union army. The
Lincoln administration did not have a policy for the issue and finally pressed Congress to
create one in August 1861. The Confiscation Act was passed which authorized the
seizure of all property used in military aid of the rebellion, including slaves.7 Nothing in
the law actually freed the contra-band and for good reason. Lincoln had four slave
holding Border States in which to deal with and could not risk losing them and furthering
the dissolving of the Union.
Lincoln faced pressure from all ends about the issue of emancipation, but his was
not Lincoln’s main concern at the start of the war. Lincoln was most concerned with
saving the Union and how to do it and perhaps emancipate the slaves at the same time.
7
Boyer and others, “The Enduring Vision,” 478
Early Union defeats and the realization that the South could commit a higher number of
its white men to battle because of slavery, helped some opposition to emancipation in the
North subside. Northerners realized that that some type of emancipation policy would be
necessary to help the war cause and Congress responded in July 1862 with the passage of
the second Confiscation Act. Under this version, any slaves who entered behind Union
lines “shall be forever free.”8 Lincoln continued to avoid the issue the rising pressure of
emancipation especially because he feared losing the Border States, then the war, and
finally, the Union.
Lincoln always insisted that the war was not about putting down slavery. Lincoln
pressed the issue in September 1861 when asked what the war was about: We didn’t go
into the war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back…”9 In a letter to John Bright
in England, Charles Sumner stated Lincoln was “was afraid that half the officers would
fling down their arms and three more states would rise” if he issued an edict of
emancipation.10 Lincoln invited the Border State Congressmen to the White House in
July 1862 to plead for the graduated, compensated abolishment of slavery in hopes of
shortening the war swiftly. Lincoln hoped that the Border States representatives, and the
people of the Border States, would not be blind to the sign that slavery was breathing its
last breath. “Why not resort to a compensated emancipation plan now, and ease the
inevitable weathering of slavery by the war?” Lincoln questioned of the Border States.11
Lincoln tried to persuade them that they were doing more harm to the Union by clinging
Boyer and others, “The Enduring Vision,” 478
Guelzo, “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President,” 330
10
Sandburg, “The Prairie Years and the War Years,” 314
11
Guelzo, “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President,” 334
8
9
to slavery and might be giving hope to the South that the Border States would join them
and prolong the war.
Lincoln made his intentions of saving the Union first, and putting aside his own
personal feelings on the issue of slavery in his letter to Horace Greeley on August 22,
1862:
“….I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest was under the
Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will
be ‘the Union as it was…..’ My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union,
and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without feeing
any slave, 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…..I have here stated my purpose according to my view of
official duty; and I intend to modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men
every where could be free.”12
Military Necessity and Emancipation
Lincoln agreed with the most passionate abolitionist that slavery was “a moral, a
social and political wrong,” but he struggled with and could not ignore the constitutional
protection that slavery was provided.13 But saving the Union was Lincoln’s “paramount
objective”, and the series of defeats in the Peninsula Campaign made it clear the more
extraordinary means were needed to complete this objective. Report after report
demonstrated to Lincoln just how helpful the slaves were to the South. It was reported
12
13
Guelzo, “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President,” 334
Goodwin, “Team of Rivals,” 462
that they “dug trenches and built fortification for the army, served as teamsters, cooks,
and hospital attendants so that soldiers were free to fight. They tilled fields, raised crops,
and picked cotton so their masters could go to war.”14 Lincoln’s thoughts began to turn
to looking at emancipation as a military necessity. And emancipation could be issued
under his war powers, a part of his constitutional duties as commander-in-chief.
Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Wells, recorded in his dairy the conversation him,
Lincoln, and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, had about the issue of emancipation. The
day was July 13, 1862, and the men were on their way for a service for Stanton’s son who
had passed away. Wells writes that Lincoln informed them that “he was considering
emancipating the slaves by proclamation in case the Rebels did not cease to persist in
their war.” And the Lincoln had “dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and
delicacy…….come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential
for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.”15
Lincoln’s use of his war powers would not affect the Border States, where he had no
constitutional authority, but would affect the Confederate States. He was not risking
losing the Border States to the Confederacy by leaving their property alone. When
announced to his cabinet on July 22, 1862, Stanton grasped the immediate value of
removing the workforce of the South, the slaves, and transferring that workforce to the
Union.16
Goodwin, “Team of Rivals,” 462
Goodwin, “Team of Rivals,” 463
16
Goodwin, “Team of Rivals,” 465
14
15
As the date for the actual proclamation, January 1, 1863 neared, Congressmen
John Covode visited the president the last week of December. The Congressmen asked
Lincoln if he would issue the proclamation, in which Lincoln responded “I have studied
that matter well; my mind is made up….It must be done. I am driven to it. There is no
other way out of our troubles. But although my duty is plain, it is in some respects
painful, and I trust the people will understand that I act not in anger but in expectation of
a greater good.”17 Military necessity dictated the action Lincoln was taking: issuing the
Emancipation Proclamation.
17
Sandburg, “The Prairie Years and the War Years,” 343
Bibliography
Boyer, Paul, Clifford Clark, Joseph Kett, Neal Salisbury, Harvard Sitkoff, Nacy Woloch.
The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. Massachusetts: D.C.
Heath and Company, 1996.
Guelzo, Allen C. Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. Michigan: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing, 1999.
Guelzo, Allen C. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. New York: Simon & Schuster,
2004
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Sandburg, Carl. The Prairie Years and the War Years. San Diego: Harcourt, 1982.