crats and to allay the not unreasonable dread that the blacks, incited by the proclamation, would rise against their masters and perpetrate the horrors of a servile revolt, this paragraph was added: "And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that in all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages."

In the next paragraph the President declared that the liberated slaves would be accepted as soldiers to garrison forts, positions, stations, and concluded with an invocation suggested by Chase: "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." 1

There was, as every one knows, no authority for the proclamation in the letter of the Constitution, nor was there any statute which warranted it. It imports much to see how Lincoln, who had the American reverence for the Constitution and the Anglo-Saxon veneration for law, justified this departure from the letter of the organic act and from sacred precedent. "I am naturally anti-slavery," he wrote. "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. . . . 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

See

1 The three words in brackets are Lincoln's, the rest Chase's. Warden's Chase, p. 513; on the making of the proclamation, see Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. pp. 405-430.

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. . . . 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 in March and May and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the Border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter." 1

-

With opponents who maintained that the emancipation proclamation was unconstitutional, he argued: "I think differently. I think the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the law of war in time of war. The most that can be said— if so much—is that slaves are property. Is there has there ever been any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us, or hurts the enemy? Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel."2

The event manifested the wisdom of Lincoln's policy. The proclamation did not incite servile insurrection, although it completed the process, which the war had commenced, of making every slave in the South the friend of the North.

1 Letter of April 4, 1864, Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 508; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 430.

2 Letter of Aug. 26, 1863, Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 397.

Every negro knew that if he got within the lines of the Federal armies, the aspiration of his life would be realized; he would become a free man. Before the close of the year there were in the United States military service 100,000 former slaves, "about one-half of which number actually [bore] arms in the ranks." Without the policy of emancipation, these negroes would probably have remained at the South raising food for the able-bodied white men, all of whom were forced into the Confederate army by the rigorous conscription. The proclamation, making clear as it did the real issue of the war, was of incontestable value in turning English sentiment into the right channel. It already had the approval of the House of Representatives,2 and, when enforced by victories in the field, received the support of the majority of the Northern people.

It does not appear that the preliminary proclamation could have been better timed. The trend of public sentiment makes it evident that it was issued soon enough, and that the President showed discretion in annulling the acts of Frémont, Cameron, and Hunter; and since it was conceded that the edict ought not to be promulgated except after a victory, there would have been danger in delay beyond September, 1862, for no military success as important in its results as Antietam was obtained until July 3, 1863, when Meade defeated Lee at Gettysburg.

In addition to military emancipation, the policy of the President comprised the giving of freedom to the slaves gradually in a way strictly legal, the compensation of the owners by the federal government and the colonization of the liberated negroes. In his annual message to Congress of December 1, 1862, taking as his text, "Without slavery the. rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue," he made an argument in advocacy of his policy, which, in his grasp of the subject, as tested by suc

1 Lincoln, Annual Message, Dec. 8, 1863

2 Dec. 15, 1862, by a vote of 78: 51.

ceeding events, marks him as one of the great statesmen of the world. He pleaded for gradual emancipation, appointing January 1, 1900, as the time when it should be completed, to spare "both races from the evils of sudden derangement." It is matter for regret that fortune had not at this time favored Lincoln with signal military victories to give to his words the strength that enforced the declarations of Cæsar and Napoleon. Owing to distrust in him and his waning popularity, his recommendations in this message were not considered by Congress, nor had they, so far as I have been able to ascertain, any notable influence on public sentiment.1 Congress, however, made an attempt to fulfil the pledge which it had given at the previous session on the prompting of the President.2 The result of the election in Missouri 3 showed that the people of that State were in favor of getting rid of slavery.1 In conformity with that sentiment, there was reported, January 6, from the select committee on emancipation to the House of Representatives a bill to apply $10,000,000 in bonds for the purpose of compensating the loyal owners of slaves in Missouri, if her legislature should provide for immediate emancipation. After a brief debate, the bill under the operation of the previous question passed the same day. It went to the Senate; and Henderson, who had charge of the measure, introduced a substitute for the House bill, which in its turn was amended, and occasioned a long and intelligent debate, that consumed a portion of many days for nearly a month. The bill, as it passed the Senate,

1 An attempt at colonization on a very small scale was made by the President under the authority of legislation of April and July, 1862. Nicolay and Hay give an interesting account of it, largely from MS. sources, in vol. vi. chap. xvii. The experiment was tried in the year 1863 and resulted in failure. N. and H. write at the close of the chapter: "No further effort was made by the President." See, also, Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 66.

2 See vol. iii. pp. 631, 635; ante, p. 70.

3 In Nov., 1862.

Noell in the House, Globe, p. 207; Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1862, p. 595.

gave ten millions for gradual emancipation, or twenty millions if the act of Missouri should provide for the manumission of all slaves by July 4, 1865.1 The measure in this shape went back to the House. An important change in the wording of the bill enabled any one member to send it to the committee of the whole, the "grave of any disputed measure; "2 it prevented a motion of non-concurrence and the reference of the matter to a committee of conference, and lost to the majority of the House the control of the bill. It became necessary to recommit the Senate measure, and to report to the committee of the whole a new bill, for the consideration of which the rules of the House allowed only one hour. This time the Democrats, aided by a Unionist from Missouri, used up in filibustering.3 Later, an endeavor was made to get the bill considered by a suspension of the rules, but the necessary two-thirds of the House could not be obtained.

The Republican historians are within the bounds of truth. when they assert that compensated emancipation for Missouri failed on account of the strenuous opposition of the Democrats. The same explanation will apply to the case of Maryland; and the failure of the measures for the relief of these States shows why no effort was made to proceed with the West Virginia bill, or to take up the question of compensating the loyal slave owners of Kentucky and Tennessee.5 Yet it is doubtful whether it is the whole truth to impute the defeat of this policy exclusively to the Democrats. Granted their opposition as a necessary factor, this might have been over

1 Globe, pp. 302, 351, 586, 611, 666, 762, 776, 897; Senate Journal.

2 Letter of Albert S. White, representative from Indiana, who had charge of the bill, to Nat. Intelligencer, March 12.

3 Ibid. The Unionist was Hall. The Democrats were Vallandigham, Pendleton, Cox of Ohio, Norton of Missouri.

4"The story of the Missouri bill (after it was returned from the Senate) is the story of the Maryland bill. It was filibustered out of Congress.". Letter of Albert S. White.

5 See Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol. i. p. 446; Greeley, The American Conflict, vol. ii. p. 261.