CHAPTER XXVIII.

PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.

Historic event. - President's hesitation. - Fremont's command. His ProclamaDifferently received. President's embarrassment.

tion. Proclamation.

revocation.

Annulment of - Conflicting policies. Hunter's Proclamation. - President's Appeal to border States. Interviews with border-States repre sentatives. - Indexes. Northern impatience. — Mr. Greeley's letter. — Chicago delegation. — Simulated opposition. - Yielding. — Loyalty to the Divine Will. Letter to Mr. Hodges. First draft of Proclamation. - Hiram Barney. Read to Cabinet. - Mr. Seward's suggestion. - Waiting for military Battle of Antietam. - Preliminary Proclamation. — How received. - Second and final Proclamation. - General effect favorable. - Northern opposition.Meeting in Illinois. - Letter of President.

successes.

THE Proclamation of Emancipation was the great historic event of the war. It was far more memorable than any of its great battles, strategic movements, or the final surrender of the Rebel army at the Appomattox Court-House. Its issuance was the crowning act of its author's career, for which he will be longer remembered and celebrated in history than for the fact that he was called to be the President of the Great Republic. And yet it was so indissolubly linked to other events, similar in character, aim, and result, that no satisfactory account can be given of it, or them, without repeated ref erence to the same facts and features of the history now under review sustaining a common relation, and without reiterating what may have been the subject of previous mention. It was an act or policy, as has been repeatedly stated, which was not contemplated at the outset by either himself or the party that had elected him, -a policy, indeed, he did not personally fa vor, except as connected with his favorite idea of colonization, -to which he was led by slow and cautious approaches, and on which he finally determined as a military necessity only.

Though opposed to slavery from principle, never remembering, he said, the time when he was "not antislavery," his constitutional scruples, which were very strong, and perhaps the prejudice against color, so general among his countrymen, and of which he was not altogether free, held him back from a policy to which he could not without hesitation give his consent. A brief résumé of the leading facts, some of which have already been referred to, will make this more apparent, beside making the final result more intelligible.

On the 9th of July, 1861, Major-General John C. Fremont was appointed to the command of the Western Department. He reached St. Louis on the 25th, which he made his headquarters. The battle of Bull Run had been fought and lost. The slaveholders of Missouri were untiring in their efforts to strengthen the Rebel cause and to increase the Rebel forces in that State; guerilla bands were organized, and the Union cause was seriously menaced. General Lyon was defeated on the 9th of August, and affairs wore a threatening aspect. General Fremont fortified St. Louis and other important points, and sought, in every available way, to strengthen himself against these formidable encroachments and preparations of the enemy. In pursuance of this purpose, he issued, on the 31st of August, a proclamation, confiscating the property and making free the slaves of all citizens of Missouri who had taken or should take up arms against the government.

This bold action of General Fremont, though it was but the enunciation of a conclusion to which events seemed rapidly tending, was very differently received even by those equally intent on saving the Union. Antislavery men received it with joy as the approaching culmination of a struggle in which they had been long engaged, the realization of their fondly cherished hopes, an answer to their prayer, an omen of good, and a new claim to his title of "pathfinder" for the general who had shown the sagacity of discovering that way to success. Others, who had not sympathized in these views of slavery, but were equally intent on saving the Union, accepted the policy proposed as the probable solution of the great problem they were seeking to solve. But the Union men of the border States

were greatly alarmed; for the proclamation not only came in conflict with their prejudices, their love of slavery, but it was putting a new and potent argument into the hands of the disunionists of those States which threatened the most serious consequences.

The President was greatly embarrassed by this action of his general. For whatever may have been his wishes, hopes, and final expectations, he could not but see that such action was premature, at least unauthorized. So important a step, involving such vast and far-reaching consequences should have been taken only at the motion and with the sanction of the government itself. Besides, he deemed it inconsistent with the act of Congress just passed, which set free only the slaves who were employed by the Rebels in the prosecution of hostilities. He accordingly wrote to the general, requesting him to modify his proclamation in these particulars. General Fremont replied, requesting the President to issue an open order making the required modification himself. This he did in a special order, issued on the 11th of September, in which he ordered that "the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed, as to conform with and not to transcend the provisions on the same subject contained in an act of Congress, 'An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,' approved August 6; and that the said act be published at length with this order." This action of the President could not but disappoint the antislavery men who had been so much encouraged by the proclamation, thus summarily set aside; and Mr. Lincoln was sharply criticised for his hesitation and apparent lack of sympathy for what they deemed so pre-eminently right and essential to success.

This unsettled policy and purpose of the government, or rather the conflicting views entertained by its different of ficials, received another illustration in South Carolina. On the 14th of October, 1861, General T. W. Sherman, commander of forces on the coast, in accordance with instructions from the War Department, issued a proclamation to the people of that State, assuring them that the forces under him should not interfere with "their lawful rights, or their social and

local institutions." Major-General David Hunter, succeeding in command and having his headquarters at Hilton Head, proclaimed the States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina under martial law, and issued, on the 9th of May, 1862, an order in which occur these words: "Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these States - Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina — heretofore held as slaves are therefore declared forever free." Though the President was by no means unmindful of the feeling elicited by his retraction of Fremont's proclamation, had felt the full force of the pressure that had been brought, and was then brought, to bear upon him to adopt the policy of emancipation, and could readily apprehend the additional disappointment that would be felt, and the odium that would attach to his administration for so doing, he resolved to revoke the order. Accordingly, a few days afterward, he issued a proclamation for that purpose. In it he stated that the government had no knowledge of any intention of General Hunter to issue such an order; 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." "I further make known," he continued, "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 have 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 commanders in the field." He then referred to a special message he had sent to Congress in March recommending national aid to any State or States which would adopt any plan for the gradual abolishment of slavery," and to its adoption by "large majorities" of both houses. By this action and proffer of the general government in behalf of gradual emancipation he felt himself estopped from indorsing the more summary process of General Hunter. Add now the above-mentioned fact that he was personally favorable, and had been

previously committed, to the policy of gradual abolishment, coupled with that of colonization, and it becomes clearly apparent why he was exceedingly anxious that the great problem before them should find this mode of solution. He closed his message by an appeal to "the people of these States," with an eloquence and pathos seldom found in official documents or state papers. Reminding them of the signs of the times, to which they could not be "blind," he sought for his proposal "a calm and enlarged consideration," ranging "far above personal and partisan politics." "I do not argue,' he said, "I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves." Saying that the proposal made common cause for a common object, that it cast no reproaches, that it did not "act the Pharisee," that the change it contemplated "would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything," he asked with paternal earnestness: "Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by our 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."

Not only did he make this formal and open appeal, but within a short time he sought interviews with the representatives of the border States, reiterating and pressing with still greater earnestness his entreaty for the adoption of his proposal. To one of these delegations he presented, in writing, his views and wishes, which has been referred to and quoted from in another connection. In this paper he elaborated more at length the considerations he deemed so important. He spoke of the "unprecedentedly stern facts of our case," of the necessity of discarding the maxims of more manageable times," of the diminishing value of their slaves, and of the bet ter policy of realizing something before that value was completely extinguished.

"

There cannot be better indexes of the obscurity resting upon public affairs, as well as the conflicting views that obtained among the leaders at that stage of the Rebellion, than are afforded by these proclamations of Fremont and Hunter, and the papers of the President annulling them. Fremont