Part 38 (1/2)

Nor did the steps taken in America leading up to emanc.i.p.ation weaken this belief--rather they appeared to justify it. The great advocate of abolition as a weapon in the war and for its own sake was Charles Sumner, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He early took the ground that a proclamation everywhere emanc.i.p.ating the slaves would give to the Northern cause a moral support hitherto denied it in Europe and would at the same time strike a blow at Southern resistance.

This idea was presented in a public speech at Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, in October, 1861, but even Sumner's free-soil friends thought him mistaken and his expressions ”unfortunate.” By December, however, he found at Was.h.i.+ngton a change in governmental temper and from that date Sumner was constant, through frequent private conversations with Lincoln, in pressing for action. These ideas and his personal activities for their realization were well known to English friends, as in his letters to Cobden and Bright, and to the English public in general through Sumner's speeches, for Sumner had long been a well-known figure in the British press[864].

Lincoln, never an ”Abolitionist,” in spite of his famous utterance in the 'fifties that the United States could not indefinitely continue to exist ”half-slave and half-free,” had, in 1861, disapproved and recalled the orders of some of the military leaders, like Fremont, who without authority had sought to extend emanc.i.p.ation to slaves within the lines of their command. But as early as anyone he had foreseen the gradual emergence of emanc.i.p.ation as a war problem, at first dangerous to that wise ”border state policy” which had prevented the more northern of the slave states from seceding. His first duty was to restore the Union and to that he gave all his energy, yet that emanc.i.p.ation, when the time was ripe, was also in Lincoln's mind is evident from the gradual approach through legislation and administrative act. In February, 1862, a Bill was under discussion in Congress, called the ”Confiscation Bill,” which, among other clauses, provided that all slaves of persons engaged in rebellion against the United States, who should by escape, or capture, come into the possession of the military forces of the United States, should be for ever free; but that this provision should not be operative until the expiration of sixty days, thus giving slave-owners opportunity to cease their rebellion and retain their slaves[865]. This measure did not at first have Lincoln's approval for he feared its effect on the loyalists of the border states. Nevertheless he realized the growing strength of anti-slavery sentiment in the war and fully sympathized with it where actual realization did not conflict with the one great object of his administration. Hence in March, 1862, he heartily concurred in a measure pa.s.sed rapidly to Presidential approval, April 16, freeing the slaves in the District of Columbia, a territory where there was no question of the const.i.tutional power of the national Government.

From February, 1862, until the issue of the first emanc.i.p.ation proclamation in September, there was, in truth, a genuine conflict between Congress and President as to methods and extent of emanc.i.p.ation.

Congress was in a mood to punish the South; Lincoln, looking steadily toward re-union, yet realizing the rising strength of anti-slavery in the North, advocated a gradual, voluntary, and compensated emanc.i.p.ation.

Neither party spoke the word ”servile insurrection,” yet both realized its possibility, and Seward, in foreign affairs, was quick to see and use it as a threat. A brief summary of measures will indicate the contest. March 6, Lincoln sent a message to Congress recommending that a joint resolution be pa.s.sed pledging the pecuniary aid of the national Government to any state voluntarily emanc.i.p.ating its slaves, his avowed purpose being to secure early action by the loyal border states in the hope that this might influence the Southern states[866]. Neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate were really favourable to this resolution and the border states bitterly opposed it in debate, but it pa.s.sed by substantial majorities in both branches and was approved by Lincoln on April 10. In effect the extreme radical element in Congress had yielded, momentarily, to the President's insistence on an olive-branch offering of compensated emanc.i.p.ation. Both as regards the border states and looking to the restoration of the Union, Lincoln was determined to give this line of policy a trial. The prevailing sentiment of Congress, however, preferred the punitive Confiscation Bill.

At this juncture General Hunter, in command of the ”Department of the South,” which theoretically included also the States of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, issued an order declaring the slaves in these states free. This was May 9, 1862. Lincoln immediately countermanded Hunter's order, stating that such action ”under my responsibility, I reserve to myself[867].” He renewed, in this same proclamation, earnest appeals to the border states, to embrace the opportunity offered by the Congressional resolution of April 10. In truth, border state att.i.tude was the test of the feasibility of Lincoln's hoped-for voluntary emanc.i.p.ation, but these states were unwilling to accept the plan.

Meanwhile pressure was being exerted for action on the Confiscation Bill; it was pushed through Congress and presented to Lincoln for his signature or veto. He signed it on July 12, _but did not notify that fact to Congress until July 17._ On this same day of signature, July 12, Lincoln sent to Congress a proposal of an Act to give pecuniary aid in voluntary state emanc.i.p.ation and held a conference with the congressional representatives of the border states seeking their definite approval of his policy. A minority agreed but the majority were emphatically against him. The Confiscation Bill would not affect the border states; they were not in rebellion. And they did not desire to free the slaves even if compensated[868].

Thus Lincoln, by the stubbornness of the border states, was forced toward the Congressional point of view as expressed in the Confiscation Bill. On the day following his failure to win the border state representatives he told Seward and Welles who were driving with him, that he had come to the conclusion that the time was near for the issue of a proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation as a military measure fully within the competence of the President. This was on July 13[869]. Seward offered a few objections but apparently neither Cabinet official did more than listen to Lincoln's argument of military necessity. Congress adjourned on July 17. On July 22, the President read to the Cabinet a draft of an emanc.i.p.ation proclamation the text of the first paragraph of which referred to the Confiscation Act and declared that this would be rigorously executed unless rebellious subjects returned to their allegiance. But the remainder of the draft rea.s.serted the ideal of a gradual and compensated emanc.i.p.ation and concluded with the warning that for states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, a general emanc.i.p.ation of slaves would be proclaimed[870]. All of the Cabinet approved except Blair who expressed fears of the effect on the approaching November elections, and Seward who, while professing sympathy with the indicated purpose, argued that the time was badly chosen in view of recent military disasters and the approach of Lee's army toward Was.h.i.+ngton. The measure, Seward said, might ”be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help; the government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government. It will be considered our last _shriek_ on the retreat.”

He therefore urged postponement until after a Northern victory. This appealed to Lincoln and he ”put the draft of the proclamation aside, waiting for victory[871].”

Victory came in September, with McClellan's defeat of Lee at Antietam, and the retreat of the Southern army toward Richmond. Five days later, September 22, Lincoln issued the proclamation, expanded and altered in text from the draft of July 22, but in substance the same[872]. The loyal border states were not to be affected, but the proclamation renewed the promise of steps to be taken to persuade them to voluntary action. On January 1, 1863, a second proclamation, referring to that of September 22, was issued by Lincoln ”by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States....” The states affected were designated by name and all persons held as slaves within them ”are, and henceforward shall be, free....” ”I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence....” ”And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Const.i.tution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favour of Almighty G.o.d[873].”

Such were the steps, from December, 1861, when the radical Sumner began his pressure for action, to September, 1862, when Lincoln's pledge of emanc.i.p.ation was made. Did these steps indicate, as British opinion unquestionably held, an intention to rouse a servile insurrection? Was the Confiscation Bill pa.s.sed with that purpose in view and had Lincoln decided to carry it into effect? The failure of the slaves to rise is, indeed, the great marvel of the Civil War and was so regarded not in England only, but in America also. It was the expectation of the North and the constant fear of the South. But was this, in truth, the _purpose_ of the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation?

This purpose has been somewhat summarily treated by American historians, largely because of lack of specific evidence as to motives at the time of issue. Two words ”military necessity” are made to cover nearly the entire argument for emanc.i.p.ation in September, 1862, but in just what manner the military prowess of the North was to be increased was not at first indicated. In 1864, Lincoln declared that after the failure of successive efforts to persuade the border states to accept compensated emanc.i.p.ation he had believed there had arrived the ”indispensable necessity for military emanc.i.p.ation and arming the blacks[874].” Repeatedly in later defence of the proclamation he urged the benefits that had come from his act and a.s.serted that commanders in the field ”believe the emanc.i.p.ation policy and the use of coloured troops const.i.tute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion[875].” He added: ”negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of freedom.”

There is no note here of stirring a servile insurrection; nor did Lincoln ever acknowledge that such a purpose had been in his mind, though the thought of such possible result must have been present--was, indeed, present to most minds even without a proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation. Lincoln's alleged purpose was simply to draw away slaves, wherever possible, from their rebellious masters, thus reducing the economic powers of resistance of the South, and then to make these ex-slaves directly useful in winning the war. But after the war, even here and there during it, a theory was advanced that an impelling motive with the President had been the hope of influencing favourably foreign governments and peoples by stamping the Northern cause with a high moral purpose. In popular opinion, Lincoln came to be regarded as a far-visioned statesman in antic.i.p.ating that which ultimately came to pa.s.s. This has important bearing on the relations of the United States and Great Britain.

There is no doubt that nearly every Northern American had believed in 1860, that anti-slavery England would sympathize strongly with the North. The event did not prove this to be the case, nor could the North justly complain in the face of administration denials of an anti-slavery purpose. The English Government therefore was widely upheld by British opinion in regarding the struggle from the point of view of British interests. Yet any Northern step antagonistic to the inst.i.tution of slavery compelled British governmental consideration. As early as December, 1860, before the war began, Bunch, at Charleston, had reported a conversation with Rhett, in which the latter frankly declared that the South would expect to revive the African Slave Trade[876]. This was limited in the const.i.tution later adopted by the Confederacy which in substance left the matter to the individual states--a condition that Southern agents in England found it hard to explain[877]. As already noted, the ardent friends of the North continued to insist, even after Lincoln's denial, that slavery was the real cause of the American rupture[878]. By September, 1861, John Bright was writing to his friend Sumner that, all indications to the contrary, England would warmly support the North if only it could be shown that emanc.i.p.ation was an object[879]. Again and again he urged, it is interesting to note, just those ideals of gradual and compensated emanc.i.p.ation which were so strongly held by Lincoln. In this same month the _Spectator_ thought it was ”idle to strive to ignore the very centre and spring of all disunion,” and advised a ”prudent audacity in striking at the cause rather than at the effect[880].” Three weeks later the _Spectator_, reviewing general British press comments, summed them up as follows:

”If you make it a war of emanc.i.p.ation we shall think you madmen, and tell you so, though the ignorant instincts of Englishmen will support you. And if you follow our counsel in holding a tight rein on the Abolitionists, we shall applaud your worldly wisdom so far; but shall deem it our duty to set forth continually that you have forfeited all claim to the _popular_ sympathy of England.”

This, said the _Spectator_, had been stated in the most objectionable style by the _Times_ in particular, which, editorially, had alleged that ”the North has now lost the chance of establis.h.i.+ng a high moral superiority by a declaration against slavery.” To all this the _Spectator_ declared that the North must adopt the bold course and make clear that restoration of the Union was not intended with the old canker at its roots[881].

Official England held a different view. Russell believed that the separation of North and South would conduce to the extinction of slavery since the South, left to itself and fronted by a great and prosperous free North, with a population united in ideals, would be forced, ultimately, to abandon its ”special system.” He professed that he could not understand Mrs. Stowe's support of the war and thought she and Sumner ”animated by a spirit of vengeance[882].” If the South did yield and the Union were restored _with_ slavery, Russell thought that ”Slavery would prevail all over the New World. For that reason I wish for separation[883].” These views were repeated frequently by Russell.

He long had a fixed idea on the moral value of separation, but was careful to state, ”I give you these views merely as speculations,” and it is worthy of note that after midsummer of 1862 he rarely indulged in them. Against such speculations, whether by Russell or by others, Mill protested in his famous article in _Fraser's_, February, 1862[884].

On one aspect of slavery the North was free to act and early did so.

Seward proposed to Lyons a treaty giving mutual right of search off the African Coast and on the coasts of Cuba for the suppression of the African Slave Trade. Such a treaty had long been urged by Great Britain but persistently refused by the United States. It could not well be declined now by the British Government and was signed by Seward, April 8, 1862[885], but if he expected any change in British att.i.tude as a result he was disappointed. The renewal by the South of that trade might be a barrier to British goodwill, but the action of the North was viewed as but a weak attempt to secure British sympathy, and to mark the limits of Northern anti-slavery efforts. Indeed, the Government was not eager for the treaty on other grounds, since the Admiralty had never ”felt any interest in the suppression of the slave trade ... whatever they have done ... they have done grudgingly and imperfectly[886].”

This was written at the exact period when Palmerston and Russell were initiating those steps which were to result in the Cabinet crisis on mediation in October-November, 1862. Certainly the Slave Trade treaty with America had not influenced governmental att.i.tude. At this juncture there was founded, November, 1862, the London Emanc.i.p.ation Society, with the avowed object of stirring anti-slavery Englishmen in protest against ”favouring the South.” But George Thompson, its organizer, had been engaged in the preliminary work of organization for some months and the Society is therefore to be regarded as an expression of that small group who were persistent and determined in a.s.sertion of slavery as the cause and object of the Civil War, before the issue of Lincoln's proclamation[887]. Thus for England as a whole and for official England the declarations of these few voices were regarded as expressive of a wish rather than as consistent with the facts. The moral uplift of an anti-slavery object was denied to the North.

This being so did Lincoln seek to correct the foreign view by the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation? There is some, but scant ground for so believing. It is true that this aspect had at various times, though rarely, been presented to the President. Carl Schurz, American Minister at Madrid, wrote to Seward as early as September 14, 1861, strongly urging the declaration of an anti-slavery purpose in the war and a.s.serting that public opinion in Europe would then be such in favour of the North that no government would ”dare to place itself, by declaration or act, upon the side of a universally condemned inst.i.tution[888].”

There is no evidence that Seward showed this despatch to Lincoln, but in January, 1862, Schurz returned to America and in conversation with the President urged the ”moral issue” to prevent foreign intervention. The President replied: ”You may be right. Probably you are. I have been thinking so myself. I cannot imagine that any European power would dare to recognize and aid the Southern Confederacy if it became clear that the Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom[889].” No doubt others urged upon him the same view. Indeed, one sincere foreign friend, Count Gasparin, who had early written in favour of the North[890], and whose opinions were widely read, produced a second work in the spring of 1862, in which the main theme was ”slavery the issue.”

The author believed emanc.i.p.ation inevitable and urged an instant proclamation of Northern _intention_ to free the slaves[891].

Presumably, Lincoln was familiar with this work. Meanwhile Sumner pressed the same idea though adding the prevalent abolition arguments which did not, necessarily, involve thought of foreign effect. On the general question of emanc.i.p.ation Lincoln listened, even telling Sumner that he ”was ahead of himself only a month or six weeks[892].”

Yet after the enactment of the ”confiscation bill” in July, 1862, when strong abolitionist pressure was brought on the President to issue a general proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation, he rea.s.serted in the famous reply to Greeley, August 22, 1862, his one single purpose to restore the Union ”with or without slavery.”

”If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.

”If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.

”_My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery_[893].”

Here seemed to be specific denial of raising a moral issue; yet unknown to the public at the moment there had already been drafted and discussed in Cabinet the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation. Greeley had presented abolitionist demands essential to cement the North. A month later, September 13, a delegation of Chicago clergymen came to Was.h.i.+ngton, had an audience with Lincoln, presented similar arguments, but also laid stress on the necessity of securing the sympathy of Europe. This was but nine days before the first proclamation was issued, but Lincoln replied much as to Greeley, though he stated, ”I will also concede that Emanc.i.p.ation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition[894].” Immediately after the event, September 24, making a short speech to a serenading party, Lincoln said, ”I can only trust in G.o.d I have made no mistake.... It is now for the country and the world to pa.s.s judgment and, maybe, take action upon it[895].” Over a year later, December 8, 1863, in his annual message to Congress, he noted a ”much improved” tone in foreign countries as resulting from the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation, but dwelt mainly on the beneficial effects at home[896].