Part 20 (2/2)
It might be thought strange, he said, that he had in this way submitted the disposal of important matters when the way was not clear to his mind what he should do. G.o.d had decided his questions in favor of the slaves.
He was satisfied it was right; and he was confirmed and strengthened in his action by the vow and the results. His mind was fixed, his decision made, but he wished his paper announcing his course to be as correct in terms as it could be made without any change in his determination. He read the doc.u.ment. One or two unimportant amendments suggested by Seward were approved. It was then handed to the Secretary of State to publish to-morrow.”
The discussion of Emanc.i.p.ation brought up at once the problem of what should be done with the freed negroes. The very next day after the preliminary proclamation was issued (September 23, 1862), the President presented the matter to the a.s.sembled Cabinet. Deportation was considered, and some of those present urged that this should be compulsory. The President, however, would not consider this; the emigration of the negroes, he said, must be voluntary, and without expense to themselves. It was proposed to deport the freedmen to Costa Rica, where a large tract of land (known as the Chiriqui Grant) had been obtained from the government of Central America. Lincoln favored this in a general way. He ”thought it essential to provide an asylum for a race which we had emanc.i.p.ated but which could never be recognized or admitted to be our equals,” says Mr. Welles. But there was some doubt as to the validity of the t.i.tle to the Costa Rica lands, and the matter was dropped.
In his second annual message to Congress, transmitted to that body in December, 1862, Lincoln touched, in conclusion, upon the great subject of Emanc.i.p.ation, in these words of deep import:
I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed to the Congress of the nation by the Chief Magistrate of the nation. Nor do I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you have more experience than I in the conduct of public affairs. Yet I trust that in view of the great responsibility resting upon me, you will perceive no want of respect to yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to display.... The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pa.s.s will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We--even we here--hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we a.s.sure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall n.o.bly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed, this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and G.o.d must forever bless.
An immense concourse attended the reception at the White House on the first day of 1863, and the President stood for several hours shaking hands with the endless train of men and women who pressed forward to greet him. The exhausting ceremonial being ended, the proclamation which finally and forever abrogated the inst.i.tution of slavery in the United States was handed to him for his signature. ”Mr. Seward,” remarked the President, ”I have been shaking hands all day, and my right hand is almost paralyzed. If my name ever gets into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the proclamation, those who examine the doc.u.ment hereafter will say I hesitated.” Then, resting his arm a moment, he turned to the table, took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, he said, ”That will do.” A few hours after, he remarked: ”The signature looks a little tremulous, for my hand was tired; but my resolution was firm. I told them in September that if they did not return to their allegiance I would strike at this pillar of their strength. And now the promise shall be kept, and not one word of it will I ever recall.”
The text of the great Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation is as follows:
Whereas, on the 22d day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to-wit:
That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any States or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have partic.i.p.ated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, 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, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to-wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, a.s.sumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St.
Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforward shall be FREE; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
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 favor of Almighty G.o.d.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Was.h.i.+ngton, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.
_By the President_: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
It is stated that Lincoln gave the most earnest study to the composition of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. He realized, as he afterwards said, that the proclamation was the central act of his administration and the great event of the nineteenth century. When the doc.u.ment was completed a printed copy of it was placed in the hands of each member of the Cabinet, and criticisms and suggestions were invited. Mr. Chase remarked: ”This paper is of the utmost importance, greater than any state paper ever made by this Government. A paper of so much importance, and involving the liberties of so many people, ought, I think, to make some reference to Deity. I do not observe anything of the kind in it.”
Lincoln said: ”No, I overlooked it. Some reference to Deity must be inserted. Mr. Chase, won't you make a draft of what you think ought to be inserted?” Mr. Chase promised to do so, and at the next meeting presented the following: ”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 favor of Almighty G.o.d.” When Lincoln read the paragraph, Mr. Chase said: ”You may not approve it, but I thought this, or something like it, would be appropriate.” Lincoln replied: ”I do approve it; it cannot be bettered, and I will adopt it in the very words you have written.”
To a large concourse of people who, two days after the proclamation was issued, a.s.sembled before the White House, with music, the President said: ”What I did, I did after a very full deliberation, and under a heavy and solemn sense of responsibility. I can only trust in G.o.d I have made no mistake.” That he realized to the full the gravity of the step before taking it is shown again in an incident related by Hon. John Covode, who, calling on the President a few days before the issue of the final proclamation, found him walking his room in considerable agitation. Reference being made to the forthcoming proclamation, Lincoln said with great earnestness: ”I have studied that matter well; my mind is made up--it _must be done_. I am driven to it. There is to me 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.”
Mr. Ben. Perley Poore makes the interesting statement that ”Mr. Lincoln carefully put away the pen which he had used in signing the doc.u.ment, for Mr. Sumner, who had promised it to his friend, George Livermore, of Cambridge, the author of an interesting work on slavery. It was a steel pen with a wooden handle, the end of which had been gnawed by Mr.
Lincoln--a habit that he had when composing anything that required thought.”
In response to a request of the ladies in charge of the Northwestern Fair for the Sanitary Commission, which was held in Chicago in the autumn of 1863, Lincoln conveyed to them the original draft of the proclamation; saying, in his note of presentation, ”I had some desire to retain the paper; but if it shall contribute to the relief or comfort of the soldiers, that will be better.” The doc.u.ment was purchased at the Fair by Mr. Thomas B. Bryan, and given by him to the Chicago Historical Society. It perished in the great fire of October, 1871.
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