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the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

"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 pass 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 assure freedom to the free-honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly 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 God must forever bless." 1

The plan so earnestly and repeatedly pressed by the President resulted in no action. He realized that the time was rapidly approaching, when it would become his duty as Commander in Chief to issue a military proclamation of immediate and unconditional emancipation. Speaking of these efforts afterward, he said: "When in March, May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the border states in favor of compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming of the blacks would come, unless arrested by that measure. They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, or issuing the emancipation proclamation.

That great state paper, the issuing of which was the most important event in the life of the President, will be the subject of the next chapter.

1. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 221.

2. Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 336.

CHAPTER XV.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION.-GREELEY DEMANDS IT.- THE PEOPLE PRAY FOR IT.-MCCLELLAN'S WARNING.- Crittenden'S APPEAL. LOVEJOY'S RESPONSE. THE PROCLAMATION ISSUED.ITS RECEPTION. THE QUESTION OF ITS Validity.

THE bestowal of freedom upon the negro race, by military edict, had long been considered, and was now to be decided upon by the President. The dream of his youth, the aspiration of his life, was to be the liberator of the negro race. 1 But in his wish to promote alike the happiness of white and black, he hesitated before the stupendous decree of immediate emancipation. He wished the change to be gradual, as he said in his appeal to the border states, "he wished it to come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything."

The people were watching his action with the most intense solicitude. Every means was used to influence him, alike by those who favored, and those who opposed, emancipation. Thousands of earnest men believed that the fate, not only of slavery, but of the republic, depended upon his decision. The anxiety of many found expression in daily prayers, sent up from church, farm-house, and cabin, that God would guide the President to a right conclusion. The friends of freedom across the Atlantic sent messages urging the destruction of slavery. Many of the President's

1. See his Lyceum speech of January 27th, 1837, in which he said: "Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It thirsts and burns for distinction, and will seek it by emancipating slaves, or in regions hitherto unexplored," etc.

friends believed that there could be no permanent peace while slavery existed. "Seize," cried they, "seize the opportunity, and hurl the thunderbolt of emancipation, and shatter slavery to atoms, and then the republic will live. Make the issue distinctly between liberty and slavery, and no foreign nation will dare to intervene in behalf of slavery."

It was thus that the friends of liberty impeached slavery before the President, and demanded that he should pass sentence of death upon it. They declared it the implacable enemy of the republic. "A rebel and a traitor from the beginning, it should be declared an outlaw." "The institution now," said they, "reels and totters to its fall. It has by its own crime placed itself in your power as Commander in Chief. You cannot, if you would, and you ought not, if you could, make with it any terms of compromise. You have abolished it at the national capital, prohibited it in all the territories. You have cut off and made free West Virginia. You have enlisted, and are enlisting, negro soldiers, who have bravely shed their blood for the Union on many a hard fought battle-field. You have pledged your own honor and the national faith, that they and their families shall be forever free. That pledge you will sacredly keep. Here then you stand on the threshold of universal emancipation. You will not go back, do not halt, nor hesitate, but strike, and slavery dies."

On the 19th of August, Horace Greeley published, under his own name, in the New York Tribune, a letter addressed to the President, urging emancipation. With characteristic exaggeration, he headed his long letter of complaint: "The Prayer of Twenty Millions of People!" It was full of errors and mistaken inferences, and written in ignorance of many facts which it was the duty of the President to consider.

On the 22d of August, the President replied. He made no response to its "erroneous statements of facts," its "false inferences," nor to its "impatient and dictatorial tone," but in a calm, dignified, and kindly spirit, as to "an

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old friend, whose heart he had always supposed to be right,' he availed himself of the opportunity to set himself right before the people.

The letter was as follows

Hon. Horace Greeley:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, Friday, Aug. 22, 1862.

DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th instant, addressed to myself, through the New York Tribune.

If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them.

If there be any inferences which I believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them.

If there be perceptible in it, an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy "I seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution.

The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be-the Union as it was.

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 destroy slavery.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, 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, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and shall do more, whenever I believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors, when shown to be errors, and I shall

adopt new views, so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose, according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish, that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,

A. LINCOLN.

To this letter Mr. Greeley, on the 24th of July, replied

through the Tribune, and his tone and spirit may be inferred from a single paragraph: "Do you," said the editor of the paper to the President of the United States, "Do you propose to do this (save the Union) by recognizing, obeying, and enforcing the laws, or by ignoring, disregarding, and, in fact, defying them?" Such was the insolent language of this "old friend."

On the other hand, the Union men of the border states were urging the President not to interfere with slavery, and from the headquarters of the army on the Potomac, General McClellan wrote to him, under date of July 7th, warning him by saying that a "declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies." To be thus menaced by the general commanding, and notified that the measure he had under consideration would "rapidly destroy the armies in the field," was a very grave

matter.

There were at this time in Congress two distinguished men, who well represented the two contending parties into which the friends of the Union were divided-John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, and Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois. Both were sincere and devoted personal friends of the President. Each enjoyed his confidence, each was honest in his convictions, and each, it is believed, would have cheerfully given his life to save the republic. Lovejoy, the ultra-abolitionist, was one of Lincoln's confidential advisers. Crittenden had been in his earlier days-in those days when the President was a Henry Clay whig his ideal of a statesman. Lincoln and Crittenden were both natives of Kentucky, old party associates, and life long personal friends. Crittenden

-a man whom every one loved-now old, his locks whitened by more than seventy years, yet still retaining all his physical and mental vigor, had been a distinguished Senator, Governor of his state, and Attorney General of the United States. Now, in his extreme old age, he had accepted a seat in Congress that he might aid in preserving the Union. His tall and venerable form, his white head, which a mem

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