1862. CH. XVIII. President's scheme. Accordingly Senator Henderson, on December 10, and Representative Noell, on December 11, gave notice of bills to aid the State of Missouri in compensated emancipation. It would appear, however, that these gentlemen acted without agreement, for the bill of the former named $20,000,000 as the sum to be appropriated, and that of the latter only $10,000,000. The House bill naming $10,000,000 was passed on January 6, 1863, by a vote of 73 to 46, and sent to the Senate, where it superseded the Senate bill. The discussion of it was principally about the amount proper to be paid, Mr. Henderson still pleading eloquently for his original proposition of $20,000,000. The President's interest in this Congressional legislation is sufficiently manifested by the following telegram, which he sent to General Curtis at St. Louis about this time: "I understand there is considerable trouble with the slaves in Missouri. Please do your best to keep peace on the question for two or three weeks, by Vol. XXII, which time we hope to do something here towards settling the question in Missouri." A compromise was reached when, on February 7, an amendment was proposed in the Senate fixing the amount at $15,000,000, and in this form it passed that body on February 12, 1863, yeas 23, nays 18. When this came back to the House its select committee on emancipation could not report the new measure until February 25. By this time the session was nearly at an end. Three of the Missouri Representatives, William A. Hall, Elijah H. Norton, and Thomas L. Price, strongly pro-slavery, and two of whom had failed of reëlection in the recent popular change, still stubbornly opposed emancipation Lincoln to Curtis, Jan. 10, 1863. W. R. Part II., p. 30. in general and the pending measure in particular. CH. XVIII. Their opposition, aided by Vallandigham and the dilatory parliamentary tactics of the Democratic minority, served to prevent its reaching a vote. It remained among the unfinished business of the session, and in the swiftly moving current of national affairs no chance of its adoption ever returned. Brown Jan. 7, 1863. MS. Meanwhile the subject was also debated in the Missouri Legislature, where, however, no decided action of any kind was reached. This was perhaps largely due to the fact that it was complicated by a personal contest over the election of United States Senators pending in that body. As with everything else in Missouri, the President's intervention was also invoked in this contest. On January 7, Mr. B. Gratz Brown, a leader of the Radicals, telegraphed him: "Does the Administration desire my defeat; if not, why are its appointees here working to Lincoln, for that end?" Mr. Lincoln, unmoved by the impertinence of the inquiry, answered quietly: "Yours of to-day just received. The Administration takes no part between its friends in Missouri, of whom I, at least, consider you one, and I have never before had an intimation that appointees there were interfering, or were inclined to interfere." But the embitterment had already become such that the Legislature adjourned its session without effecting an election. Again, on the 16th of April, we find the President answering one of the complaining Radicals, who were determined to hold him responsible for all their local discord: "In answer to the within question, 'Shall we be sustained by you?' I have to answer that at the beginning of the Administration I appointed one whom I understood to be an Lincoln to Jan. 7, 1863. Vol. XXII., Brown, W. R. Part II., p. 23. CH. XVIII. editor of the 'Democrat' to be postmaster at St. Louis-the best office in my gift within Missouri. Soon after this, our friends at St. Louis must needs break into factions, the 'Democrat' being, in my opinion, justly chargeable with a full share of the Woodruff, blame for it. I have stoutly tried to keep out of the quarrel, and so mean to do." Lincoln to April 16, 1863. MS. Secretary of War, Orders, March 10, 1863. W. Ŕ. Vol. XXII., Part II., p. 152. A month previous the President had already sought a remedy for the Missouri quarrel in a change of the military commander. On the 10th of March an order was issued relieving General Curtis and appointing General E. V. Sumner to command in his place. This might have proved an acceptable substitution, for Sumner's wellknown antislavery feelings would have secured him the confidence of the Radicals, while his prudent firmness of character might have kept him free from charge of partisanship, but the transfer was frustrated by his sudden death, which occurred March, 1863. on the 21st of the same month, at Syracuse, New York, on his way to St. Louis to enter upon this important command. CHAPTER XIX THE EDICT OF FREEDOM IN2 1862. N his preliminary proclamation of September CHAP. XIX. 22, President Lincoln had announced his intention to urge once more upon Congress the policy of compensated abolishment. Accordingly, his annual message of December 1, 1862, was in great part devoted to a discussion of this question. "Without slavery," he premised, "the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue." His argument presented anew, with broad prophetic forecast, the folly of disunion, the brilliant destiny of the republic as a single nation, the safety of building with wise statesmanship upon its coming population and wealth. He stated that by the law of increase shown in the census tables, the country might expect to number over two hundred millions of people in less than a century. "And we will reach this, too," he continued, "if we do not ourselves relinquish the chance, by the folly and evils of disunion, or by long and exhausting war springing from the only great element of national discord among us. While it cannot be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population, civilization, |