Abraham Lincoln and the Abolition of Slavery in the United States

by Charles Godfrey Leland

THE PROCLAMATION.—Sept. 22, 1862.

Now who has done the greatest deed
Which History has ever known?
And who in Freedom’s direst need
Became her bravest champion?
Who a whole continent set free?
Who killed the curse and broke the ban
Which made a lie of liberty?—
You, Father Abraham—you’re the man!

The deed is done. Millions have yearned
To see the spear of Freedom cast
The dragon roared and writhed and burned:
You’ve smote him full and square at last
O Great and True! you do not know—
You cannot tell—you cannot feel
How far through time your name must go,
Honoured by all men, high or low,
Wherever Freedom’s votaries kneel.

This wide world talks in many a tongue—
This world boasts many a noble state;
In all your praises will be sung—
In all the great will call you great.
Freedom! where’er that word is known—
On silent shore, by sounding sea,
‘Mid millions, or in deserts lone—
Your noble name shall ever be.

The word is out, the deed is done,
The spear is cast, dread no delay;
When such a steed is fairly gone,
Fate never fails to find a way.
Hurrah! hurrah! the track is clear,
We know your policy and plan;
We’ll stand by you through every year;
Now, Father Abraham, you’re our man.

The original draft of the proclamation of Emancipation was purchased by Thos. B. Bryan, of Chicago, for the Sanitary Commission for the Army, held at Chicago in the autumn of 1863. As it occurred to the writer that official duplicates of such an important document should exist, he suggested the idea to Mr. George H. Boker, subsequently United States Minister to Constantinople and to St. Petersburg, at whose request the President signed a number of copies, some of which were sold for the benefit of the Sanitary Fairs held in Philadelphia and Boston in 1864, while others were presented to public institutions. One of these, bearing the signatures of President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, with the attesting signature of John Nicolay, Private Secretary to the President, may be seen hanging in the George the Third Library in the British Museum. This document is termed by Mr. Carpenter, in his history of the proclamation, “the third great State paper which has marked the progress of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. First is the Magna Carta, wrested by the barons of England from King John; second, the Declaration of Independence; and third, worthy to be placed upon the tablets of history by the first two, Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation.”

On the 7th November, Messrs. J. M. Mason and John Slidell, Confederate Commissioners to England and France, were taken from the British mail steamer Trent by Commodore Wilkes, of the American frigate San Jacinto. There was great rejoicing over this capture in America, and as great public irritation in England. War seemed imminent between the countries; but Mr. Lincoln, with characteristic sagacity, determined that so long as there was no recognition of the rebels as a nation, not to bring on a war. “One war at a time,” he said. In a masterly examination of the case, Mr. Seward pointed out the fact that “the detention of the vessel, and the removal from her of the emissaries of the rebel Confederacy, was justifiable by the laws of war, and the practice and precedents of the British Government itself; but that, in assuming to decide upon the liability of these persons to capture, instead of sending them before a legal tribunal, where a regular trial could be had, Captain Wilkes had departed from the rule of international law uniformly asserted by the American Government, and forming part of its most cherished policy.” The Government, therefore, cheerfully complied with the request of the British Government, and liberated the prisoners. No person at all familiar with American law or policy could doubt for an instant that this decision expressed the truth; but the adherents of the Confederacy, with their sympathisers, everywhere united in ridiculing President Lincoln for cowardice. Yet it would be difficult to find an instance of greater moral courage and simple dignity, combined with the exact fulfilment of what he thought was “just right,” than Lincoln displayed on this occasion. The wild spirit of war was by this time set loose in the North, and it was felt that foreign enemies, though they might inflict temporary injury, would soon awake a principle of union and of resistance which would rather benefit than injure the country. In fact, this new difficulty was anything but intimidating, and the position of President Lincoln was for a time most embarrassing. But he could be bold enough, and sail closely enough to the law when justice demanded it. In September, 1861, the rebels in Maryland came near obtaining the passage of an act of secession in the Legislature of that state. General M‘Clellan was promptly ordered to prevent this by the arrest of the treasonable legislators, which was done, and the state was saved from a civil war. Of course there was an outcry at this, as arbitrary and unconstitutional. But Governor Hicks said of it, in the Senate of the United States, “I believe that arrests, and arrests alone, saved the State of Maryland from destruction.”

When Mr. Lincoln had signed the Proclamation of Emancipation, he said, “Now we have got the harpoon fairly into the monster slavery, we must take care that, in his extremity, he does not shipwreck the country.” But the monster only roared. The rebel Congress passed a decree, offering freedom and reward to any slave who would kill a Federal soldier; but it is believed that none availed themselves of this chivalric offer. On the contrary, ere long there were brought into the service of the United States nearly 200,000 black troops, among whom the loss by all causes was fully one-third—a conclusive proof of their bravery and efficiency. Though the Confederates knew that their fathers had fought side by side with black men in the Revolution and at New Orleans, and though they themselves raised negro regiments in Louisiana, and employed them against the Federal Government, they were furious that such soldiers should be used against themselves, and therefore in the most inhuman manner put to death, or sold into slavery, every coloured man captured in Federal uniform.