The negro: the southerner's problem

by Thomas Nelson Page

III

Mr. Lincoln has been so generally declared to be the emancipator of the Negro race that it is probable the facts in all their significance will never be generally received. The abolition of slavery was no doubt his desire; but the preservation of the Union was his passion. And, whatever Mr. Lincoln may have felt on the subject of emancipation, he was too good a lawyer and too sound a statesman to act with the inconsiderate haste that has usually been accredited him. It was rather what he might do than what he actually did that alarmed the South and brought about secession. And the menace of destruction of the Union soon demanded all his energies and forced him to relegate to the background even the emancipation of the slaves.[7]

On the 22d of December, 1860, after South Carolina had seceded, he declared that the South would be in no more danger of being interfered with as to slavery by a Republican administration than it was in the days of Washington. In his inaugural address he declared: “I have no more purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it now exists. I believe I have no right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.” This declaration he had already made before. Indeed, he expressly declared in favor of the enforcement of the fugitive-slave law.

Congress, in July, 1861, adopted a resolution, which Lincoln signed, declaring that war was not waged for any “purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions” of the Southern States, “but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired,” etc. As late as March, 1862, he declared: “In my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is best for all.” The special message to Congress on this subject Thaddeus Stevens stigmatized as “about the most diluted milk-and-water gruel proposition that has ever been given to the American people.” The war had been going on more than a year before a bill was passed providing that all “slaves of persistent rebels, found in any place occupied or commanded by the forces of the Union, should not be returned to their masters (as had hitherto been done under the law), and they might be enlisted to fight for the Union.” Mr. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, expresses on its face that it was issued on “military necessity.”

In fact, this proclamation did not really emancipate at all, for it applied only to those slaves who were held in those States and “parts of States” then “in rebellion,” and by express exception did not extend to Negroes within the territory under control of the Federal Government.

It is of record that, in some instances, owners near the Federal lines sent their servants into the territory occupied by the Federal troops to evade the proclamation.

A story is told of an officer under General Butler, on the James River, who, having a Negro baby left on his hands by a refugee mother who had returned to her home, sent the child back to her. Someone reported that he was sending refugee Negroes back and the matter was investigated. His defence was that he had sent the baby back to the only place where he was free, to wit: within the region occupied by the rebels.

Meantime, there was much reflection and no little discussion as to the subject among the Southern people. The loyalty of the Negroes had made a deep impression on them, and they were beginning to recognize the feeling of the European countries touching slavery.[8]

The Thirteenth Amendment (abolishing slavery) failed to pass in the spring of 1864 and was not passed until January 31, 1865, when all the Republicans and thirteen Democrats voted for it. Slavery, however, was abolished by the final conquest of the South and the enforced acquiescence of the Southern people, who recognized that the collapse of the Confederacy had effected what legal enactments had not been able to accomplish. Returning soldiers brought their body-servants home with them, and on arrival informed them that they were free; in some instances giving them the horses they had ridden, or dividing with them whatever money they had.[9] Throughout the South, the Negroes were told by their owners that they were free, in some cases receiving regular papers of manumission.