THE TREND TOWARD EMANCIPATION
FROM the field I was sent to the United States Senate in January, 1862, to fill the unexpired term of Trusten Polk, who had joined the South. In March, President Lincoln sent to Congress his message asking for a joint resolution favoring the gradual abolishment of slavery with compensation. A few days later he asked the border States delegations to a conference at the White House in which he urged that policy without gaining much encouragement. On July 12 he made a second direct appeal to the same delegations, in conference, and urged that if the border States would adopt measures of compensated emancipation, the war must shortly end, since then, and not till then, would the South realize that slavery was doomed. Twenty of them signed a written qualified refusal to urge his recommendation; seven assented in a prepared address; and Horace Maynard and I wrote individual replies. I had been absent from the conference on business relating to my duties as senator, but I gave the President my view that, while I had supported the measure when first introduced, I did not share his belief that it alone would bring the war to an early termination. But I added that in such a period of national distress I knew of “no human institution too sacred for discussion, no material interest belonging to the citizen that he should not willingly place upon the altar of his country, if demanded by the public good. The man who cannot now sacrifice party and put aside selfish considerations is more than half disloyal. Pride of opinion, based upon sectional jealousies, should not be permitted to control the decision of any political question. These remarks are general, but apply with peculiar force to the people of the border States at present.”