The sum thus given, as to time and manner, I think, would not be half as onerous as would be an equal sum raised now for the indefinite prosecution of the war; but of this you can judge as well as I. I enclose a census table for your convenience.[[252]]
On the same day of the conference with the border State delegations, March 10, the resolution, in precisely the language suggested by the President, was introduced by Roscoe Conkling, and on the following day by a vote of 89 to 31 passed the House.[[253]] The Senate by 32 yeas to 10 nays took favorable action upon it on the 2d of April succeeding.[[254]]
It is important to notice that at this time, March, 1862, the Government set up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery within the limits of a State; also that public opinion in the North had advanced to the position occupied by Representative McKean more than a year before, when he introduced into Congress his resolution for compensated emancipation.[[255]]
At a session, May 28, 1862, of the Union Convention of Baltimore its Business Committee reported a series of resolutions which were adopted unanimously, among them one approving the wise and conservative policy proposed by the President in his message of March 6; that it was not only the duty but the interest of the loyal people of Maryland to accept the offer of pecuniary aid tendered by the Government to inaugurate an equitable plan of emancipation and colonization.[[256]] This was the dawn of emancipation in Maryland.
The President approved, April 16, six days after the passage of his cherished measure, an act prohibiting slavery and liberating slaves in the District of Columbia. It included both compensation to owners and the principle of colonization.[[257]]
Shortly before its passage, April 17, a resolution was favorably considered by the House to appoint a committee of nine empowered to report whether any plan could be proposed and recommended for the gradual emancipation of all African slaves and the extinction of slavery in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri by the people or local authorities thereof, and how far and in what way the United States could and ought equitably to aid in facilitating either of the above objects. This measure was adopted by a vote of 67 to 52, and one week later a committee was appointed by the Speaker.
General Hunter by an order of April 25 had extended martial law over South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Two weeks later he proclaimed persons in those States heretofore held as slaves forever free. “Slavery and martial law in a free country” he declared “altogether incompatible.” The President in his proclamation of May 19, 1862, rescinding this order once more reveals his sentiments on the slavery question. The act of the Department commander, he said, was wholly unauthorized. The document continues: “I further make known that, whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether, at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field.”[[258]]
Mr. Lincoln took this opportunity to point out to those most nearly concerned the unmistakable signs of the times, and earnestly appealed to them to embrace the offer of compensated abolishment, quoting upon that subject the joint resolution of Congress. The order of General Hunter, so far as it concerned the President, could have been dismissed by its disavowal; but he went farther: he not only took advantage of this occasion earnestly to urge upon the border States very serious consideration of the principle of compensated emancipation, but he raised, without pausing to discuss it, the question of his right as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy to declare the freedom of slaves within the limits of a State should such a measure become indispensable to the maintenance of the Union.
For refusing to employ his regiment in returning fugitive slaves of disloyal masters, Colonel Paine, of the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteers, was placed under arrest in the summer of 1862; about the same time Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony was similarly disciplined both for refusing permission to search his camp and for ordering the arrest of those hunting for slaves.[[259]]
Instructions from the War Department, dated July 22, and applying to all the States in rebellion except South Carolina and Tennessee, authorized the employment as laborers of so many persons of African descent as the military and naval commanders could use to advantage, and the payment of reasonable wages for their labor.[[260]]