CHAPTER XVI.
"COMPENSATED GRADUAL EMANCIPATION.".
Thus far the reader's eye has been able to review in their successive order some of the many difficulties and perplexities which beset the pathway of President Lincoln as he felt his way in the dark, as it were, toward Emancipation. It must seem pretty evident now, however, that his chief concern was for the preservation of the Union, even though all other things—Emancipation with them—had to be temporarily sacrificed.
Something definite, however, had been already gained. Congress had asserted its right under the War powers of the Constitution, to release from all claim to Service or Labor those Slaves whose Service or Labor had been used in hostility to the Union. And while some of the Union Generals obstructed the execution of the Act enforcing that right, by repelling and even as we have seen, expelling, from the Union lines all Fugitive Slaves—whether such as had or had not been used in hostility to us—yet still the cause of Freedom to all, was slowly and silently perhaps, yet surely and irresistibly, marching on until the time when, becoming a chief factor in the determination of the question of "whether we should have a Country at all," it should triumph coincidently with the preservation of the Republic.
But now a new phase of the Slave question arose—a question not involving what to do with Fugitive Slaves of any sort, whether engaged or not engaged in performing services hostile to the Union cause, but what to do with Slaves whom their panic-stricken owners had, for the time being, abandoned in the presence of our Armies.
This question was well discussed in the original draft of the report of the Secretary of War, December 1, 1861 in which Secretary Cameron said:
"It has become a grave question for determination what shall be done with the Slaves abandoned by their owners on the advance of our troops into Southern territory, as in the Beaufort district of South Carolina. The whole White population therein is six thousand, while the number of Negroes exceeds thirty-two thousand. The panic which drove their masters in wild confusion from their homes, leaves them in undisputed possession of the soil. Shall they, armed by their masters, be placed in the field to fight against us, or shall their labor be continually employed in reproducing the means for supporting the Armies of Rebellion?
"The War into which this Government has been forced by rebellious Traitors is carried on for the purpose of repossessing the property violently and treacherously seized upon by the Enemies of the Government, and to re-establish the authority and Laws of the United States in the places where it is opposed or overthrown by armed Insurrection and Rebellion. Its purpose is to recover and defend what is justly its own.
"War, even between Independent Nations, is made to subdue the Enemy, and all that belongs to that Enemy, by occupying the hostile country, and exercising dominion over all the men and things within its territory. This being true in respect to Independent Nations at war with each other, it follows that Rebels who are laboring by force of arms to overthrow a Government, justly bring upon themselves all the consequences of War, and provoke the destruction merited by the worst of crimes. That Government would be false to National trust, and would justly excite the ridicule of the civilized World, that would abstain from the use of any efficient means to preserve its own existence, or to overcome a rebellious and traitorous Enemy, by sparing or protecting the property of those who are waging War against it.