Beneath the dismal shadow of these autumnal
elections the Thirty-seventh Congress came together for its final session, December 1, 1862. The political situation was peculiar and unfortunate. There was the greatest possible need for sympathetic coöperation in the Republican party; but sympathy was absent, and coöperation was imperfect and reluctant. The majority of the Republican members of Congress obstinately maintained their alienation from the Republican President; an enormous popular defection from Republicanism had taken place in its natural strongholds; and Republican domination had only been saved by the aid of States in which Republican majorities had been attainable actually because a large proportion of the population was so disaffected as either to have enlisted in the Confederate service, or to have refrained from voting at elections held under Union auspices. Therefore, whether Mr. Lincoln looked forth upon the political or the military situation, he beheld only gloomy prospects. But having made fast to what he believed to be right, he would not, in panic, cast loose from it. In the face of condemnation he was not seen to modify his course in order to conciliate any portion of the people; but, on the contrary, in his message he returned to his plan which had hitherto been so coldly received, and again strenuously recommended appropriations for gradual, compensated emancipation and colonization. The scheme had three especial attractions for him: 1. It would be operative in those loyal States and parts of States
in which military emancipation would not take effect. 2. In its practical result it would do away with slavery by the year 1900, whereas military emancipation would now free a great number of individuals, but would leave slavery, as an institution, untouched and liable to be revived and reinvigorated later on. 3. It would make emancipation come as a voluntary process, leaving a minimum of resentment remaining in the minds of slaveholders, instead of being a violent war measure never to be remembered without rebellious anger. This last point was what chiefly moved him. He intensely desired to have emancipation effected in such a way that good feeling between the two sections might be a not distant condition; the humanity of his temperament, his passion for reasonable dealing, his appreciation of the mischief of sectional enmity in a republic, all conspired to establish him unchangeably in favor of "compensated emancipation."
For the accomplishment of his purpose he now suggested three articles of amendment to the Constitution. He spoke earnestly; for "in times like the present," he said, "men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity." Beneath the solemnity of this obligation he made for his plan a very elaborate argument. Among the closing sentences were the following:—
"The plan would, I am confident, secure peace more speedily, and maintain it more permanently,
than can be done by force alone; while all it would cost, considering amounts, and manner of payment, and times of payment, would be easier paid than will be the additional cost of the war, if we rely solely upon force. It is much, very much, that it would cost no blood at all.
... "Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here—Congress and Executive—can secure its adoption? Will not the good people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure these vital objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not 'Can any of us imagine better?' but; 'Can we all do better?' Object whatsoever is possible, still the question recurs, 'Can we do better?' The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will [shall] be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare
one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just,—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
Beautiful and impressive as was this appeal, it persuaded few or none. In fact, no effort on the President's part now, or at any time, could win much approval for his plan. Not many were ever pleased by it; but afterward, in the winter of 1863, many members of the Thirty-eighth Congress were willing, without believing in it, to give him a chance to try it in Missouri. Accordingly a bill then passed the House appropriating $10,000,000 to compensate slave-owners in that State, if abolition of slavery should be made part of its organic law. The Senate made the sum $15,000,000 and returned the bill to the House for concurrence. But the representatives from Missouri were tireless in their hostility to the measure, and finally killed it by parliamentary expedients of delay.