It is true that Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves was a war measure, but with the enactment of that measure the President steered the Ship of State into uncharted waters. To whom could he turn for counsel? Not to a Cabinet dolefully prophesying disaster; not to a Secretary of War who had considered the occupation of Sumter by United States soldiers a deadly insult to the Southern states; not to a General who vacillated, delayed, quarreled and called his own men “a confused mob, entirely demoralized.”
Lincoln sent for Frederick Douglass. It was proof of how far and how fast he was traveling. He had no precedent. Everything the President read or heard in his day treated all colored peoples as less than human. He was born and nurtured in the church which said fervent prayers of thanks that slavers “tore the savage from the wilds of Africa and brought him to Christianity.” The unquestioned inferiority of a black man was in the very air that Lincoln breathed. And yet he turned to Douglass.
He did not receive the dark man in the office of the Executive Mansion, but out on the back porch. There were times when the tinted walls, drapes and heavy rugs of the imposing house stifled this “common man” from the West. At such times he chose the porch, with its vista of green.
“Sit down, Mr. Douglass,” he said, motioning to a wide, easy chair. “I want to talk to you.”
Mainly he wished to confer that afternoon about the best means, outside the Army, to induce slaves in the rebel states to come within Federal lines.
“I fear that a peace might be forced upon me which would leave the former slaves in a kind of bondage worse even than that they have known.” Then he added, his voice heavy with disappointment, “They are not coming to us as rapidly and in as large numbers as I had hoped.”
Douglass replied that probably many obstacles were being placed in their path.
The President nodded his head. He was troubled in heart and mind. He said he was being accused of protracting the war beyond its legitimate object and of failing to make peace when he might have done so to advantage. He saw the dangers of premature peace, but mainly he wanted to prepare for what lay ahead when peace did come, early or late.
“Four millions suddenly added to the country’s population!” Lincoln said earnestly. “What can we do, Douglass?” Before Douglass could reply, the President leaned forward, his eyes intent. “I understand you oppose every suggestion for colonization.”
“That is true, Mr. Lincoln. Colonization is not the answer.”