On the 6th of March, within less than three weeks after Senator Sumner had submitted his revolutionary resolution, for reconstruction, and a declaration that it is the duty of Congress "to see that everywhere in this extensive (secession) territory slavery shall cease to exist practically, as it has already ceased to exist constitutionally or morally," that President Lincoln, not assenting to the assumption, sent a message to Congress proposing a plan of voluntary and compensated emancipation. In this message he suggested that "the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid," etc., and he invited an interview upon the 10th of March, with the representatives of the border States, to consider the subject. They did not conclude at this interview to adopt his suggestions, and some of them were much incensed that the proposition had been made, believing it would alienate and drive many, hitherto rightly disposed, into secession.
Nevertheless, the fact that slavery was doomed, and had received a death blow from the war of secession, was so obvious, that the moderate and reflecting began seriously to consider whether they ought not to give the President's plan favorable consideration.
While the policy of voluntary emancipation, in which the States should be aided by the national Government, was not immediately successful, it made such advance as, by the aid of the Federal Government, led to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The advocates of immediate, general, and forcible emancipation, if not satisfied with the conciliatory policy of the President, could not well oppose it.
Warm discussions in Congress, and altercations out of it, on most of the important questions growing out of the war, and particularly on those of confiscation, emancipation, and reconstruction, or the restoration of the States to their rightful position, and the reëstablishment of the Union, were had during the whole of the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress. All of these were exciting and important questions, the last involving grave principles affecting our federal system, and was most momentous in its consequences. As time and events passed on, the convictions and conclusions of the President became more clear and distinct as to the line of policy which it was his duty and that of the Administration to pursue.
Dissenting, wholly and absolutely, from the revolutionary views and schemes of Senator Sumner and those who agreed with him, the President became convinced, as the subject had been prematurely introduced and agitated, with an evident intent to forestall and shape the action of the Government, that the actual status of the rebel States and their true relation to the Federal Government should be distinctly understood. The resolution of Mr. Dixon, a gentleman of culture and intelligence, who, as well as Mr. Sumner, was a New England Senator, and also of the same party, was, it will be observed, diametrically opposed to the principles and the project of the Massachusetts Senator on the great, impending, and forthcoming subject of reconstruction. It was directly known that the President coincided with the Connecticut Senator in the opinion that all the acts and ordinances of secession were mere nullities, and should be so treated; that while such acts might subject individuals to penalties and forfeitures, they did not in any degree affect the States as commonwealths, and their relations to the Federal Government; that such acts were rebellious, insurrectionary, and hostile on the part of the persons engaged in them, but that the States, notwithstanding the acts and conspiracies of individuals, were still members of the Federal Union, and that the loyal citizens of these States had forfeited none of their rights, but were entitled to all the protection and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution.
The theory and principles set forth in Senator Dixon's resolutions were the opinions and convictions of the President, deliberately formed and consistently maintained while he lived, on the subject of reconstruction and the condition of the States and people in the insurrectionary region. In his view there was no actual secession, no dismembering of the Union, no change in the Constitution and Government; the relative position of the States and the Federal Government were unchanged; the organic, fundamental laws of neither were altered by the sectional conspiracy; the whole people, North and South, were American citizens; each person was responsible for his own acts and amenable to law; and he was also entitled to the protection of the law, and the rights and privileges secured by the Constitution. The confiscation and emancipation schemes concerning which there was so much excitement in Congress were of secondary consideration to the all-absorbing one of preserving the Union.
The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress closed on the 17th of July. Its proceedings had been confused and uneasy, with a good deal of discontented and revolutionary feeling, which increased toward the close. The decisive stand which the President had taken, and which he calmly, firmly, and persistently maintained against the extreme measures of some of the most prominent Republicans in Congress, was unsatisfactory. It was insinuated that his sympathies on important measures had more of a Democratic than Republican tendency; yet the Democratic party maintained an organized and often unreasonable, if not unpatriotic, opposition.
Military operations, aside from naval success at New Orleans and on the upper Mississippi, had been a succession of military reverses. Disagreement between the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief, which the President could not reconcile, caused the latter to be superseded after the disastrous result before Richmond. Dissensions in the army and among the Republicans in Congress, the persistent opposition of Democrats to the Administration, and the general depression that prevailed were discouraging. "In my position," said the President, "I am environed with difficulties." Friends on whom he felt he ought to be able to rely were dissatisfied with his conscientious scruples and lenity, and party opponents were unrelenting against the Administration.
A few days before Congress adjourned, the President made another but unsuccessful effort to dispose of the slavery question, by trying to induce the border States to take the initiative in his plan of compensated emancipation. The interview between him and the representatives of the border States, which took place on the 12th of July, convinced him that the project of voluntary emancipation by the States would not succeed. Were it commenced by one or more of the States, he had little doubt it would be followed by others, and eventuate in general emancipation by the States themselves. Failing in the voluntary plan, he was compelled, as a war necessity, to proclaim freedom to all slaves in the rebel section, if the war continued to be prosecuted after a certain date. This bold and almost revolutionary measure, which would change the industrial character of many States, could be justified on no other ground than as a war measure, the result of military necessity. It was an unexpected and startling demonstration when announced, that was welcomed by a vast majority of the people in the free States. In Congress, however, neither this nor his project of compensated emancipation was entirely acceptable to either the extreme anti-slavery or pro-slavery men. The radicals disliked the way in which emancipation was effected by the President. But, carried forward by the force of public opinion, they could not do otherwise than acquiesce in the decree, complaining, however, that it was an unauthorized assumption by the Executive of power which belonged to Congress.
The opponents of the President seized the occasion of this bold measure to create distrust and alarm, and the result of the policy of emancipation in the election which followed in the autumn of 1862 was adverse to the Administration. Confident, however, that the step was justifiable and necessary, the President persevered and consummated it by a final proclamation on the 1st of January, 1863.