The emancipation of Negroes during the Civil War could not be kept down. It appeared first in the acceptance of Negroes in the Union army camps as contraband, on the ground that they were being used by the Confederates to build fortifications and the like and, if returned to the seceding territory, would be of further use in opposing the Federal troops. General Butler set this precedent when he was in charge of the forces at Fortress Monroe. At first there was some hesitation as to whether the administration should adopt such a policy. Butler's course, however, was approved by Cameron, the Secretary of War, May 30, 1861, although Lincoln was not pleased with it; for he did not desire to alienate the border slave States by radical steps toward emancipation. He was hoping that the nation would trust him, "as having the more commanding view, gradually to fix the attitude of the Government toward the subject,"[19] as the conquest of the Confederacy proceeded. The Federal troops, however, did not at first make much headway in the East, but events west of the Alleghenies progressed favorably for the Union cause, especially in Missouri. Taking advantage of this state of affairs, General John C. Fremont, in charge of this district, proclaimed military emancipation in that State on August 30, 1861. All persons with arms were to be tried by court martial and shot. Their property would be confiscated, and their slaves would thereby be declared free. He appointed a military commission, whose business it was to hear evidence and to issue personal deeds of the manumission of slaves.
When Lincoln was apprised of this proclamation, he forthwith took action. He feared that the provisions of General Fremont's drastic order, providing for the confiscation of property and the emancipation of slaves of traitorous owners, would alarm the Southern friends of the Union, would drive them over to the seceding faction, and perhaps would be instrumental in the loss of the border slave States. Fremont's action was diametrically opposed to Lincoln's policy, in that such emancipation was purely administrative and political, one of civil administration that could not be justified by military necessity. Consequently Lincoln issued an order instructing Fremont to modify his proclamation by striking out the disturbing provisions of the proclamation and substituting therefor the act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes, passed by Congress on August 6, 1861, which authorized the President to cause property used or employed in aid of insurrection to be seized, confiscated, or condemned, providing, however, that such condemnation be made by judicial procedure.[20]
Lincoln, nevertheless, hoped to increase the number of free States through compensated emancipation, which he expected to come through voluntary action on the part of the slave States at the suggestion of the Federal Government. In his next annual message to Congress, however, he made no direct reference to any specific plan of emancipation, but discussed its practical necessities in general terms so as to leave himself in a position to decide later on a definite policy.[21] He endeavored to keep before Congress new and possible contingencies and emphasized the fact that, by virtue of the Confiscation Act, many of the slaves thus liberated were already dependent upon the United States for maintenance, and that they must be provided for. He recommended, therefore, that Congress provide for accepting such persons from States so affected in lieu of direct taxes, and that such persons accepted by the General Government be declared free immediately.
With his plan for compensated emancipation in mind, it was quite natural that Lincoln should look for a field of experimentation in a small State, such as Delaware, especially since there was in Congress from that State, Representative George E. Fisher, who was a staunch Unionist and a friend of the President. Fisher gladly cooperated with Lincoln in carrying out this plan. The Congressman tried to have the Legislature of Delaware pass an act for the gradual compensated emancipation of the 1,798 slaves which that State claimed according to the census of 1861, on the condition that the United States would pay the Delaware slaveholders $400 for each slave. During November of 1861, Lincoln wrote drafts of two separate bills to effect such an agreement.[22] The first bill provided that, on the passage of the act, all Negroes over thirty-five years of age should become free; that all born after the passage of the measure should remain free; and that the rest, after suitable apprenticeship for children, should become free in 1893, while the State in the meanwhile should prohibit the selling of Delaware slaves elsewhere. By the provisions of the second bill the United States Government should pay the State of Delaware $23,200 a year for thirty-one years and all Negroes born after the passage of the act should be declared free, while all others should automatically become free at thirty-five years of age until January, 1893, when all remaining slaves of all ages should become free, subject to apprenticeship for minors born of slave mothers up to the respective ages of eighteen and twenty-one.
One of the drafts was rewritten by the friends of the measure that it might embrace the details and alterations to conform with local opinion and law. It was printed and circulated among the members of the Legislature of Delaware and a special session of that body was called to consider the proposal. The bill, however, was never introduced, because it was feared that it would be voted down by the hostile proslavery majority. The proslavery element, moreover, prepared resolutions to the effect that the bill would encourage the abolition element in Congress, that it bore evidence of an effort to abolish slavery in the States, that Congress had no right to appropriate money for the purchase of slaves, that it was not desirable to make Delaware guarantee the public faith of the United States, that the suggestion of saving expenses to the people by compensated emancipation was a bribe, and that Delaware would abolish slavery of its own volition at a time when its lawmakers would deem it advisable. But these resolutions did not fare much better than Lincoln's bill, for in spite of the fact that they passed the House they were lost in the Senate.[23]
Although disappointed over the failure of his plans for compensated emancipation in Delaware, Lincoln, encouraged by the victories of Thomas and Grant in the West took his next step through Congress to the States.[24] Accordingly, on March 6, 1862, he sent to that body a special message, recommending the adoption of the joint resolution that the United States would cooperate with any State which might adopt gradual emancipation, giving such State compensation for all inconveniences produced by the change of any system within its confines.[25] Lincoln had figured out that less than the cost of the war for a half day would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at $400 each, and that less than eighty-seven days' cost of the war would compensate the slaveowners of Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri for all the slaves at the same rate.
The next step took the form of Roscoe Conkling's joint resolution to this effect recommended by Lincoln in his special message of March 6. At the same time Lincoln assembled the Congressmen from the border slave States of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri at the Executive Mansion, where a prolonged discussion of the subject ensued.[26] Lincoln tried to convince these Congressmen of the good faith of the administration, and suggested to them that they take this question of gradual abolition into serious consideration, for the Government of the United States had no right to coerce them. He asserted that emancipation was exclusively a State affair; and that his purpose was simply to present the proposition. Yet probably one reason for the failure of these Congressmen of the border slave States to make a favorable reply or to commit themselves in any way was that they were well aware of Lincoln's determination, according to his special message of March 6, to use all means to save the Union; and they, furthermore, understood the hint that necessity might force him to resort to extreme measures. While this proposition gained no headway with the border slave States, the joint resolution was approved by Congress and received the signature of the President on April 10.
Congress then passed an important measure, the expediency of which Lincoln urged in 1849. This was emancipation in the District of Columbia. Lincoln made no specific recommendations relative to this in his annual message, but later sent a special message to Congress March 6, 1862, taking up the subject in its more extensive aspects. This bill provided for the immediate emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, and empowered a commission to distribute to slave-holders for their manumitted slaves a compensation not to exceed an aggregate of three hundred dollars a head, with an additional appropriation for $100,000 for expenses of voluntary emigration of freedmen to Haiti and Liberia.[27] Lincoln did not heartily approve this measure, however, for he did not want this to interfere with his policy of compensated emancipation in the border slave States. Even after the bill had been amended, according to his suggestions, he still hesitated and some of his friends thought that he might never sign it, but he did.
The question of emancipation appeared in another form when, upon the capture of Port Royal the previous November, many slaves, abandoned by the fleeing slave-holders, sought protection in the Union army. These slaves, thus dislodged by the misfortunes of war, outnumbered the whites five to one and had to be organized in groups for government protection. Relief societies in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia sent funds and teachers for the slaves. This educational enterprise received the official sanction of Secretary Chase at President Lincoln's request. Wishing further to improve their condition, General David Hunter, commander of the Department of the South, issued on May 9, 1862, an order of military emancipation, proclaiming the Department of the South under martial law and declaring persons in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, heretofore held as slaves, forever free.[28] Hunter regarded this an act of military necessity, not an instrument of political import as General Fremont's proclamation in Missouri, for Hunter's forces were insufficient for offensive movements, and he was doing this as the first step toward training and arming Negroes within his lines. Assuming that the instructions of the War Department conferred the necessary authority he proclaimed the order without delay.