After he went to Washington, President Lincoln was between two fires. One side wanted the slaves freed whether the Union was broken up or not. They could not see that declaring them free would have but little effect, if the government could not "back up" such a declaration.
The other party did not wish the matter tampered with, as cheap labor was necessary for raising cotton, sugar and other products on which the living of millions of people depended.
The extreme Abolitionists, who wished slavery abolished, whether or no, sent men to tell the President that if he did not free the slaves he was a coward and a turncoat, and they would withhold their support from the Government and the Army.
Delegations of Abolitionists from all over the North arrived almost daily from different cities to urge, coax and threaten the President. They did not know that he was trying to keep the Border States of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri from seceding. If Maryland alone had gone out of the Union, Washington, the national capital, would have been surrounded and forced to surrender.
Besides, at this time, the armies of the North were losing nearly all the battles.
To declare all the slaves down South freed, when the Government could not enforce such a statement and could not even win a battle, would be absurd. To one committee the President said: "If I issued a proclamation of emancipation now it would be like the Pope's bull (or decree) against the comet!"
A delegation of Chicago ministers came to beg Mr. Lincoln to free the slaves. He patiently explained to them that his declaring them free would not make them free. These men seemed to see the point and were retiring, disappointed, when one of them returned to him and whispered solemnly:
"What you have said to us, Mr. President, compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message from our divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of bondage that the slave may go free!"
"Now, isn't that strange?" the President replied instantly. "Here I am, studying this question, day and night, and God has placed it upon me, too. Don't you think it's rather odd that He should send such a message by way of that awful wicked city of Chicago?"
The ministers were shocked at such an answer from the President of the United States. They could not know, for Mr. Lincoln dared not tell them, that he had the Emancipation Proclamation in his pocket waiting for a Federal victory before he could issue it!