CHAPTER XI

THE WAR AND ITS PURPOSES

THE war commenced, notwithstanding the Convention that formed the Constitution had expressly negatived a proposition to confer on the Federal Government the authority to exert the force of the Union against a delinquent State. Mr. Madison had said in the Convention that a “Union of States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous contracts by which it was bound."

At first the position as thus assumed by Mr. Madison seemed to have weight with the National Executive. In his proclamation of the fifteenth of April, 1861, after the secession of the Southern States, the President in calling out the militia designated the force to be overcome as "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of Government proceedings," and the purpose of the call was stated to be "to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed."

The purpose and object of the war was distinctly avowed both by the President and by Congress.

Soon after the battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861, the Senate of the United States passed a resolution declaring "that this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those [seceding] States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution [of the United States] . . . . and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease." 1

1

1 Congressional Globe, 1st Session, 37th Congress, p. 257.

The House of Representatives passed a resolution in almost identical language,―identical in substance in every particular.

That this resolution did not represent the true opinions. and purpose of the war party was suspected, if not implicitly believed, by the South. In this belief they are now justified by the course of events before, during, and subsequent to the war, and by the declaration of one of the ablest and most distinguished generals and statesmen of the North,-a declaration that was made long afterward, when full opportunity had been given for a correct interpretation of the true meaning of events, free from all hindering embarrassment coming from the passions excited by the conflict of arms.

This interpretation was given of the purposes of the war on the 8th day of April, 1886, by Mr. Hawley, a Senator from the State of Connecticut. He said in a speech in the Senate on that day: "Against a race prejudice, against the prejudices, the deep, encrusted prejudices of centuries, men who hated the face of a Negro and would not have him near them, were led into and plunged into a great war and carried it on for four years, disguise it as you please, the substantial purpose of it all being to make it true that there should not be a slave upon the soil of this continent." 1

The war proceeded with varying fortunes to either side. In March, 1862, very soon after the first great disasters to the Southern arms at Fishing Creek, Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson, and the evacuation of Bowling Green and a large part of Tennessee, Mr. Lincoln sent in a message to Congress recommending the passage of this resolution: "Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system."

He urged this as a proper measure to detach the border States from the seceding States, thus rendering the suppression of the Rebellion more easy.

He declared that gradual and not sudden emancipation was better for all.2

1 Congressional Record, 1st Session, 49th Congress, p. 3273.

2 Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2d Session, p. 1102.

The resolution passed the House March 10,-ayes ninetynine, nays thirty-six,-and received the sanction of the Senate April 2,―ayes thirty-two, nays ten. The Republicans as a rule voted for it and the Democrats against it.1

The majority of, if not quite all, the Senators and Representatives from the border slave States voted against it.

CONFERENCE BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND THE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS FROM THE BORDER STATES

On July 12, 1862, a conference took place between the President and the Senators and Representatives of the border States. In this Mr. Lincoln strongly urged action by the border States under the resolution above quoted. He expressed his regret that the Senators and Representatives from those States had not voted for it, and stated that "in my [his] opinion, if you had all voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message of last March, the war would now be substantially ended," alleging as the ground there for that the seceding States, seeing that the border States would never join them, could not much longer maintain the contest. He urged immediate action by the border States, saying: "I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually. Room in South America for colonization can be obtained cheaply and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the freed people will not be so reluctant to go."

The answers of twenty Senators and Representatives from the border States, among them John J. Crittenden, objected to the scheme, but avowed a determination to stand by the Union. It concluded thus: "If Congress, by proper and necessary legislation, shall provide sufficient funds and place them at your disposal, to be applied by you to the payment of any of our States, or the citizens thereof who shall adopt the abolishment of slavery, either gradual or immediate, as they may determine, and the expense of deportation or colonization of the liberated slaves, then will our States and people take the proposition into careful consideration for Cooper's "American Politics," Book I, p. 137.

2 Ibid.

such decision as, in their judgment, is demanded by their interest, their honor, and their duty to the whole country." The minority of the border State members made separate replies, but all objected to the scheme.

"1

In this first executive suggestion for the abolishment of slavery in any of the States it will be noticed that emancipation by State action alone was contemplated. The portion of the United States was to be only as bearer of a part, if not all, of the burden of the measure; and emancipation was to be gradual and accompanied by the deportation and colonization of the freedmen. The judgment of the country, and of Mr. Lincoln himself, founded on long experience and observation, was that the freedmen should be removed from contact with the white race. There was not the slightest hint of emancipation by the act of the Federal Government, or of the citizenship of the emancipated slaves.

The next step taken was on September 22, of the same year, when Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation that he would on January 1, 1863, declare all slaves free in States and designated parts of States, if such States and parts of States were not then "in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States." If this proclamation was intended, as it manifestly was, to induce the Southern people to lay down their arms and send Representatives to Congress, how vain and futile was this condition if, at that date, nearly two years after secession and consequent war, the dogma afterward set up by Congress was true, that the States by secession had forfeited their right to representation in Congress,—a right that could only be restored by legislation.

Mr. Lincoln also declared in the proclamation of September 22, 1862, that it was his purpose to recommend to Congress at its next meeting a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to all the slave States that were not then in rebellion, and that may voluntarily adopt immediate or gradual emancipation; and "that the effort to colonize persons of African descent with their own consent, on this continent or elsewhere. . . . would be continued."

The promised proclamation was accordingly issued on the date named.

In his annual message of December, 1862, in redemption 1 Cooper's "American Politics," Book I, p. 140.

of his promise just noticed, to present and recommend a scheme to aid in emancipation, Mr. Lincoln recommended amendments to the Constitution of the United States as follows:

1. Offering pecuniary compensation to every State that would abolish slavery by the year 1900;

2. Declaring free all slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chance of war before the end of the rebellion, but loyal owners to be compensated;

3. Granting power to Congress to appropriate money and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored persons with their own consent at any place or places outside the limits of the United States.

In recommending these amendments to the favor and support of Congress and of the country, he said, "I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization." And in combating the fears of the Northern people that the liberated Negroes would settle among them, he said: "Heretofore colored people have fled North from bondage, and now perhaps from bondage and destitution, but if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will have neither to flee from; their old masters will give them wages at least till new laborers can be found, and the freedmen will gladly give their labor in return, till new homes can be found for them in congenial climes and with people of their own blood and race. This proposition can be trusted on the mutual interests involved. And in any event, can't the North decide for itself whether to receive them?"

Here we have distinctly recommended not only deportation, with their consent, of the emancipated Negroes, but a distinct averment that emancipation was not to confer citizenship, as the right to exclude them from their borders is asserted for the Northern States. That they were an undesirable, not to say dangerous, population is admitted in the effort to show that emancipation would not be followed by an influx of freedmen into the North. This position, though adverse to the pretext under which the North refused admission to the State of Missouri under the compromise of 1820, was, as we have seen, admitted by the most eminent Republicans, Messrs. Seward, Trumbull, and King,-to be correct on the occasion of the admission of Oregon; and it was acted