HIS 269 The Civil War and Reconstruction
Lincoln on Preserving the Union and Emancipation
August 23, 1862Abraham Lincoln often took pains to delineate his personal feelings about slavery from the political realities of a constitutional republic that explicitly and firmly protected the property rights of slaveholders. For example, in 1854 he proclaimed his “hate” for the “monstrous injustice of slavery.” Yet, in his first inaugural address he reassured the South that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.” He explained, “I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” The apparent inconsistency between Lincoln’s personal and political position on slavery has misled some critics into cynically concluding that he was a shallow politician, an amoral opportunist, and perhaps a closet racist with no genuine concern for the plight of slaves. This misrepresents Lincoln’s thoughtful respect for the rule of law and his appreciation of the difference between rhetoric and reality. He was a practical politician with a lawyer’s training, properly cautious with public policy statements at a time when the fate of the nation hung in the balance.
Lincoln’s public letter to Horace Greeley on the subject of emancipation is one of the most oft-quoted and misrepresented of his writings and deserves a close examination. Greeley was editor of the New York Tribune and an outspoken critic of the Lincoln administration. (Greeley also respected Lincoln for his honesty and sincerity, with a friendship dating back to when the two men had served together in Congress.) For weeks it was known in the inner circles of government that Lincoln was planning to proclaim some sort of emancipation, and Greeley was impatient. He hoped to goad the president into action. On August 20, 1862, he published a long indictment of the president for failing to quickly act on the second Confiscation Act passed by Congress on July 17, 1862, which Lincoln believed was unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Lincoln responded to Greeley with a letter published in the National Intelligencer on August 23. This famous passage, taken out of context, might lead one to believe that Lincoln was indifferent to slavery: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” We need to consider the statement in its context.
I would save [the Union] in the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Emancipation was not generally popular in the North, and Lincoln feared that rising opposition to the war would be ruinous. The letter represents part of Lincoln’s calculated efforts to prepare the country for what he knew was inevitable. When the letter was published, Lincoln had already drafted his Emancipation Proclamation (which he presented to his cabinet on July 22, 1862), declaring that, effective January 1, 1862, “all persons held as slaves” within states or parts of states still in rebellion “shall be thenceforward and forever free.” The essence of the proclamation, which Lincoln was not ready to reveal to the public, is included in one line: "if I could save [the Union] by freeing some and leaving others...." Lincoln did not believe it was within his constitutional authority as commander in chief to emancipate slaves in the loyal boarder states--Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri--which had rejected his idea of voluntary, compensated emancipation.
Secretary of State William Seward astutely recognized (as did Lincoln) that the executive order would have little practical effect without the power of the Union army to enforce it; yet, its immediate value was broader and more significant than it might appear on the surface. It shifted the moral ground of the war from reunion to liberation. It marked a turning point in the war: a political reconciliation with the South was no longer a practical possibility, British intervention was unlikely, and the destruction of slavery was inextricably tied to the success (or failure) of the Union army. Seward persuasively argued that the weight of the proclamation would be elevated by the proper timing. “The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses [on the battlefield], is so great I fear. . . it may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government.” In short, it would be seen as an act of desperation. Lincoln agreed to wait for a major victory. His hopes rose, and then fell, when General John Pope suffered yet another Union disaster in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Manassas, Virginia) on September 2. The opportunity came two weeks later, September 17, when General George McClellan won a hard-fought victory at Antietam Creek (Sharpsburg, Maryland). The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was announced on September 22, 1862. Public reaction in the North was mixed: celebrated by abolitionists, denounced by the border states, and eventually regarded as a practical wartime measure with far-reaching implications. Lincoln had no second thoughts. When he signed the official document three months later, January 1, 1963, Lincoln remarked, "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." He added, "If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it."
In his annual message to Congress in December 1862, Lincoln made an appeal to reason: “The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation.” Speaking of emancipation, he added, “in giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.”
David C. Hanson
February 22, 2007
Sources: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (2005); William K. Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation (2001); Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (2006).