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Updated: May 9, 2025
If by premature exercise he should alienate great numbers of border-state men, while the sheet of paper with his name at its foot would be ineffectual to give actual liberty of action to a single black man in the Confederacy, he would aid the South and injure the North, that is to say, he would accomplish precisely the reverse of that which alone could lawfully form the basis of his action.
Be that as it may, however, sufficient evidences exist, to prove that he must have been fully aware, at the time of making that appeal to the supposed patriotism of these Border-State men, how much, how very much, depended on the manner of their reception of it. To him, that meeting was a very solemn and portentous one.
This condition of affairs, in connection with the fact that McClellan was always calling for more troops, undoubtedly had its influence in bringing Mr. Lincoln's mind to the conviction, hitherto mentioned, of the fast-approaching Military necessity for Freeing and Arming the Slaves. It was to ward this off, if possible, that he had met and appealed to the Border-State Representatives.
These loyal Border-State men, however, could not see its wisdom, and at a full meeting held upon the subject decided to oppose it, as they afterward did. Its conciliatory spirit they could not comprehend; the kindly, temperate warning, they would not heed.
And, after appealing to both Border-State men, and Democrats of the Free States, not to stay the passage of this Resolution which "will strike the Rebellion at the heart," he continued: "Gentlemen may flatter themselves with a restoration of the Slave-power in this Country. 'The Union as it was! It is a dream, never again to be realized. The America of the past, has gone forever.
We have seen how the loyal Border-State men, through their chosen Representative finding that their steady and unfaltering opposition to all Mr. Lincoln's propositions, while quite ineffectual, did not serve by any means to increase his respect for their peculiar kind of loyalty offered him posthumous honors and worship if he would but do as they desired.
"MR. PRESIDENT: The pressure of business in the Senate during the last few days of the session prevented my attendance at the meeting of the Border-State members, called to consider your proposition in reference to gradual emancipation in our States.
No other measure so aroused the indignation of the border-state men. Loyalty to the Union could not change their opinion of the negro. To put arms into the hands of slaves, or ex-slaves, was a terrible proposition to men who had too often vividly conceived the dread picture of slave insurrection.
This was a favorite idea with the Border-State men especially, that Slaves were Property mere chattels as it were, and, only the day before, a Northern man, Coffroth of Pennsylvania, had said: "Sir, we should pause before proceeding any further in this Unconstitutional and censurable legislation. The mere abolition of Slavery is not my cause of complaint.
Harried, and worried, on all sides, threatened even by the Commander of the Army of the Potomac, it is not surprising, in view of the apparently irreconcilable attitude of the loyal Border-State men to gradual and compensated Emancipation, that the tension of President Lincoln's mind began to feel a measure of relief in contemplating Military Emancipation in the teeth of all such threats.
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