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Updated: June 23, 2025
This was more a military than a political question. His right to emancipate slaves was strictly a war-power; he had the right to exercise it strictly for the purpose of weakening the enemy or strengthening his own generals; he had not the right to exercise it in the cause of humanity, if it would not either weaken the enemy or strengthen his own side.
Trumbull, "so far as I am advised, not a single Slave has been set at liberty under it;" how, "it was more than a year after its enactment before any considerable number of Persons of African descent were organized and armed" under the subsequent law of December, 1861, which not only gave Freedom to all Slaves entering our Military lines, or who, belonging to Rebel masters, were deserted by them, or were found in regions once occupied by Rebel forces and later by those of the Union, but also empowered the President to organize and arm them to aid in the suppression of the Rebellion; how, it was not until this law had been enacted that Union officers ceased to expel Slaves coming within our lines and then only when dismissal from the public service was made the penalty for such expulsion; how, by his Proclamations of Emancipation, of September, 1862, and January, 1863, the President undertook to supplement Congressional action which had, theretofore, been confined to freeing the Slaves of Rebels, and of such of these only as had come within the lines of our Military power-by also declaring, Free, the Slaves "who were in regions of country from which the authority of the United States was expelled;" and how, the "force and effect" of these Proclamations were variously understood by the enemies and friends of those measures it being insisted on the one side that Emancipation as a War-stroke was within the Constitutional War-power of the President as Commander-in-Chief, and that, by virtue of those Proclamations, "all Slaves within the localities designated become ipso facto Free," and on the other, that the Proclamations were "issued without competent authority," and had not effected and could not effect, "the Emancipation of a single Slave," nor indeed could at any time, without additional legislation, go farther than to liberate Slaves coming within the Union Army lines.
It was in these words: "Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly declare as the sense of the American People, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of War, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity, or War-power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public Liberty and private right alike trodden down and the material prosperity of the Country essentially impaired Justice, Humanity, Liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate Convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment Peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States."
So far as England is concerned, next after the destruction of Germany's war-power, giving insurance of a European peace, comes first the indemnification of every financial loss that Belgium suffers. This is now estimated at from $1,500,000,000 to $2,500,000,000.
His fair neighbors and nieces have their hands full with their own concerns, and leave him undisturbed in his stately bachelor's hall to "illustrate the functions and administrative faculties of the government in time of peace and its resources as a war-power." To do this properly, he has found two acres of ground none too much.
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