Introduction by Richard Behn. The Lehrman Institute. Between March and July of , President Lincoln advocated compensated emancipation of slaves living in Border States.
He also endorsed foreign colonization of freed slaves. But by July , the Union war efforts in Virginia were going badly and pressure was growing to remove the Union commander, General George B. Lincoln decided that emancipation of slaves in areas in rebellion was militarily necessary to put an end to secession and was constitutionally justified by his powers as commander in chief.
Lincoln had been under considerable pressure from radical members of his own party in the Senate β especially Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, Ohio Senator Benjamin F. Wade and Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler. They were critical, argumentative and impatientβ¦. But, the President was worried about how residents of key border states would react to a proclamation of emancipation. Lincoln believed that Union support in Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri was key to military success of Union military maneuvers.
That as Commander in Chief of the army he might do whatever was demanded by the exigencies of the service to the extent that he could enforce his purposes with the army, but that the proclamation itself did not and could not affect the status of a single negro.
That if the President desired to say in advance what he intended to do he should simply have said that on the first of January he would direct his Genls to seize all the negroes they could reach in the insurrectionary districts.
