For much of the Civil War, Mr.

Lincoln juggled conflicting pressures and politic ians on the issue of slavery. But the movement toward emancipation of all black Americans was inexorable. After the Final Emancipation Proclamation was released n January 1, 1863, presidential aide John G. Nicolay wrote an anonymous newspap er editorial which concluded: "And for this New Year's gift, the man who has wro ught the work, amid the doubts of friends, the aspersions of foes, the clamors o f faction, the cares of Government, the crises of war, the dangers of revolution , and the manifold temptations that beset moral heroes, Abraham Lincoln, the Pre sident of the United States, is entitled to the everlasting gratitude of a despi sed race enfranchised, the plaudits of a distracted country saved, and an inscri ption of undying fame in the impartial records of history."1 Two years and one month later, Nicolay sent a note to President Lincoln at the W hite House: Constitutional amendment just passed by 119 for to 56 votes against. "2 Nicolay was on Capitol Hill to witness passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which outlawed slavery anywhere in the United States not just in those areas engaged in the Confederate rebellion. At the beginning of the War President Lincoln resisted "both the antislavery and the proslavery extremists," wrote historian Richard N. Current. "On the one han d, he opposed the abolitionists of the Garrisonian type, 'those who would shiver into fragments the Union of these States; tear to tatters its now venerated con stitution; and even burn the last copy of the Bible, rather than slavery should continue a single hour.' On the other hand, he opposed the propagandists of the Calhounian line, those 'who, for the sake of perpetuating slavery, are beginning to assail and to ridicule the white-man's charter of freedom the declaration th at 'all men are created free and equal.'"3 Historian Current wrote: "Evil though slavery was, Lincoln tolerated it for at l east three reasons. First, the Constitution gave the federal government no power to proceed against slavery within the states. In some states, slavery was alrea dy well established at the time the Constitution was adopted; these states would never have agreed to the new Union had they not had reason to believe that slav ery would continue to be safe inside it. Thus the very Union that Lincoln loved had been made possible by forbearance with regard to this particular evil. Secon d, even if the federal government possessed the power to abolish slavery, and ev en if that power could be exercised without danger to the Union, abolition would create more problems than it would solve. Freeing the slaves would set loose mi llions of people who, with no experience in making their own way, would face the crippling handicap of deep and widespread prejudice. For the good of the Negroe s as well as the whites, it seemed to Lincoln that slavery should be eliminated only very gradually. The Negroes, as they were freed, could be resettled outside the United States in Africa, the West Indies, or Central America, where their c olor would be no bar to their future success and happiness. Third, there was no need to take positive action against slavery, for the institution would eventual ly die of its own weight if it was confined to the southern states. That was why the Founding Fathers could reconcile themselves to the continued presence of bo ndage in the land of the free. Lincoln, like the Fathers, was willing to wait."4 Ronald C. White Jr. wrote in Lincoln's Greatest Speech wrote: "Lincoln's challen ge as president was how to balance his opposition to slavery and his fidelity to the Constitution. He was aware that there was a certain truth in [William Lloyd ] Garrison's charge that the Constitution was a compromise document that allowed slavery in the South. Lincoln had, however, argued at Cooper Union in 1860 that the founders were united in opposing the spread of slavery to the new territori es. He came to believe that the founders believed or hoped that slavery would on e day become extinct."5 So did Mr. Lincoln. Historian Hans L. Trefousse wrote: "It is true that Lincoln never, prior to 1862 , advocated federal action to end slavery in the states where it existed. Consti

tutional obligations were important to him, and he hoped that putting an end to the expansion of the institution would in the end cause its demise in the South. "6 "It would do no good to go ahead, any faster than the country," President Lin coln told the Rev. Charles Edwards Lester, himself an emancipation advocate. Mr. Lincoln made his comments after he reversed General John C. Frmont order of eman cipation in Missouri in the summer of 1861: "I think [Massachusetts Senator Char les] Sumner and the rest of you would upset our applecart altogether if you had your way. We'll fetch 'em; just give us a little time. We didn't go into the war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back, and to act differ at this moment , would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause but smack of bad faith; for I never should have had votes enough to send me here if the people had supposed I should try to use my power to upset slavery. Why, the first thing you'd see, w ould be a mutiny in the army. No, we must wait until every other means has been exhausted. This thunderbolt will keep."7 Mr. Lincoln's thinking on freedom and slavery evolved during the war. Even as he was drafting the emancipation proclamation in the summer of 1862, he was trying out other ideas. Illinois Senator Orville Browning wrote in his diary on July 1 , 1862. "Immediately after breakfast went to the Presidents with Uri Manly. Saw the President alone, and had a talk with him in regard to the Confiscation bills bef ore us. He read me a paper embodying his views of the objects of war, and the pr oper mode of conducting it in its relations to slavery. T his, he told me, had s ketched hastily with the intention of laying it before the Cabinet. His views co incided entirely with my own. No negroes necessarily taken and escaping during t he war are ever to be returned to slavery No inducement are to be held out to th em to come into our lines for they come now faster than we can provide for them and are becoming an embarrassment to the government. "At present none are to be armed. It would produce dangerous & fatal dissati sfaction in our army, and do more injury than good. Congress has no power over slavery in the states, and so much of it as remai ns after the war is over will be in precisely the same condition that it was bef ore the war began, and must be left to the exclusive control of the states where it may exist.8

President Lincoln was concerned about reaction in the Border States and the Army . Three days later on July 4, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner repeatedly ur ged President Lincoln to adopt a policy of emancipation. "I would do it if I wer e not afraid that half the officers would fling down their arms and three more s tates would rise," President Lincoln told Sumner.9 A few weeks later, Sumner quo ted the President as telling him: "Wait time is essential."10 But the military necessities of putting down the rebellion pushed President Linc oln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. President Lincoln said of the Emanci pation Proclamation, "It is my last card, and I will play it and may win the tri ck."11 But Mr. Lincoln did not believe that one card alone would win the war. He told Canadian doctor Alexander Milton: "I am glad you are pleased with the Eman cipation Proclamation, but there is work before us yet; we must make that procla mation effective by victories over our enemies. It's a paper bullet, after all, and of no account, except we can sustain it."12 President Lincoln told New York Senator Edwin D. Morgan: "We are a good deal like the whalers who have been long on a chase. At last we have got our harpoon fairly into the monster, but we mus t now look how we steer, or with one flop of his tail, he will yet send us all i nto eternity."13

Timing was indeed critical for the proclamation's effectiveness. Mr. Lincoln tol d New Jersey War Democrat James M. Scovel, "I told you a year ago that Henry War d Beecher and Horace Greeley gave me no rest because I would not free the Negroe s. The time had not come."14 After a meeting with Chicago ministers shortly befo re he issued the Draft Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, President Li ncoln said to them: "I have been much gratified with this interview. You have do ne your duty; I will try to do mine. In addition to what I have already said, 't here is a question of expediency as to time, should a proclamation be issued. Ma tters look dark just now. I fear that a proclamation on the heels of defeat woul d be interpreted as a cry of despair. It would come better, if at all, immediate ly after a victory. I wish I could say something to you more entirely satisfacto ry."15 On the day he announced the Draft Emancipation Proclamation to the Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln told Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton: "Stanton, it would have been too early last spring."16 After issuing the proclamation, President Lincoln told th e Rev. John McClintock "Ah, Providence is stronger than either you or I. When I issued that proclamation, I was in great doubt about it myself. I did not think that the people had been quite educated up to it, and I feared its effects upon the border states. Yet I think it was right. I knew it would help our cause in E urope, and I trusted in God and did it."17 President Lincoln had thought deeply about the potential implications of the Emancipation Proclamation. He responded to criticism of the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation on the war effort by telling Union Army sergeant James M. Stradling in March 1863: The proclamation was, as you state, very near to my heart. I thought about i t and studied it in all its phases long before I began to put it on paper. I exp ected many soldiers would desert when the proclamation was issued, and I expecte d many who care nothing for the colored man would seize upon the proclamation as an excuse for deserting. I did not believe the number of deserters would materi ally affect the army. On other hand, the issuing of the proclamation would proba bly bring into the ranks many who otherwise would not volunteer. After I had made up my mind to issue it, I commenced to put my thoughts on p aper, and it took me many days before I succeeded in getting it into shape so th at it suited me. Please explain to your comrades that the proclamation was issue d for two reasons. The first and chief reason was this, I felt a great impulse m oving me to do justice to five or six millions of people. The second reason was that I believed it would be a club in our hands with which we could whack the re bels. In other words, it would shorten the war. I believed that under the Consti tution I had a right to issue the proclamation as a 'military necessity."

President Lincoln was particularly concerned about the impact of his actions on the Border States. When Union General Egbert L. Viele told the President that bl acks in Norfolk, Virginia did not understand that the Emancipation Proclamation did not liberate them, Mr. Lincoln replied: "This is the difficult: we want to k eep all that we have of the border states, those that have not seceded and the p ortions of those which we have occupied; and in order to do that, it is necessar y to omit those areas I have mentioned from the effect of this proclamation."18 Navy Secretary Gideon Welles recalled the President's thinking: "A movement towa rd emancipation in the border states would, they believed, detach many from the Union cause and strengthen their apprehension. What had been done and what he ha d heard satisfied him that a change of policy in the conduct of the war was nece ssary and that emancipation of the slaves in the rebel states must precede that must precede that in the border states. The blow must fall first and foremost on them. Slavery was doomed. This war, brought upon the country by the slave-owner s, would extinguish slavery, but the border states could not be induced to lead in that measure. They would not consent to be convinced or persuaded to take the

first step."19 Mr. Lincoln had long thought that the North and South shared responsibility for slavery. In a July 1862 conversation with the Rev. Elbert S. Porter, President L incoln said "that one section was no more responsible than another for its origi nal existence here, and that the whole nation having suffered from it, ought to share in efforts for its gradual removal."20 The cause of the Civil War was clea r according to President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address: "One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar an d powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for whic h the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has alread y attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier tri umph, and a result less fundamental and astounding."21 Ronald C. White, Jr., wrote that this section makes a clear allusion to Presiden t Lincoln's "fidelity to the Constitution. The word 'Constitution' is never used in the address, but the nature and meaning of the Constitution are present thro ughout." White noted that in President Lincoln's First Inaugural, he had said: " I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no legal right do so, an d I have no inclination to do so."22 Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln understood that s lavery was morally indefensible. When black abolitionist Sojourner Truth told President Lincoln in October 1864 t hat he was the first American President to help American blacks, Mr. Lincoln res ponded: "And the only one who ever had such opportunity. Had our friends in the South behaved themselves, I could have done nothing whatever."23 Abolitionist Mo ncure D. Conway reported that over two years earlier well before the draft Emanc ipation Proclamation was issue President Lincoln aid: "We grow in this direction daily, and I am not without hope that some great thing is to be accomplished. W hen the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I shall be willing to act, though it costs my life, and, gentlemen, lives will be lost."24 Historian K.C. Wheare wrote: "There is much in Lincoln's attitude here that is p uzzling. His attitude to slavery is perhaps not so puzzling as his attitude to t he union. After all, as will have been appreciated from the account given so far , Lincoln's attitude on slavery was consistent all through his political life. H e opposed its extension in the Territories, but he opposed also interference wit h slavery in the state; and whenever he considered abolition, it was gradual and with compensation. He was on the slavery issue a moderate, not an abolitionist and not an extensionist. Yet, if this were so, when the states of the lower Sout h seceded, why not let them? They were slaves states; Lincoln did not advocate i nterfering with slavery in them; outside the Union they could have no influence upon Union policy, no influence upon the Territories."25 Mr. Lincoln's opposition to slavery was constrained by the Constitution but his interpretation of his constitutional responsibilities also allowed him to act. " What, then, caused Abraham Lincoln, the nationalist, the narrowly focused, almos t obsessive defender of the Union during the war's first two years, to broaden h is vision and become at last the Great Emancipator?" asked historian Kenneth M. Stamp. "It has hardly a role that he had anticipated. This remarkable transforma tion began sometime in the summer of 1863. By then the war had gone on too long, its aspect had become too grim, and the escalating casualties were too staggeri ng for a man of Lincoln's sensitivity to discover in that terrible ordeal no gre

ater purpose than the denial of the southern claim to self-determination."26 But the Constitution did not restrain proponents of abolition: "In the minds of many people there had been a crying need for the liberation of the slaves. Labor ious efforts had been made to hasten the issuance by the President of the Emanci pation Proclamation, but he was determined not to be forced into premature and i noperative measures," wrote friend William H. Herndon. "Wendell Phillips abused and held him up to public ridicule from the stump in New England. Horace Greeley turned the batteries of the New York Tribune against him; and, in a word, he en countered all the rancor and hostility of his old friends the Abolitionists."27 John Palmer Usher, who served first as Assistant Interior Secretary and later as Interior Secretary, wrote later: Mr. Greeley was evidently dissatisfied with the explanation of Mr. Lincoln, and the Tribune teemed with complaints and criticisms of his administration, whi ch very much annoyed him; so much so that he requested Mr. Greeley to come to Wa shington and make known in person his complaints, to the end that they might be obviated if possible. The managing editor of the Tribune came. Mr. Lincoln said: "You complain of me. What have I done or omitted to do which has provoked th e hostility of the Tribune?" 'The reply was: 'You should issue a proclamation abolishing slavery." Mr. Lincoln answered: 'Suppose I do that. There are now 20,000 of our musket s on the shoulders of Kentuckians, who are bravely fighting our battles. Every o ne of them will be thrown down or carried over to the rebels." The reply was: 'Let them do it. The cause of the Union will be stronger if K entucky should secede with the rest than it is now." Mr. Lincoln answered: 'Oh, I can't think that!"28

Historian Gabor S. Boritt wrote: "The President did not intend to help perpetuat e slavery on the contrary. Yet he hoped that at least some conservative Northern ers and liberal Southerners would so understand his proclamations. Indeed, the f irst concrete effect of his preliminary proclamation on the South was to start a bustle, in Union held areas, about sending representatives to Congress in Washi ngton and so qualify for absolution from emancipation. Democratic Representative Daniel Voorhees of Indiana accordingly declared, with some justice, that the Re publican chief's strategy of incentives was 'the grossest and most outrageous as sault upon the freedom of the elective franchise.' Of course he failed to take i nto account that this, as all the executive attempts to influence Southerners, w as brought on by a vast civil war."29 The war provided a reason, a need and an excuse for such interference. Jennifer Fleischner, who wrote a biography of Mary Todd Lincoln and her black seamstress and friend, Elizabeth Keckly, observed: "What [Frederick] Douglass called the 'e ducating tendency' of the war on Lincoln's racial understanding would be reinfor ced by Lincoln's encounters with dignified black men like Frederick Douglass; ye t Lizzy's presence in his family circle also likely contributed to his evolving comprehension of black life in America. By the time Douglass met with Lincoln, L izzy had developed her own quiet relationship with the President. While combing his hair or sewing in the sitting room when he happened to enter, they sometimes fell into conversation, and like Douglass, she desired and treasured this power ful white man's recognition."30 Pennsylvania politician Alexander K. McClure, who frequently visited Mr. Lincoln

at the White House, later wrote: "Lincoln treated the Emancipation question fro m the beginning as a very grave matter-of-fact problem to be solved for or again st the destruction of slavery as the safety of the Union might dictate. He refra ined from Emancipation for eighteen months after the war had begun, simply becau se he believed during that time that he might best save the Union by saving slav ery, and had the development of events proved that belief to be correct he would have permitted slavery to live with the Union. When he became fully convinced t hat the safety of the government demanded the destruction of slavery, he decided , after the most patient and exhaustive consideration of the subject, to proclai m his Emancipation policy. It was not founded solely or even chiefly on the sent iment of hostility to slavery. If it had been, the proclamation would have decla red slavery abolished in every State of the Union; but he excluded the slaves St ates of Delaware, Maryland, and Tennessee, and certain parishes in Louisiana, an d certain counties in Virginia, from the operation of operation of the proclamat ion, declaring, in the instrument that has now become immortal, that 'which exce pted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not i ssued.'"31 According to historian James M. McPherson, "One of the best arguments of [Freder ick] Douglass and other abolitionists was that slavery was a source of strength to the Confederacy. Slaves worked in the fields and factories; slaves dug trench es and drove wagons for the Confederate army. Without their labor, the South wou ld collapse, and the North could win the war. A proclamation of emancipation, sa id Douglass, would cripple the South by encouraging slaves to flee their masters and come over to the Northern side where freedom awaited them."32 Presidential aide William O. Stoddard wrote for the New York Examiner after the Draft Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September 1862: "One victory, amor al one, has been gained by the President during the week that has passed, in sen ding out to the country and the world his Emancipation Proclamation. It was a bo ld movement, in face of many probabilities and some disagreeable certainties; an d even now it depends upon those at the North who agree with it in principle, to show that its grand announcement of approaching liberation is not all 'brutum f ulmen."33 A week later Stoddard wrote:"The President's Emancipation Proclamation is having a greater effect at the South than even its friends anticipated. 'It is the hit bird that flutters.' Every report, from every source, would seem to indicate an immense sensation all over the regions now in rebellion. Further to exasperate the traitors is simply impossible; if then they are experiencing any large degre e of new emotion, it must be that mixture of rage and fear which puzzles the bra in of counsel, and unstrings the nerves of action."34 After President Lincoln issued the Final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Stoddard wrote: "The President has been true to his declared policy, and we are now to see, as speedily as the course of events will permit, whether the eternal justice embodied in his Emancipation Proclamation will or will not add s trength to the good cause in behalf of which it was promulgated." Stoddard added : "It may be borne in mind that the action of the President does not propose to interfere with local laws, and deals only with those now held as bondsmen; but n o man can doubt that the emancipation of this mass, this generation, provides fr ee papers for all the millions yet unborn. Now let the armies press forward: eve ry rebellious States that is held for thirty days only, is by that occupation fo rever deprived of all strength to originate new acts of treason. Vast regions wh ich yield supplies to the rebellion would be powerless for that end, had the pre sent state of things been created twelve months earlier. Only through their slav in so far as they are deprived of es do the reels keep their forces in the field them, must their ability fail them." The extermination of slavery during the Civil War was slow but steady. Historian

Harry V. Jaffa wrote: "This grudging record of the 'legal extinction' of any po ssibility of slavery in United States territories may also, with charity, be all owed to pass with little comment. What should not be passed over, however, is th e fact that in June 1862, six months after the meeting of the first regular sess ion of the first Congress sitting during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, slav ery in the territories of the United States 'then existing or thereafter to be f ormed or acquired' was prohibited. If this constituted an abandonment of the pri nciples of the campaign of 1858, if this was not a consummation of everything Li ncoln had fought for that fateful summer, then words have no meaning."35 President Lincoln was especially sensitive to the loyalty of and attitudes in th e Border States. These states were positioned at points along vital rivers and r ail networks that the Union needed to control. Historian Hans L. Trefousse wrote: "While president, Lincoln, for reasons of pol itical necessity, emphasized that the war was fought, not for the abolition of s lavery, but for the preservation of the Union; he never wavered from his convict ion that slavery was wrong. In view of the fact that he had been elected by a mi nority of some 39 percent of the voters, most of whom had no sympathy with aboli tionism, and that he had to retain their loyalty, he could not emphasize his ant islavery convictions. This was especially true because he was anxious to retain the border slave states he is reputed to have said that he hoped God was on his side but he must have Kentucky and any antislavery move would have heightened th e danger of further secession."36 Union came first. Historian James M. McPherson wrote: "Although restoration of t he Union remained his first priority, the abolition of slavery became an end as well as a means, a war aim virtually inseparable from Union itself. The first st ep in making it so came in the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln pronounc ed 'an act of justice' as well as a military necessity. Of course, the border st ates, along with Tennessee and small enclaves elsewhere in the Confederate state s, were not covered by the Proclamation because they were under Union control an d not at war with the United States and thus exempt from an Executive action tha t could legally be based only on the President's war powers."37 Presidential aid e William O. Stoddard wrote in an anonymous newspaper dispatch at the end of Aug ust 1863: "The Emancipation policy, and the arming of the black men the two great meas ures of the Administration are swiftly vindicating the wisdom of their author. I n the opinion of several of our best and foremost generals old Democrats, too th ey have been the heaviest blows yet given to our enemies. Such measures, for whi ch there could not possible be found any adequate precedent, must ever be judged by their results, and the results are presenting themselves each day for our ex amination. How many troublesome questions will be settled at once and forever by that same Proclamation, can only be understood by the men who had command in re bel districts before it became the law of the land, and who honestly endeavored to carry out 'the compromises of the Constitution,' in the management of their c ommands. Said one gentleman, weak in the faith, and with the egg-shell of State Right s (in rebel States) still upon his head, to another, "But if you conquer all the se States, or if they now voluntarily return, what course will you take with the slaves? Say in North Carolina?" "My dear sir," was the reply, "I was not aware that there were any slaves in North Carolina. The black people of that and other rebellious States have been freemen in the eye of our law this long time."38

A year later in August 1864, at a point of political peril for President Lincoln , he had an extended interview with former Wisconsin Governor Alexander W. Randa

ll and journalist Joseph T. Mills. Mills recorded the results of the interview i n his diary. President Lincoln reviewed his thinking about the state of the war and the contributions of black soldiers to the war effort: The President was free & animated in conversation. I was astonished at his e lasticity of spirits. Says Gov Randall, why cant you Mr P. seek some place of re tirement for a few weeks. You would be reinvigorated. Aye said the President, 3 weeks would do me no good my thoughts my solicitude for this great country follo w me where ever I go. I don't think it is personal vanity, or ambition but I can not but feel that the weal or woe of this great nation will be decided in the ap proaching canvas. My own experience has proven to me, that there is no program i ntended by the democratic party but that will result in the dismemberment of the Union. But Genl McClellan is in favor of crushing out the rebellion, & he will probably be the Chicago candidate. The slightest acquaintance with arithmetic wi ll prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed with democratic st rategy. It would sacrifice all the white men of the north to do it. There are no w between 1 & 200 thousand black men now in the service of the Union. These men will be disbanded, returned to slavery & we will have to fight two nations inste ad of one. I have tried it. You cannot concilliate [sic] the South, when the mas tery & control of millions of blacks makes them sure of ultimate success. You ca nnot conciliate the South, when you place yourself in such a position, that they see they can achieve their independence. The war democrat depends upon concilla tion [sic]. He must confine himself to that policy entirely. If he fights at all in such a war as this he must economise life & use all the means which God & na ture puts in his power. Abandon all the posts now possessed by black men surrend er all these advantages to the enemy, & we would be compelled to abandon the war in 3 weeks. We have to hold territory. Where are the war democrats to do it. Th e field was open to them to have enlisted & put down this rebellion by force of arms, by concilliation [sic], long before the present policy was inaugurated. Th ere have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warrior s of Port Hudson & Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South. I should be damned in time & in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will kee p my faith to friends & enemies, come what will. My enemies say I am now carryin g on this was for the sole purpose of abolition. It is & will be carried on so l ong as I am President for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the Emancipation lever as I have d one. Freedom has given us the control of 200 000 able bodied men, born & raised on southern soil. It will give us more yet. Just so much it has sub[t]racted fro m the strength of our enemies, & instead of alienating the south from us, there are evidences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our own & rebel soldiers . My enemies condemn my emancipation policy. Let them prove by the history of th is war, that we can restore the Union without it. The President appeared to be n ot the pleasant joker I had expected to see, but a man of deep convictions & an unutterable yearning for the success of the Union cause. His voice was pleasant his manner earnest & cordial. As I heard a vindication of his policy from his ow n lips, I could not but feel that his mind grew in stature like his body, & that I stood in the presence of the great guiding intellect of the age, & that those huge Atlantian shoulders were fit to bear the weight of mightiest monarchies. H is transparent honesty, his republican simplicity, his gushing sympathy for thos e who offered their lives for their country, his utter forgetfulness of self in his concern for his country, could not but inspire me with confidence, that he w as Heavens instrument to conduct his people thro this red sea of blood to a Cana an of peace & freedom.39

Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson wrote of meeting President Lincoln in those s ame highly confused days: "He spoke of the pressure upon him, of the condition o f the country, of the possible action of the coming Democratic Convention and of the uncertainty of the election in tones of sadness. After discussing for a lon

g time these matters, he said with great calmness and firmness, 'I do not know w hat the result may be, we may be defeated, we may fail, but we will go down with our principles. I will not modify, qualify nor retract my proclimation [sic], n or my Letter [regarding the requirements for peace negotiations].' I can never f orget his manner, tones, nor words nor cease to feel that his firmness, amid the pressure of active friends, saved our cause in 1864."40 Mr. Lincoln may not have intended at the outbreak of the Civil War to liberate a ll the country's black residents from the yoke of slavery, but with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on January 31, 1865, that is what he a ccomplished. Lincoln's legal colleague and friend, William H. Herndon, wrote in his biography of Mr. Lincoln: "I believe Mr. Lincoln wished to go down in histor y as the liberator of the black man. He realized to its fullest extent the respo nsibility and magnitude of the act, and declared it was 'the central act of his administration and the great event of the nineteenth century.' Always a friend o f the negro, he had from boyhood waged a bitter unrelenting warfare against his enslavement. He had advocated his cause in the courts, on the stump, in the Legi slature of his State and that of the nation, and, as if to crown it with a sacri fice, he sealed his devotion to the great cause of freedom with his blood."41 Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass did not begin the war as an admirer of Mr. Lincoln, but Douglass became one. He gave a speech 11 years after Mr. Lincoln's death in which he said that "President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to hi s times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his won derful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous confli ct before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great missio n was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment an d ruin; and second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do o ne or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful coo peration of his loyal fellow countrymen. Without this primary and essential cond ition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he p ut the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have ine vitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered res istance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. L incoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentim ent of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was s wift, zealous, radical and determined."42