Lincoln, Congress, and Emancipation by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2016-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

FIG. 3. George L. Stearns. (Boyd B. Stutler Collection, West Virginia State Archives)

Using various connections to important men, Douglass managed to get an audience with Secretary of War Stanton on August 10, 1863. The two met for about thirty minutes, and Douglass came away with the understanding that he would be given a commission to aid General Lorenzo Thomas with recruiting in the Mississippi Valley. He then met with President Lincoln and discussed the issues of concern with black troops, coming away from the meeting feeling fairly satisfied that the president intended to offer African American soldiers a fair deal. Hopeful once again, Douglass returned to Rochester and closed his newspaper, expecting his officer’s commission to arrive any day. When he finally received word to report to Thomas in Vicksburg, Mississippi, however, there was no mention of a commission. He wrote to Stanton, but no commission came, and a deeply disappointed Douglass chose not to go south. The Republican Party, and Stanton in particular, had proved to be a great disappointment once again, but Douglass came away from his meeting with Lincoln impressed and with a new understanding of the president’s position.

After 1863, with the Conscription Act in place and the anti-black violence that erupted in antidraft riots in cities such as New York, recruiting in the North largely dried up. From that point forward, most black troops were drawn from the South. Removing himself from the recruiting field altogether, Douglass spent the remainder of the war as an outspoken advocate for the rights of the freedpeople and colored troops. He continued to press for an “abolition war” that would completely eradicate slavery, but was soon becoming perturbed with Lincoln and the Republican Party once again.

Frustration found Douglass wavering with dual allegiance, torn between the needs of African Americans and the future promise of the Republican Party. As the 1864 election approached, Douglass seriously considered supporting the nomination of John C. Frémont to replace Lincoln on the Republican ticket, even signing a call for an alternative Republican convention. The war effort appeared to be at a standstill, and African Americans were making few gains. In the end, however, Douglass campaigned for Lincoln’s reelection, once again taking a more practical political position. Although he continued to worry that the president was putting aside emancipation, Douglass’s support for Lincoln and his allegiance to the Republican Party were probably greatly influenced by his second meeting with the president.

Douglass was summoned to meet with Lincoln for a second time in August 1864. Considering that the president’s war was not going so well and that he was facing an uphill struggle toward reelection in the fall, Douglass was certainly flattered that Lincoln sought his advice. Eagerly traveling to the nation’s capital for the meeting, Douglass found the president in a dismal state and close to bowing to the will of the growing tide of antiwar sentiment in the North. Lincoln showed Douglass a letter he had written declaring he would not stand in the way of peace or demand an end to slavery if the people of his country did not wish it to be abolished.

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