REVEILLE IN WASHINGTON, 1860-1865 by Margaret Leech

Author:Margaret Leech
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590174678
Publisher: New York Review Books

In contrast to the demagogues and fanatics of his party, Lincoln viewed the slavery problem as a statesman. Above all things, he desired to save the Union, and in his mind emancipation was always subsidiary to this great central ambition. Neither sentimentality nor vindictiveness blinded him to the social upheaval which a sudden overthrow of the institution would entail. He had repeatedly voiced his cherished hope that the loyal slaveholding States would voluntarily adopt some plan of gradual emancipation with compensation to the owners from the Federal Government.

In March, 1862, to the accompaniment of heated oratory, the Senate took up the bill for emancipation in the District. The slaves were to be freed immediately, but loyal masters were to receive compensation at an average of three hundred dollars per slave. Moreover, an amendment appropriated money for a project dear to Mr. Lincoln’s heart, one to which he strongly adhered and with which he unsuccessfully experimented—the colonization of such freed blacks as might wish to leave the country.

Neither compensation nor the hope that some Negroes might take their departure calmed the anxiety of the capital’s citizens. In their eyes, the abolitionists were bent on making the District “a hell on earth for the white man.” The Board of Aldermen passed a resolution which urged Congress “to provide . . . safeguards against converting this city . . . into an asylum for free negroes, a population undesirable in every American community.” The Star indignantly took it for granted that owners of valuable slaves would lose no time in placing them beyond the reach of Congress. According to observers of Republican sympathies, there was a great exodus of blacks by train and wagonload to Maryland. The Baltimore slave-pens were reported to be crowded. A few owners undoubtedly persuaded their slaves to leave. The provost marshal remarked that a number of these apparently compliant chattels seized the opportunity to escape altogether.

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