Lincoln Proposes Compensated Emancipation and Grant’s Fortunes Take an Ominous Turn

By Gary Far­row, mem­ber of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Grant’s vic­to­ries at Fort Henry and Donel­son dark­ens fes­tiv­i­ties in the south­ern cap­i­tal. The War Depart­ment sees peace dawn over Ten­nessee. Lin­coln floats the idea of com­pen­sated eman­ci­pa­tion. The First Ver­mont Cal­vary was itch’n to fight. And despite his suc­cess in the field, Grant lands in hot water.

North Star 1 March

Gen­eral News Items

Jeff Davis, Pres­i­dent of the bogus South­ern Con­fed­er­acy, was inau­gu­rated at Rich­mond, last Sat­ur­day. Col Wood (one of the recently returned fed­eral pris­on­ers) was present and says there was no enthu­si­asm what­ever. Not a cheer to be raised.

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Accord­ing to the eye­wit­ness, the cer­e­mony went flat while a lead­ing south­ern paper sounded an even darker note.

North Star March 1. 1862

Speak­ing Out

The Rich­mond Whig of last Fri­day has a bit­ter arti­cle on the Davis Admin­is­tra­tion. It says “Judg­ing by the results so far, it is the most lam­en­ta­ble fail­ure in his­tory, and the most sin­gle ser­vice it can now ren­der is the sur­ren­der of the nation to abler and bet­ter hands. In view of the past, present, and prob­a­ble future, the pageant of tomor­row is a bit­ter mock­ery, and a mis­er­able com­pen­sa­tion for the ruin of a free people.…

… Jeff. Davis has appointed Feb 28th as a day of fast­ing, humil­i­a­tion and prayer.

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Of course the news from Henry and Donel­son had the oppo­site effect in the North.

North Star March 8, 1862

The Rebels Still Retreating

New York, March 3 — The Times Wash­ing­ton despatch states … the rebels are in full retreat toward the Ten­nessee River. Cross­ing the river will place them in Alabama, and free mid­dle Ten­nessee of every armed rebel force. In as much as the enemy retreat along a rail­road line and are tear­ing up as they pass, it will be dif­fi­cult for Gen­eral Buell to catch them.

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North Star March 8, 1862

Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment of Tennessee

Wash­ing­ton, March 2 — Offi­cial infor­ma­tion to the War Depart­ment from Nashville rep­re­sents that the mil­i­tary work in the state is almost com­pleted, and that it only remains to effect a civil reor­ga­ni­za­tion State Government…The rebels forces under Albert Sid­ney John­ston are being steadily pressed by Gen­eral Buell …

…The Pres­i­dent has des­ig­nated Hon. Andrew John­son to be Brigadier, and he pro­ceeds to Ten­nessee tomor­row to open a mil­i­tary pro­vi­sional gov­ern­ment until the civil gov­ern­ment can be reconstructed.

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News sug­gest­ing the reestab­lish­ment of order in Ten­nessee was pre­ma­ture. The state would be sec­ond only to Vir­ginia in the num­ber of Civil War bat­tles fought.

North Star March 15, 1862

A Mes­sage from the President

HE PROPOSES COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION

To Fel­low Cit­i­zens of the Sen­ate and House of Representatives

I rec­om­mend the adop­tion of a joint res­o­lu­tion by your hon­or­able bod­ies which shall sub­stan­tially be as follows:

Resolved, That the United States ought to coop­er­ate with any State which may adopt a grad­ual abo­li­tion of slav­ery giv­ing to such State pecu­niary aid, to be used by such State in its dis­cre­tion, to com­pen­sate for the incon­ve­niences, pub­lic and pri­vate, pro­duced by such change of system.

…The fed­eral gov­ern­ment would find its high­est inter­est in such a mea­sure as one of the most effi­cient means of self preservation…

Such a propo­si­tion on the part of the Gen­eral Gov­ern­ment sets up no claim of right by the Fed­eral author­ity to inter­fere with slav­ery within the State lim­its, refer­ring as it does the absolute con­trol of the sub­ject in each case to the State and its peo­ple imme­di­ately inter­ested. It is pro­posed as a mat­ter of per­fectly free choice with them.

In the annual mes­sage last Decem­ber, I thought fit to say, “The Union must be pre­served, and hence all indis­pen­si­ble means must be employed” … A prac­ti­cal re-acknowledgement of the national author­ity would ren­der the war unnec­es­sary and it would at once cease…

… While it is true that the adop­tion of the pro­posed res­o­lu­tion would be merely ini­tia­tory, and not within itself a prac­ti­cal mea­sure, it is rec­om­mended in the hope that it would soon lead to impor­tant results …

Signed,

A Lin­coln.

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Com­pen­sated eman­ci­pa­tion was not a new idea; Eng­land had paid Spain and Por­tu­gal to cease slave trad­ing in the early 1800s. In the US instance, the idea was to com­pen­sate slave hold­ers for the loss of their investment.

Lincoln’s let­ter sug­gests what a thorny prob­lem slav­ery was. From a Con­sti­tu­tional per­spec­tive, Pres­i­dent Lin­coln saw the deter­mi­na­tion to out­law human bondage as a state rights issue. Although Lin­coln per­son­ally believed blacks deserved an equal chance at life, he made no moral argu­ment and could not afford to be too far out in front of North­ern sen­ti­ment. This piece of pub­lic cor­re­spon­dence helped him gauge pop­u­lar sup­port on the slave issue. The con­cept of com­pen­sated eman­ci­pa­tion itself would never go any­where; how­ever, it was an impor­tant pre­quel for what was to come.

Though his Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion issued under his war pow­ers in 1863, Lin­coln would even­tu­ally declare the slaves in the Con­fed­er­acy free. After the War, the United States would explic­itly out­law slav­ery by rat­i­fy­ing the thir­teenth amendment.

Mean­while the Ver­mont Cav­alry wanted its fair share of glory.

North Star March 15, 1862

The fol­low­ing let­ter from an offi­cer of the Vt.Cavalry …

Cor­re­spon­dence of the North Star

From the Vt. Cav­alry Regiment

Camp Har­ris, March 1, 1862

Mr. Edi­tor: -

Think­ing per­haps that a few lines might not be unin­ter­est­ing to the read­ers of your paper who have friends in the First Ver­mont Cav­alry, I have taken the lib­erty thus to address you… Camp Har­ris … is located on a tobacco plan­ta­tion, where there are ample grounds for drill, about three miles from Annapo­lis… A recent sur­vey of the har­bor here, shows that it may con­tain over three hun­dred ves­sels… and it is under­stood that num­ber will imme­di­ately ren­dezvous here.

The health of the men com­pos­ing this reg­i­ment is for the most part very good. Only three deaths have occurred since the reg­i­ment was orga­nized over five months ago – [a] fact that speaks highly of the mate­r­ial of which it is com­posed, as well as the atten­tion that is bestowed upon feed­ing and cloth­ing it…

…So there is a prob­a­bil­ity of going on an expe­di­tion South…The boys who have expressed their fears since our recent vic­to­ries, that they should have to go home with­out a fight, may yet have a chance to dis­play their courage.

Yours truly,

Onward

North Star March 22 1862

The Cincin­nati Gazette says that Gen Grant has asked to be relieved of his com­mand as trou­ble exists between him and his generals.

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It almost came to pass.

One would think that suc­cess on the bat­tle­field would breed team­work among the gen­er­als. Instead it set off a round of polit­i­cal infight­ing that almost got Grant arrested.

It started after Donel­son when Gen­eral Henry Hal­leck, Grant’s com­mand­ing offi­cer, did not receive any fol­low up com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the newly pro­moted Major Gen­eral. Hounded by the press for infor­ma­tion he did not have and fit to be tied, Hal­leck bought into the rumors about Grant’s drink­ing and sur­mised that he was on a bender.

Hal­leck wrote Gen­eral McClel­lan, head of the army, request­ing per­mis­sion to cen­sure Grant. McClel­lan told Hal­leck to arrest his poten­tial rival if he felt “ The good of the ser­vice required it.” Hal­leck then ordered Grant to “remain your­self to Fort Henry.”

It was at this point that Grant requested that he be relieved of his com­mand. How­ever, it was dis­cov­ered that Grant’s reports after Donel­son had not been telegraphed to Hal­leck, because the oper­a­tor had deserted, tak­ing the reports with him. Hal­leck sub­se­quently changed his aggres­sive stance towards Grant telling him. “Instead of reliev­ing you, I wish you …to assume com­mand and lead it to new victories.”

After the inci­dent, the prin­ci­pals resumed their wary cooperation.