Abraham Lincoln Autograph Letter Signed
K12054 Lincoln Convenes His Cabinet to Discuss His Plan for Compensated Emancipation
This constitutes the only known evidence of a last-minute Cabinet meeting convened by Lincoln on the evening of March 5, 1862 to discuss compensated emancipation. (We found no copy or draft of this document in the collections of the Library of Congress.) This brief missive to William H. Seward, written and signed by Lincoln, has been countersigned by the Secretary of State. The president issued his proposal to Congress the next day, as indicated by the note at the bottom (written in an unknown, but seemingly contemporaneous, hand). It’s possible that Lincoln’s edits on his draft message to Congress, the original of which is in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, came about as a result of this meeting.
This document also dovetails nicely with Montgomery Blair’s letter to Lincoln of the same date, also in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Blair, writing at 10:30 in the evening, was clearly following-up on the 7:00 p.m. cabinet meeting: he continued the discussion of the president’s compensated emancipation plan, suggesting the addition of a colonization provision. Basler, in his annotation regarding our document, noted that “although the diaries of Gideon Welles and Edward Bates have nothing on this meeting, Lincoln probably presented for discussion his message recommending compensated emancipation, which he sent to congress March 6.” Our Lincoln note to Seward and the Blair letter to Lincoln provide mutual context, confirming the nature of the meeting and thereby filling a gap in the historical record regarding the president’s use of his Cabinet to advise him on the all-important issue of emancipation.
Abraham Lincoln. Autograph Letter Signed (“A. Lincoln”) as President, to Secretary of State William H. Seward (1801-1872); “Executive Mansion,” Washington, D.C., March 5, 1862. Signed at bottom “William H. Seward,” beneath which is a note in an unidentified contemporary hand; 1 page, 8vo (7 x 47/16 inches), portion only of integral blank present.
Executive Mansion
March 5, 1862
Hon. Sec. of State
My dear Sir
Please summon the Cabinet to meet me here at 7 o’clock this evening.
Yours truly A. Lincoln
[Signature of recipient:] William H. Seward
[Notation, in a third hand:] March 6th 1862 The Presidents Message to Congress, Recommending Compensated Emancipation. To preserve the Union
This letter’s brevity belies its far-reaching implications. Here, President Lincoln directs Secretary of State Seward to convene a cabinet meeting on the evening prior to his special message to Congress. During this advance meeting, Lincoln presented his proposal for compensated emancipation.
Little specific information has survived regarding the Cabinet meeting convened by this note. Lincoln probably presented his draft message for comment; the surviving draft contains revisions likely made during this meeting based on suggestions by his Cabinet. The next day, March 6, 1862, Lincoln sent his special message to Congress. In it, he called for a Congressional resolution endorsing compensated emancipation and pledging federal support to states that adopted such legislation. The president termed his measure “one of the most efficient means of self-preservation,” stating that “in my judgment, gradual, and not sudden emancipation, is better for all.” The initiation of compensated emancipation, he stressed, would ensure that none of the slave states of the North would have anything to gain by joining the Confederacy.
Lincoln had first flirted with the idea of compensated emancipation in the fall of 1861. The small state of Delaware, which had remained loyal to the Union despite the continued existence of slavery within its borders, appeared to be the perfect place to try out his idea. In his book From Slavery to Freedom, historian John Hope Franklin wrote that “[Lincoln] attempted an experiment with compensated emancipation in Delaware. He interested his friends there and urged them to propose it to the Delaware legislature. He went so far as to write a draft of the bill, which provided for gradual emancipation, and another which provided that the federal government would share the expenses of compensating masters for their slaves. Although these bills were much discussed, there was too much opposition to introduce them." (Franklin, p. 280)
Lincoln’s far-reaching March 6, 1862 proposal met with initial success: On April 10, Congress passed a joint resolution in accordance with the president’s recommendations. Six days later, the president signed a historic bill prohibiting slavery in the District of Columbia. This act entitled District slave owners to compensation of up to $300 per forfeited slave; former slaves who chose to join the overseas colonization plan were allocated up to $100 each. In the nine months leading up to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the federal government spent nearly one million dollars to gain the freedom of approximately 3,100 slaves. The District of Columbia Emancipation Act remains the only example of compensated emancipation ever put into practice in the United States.
To Lincoln’s increasing frustration, however, none of the border states moved to enact compensated emancipation. The president saw a crucial opportunity slipping away. On July 12, with Congress about to adjourn, he addressed a special message to the leaders of the border states. “If you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message of last March,” he charged, “the war would now be substantially ended.” Lincoln pleaded with them to reconsider the measure, hinting that the opportunity would not last: “The incidents of the war can not be avoided. If the war continue long, as it must, if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your states will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion...It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it.”
While the border states temporized, the inexorable “friction and abrasion” Lincoln had predicted continued. On July 17, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which emancipated all slaves belonging to persons assisting the rebellion, forbade the military to return any fugitive slaves, and authorized the president to employ “persons of African descent” in any capacity in order to suppress the rebellion. The Militia Act, passed by Congress the same day, specifically permitted “persons of African descent” to serve in the military and granted those escaped slaves serving their freedom.
Lincoln’s own thinking on the issue of slavery had undergone a profound evolution in these critical five months. On July 22, Lincoln convened another cabinet meeting to announce that he was prepared to take an even more radical step: the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
This constitutes the only known evidence of a last-minute Cabinet meeting convened by Lincoln on the evening of March 5, 1862 to discuss compensated emancipation. (We found no copy or draft of this document in the collections of the Library of Congress.) This brief missive to William H. Seward, written and signed by Lincoln, has been countersigned by the Secretary of State. The president issued his proposal to Congress the next day, as indicated by the note at the bottom (written in an unknown, but seemingly contemporaneous, hand). It’s possible that Lincoln’s edits on his draft message to Congress, the original of which is in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, came about as a result of this meeting.
This document also dovetails nicely with Montgomery Blair’s letter to Lincoln of the same date, also in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Blair, writing at 10:30 in the evening, was clearly following-up on the 7:00 p.m. cabinet meeting: he continued the discussion of the president’s compensated emancipation plan, suggesting the addition of a colonization provision. Basler, in his annotation regarding our document, noted that “although the diaries of Gideon Welles and Edward Bates have nothing on this meeting, Lincoln probably presented for discussion his message recommending compensated emancipation, which he sent to congress March 6.” Our Lincoln note to Seward and the Blair letter to Lincoln provide mutual context, confirming the nature of the meeting and thereby filling a gap in the historical record regarding the president’s use of his Cabinet to advise him on the all-important issue of emancipation.
Abraham Lincoln. Autograph Letter Signed (“A. Lincoln”) as President, to Secretary of State William H. Seward (1801-1872); “Executive Mansion,” Washington, D.C., March 5, 1862. Signed at bottom “William H. Seward,” beneath which is a note in an unidentified contemporary hand; 1 page, 8vo (7 x 47/16 inches), portion only of integral blank present.
Executive Mansion
March 5, 1862
Hon. Sec. of State
My dear Sir
Please summon the Cabinet to meet me here at 7 o’clock this evening.
Yours truly A. Lincoln
[Signature of recipient:] William H. Seward
[Notation, in a third hand:] March 6th 1862 The Presidents Message to Congress, Recommending Compensated Emancipation. To preserve the Union
This letter’s brevity belies its far-reaching implications. Here, President Lincoln directs Secretary of State Seward to convene a cabinet meeting on the evening prior to his special message to Congress. During this advance meeting, Lincoln presented his proposal for compensated emancipation.
Little specific information has survived regarding the Cabinet meeting convened by this note. Lincoln probably presented his draft message for comment; the surviving draft contains revisions likely made during this meeting based on suggestions by his Cabinet. The next day, March 6, 1862, Lincoln sent his special message to Congress. In it, he called for a Congressional resolution endorsing compensated emancipation and pledging federal support to states that adopted such legislation. The president termed his measure “one of the most efficient means of self-preservation,” stating that “in my judgment, gradual, and not sudden emancipation, is better for all.” The initiation of compensated emancipation, he stressed, would ensure that none of the slave states of the North would have anything to gain by joining the Confederacy.
Lincoln had first flirted with the idea of compensated emancipation in the fall of 1861. The small state of Delaware, which had remained loyal to the Union despite the continued existence of slavery within its borders, appeared to be the perfect place to try out his idea. In his book From Slavery to Freedom, historian John Hope Franklin wrote that “[Lincoln] attempted an experiment with compensated emancipation in Delaware. He interested his friends there and urged them to propose it to the Delaware legislature. He went so far as to write a draft of the bill, which provided for gradual emancipation, and another which provided that the federal government would share the expenses of compensating masters for their slaves. Although these bills were much discussed, there was too much opposition to introduce them." (Franklin, p. 280)
Lincoln’s far-reaching March 6, 1862 proposal met with initial success: On April 10, Congress passed a joint resolution in accordance with the president’s recommendations. Six days later, the president signed a historic bill prohibiting slavery in the District of Columbia. This act entitled District slave owners to compensation of up to $300 per forfeited slave; former slaves who chose to join the overseas colonization plan were allocated up to $100 each. In the nine months leading up to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the federal government spent nearly one million dollars to gain the freedom of approximately 3,100 slaves. The District of Columbia Emancipation Act remains the only example of compensated emancipation ever put into practice in the United States.
To Lincoln’s increasing frustration, however, none of the border states moved to enact compensated emancipation. The president saw a crucial opportunity slipping away. On July 12, with Congress about to adjourn, he addressed a special message to the leaders of the border states. “If you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message of last March,” he charged, “the war would now be substantially ended.” Lincoln pleaded with them to reconsider the measure, hinting that the opportunity would not last: “The incidents of the war can not be avoided. If the war continue long, as it must, if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your states will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion...It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it.”
While the border states temporized, the inexorable “friction and abrasion” Lincoln had predicted continued. On July 17, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which emancipated all slaves belonging to persons assisting the rebellion, forbade the military to return any fugitive slaves, and authorized the president to employ “persons of African descent” in any capacity in order to suppress the rebellion. The Militia Act, passed by Congress the same day, specifically permitted “persons of African descent” to serve in the military and granted those escaped slaves serving their freedom.
Lincoln’s own thinking on the issue of slavery had undergone a profound evolution in these critical five months. On July 22, Lincoln convened another cabinet meeting to announce that he was prepared to take an even more radical step: the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.