Saturday, November 5, 2011

The President's Emancipation Message - Response Of The City And County Of St. Louis

We are gratified with the action of the County Convention yesterday on the proposal of President Lincoln on Emancipation.  The resolution was adopted unanimously and enthusiastically; not one dissenting voice.  This expression is of the Union men of the city and county of St. Louis.  That this is the sentiment of the unconditional Union men of Missouri there is little doubt.

When the resolution, which has passed the house of representatives, shall have been concurred in by the Senate, it will be a distinct proffer on the part of the General Government of aid and co-operation with such of the slave states as desire to inaugurate the policy of emancipation for themselves.  Until accepted by one or more of such States, it simply remains a standing offer of co-operation – nothing more.  But there is reason to believe that Delaware and Maryland will ere long take steps for the adoption of such a policy, and they the offer by acceptance will become operative.

Has not the time now come when the people of Missouri, too, will begin to consider the necessary preliminaries for the inauguration of that policy for their own State?  That the interests of Missouri would be in calculably advanced by adopting measures for the gradual, but sure, extinction of slavery, upon just principles, within her limits, is a proposition almost too plain for argument. – St. Louis. Dem.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, April 3, 1862, p. 2

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