Diary of John Hay: September 26, 1864

Blair has gone into Maryland stumping. He was very much surprised when he got the President's note. He had thought the opposition to him was dying out. He behaves very handsomely, and is doing his utmost. He speaks in New York Tuesday night.

Blair, in spite of some temporary indiscretions, is a good and true man and a most valuable public officer. He stood with the President against the whole Cabinet in favor of reinforcing Fort Sumter. He stood by Fremont in his Emancipation Decree, though yielding when the President revoked it. He approved the Proclamation of January, 1863, and the Amnesty Proclamation, and has stood like a brother beside the President always. What have injured him are his violent personal antagonisms and indiscretions. He made a bitter and vindictive fight on the radicals of Missouri, though ceasing it at the request of the President. He talked with indecorous severity of Mr. Chase, and with unbecoming harshness of Stanton, saying on street-corners “this man is a liar, that man is a thief.” He made needlessly enemies among public men who have pursued him fiercely in turn. Whitelaw Reid said to-day that Hoffman was going to placard all over Maryland this fall:— “Your time has come!” I said, “he won't do anything of the kind, and moreover Montgomery Blair will do more to carry emancipation in Maryland than any one of those who abuse him.”

Nicolay got home this morning, looking rather ill. I wish he would start off and get hearty again, coming back in time to let me off to Wilmington. He says Weed said he was on the track of the letter and hoped to get it. . . . .

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 228-9; Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay, p. 233.

Diary of John Hay: December 9, 1863

. . . . In the evening Judd and Usher, and Nicolay and I were talking politics and blackguarding our friends in the Council Chamber. A great deal had been said about the folly of the Edward Bates letter — the Rockville Blair speech, etc. — when the President came in. They at once opened on him, and after some talk he settled down to give his ideas about the Blair business. He said:—

“The Blairs have, to an unusual degree, the spirit of clan. Their family is a close corporation. Frank is their hope and pride. They have a way of going with a rush for anything they undertake; — especially have Montgomery and the Old Gentleman. When this war first began, they could think of nothing but Frémont; they expected everything from him; and upon their earnest solicitation he was made a General, and sent to Missouri. I thought well of Frémont. Even now I think he is the prey of wicked and designing men, and I think he has absolutely no military capacity. He went to Missouri, the pet and protegé of the Blairs. At first they corresponded with him and with Frank, who was with him, fully and confidently thinking his plans and his efforts would accomplish great things for the country. At last the tone of Frank’s letters changed. It was a change from confidence to doubt and uncertainty. They were pervaded with a tone of sincere sorrow, and of fear that Frémont would fail. Montgomery showed them to me, and we were both grieved at the prospect. Soon came the news that Frémont had issued his Emancipation Order, and had set up a Bureau of Abolition, giving free papers, and occupying his time apparently with little else. At last, at my suggestion, Montgomery Blair went to Missouri to look at, and talk over matters. He went as the friend of Frémont. I sent him as Frémont ‘s friend. He passed on the way, Mrs. Frémont coming to see me. She sought an audience with me at midnight, and taxed me so violently with many things that I had to exercise all the awkward tact I have, to avoid quarreling with her. She surprised me by asking why their enemy, Montgomery Blair, had been sent to Missouri. She more than once intimated that if Gen'l Frémont should conclude to try conclusions with me, he could set up for himself.”

(Judd says: — “It is pretty clearly proven that Frémont had at that time concluded that the Union was definitely destroyed, and that he should set up an independent government as soon as he took Memphis and organized his army.")

“The next we heard was that Frémont had arrested Frank Blair, and the rupture has since never been healed.”

“During Frémont’s time, the Missouri Democrat, which had always been Blair’s organ, was bought up by Frémont, and turned against Frank Blair. This took away from Frank, after his final break with Frémont, the bulk of the strength which had always elected him. This left him ashore. To be elected in this state of things he must seek for votes outside of the Republican organization. He had pretty hard trimming and cutting to do this consistently. It is this necessity, as it appears to me, of finding some ground for Frank to stand on, that accounts for the present, somewhat anomalous, position of the Blairs in politics.”

Judd: — “The opinion of people who read your Message to-day is that, on that platform, two of your ministers must walk the plank — Blair and Bates.”

Lincoln: — “Both of these men acquiesced in it without objection. The only member of the Cabinet who objected to it was Mr. Chase.”

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 132-5; For the whole diary entry see Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 130-4.

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, October 2, 1861

Newport, 2 October, 1861.

. . . I sent you yesterday a copy of de Vere's last volume of poems. There are some very charming things in it. He has genuine poetic sensibility, and with age he gains power of expression and depth of thought. In everything he writes he shows the refinement of his taste, the delicacy of his feeling, and his strong religious sentiment. He is greatly pleased with any expression of appreciation from America, and if you have a fit opportunity I wish you would say something of this volume in print. And if you should do so, please be sure to tell me, (for I do not always see “Harper's Monthly” and “Weekly”), that I may send it to him.

De Vere has taken from the beginning the most intelligent and sympathetic view of our great contest. I read you, I think, one of his letters about it; and in later letters he has expressed his convictions still more fully and warmly. Nor is this volume without the marks of his hearty interest in our struggle.

I have great faith in Fremont. But how painfully little we know! and how ungenerously that little is used against Fremont by the public generally in forming their opinion of his course! I earnestly hope that he may soon have a success which shall win back to him the popular confidence. Events prove Lincoln's modifications of his proclamation even more unfortunate than it at first seemed, — and even at first it seemed bad enough. In a fight so desperate as that which is now being waged in Missouri we have need of all our arms, — and Lincoln has compelled us to throw aside the most effective of them all, — he has spiked our gun of longest range. Have I before quoted to you Milton's sentence about those “who coming in the course of these affairs to have their share in great actions above the form of law or custom . . .  dispute precedents, forms, circumstances when the commonwealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance, done with just and faithful expedition?” “To these,” as he says, “I wish better instruction, and virtue equal to their calling.”

It is an unexampled experience that we are having now, and a striking development of the democratic principle, — of great historic deeds being accomplished, and moral principles working out their results, with out one great man to do the deeds or to manifest the principle in himself.

The fight in Kentucky seems to me one of the most important phases in the war. Her conduct for the past year has been so mean that she deserves the suffering that has come upon her; but in her borders we have now got slave-holders arrayed against slave-holders, and between them they will kill slavery in her limits. I hope you are wrong in thinking that we shall lose her, — though, if we do, I shall not much grieve, believing that every reverse of ours but makes our final success more certain, and gives to it a solid reality which would not be the result of an easy triumph. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 242-4

Abraham Lincoln to Major-General John C. Fremont, September 2, 1861

Private and confidential.

Washington D. C. Sept. 2, 1861.

Major General Fremont,

My dear Sir: Two points in your proclamation of August 30th give me some anxiety. First, should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the Confederates would very certainly shoot our best man in their hands in retaliation; and so, man for man, indefinitely. It is therefore my order that you allow no man to be shot, under the proclamation, without first having my approbation or consent.

Secondly, I think there is great danger that the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property, and the liberating slaves of traiterous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends, and turn them against us.  perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me therefore to ask, that you will as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the act of Congress, entitled, “An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,” approved August, 6th, 1861, and a copy of which act I herewith send you. This letter is written in a spirit of caution and not of censure

I send it by a special messenger, in order that it may certainly and speedily reach you.

Yours very truly

A. Lincoln

SOURCES: Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4, p. 508; A copy of this letter can be found in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

Major-General John C. Fremont to Abraham Lincoln, September 8, 1861

HEADQUARTERS WESTERN DEPARTMENT,

Saint Louis, September 8, 1861.

The PRESIDENT:

MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 2d, by special messenger, I know to have been written before you had received my letter, and before my telegraphic dispatches and the rapid development of critical conditions here had informed you of affairs in this quarter. I had not written to you fully and frequently, first, because in the incessant change of affairs I would be exposed to give you contradictory accounts; and, secondly, because the amount of the subjects to be laid before you would demand too much of your time.

Trusting to have your confidence, I have been leaving it to events themselves to show you whether or not I was shaping affairs here according to your ideas. The shortest communication between Washington and Saint Louis generally involves two days, and the employment of two days in time of war goes largely towards success or disaster. I therefore went along according to my own judgment, leaving the result of my movements to justify me with you.

And so in regard to my proclamation of the 30th. Between the rebel armies, the Provisional Government, and home traitors, I felt the position bad and saw danger. In the night I decided upon the proclamation and the form of it. I wrote it the next morning and printed it the same day. I did it without consultation or advice with any one, acting solely with my best judgment to serve the country and yourself, and perfectly willing to receive the amount of censure which should be thought due if I had made a false movement. This is as much a movement in the war as a battle, and in going into these I shall have to act according to my judgment of the ground before me, as I did on this occasion. If upon reflection your better judgment still decides that I am wrong in the article respecting the liberation of slaves, I have to ask that you will openly direct me to make the correction. The implied censure will be received as a soldier always should the reprimand of his chief. If I were to retract of my own accord, it would imply that I myself thought it wrong, and that I had acted without the reflection which the gravity of the point demanded. But I did not. I acted with full deliberation, and upon the certain conviction that it was a measure right and necessary, and I think so still.

In regard to the other point of the proclamation to which you refer, I desire to say that I do not think the enemy can either misconstrue or urge anything against it, or undertake to make unusual retaliation. The shooting of men who shall rise in arms against an army in the military occupation of a country is merely a necessary measure of defense, and entirely according to the usages of civilized warfare. The article does not at all refer to prisoners of war, and certainly our enemies have no ground for requiring that we should waive in their benefit any of the ordinary advantages which the usages of war allow to us. As promptitude is itself an advantage in war, I have also to ask that you will permit me to carry out upon the spot the provisions of the proclamation in this respect. Looking at affairs from this point of view, I am satisfied that strong and vigorous measures have now become necessary to the success of our arms; and hoping that my views may have the honor to meet your approval,

I am, with respect and regard, very truly, yours,

 J. C. FREMONT.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 3 (Serial No. 3), p. 377-378; A copy of this letter can be found in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

Abraham Lincoln to Major-General John C. Fremont, Wednesday, September 11, 1861

Washington, D. C. Sep. 11. 1861.

Major General John C. Fremont.

Sir: Yours of the 8th in answer to mine of 2nd Inst. is just received. Assuming that you, upon the ground, could better judge of the necessities of your position than I could at this distance, on seeing your proclamation of August 30th I saw perceived no general objection to it.

The particular clause, however, in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves, appeared to me to be objectionable, in it's non-conformity to the Act of Congress passed the 6th of last August upon the same subjects; and hence I wrote you expressing my wish that that clause should be modified accordingly.  Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on your part, that I should make an open order for the modification, which I very cheerfully do.  It is therefore ordered that the said clause of said proclamation mentioned be so modified, held, and construed, as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject contained in the Act of Congress entitled “An Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes” Approved, August 6. 1861; and that said act be published at length with this order.

Your Obt. Servt

A. Lincoln

SOURCE: Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4, p. 517-8; A copy of this letter can be found in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: September 16, 1861

Yesterday there was a letter from the President to Fremont saying that he wished him to modify his proclamation in regard to slaves and that he expressed his desire publicly at the request of Gen. Fremont, whom he had privately informed of it before. Today those nasty papers say that Fremont will resign. I wish they might all be cut off in the midst of their career and not be allowed to publish a single issue for six months.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 19

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: September 4, 1861

We left Newport yesterday at 11 o'clock A.m. and arrived here (Naushon)¹ at 6 p.m. Fremont's proclamation is of great importance as a sentence of death is passed among all men found armed against the United States and it frees all the negroes belonging to the Rebels. This morning we had a bath and after dinner took a splendid ride. Our party consisted of Misses Webster, Watson, Ward and Shaw, and Messrs. Grey, Ware and Winter.

_______________

¹ An island off Martha's Vineyard, where John M. Forbes had his country home.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 18

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: August 31, 1861

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The Tribune says today that Fremont has declared Missouri to be under martial law and granted freedom to all the slaves. I rather think Mother feels well tonight; I only trust that it's true. Uncle William went on tonight, so Nell and I wait until Tuesday to go with the Wards. This afternoon we went on board the Constitution to a hop and danced with the “middies,” Oh! if Fremont only has freed the slaves, what a step it will be. Joy! Joy! Joy! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 18

Senator James W. Grimes to Senator William P. Fessenden, November 13, 1861

Washington, November 13, 1861.

Your letter of the 10th inst. is at hand, and your imprudence in writing to me will now impose upon you the infliction of a long letter.

First, as to personal matters; I am domiciled with our good friend, who seems to love you as though you were her own son, Mrs. Chipman, at 470 Seventh Street. She fancies that she can satisfy you in the matter of a room or rooms, and unless you are exceedingly particular you will be pleased with the company.

You ask me, who and what caused the removal of Fremont? I answer, the primary cause of the removal was his proclamation. I learn from a most authentic source, a member of the cabinet, that before the Administration would bestow the appointment of major-general upon him a promise was exacted from him that he would not be a candidate for the presidency. Under that pledge he was appointed, and everything went “merry as a marriage-bell” until the proclamation was issued. When it appeared, the embryo Presidents in the cabinet at once took the alarm, and required him to modify it. This he refused to do, but published the President's modification instead. Then the war began, and a regular conspiracy was entered into to destroy his influence in the country and with the army, and finally to depose him. Every other day the report was published that he was removed, gross charges were made against him that were wholly unfounded in fact; his subordinate generals were stimulated to disobedience, officers were sent out to act in confidential positions who were spies upon his every act, and the select committee of the House of Representatives appointed to investigate the frauds in this department, almost all of whom were original enemies of Fremont, were easily and speedily induced to let Cameron go, and begin on him. Yet with all their sifting of testimony, taking it from the mouths of disappointed rival contractors in an ex parte manner, and with no opportunity to rebut it, a member of the committee tells me that they have been unable to bring home the perpetration or the cognizance of a single one of the alleged frauds to General Fremont.

Now you well know that I was not and am not a partisan of Fremont. I told you and others in July that I doubted his capacity for so extensive a military command as was assigned to him. I would never have made him a major-general of the regular army; but, being one, I intend to insist most strenuously and persistently that he shall have complete justice done him, no matter what may be the effect upon me. General Fremont has doubtless done some very impolitic, unwise, and extravagant things; but I assert and can prove that he has himself done or caused to be done no impolitic or unwise or extravagant thing that has not been vastly exceeded in these qualities by the generals of the Army of the Potomac, under the nose and with the sanction of the Administration. The truth is, all the frauds perpetrated at St. Louis, according to the testimony before the committee, were perpetrated by and under General Justin [sic] McKinstry, an old officer of the regular army, belonging to the Quartermaster's Department, who was sent out to St. Louis by the Administration. I do not question that Fremont made some unfortunate selections of agents: so has the Secretary of War, Mr. Seward, Governor Chase, and it is shrewdly suspected that the “father of the faithful” has sinned in this way so much, and enough you will say, of the Fremont imbroglio.

The truth is, we are going to destruction as fast as imbecility, corruption, and the wheels of time, can carry us. The administration of the Treasury has thus far been a success, and Chase, though accused of having no heart, has certainly a good head. But, if he had in his person all of the elements of greatness, he would be utterly powerless before the flood of corruption that is sweeping over the land and perverting the moral sense of the people. The army is in most inextricable confusion, and is every day becoming worse and worse.

Now, my dear sir, it is no flattery to say that an awful responsibility must devolve upon you. If you determine to probe the sore spots to the bottom, and that right shall be done, we can inaugurate a new order of things, and the country can be saved. You have followers — you can control the Senate. The wicked fear you, and will flee before you. But, if you rest quietly in your seat, we shall go on from one enormity to another, the evil of to-day will be urged as an apology for greater evil to-morrow, and the devil will be sure to get us in the end, and that right speedily. As for myself and my household, I am determined to serve the Lord. I only regret that I have not the means to do the good for the country that is in your power.

I congratulate you upon the fact that we now have a preacher here with brains in his head, and a heart in his bosom, whom it is a delight to hear, Rev. William H. Channing. I shall expect you to be a constant attendant with me upon his ministrations.

We have been giving the old commodores an overhauling about the Gosport Navy-Yard. The result shows that they destroyed ten million dollars’ worth of property in a mere fright. We take up the Harper's Ferry Armory matter to-morrow, and I presume the same result will be reached.

Everybody here is jubilant over the victories at Beaufort and in Kentucky, both of the navy; for you must know that a navy lieutenant commanded in the battle at Pikeville, and that it was an impromptu army that he was at the head of; the Department only yesterday declining to furnish Nelson troops, at the instance of Maynard of Tennessee, who so told me.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 155-7

Senator James W. Grimes to Elizabeth S. Nealley Grimes, November 13, 1861

Washington, November 13, 1861.

I cannot enlighten you very much about Fremont. He has no doubt done some impolitic and some very foolish things; but I judge from all I can learn that most of the extravagances with which he is charged were prompted or perpetrated by or under the direction of General McKinstry, a regular army officer, who was placed by the Government in charge of his department as quartermaster. Whatever may have been his acts, or omissions to act, however, there is no question in my mind that the real cause of his removal was the proclamation he issued, and which he failed to modify in accordance with the President's wishes. That was the great sin for which he was punished. The Committee of the House of Representatives appointed to investigate Cameron's alleged frauds was composed of Fremont's enemies, and they were soon induced to abandon Cameron and fall upon Fremont. They have drawn out all the ex parte testimony they could that was calculated to implicate him and his friends, giving him no opportunity to deny or rebut it; and yet one of the committee who is very virulent against Fremont told me yesterday that they were unable to trace the transactions which they deemed so exceedingly censurable to him or to his knowledge.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 154-5

Senator James W. Grimes to Senator William P. Fessenden, September 19, 1861

Burlington, September 19, 1861.

Of course, you are so terribly oppressed with the great affairs of the finance department of this Government as to be wholly unable to write a letter to one of the outside barbarians in Iowa. I would not disturb your labors or your repose, if I did not deem it important to glorify myself a little over the result of the “circulation Treasury-notes” measures, about the success of which those learned-financial pundits, Fessenden and Chase, expressed so many doubts. You learn, of course, as I do, that at least one hundred thousand dollars of them can be floated to the manifest advantage of the Government, and to the immense advantage of this poor and benighted region. If that pure patriot and model of a public officer, whom you feel called on to defend when aspersed, would call some Pennsylvanians into the field, instead of keeping them all at home to fill army contracts, and let some of the army contracts and supplies be furnished here, business would once more assume a hopeful condition in the West. But we ought not to complain. We ought to console ourselves with the reflection that Pennsylvania furnishes one-third of all the officers to the army, and of course this draw upon her resources must impair her ability to furnish privates.

When it was reported that Fremont was suspended, cold chills began to run up and down people's backs, they bit their lips, said nothing, but refused to enlist. I know nothing of the merits of the controversy, but it is as evident as the noonday sun that the people are all with Fremont, and will uphold him “through thick and thin.” My wife says, and I regard her as a sort of moral thermometer for my guidance, that the only real noble and true thing done during this war has been his proclamation. Everybody of every sect, party, sex, and color, approves it in the Northwest, and it will not do for the Administration to causelessly tamper with the man who had the sublime moral courage to issue it.

I wish you to understand that I do not intend by this letter to impose upon you the labor of answering it. I had nothing to write about, but I had not heard from you, and the spirit said, “write,” and I have written as the spirit moved. If my wife knew that I was writing, she would send her love; as it is, you must content yourself with mine.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 152-3

Hunter’s Proclamation

The President of the United States has issued his proclamation revoking that of Maj. Gen. Hunter’s, although he has not yet received any information with regard to the authenticity of the document attributed to Gen. Hunter.  Outside pressure, and not internal conviction has no doubt been the cause of this move on the part of the Executive.  In due time the world will be ready for General Hunter, but at this stage he too is far in advance of political demagoguery.  A stride too great just now might imperil the whole.  Prudence, caution, discretion, are absolutely necessary at this juncture.

Slavery is a tremendous evil, and has fast hold upon the people; its grasp must be loosened by degrees; any sudden attempt to detach it would render it more tenacious.  Had President Lincoln issued his emancipation message six months before he did, it would have failed of its object.  Had Gen. Fremont waited six months longer, he might have published his order with impunity.  We live in an age of progress, and somehow the United States has come to be the nucleus around which the concretions gather.  The war with its ten thousand evils is doing wonders in the way of enlightening our people upon certain truths, to which they have before been blind.

Before slavery “let slip the dogs of war” upon the North, our people in large numbers had been accustomed to regard it as a local institution – one affecting only those among whom it existed, having no bearing upon the free States of the North; that the efforts of the Republican party to circumscribe its limits was intermeddling with a matter that did not concern them; while the denunciations of the whole institution by certain persons, was looked upon as purely fanaticism.  The lessons of a twelvemonth have opened the eyes of our understanding, and we see things in a different light from what we had been accustomed to regard them.

The enormity of the evil of slavery, its wide-spread influence, is beginning to be felt and acknowledged, and as men get greater insight into it they find it to contain more ills than Pandora’s box, and, as good citizens, they would rid themselves of it altogether.  The feeling is growing; day by day, the tentacles of reason are reaching out and grasping truths with which to fortify the human mind.  What to-day would be temerity, tomorrow may be discretion.  Men who oppose the confiscation of rebel property now, will be as heartily ashamed of their course a year hence, as they are at this time free to disown their actions of a twelvemonth ago.  Gen. Hunter’s proclamation startles the North, and its friends say it is premature – six months hence, and it will be the policy of the Government, and the man who has the hardihood to oppose it will be branded as entertaining secession proclivities.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, May 21, 1862, p. 2

Gen. Hunter’s Proclamation

The proclamation of Gen. Hunter, freeing the slaves of his military district, has created excitement more intense than any document issued during the war, with the single exception of President Lincoln’s emancipation message.  Gen. Fremont’s order on the one hand and Gen. Halleck’s on the other did not strike the public mind with that force which Gen. Hunter’s proclamation has done; simply from the fact that they were not so sweeping in their effects.  A proclamation like Hunter’s, fulminated at the time Fremont’s order was issued would have thrown our nation on its beam ends, and nothing but the prompt counteraction of our President, would have prevented the entire slave party of the North from uniting in a body with the rebels.

But “the world moves,” and notwithstanding the general demoralizing effects of war, it moves in the right direction.  The blasting effect of slavery on the minds of those who practice it, and the cursedness of the institution on the peace and prosperity of the country, have been developed by the war, until every right-thinking man in the nation seeks the propriety of the abolition of slavery, and unless he be a demagogue with stronger attachments for the ashes of the old Democratic party than for the throbbing heart of the great Republic, he will use his best endeavors to accomplish that object.

In this condition of affairs, the proclamation of Gen. Hunter falls upon the North with the startling detonation of a bombshell, but it finds an echo in the many hearts, that the old ship of State does not feel the concussion.  Whether the President takes any action in the matter we care not, it is simply a question of time, and with his superior means of judging of the consequences, he thinks the act premature, we, for one, shall defer to his better judgment, and bide the time when we can unite with the loyal men of the North, in ascriptions of praise to God, for being ride of an ulcer that even now threatens the vitals of our great nation.  In the meantime, to the “noblest Roman of them all,” brave old General Hunter, we say in the language of Longfellow:

“Go on, until this land revokes,

The old and chartered lie,

The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes

Insult humanity.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, May 20, 1862, p. 2

Abraham Lincoln to Orville Hickman Browning, September 22, 1861

Executive Mansion,

Washington, Sep. 22. 1861

Hon. O. H. Browning.

My dear Sir:

Yours of the 17th is just received; and, coming from you, I confess it astonishes me. That you should object to my adhering to a law which you had assisted in making, and presenting to me less than a month before, is odd enough– But this is a very small part– Genl Fremont's proclamation, as to confiscation of property, and the liberation of slaves, is purely political, and not within the range of military law, or necessity. If a commanding General finds a necessity to seize the farm of a private owner, for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it, as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within military necessity– But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever; and this as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes, as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about it– And the same is true of slaves– If the General needs them, he can seize them and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition– That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations– The proclamation, in the point in question, is simply "dictatorship"– It assumes that the General may do anything he pleases – confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones– And going the whole figure I have no doubt would be more popular with some thoughtless people, than what has been done! But I can not assume the reckless position; nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility. You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government– On the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the government– Can it be pretended that it is any longer the government of the U. S. – any government of constitution & laws, – wherein a General, or a President may make permanent rules of property by proclamation–

I do not say Congress might not with propriety, pass a law, on the point, just such as Genl. Fremont proclaimed– I do not say I might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it– What I object to, is that I, as President, shall expressly, or impliedly, seize and exercise the permanent legislative functions of the government–

So much as to principle– Now as to policy– No doubt the thing was popular in some quarters, and would have been more so, if it had been a general declaration of emancipation– The Kentucky Legislature would not budge till that proclamation was modified; and Gen. Anderson telegraphed me, that on the news of Gen. Fremont having actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole company of our volunteers, threw down their arms and disbanded– I was so assured, as to think it probable, that the very arms we had furnished Kentucky, would be turned against us– I think to lose Kentucky, is nearly the same as to lose the whole game– Kentucky gone, we can not hold Missouri, nor as I think, Maryland–

These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us– We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of the capital. On the contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions, and back me manfully on the grounds upon which you & other kind friends gave me the election, and have approved in my public documents, we shall go through triumphantly–

You must not understand I took my course on the proclamation, because of Kentucky– I took the same ground, in a private letter to the General Fremont before I heard from Kentucky–

You think I am inconsistent because I did not also forbid Gen. Fremont to shoot men under the proclamation–

I understand that part to be within military law; but I also think, and so privately wrote Gen. Fremont, that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries have the power, and will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of our men as we shoot of theirs– I did not say this in the public letter, because it is a subject I prefer not to discuss in the hearing of our enemies–

There has been no thought of removing Gen. Fremont on any ground connected with his proclamation; and if there has been any wish for his removal on any ground, our mutual friend, Sam. Glover can probably tell you what it was– I hope no real re necessity for it exists on any ground–

Suppose you write to Hurlbut, and get him to resign–

Your friend as ever

A. Lincoln

SOURCE: The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

Claggett, the editor of the Constitution . . .

. . . a pro slavery, Mahony sheet published at Keokuk, made a speech in that city last fall, of which the following are extracts.  Speaking of Fremont’s proclamation he said:

“I tell you it is the only thing that has back bone in it.  I tell you, a traitor who is fighting against this Government has no right to any property; it all ought to be confiscated and taken from him, and his negroes, if he has any, [ought] to be freed.”

Speaking of the Mahony leaders, he closed with the following graphic sentence:

“I tell you, if you will give me an honest jury and allow me to sit as judge, so help me god, I can convict Jarius E. Neal and old Mahoney of treason, and hang them both as high as Haman.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, May 19, 1862, p. 2

From Washington

Times’ Special

NEW YORK, May 16.

Hunter’s proclamation excites scarcely any interest in Washington, no one attaching any importance to its efficiency to produce the end designed.  Martial law is only enforced by martial power, and Hunter has no force at his command adequate to enforce this proclamation.  His declaring freedom to all the slaves in three States, when he has no power to free a single one outside of his camp, is regarded in Washington as an act of stultification highly discreditable to any one holding the rank of General, supposed to have ordinary intelligence.  If the military power is withdrawn from Hunter’s department before his proclamation is executed throughout those States, it is conceded that the civil power will not complete or countenance what martial law proclaimed but did not practically execute.

The President’s policy is supposed to be authoritatively settled by his action in Fremont’s case, in which all his Cabinet concurred.

Gen. Fremont freed, by proclamation the slaves of all men engaged in the rebellion.  Hunter’s proclamation frees the slaves of all men in three States, whether they have engaged in the rebellion or not, punishing loyalists as well as traitors, and all because he had declared martial law where he has confessedly no ability to execute it.  It is understood that Hunter took no specific instruction from the President, in regard to the management of matters in his department, but was left as all other military commanders have been, to his own discretion, in this attempt to re-establish the constitution and laws in the revolted States.

It is said that the President will be waited on this evening by gentlemen, to ascertain under what authority was acting.

Tribune’s Special.

WASHINGTON, May 16.

Gen. Hunter’s proclamation, it can be positively stated, was issued without the authority or knowledge of the President, whom it took entirely by surprise.  What will be done with it, is a question yet to be settled.  There was no Cabinet meeting, and it is not probably that any determination will be definitely made until the three members of the Cabinet, Secretary Seward, Secretary Wells and Attorney General Bates, who are still at Ft. Monroe, return, which will not be till Monday.

The Senate committee on public lands have unanimously reported back Senator Wade’s bill donating 20,000 acres of land for each Senator and Representative, to every State which provides a college for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts.

The House naval committee have authorized the chairman, Mr. Sedgwick, to report the Senate bill re-organizing the Navy department.  It creates three additional bureaus.

The Committee have also authorized Mr. Sedgwick to report the bill re-organizing the naval service, which was some time since prepared by a sub-committee of both Houses.  It provides for ten grades, running from a cadet to rear admiral.

Herald’s Special.

The Hunter proclamation has presented an issue which it is believed will result in the breaking up of the cabinet.  The President has expressed not only dissatisfaction but indignation.  It is ascertained that four members of the cabinet sustain the course of Gen. Hunter, one at least of [the] others is known to entertain different views.  It is stated positively that Gen. Hunter will be recalled, and the characteristic firmness of the President will be exhibited in the manner in which he will meet the issue thus forced upon him, and that he will, whether with our without the support of the cabinet, act substantially with his repeatedly expressed opinions and intentions.

Senator Rice is extremely ill, suffering from a sever hemorrhage.  Fears are entertained for his recovery.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, May 19, 1862, p. 1