Although he knew Frémont had exceeded his authority in freeing slaves in Missouri, Lincoln continued to urge the border slave states to explore legal emancipation measures of their own. When Frémont refused, Lincoln publicly ordered him to do so, which helped calm anxiety expressed from the border states, but angered those who supported Frémont's actions. Frémont failed to inform first President Lincoln, who requested Frémont amend his proclamation to conform to the 1861 Confiscation Act.
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Frémont attempted to address the "disorganized condition" in the Department of the West by declaring martial law and proclaiming free the slaves of active Confederate sympathizers in Missouri. Some Union commanders took matters into their own hands, declaring emancipation by proclamation. Congress further outlawed slavery in federal territories in June 1862. Finding the measure lacking support, Lincoln never introduced it. This action must have been particularly satisfying to President Lincoln, who as Congressman Lincoln had in the late 1840s drafted a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Congress abolished slavery in the federal District of Columbia on April 16 with a compensated emancipation program. In 1862 Congress also acted against slavery in areas under the jurisdiction of the federal government. On August 6, 1861, Congress passed the First Confiscation Act, which negated owners' claims to escaped slaves whose labor had been used on behalf of the Confederacy. The increasing number of fugitives and questions about their status eventually prompted action by the United States Congress.
Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress. " Stampede of slaves from Hampton to Fortress Monroe," Harper's Weekly, August 17, 1861. Butler instead appropriated the fugitives and their valuable labor as "contraband of war." The Lincoln administration approved Butler's action, and soon other fugitive slaves (often referred to as "contrabands") sought freedom behind Union lines. Mallory demanded their return under the Fugitive Slave Law, Union General Benjamin F. Mallory escaped from Hampton, Virginia, where they had been put to work on behalf of the Confederacy, and sought protection within Union-held Fortress Monroe before their owner sent them further south. In May 1861, just a month into the war, three slaves (Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend) owned by Confederate Colonel Charles K. Lincoln is said to have summed up the importance of keeping the border states in the Union by saying "I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky."Įvents early in the war quickly forced Northern authorities to address the issue of emancipation. He also worried about the reactions of those in the loyal border states where slavery was still legal. Although Lincoln personally abhorred slavery, he felt confined by his constitutional authority as president to challenge slavery only in the context of necessary war measures. This essay describes the development of those documents through various drafts by Lincoln and others and shows both the evolution of Abraham Lincoln’s thinking and his efforts to operate within the constitutional boundaries of the presidency.Īlmost from the beginning of his administration, abolitionists and radical Republicans pressured Abraham Lincoln to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment brought about by the Civil War were important milestones in the long process of ending legal slavery in the United States. Listen to this page Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation
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