Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-08-20
Lincoln and Emancipation.

!
Editor Courier:
! I have read with interest Mayor
Leeny's address at the Fairfield ami
versary celebration on August 8, and
approve heartily of the sentiments gen.
j orally expressed therein. The mayor
gave the colored brother some most
wholesome advice.
! However, the mayor is "off'' in some
of his historical deductions. He says
similar proclamation. He hesitated
and said in reply: IF I could save
the union without freeing any slave,
would do it; if could save 1t by free
| ing all the slaves, would do It,; and
! if I could do 1t by freeing some and
! leaving others alone, would also do
! that. My paramount object is to save
the union, and not either to save or
destroy slavery" However. on Sept.
F.! 20, 1862 he issued a preliminary proc
lamation in which he declared that
on January /, 1863 Zone hundred days
intervening) he would declare all the
slaves free in states or parts of states
(! then in rebellion. No confederate
state paid any heed to the proclama-
ton; and Lincoln accordingly on New
''all those VINO were against human
slavery finally united in one great po-
litical party (the republican party un-
F, der Abraham Lincoln, with the main
object of freeing the slaves" etc. The
republican party in 1860 only declared
! for the exclusion Of slavery from the
| then territories of the United States.
it disclainled any intention of inter-
fering with slavery where it then ex-
| listed, il fifteen states, and the District
| of Columbia. In those days there were
many avowed abolitionists, men who
like Garrison, Helper and John Brown
declared for immediate and uncondi-
tional emancipation. Lincoln was not
elected in 1860 upon such platform;
could not have been elected upon It,,
and would not have stood as candi-
date upon it. More than this the
thirty-sixth congress, comprising q
majority of republicans, in it's closing
days of February and March, 1861,
passed a constitutional amendment
forbidding any interference by con-
gress with slavery in the states; and
few days later in his inaugural ad-
dress, Lincoln declared that he had no
objection to the amendment being
made express and irrevocable; and he
further declared that he believed he
had no lawful right and that he had no
intention to interfere with the institu-
ton of slavery in the states where it
exists.
That amendment, if it had been rati
fed, would have been the thirteenth
amendment. And what a contrast
with the real thirteenth amendment
adopted four years later. But SO much
| for the attitude of Lincoln and the
republican party just previous to the
civil war.
In fact, emancipation was an out
growth of the war; a gradual growth,
and not fully contaminated until after
the war. General Butler early in the
summer of 1861, declared slaves con
trabrand" of war, and congress little
later enacted that slaves in any way
employed in confederate military serv-
ice should be freed from slavery. This
only applied to able bodied, male
slaves so employed as might be cap
tured.
General Fremont in Missouri, little
later, proclaimed all the slaves of mas
tiers aiding the rebellion to be free.
This was long step in advance; a
year in advance of Lincoln's proclama-
ton. But Fremont's proclamation on
ly applied to SO much Of Missouri as
might come within his military lines,
and Lincoln modified even that to con-
form with the enactment/of congress,
a very different measure.
I In July OF 1862 congress passed an
emancipation act confiscating and
femancipating all the slaves of persons
engaged in rebellion, when such slaves
came within federal military jurisdic-
ton. Congress had caught up with
Fremont's policy.
Lincoln was urged by many to issue
Years day, 1863, declared slaves free
in the states of Virginia, North Caro-