Robert Smalls and the Great Emancipator

President Lincoln's Response to General Hunter's proclamation freeing slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Lincoln issued this response ten days after General Hunter issued his proclamation, and six days after Robert Smalls escaped from Charleston harbor with the Planter:

And whereas the same is producing some excitement, and misunderstanding: therefore

I, Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, proclaim and declare, that the government of the United States, had no knowledge, information, or belief, of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a proclamation; nor has it yet, any authentic information that the document is genuine. And further, that neither General Hunter, nor any other commander, or person, has been authorized by the Government of the United States, to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any State free; and that the supposed proclamation, now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.

I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the Slaves of any state or states, free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.

On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State Pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in it discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested in the subject manner. To the people of those states I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue. I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done, by one effort, in all past time, as, in the providence of God, it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

In August, 1862, after Robert Smalls led U.S. Forces into the Stono River, General Hunter sent Smalls to Washington to meet with President Lincoln. Immediately following this meeting, Secretary of War Stanton issued an order allowing enlistment of blacks in U.S. Army. Within a month, Lincoln issued a proclamation promising to free all slaves in the Confederacy as of the first the new year. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the proclamation now known as the Emancipation Proclamation.