Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [305]
Even as he addressed the black delegation that August, Lincoln may not have been convinced that colonization was a feasible option. He recognized, however, that the mere suggestion of the plan might provide the “drop of honey” to make the prospect of emancipation more palatable. Chase would accept no such concession. “How much better would be a manly protest against prejudice against color!—and a wise effort to give freemen homes in America!” he wrote in his diary after reading Lincoln’s colonization discussion. Count Gurowski was even harsher in his condemnation, characterizing Lincoln’s talk of racial incompatibility as cheap “clap-trap,” revealing a disturbing “display of ignorance or of humbug, or perhaps of both,” unworthy of a president.
The most sensational criticism, however, came from Horace Greeley. He published an open letter to the president in the New York Tribune on August 20, which he entitled “The Prayer of Twenty Millions.” Claiming to speak for his vast readership, he decried the policy Lincoln seemed “to be pursuing with regard to the slaves,” which, “unduly influenced by the counsels…of certain fossil politicians hailing from the Border Slave States,” failed to recognize that “all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause [slavery] are preposterous and futile.”
Lincoln decided to reply to Greeley’s letter, seizing the opportunity to begin instructing the public on the vital link between emancipation and military necessity. “As to the policy I ‘seem to be pursuing’ as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt,” he began. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.”
Having already decided upon emancipation, Lincoln hoped that his letter would soften the public impact of what he knew would be a controversial proclamation. Abolitionists, unaware that Lincoln had already committed himself to a path that would “do more” than even they had hoped, were infuriated by his response. “I am sorry the President answered Mr. Greeley,” Frances Seward complained to her husband; “his letter hardly does him justice…he gives the impression that the mere keeping together a number of states is more important than human freedom.”
Seward had argued this very issue with his zealous wife for many months. At home in June, he had apparently suggested that the preservation of republican institutions must supersede the immediate abolition of slavery. Though he had fought slavery all his life, Seward hesitated when faced with the possibility that moving too precipitously toward abolition might destroy the republic itself and all that it stood for on the stage of world history. He had no doubt that slavery would eventually be brought to an end. Indeed, he believed the future of slavery had been “killed years ago” by the progress of civilization. “But suppose, for one moment,” he later explained, “the Republic destroyed. With it is bound up not alone the destiny of a race, but the best hopes of all mankind. With its overthrow the sun of liberty,