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By Root 1707 0

slaves freed under the Confiscation Act or whom the border states decided to emancipate, as well as blacks already free who might desire to emigrate. He asked them to consider acquiring new territory for the purpose. A Washington newspaper suggested that the proposed black colony be called Lincolnia. Lincoln also called for extending diplomatic recognition to Haiti and Liberia, partly, it is plausible to assume, to improve prospects for black emigration to these countries. (The New York Herald objected that such recognition would result in a “strapping negro” arriving in Washington as an ambassador.)43

Overall, commented the Washington correspondent of the New York Times, the message took “the ancient ground of Henry Clay in regard to slavery…combined with the plan of Frank P. Blair, Jr.” “No plan of emancipation,” the reporter added, “unless accompanied by a practical scheme for colonization, will ever meet the President’s assent.” Editorially, however, the Times viewed colonization as thoroughly impractical. The country, it insisted, could not afford to lose so much labor, and “perfectly harmonious relations” between the races could be established once slavery ended. But other voices of Republican moderation praised this part of the message. And colonization societies were overjoyed by the president’s embrace of their program.44

In the annual message, Lincoln approached the future of slavery cautiously. John J. Crittenden had urged him to say nothing at all about it: “It is a topic which has been the bane of our country, and it must be wise, therefore to shut off” discussion. Lincoln reiterated that the war’s “primary object” was to preserve the Union. He reminded the lawmakers that he had avoided “radical and extreme measures.” Nonetheless, the message contained a subtle expansion of his position regarding slavery and the war. It built on the Delaware plan to offer financial aid to any state that agreed to gradual emancipation. Payment would take place in a curious manner, as an offset against “direct taxes” owed to the federal government as if, the Chicago Tribune remarked, slaves could “be used as currency by the State.” The message also included the startling statement that slaves covered by the Confiscation Act had been “liberated”—a description that went beyond the letter of that ambiguous law. Lincoln mentioned the possibility of Congress passing a “new law” regarding slavery, perhaps inviting it to do so. And he included a passage celebrating the strength of border-state Unionism that inadvertently, perhaps, suggested that future policy need not be tailored to border sensibilities.45

Reactions to Lincoln’s annual message underscored divisions among Republicans over the relationship of slavery to the war as well as their bases of unity. Moderate and conservative Republicans praised the president’s sagacity. A policy of general emancipation would destroy the “unanimity of public sentiment” essential for prosecution of the war, the New York Times declared, and lead to border secession and the disbandment of half the army. Not surprisingly, abolitionists and Radicals found the message “sorely disappointing.” Lincoln “has evidently not a drop of antislavery blood in his veins,” William Lloyd Garrison commented. “I shudder at the possibility of the war terminating without the utter extinction of slavery.” Lyman Trumbull received numerous letters from constituents complaining about the absence of a “battle cry” in the message. “It would seem that Mr. Lincoln had his face Southward when he wrote this thing,” one observed. “If this struggle ends with slavery still in existence, the Battle of Liberty has been only half fought.”46

Radicals were further dismayed by what Charles H. Ray of the Chicago Tribune called a “horrible fiasco” regarding the annual report of Secretary of War Simon Cameron. This related to the extremely delicate issue of enlisting blacks in the Union army. Black men had served in the navy before the war, but had been barred from the militia by a federal statute dating back to 1792, and from the regular