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By Root 1805 0

done the work effectively.” In the Liberator, Wendell Phillips Garrison, the editor’s son, wondered how “any sensible man” could equate an edict issued by John Brown at Harper’s Ferry with one emanating from “the Commander-in-Chief of the whole army, and invested by the Constitution with the absolute, undisputed control of the War Power?” Lincoln’s point, however, was that an unenforceable proclamation would be taken as an exercise in futility.11

Lincoln remained wedded to his border emancipation plan and his fear that a direct assault on slavery would drive the border to secede, even as the Union’s hold on the region tightened and the prospect of border secession receded. When Charles Sumner urged him to celebrate July 4, 1862, by issuing a proclamation of general emancipation, Lincoln replied that he would do so if he did not worry that “half the army would lay down their arms and three other states would join the rebellion.” Lincoln also feared that precipitous action against slavery would undermine efforts to woo wavering Confederates to the Union cause. He praised an article in the Continental Monthly which acknowledged that slavery could hardly be “let alone” during the conflict but made a sharp distinction between “the results of the war in relation to slavery” and the official “purpose of the North,” preserving the Union. It also argued that respect for the constitutional right of states to determine their domestic institutions would help to swell the ranks of “loyal citizens” in the South.12

Lincoln hoped to encourage Unionists in parts of the South to establish civilian governments after the federal army gained control. Early in the war, he extended recognition to the Restored Government of Virginia, a convention of Unionists who met in Wheeling after the secession of their state and chose Francis H. Pierpont, a prominent antislavery attorney, as Virginia’s new governor. (Pierpont’s authority, in fact, extended only to western Virginia, the immediate vicinity of Washington, and the area around Norfolk.) In 1862, Lincoln appointed military governors for Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and North Carolina. He hoped they would rally loyal sentiment and restore their states to full participation in the Union. At the beginning of July 1862, he urged Andrew Johnson, Tennessee’s military governor, to hold elections as preparation for the state’s restoration. “If we could, somehow, get a vote of the people of Tennessee and have it result properly,” Lincoln explained, “it would be worth more to us than a battle gained.” Lincoln’s expectation that military governors could win over local whites militated against further steps toward abolition. “In all attempts to soothe southern wrath,” one northern reporter shrewdly noted, “the negro is thrown in as the offering.” Andrew Johnson, for example, did not hesitate to take strong action against rebels—he jailed disloyal local officials and ministers who preached support for secession. But he assured the people of Tennessee that he aimed to restore them to the Union in “the same condition as before the existing rebellion,” with their slaves “still in subordination.”13

Some of the steps taken by these governors displayed an alarming sensitivity to local white opinion. In April 1862, Lincoln appointed Edward Stanly, a former Whig congressman, as North Carolina’s military governor (his rule extended only to a small area along the Atlantic seaboard). Stanly ordered the closing of schools for blacks that the army had established after capturing New Bern. Under the laws of North Carolina, he explained, it was illegal to teach blacks to read and write. In any event, the schools’ presence “would do harm to the Union cause.” Stanly also allowed owners to retrieve fugitives from army camps. He told Stanton that he had been “sent to restore the old order of things” in North Carolina and that this could not be done if local whites believed emancipation was in the offing. Large numbers of whites visited Stanly to congratulate him “upon the auspicious beginning of his administration.” But