Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[379] Lincoln on January I, 1863, issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The same sagacious and statesmanlike handling of men and things distinguished his conduct after the edict of freedom was made as before. When the question of Reconstruction was broached in an administrative initiative in Louisiana, the President gave great offence to the more radical members of his party, and to many Abolitionists by his proposal to readmit Louisiana to Statehood in the Union with no provision for the extension of the suffrage to the negro. This exhibition of the habitual caution and conservatism of Mr. Lincoln brought upon him a storm of criticism and remonstrances, but not from Garrison. There was that in him which appreciated and approved the evident disposition of the President to make haste slowly in departing from the American principle of local self-government even in the interest of liberty. Then, too, he had his misgivings in relation to the virtue of the fiat method of transforming chattels into citizens. “Chattels personal may be instantly translated from the auction-block into freemen,” he remarked in defence of the administrative policy in the reconstruction of Louisiana,

but when were they ever taken at the same time to the ballot-box, and invested with all political rights and immunities? According to the laws of development and progress it is not practicable. . . . Besides, I doubt whether he has the Constitutional right to decide this matter. Ever since the Government was organized, the right of suffrage has been determined by each State in the Union for itself, so that there is no uniformity in regard to it.

. . In honestly seeking to preserve the Union, it