[96] came at last when the President, unless he was determined to be wilfully and wickedly blind, was compelled to see that slavery and the rebellion were indissolubly bound up together. Then came the proclamation of unconditional and everlasting emancipation to three million three hundred thousand slaves, leaving not one to clank his fetters in any rebel State; and then, all that is vile and seditious in the Copperhead, pro-slavery, rebelsympathizing element in the North burst forth against him, and to this hour continues to pour every vial of its wrath upon his head. Since that event, and in view of what has followed in the enrolment of tens of thousands of colored soldiers, I have changed my opinion of Abraham Lincoln. In proportion as he has fallen in the estimation of the disloyal portion of the North, he has risen in my own. True, he is open to criticism for his slowness, and needs spurring on to yet more decisive action; but I am not willing to believe that he is “ready to sacrifice the interest and honor of the North to secure a sham peace” with the rebels. That is a very grave charge.The amendment was earnestly opposed by Mr. Phillips, who instanced the President's attitude towards the1 Missouri radicals, his pains to humor Kentucky (‘the Gibraltar of the Border-States obstacle’), and his recent Amnesty proclamation, in confirmation. Mr. Garrison2 had no apology to make for the Amnesty, which he had ‘elsewhere condemned in unequivocal terms,’ nor for the Government's course in paying the negro troops as laborers instead of as soldiers.3 But he maintained his objection to the resolution. The vote of the Society was so close as to be doubtful for a moment, but the amendment
This text is part of:
1 Ante, p. 85.
2 Ante, p. 85.
3 ‘Laborers’ received only ten dollars a month, while the pay of white soldiers was thirteen dollars. Congress at last voted equal pay to colored soldiers from Jan. 1, 1864, and the Massachusetts 54th and 55th regiments were finally awarded (by a decision of the Attorney-General) full pay from the time of their enlistment. With wonderful spirit and fortitude, they refused to receive any pay from the Government until their claim to the full amount was recognized, though in the year and a half during which the matter was unsettled their families were in want. The Legislature of Massachusetts offered them the pay withheld by the Government, but they refused it, with proper acknowledgments, and held the Government to the pledge under which they were enlisted. Gov. Andrew was unceasing in urging their claim, and addressed the President warmly on the subject, May 18, 1864 (Lib. 34: 87).
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