Annotation
[1] ADf, DLC-RTL. The first paragraph of this draft was issued as the proclamation of July 25, infra. According to Lincoln's recollection as quoted by Francis B. Carpenter in Six Months at the White House (pp. 20-22), Montgomery Blair opposed the proclamation of emancipation on the ground that it would cost the administration the fall election, and Seward approved it but proposed that issuance be postponed until military success gave the administration a more favorable position. Bates' Diary is silent on this discussion, but Nicolay and Hay in Abraham Lincoln: A History (VI, 127) record that Bates gave ``unreserved concurrence.'' On the day following the meeting Postmaster General Blair wrote Lincoln a lengthy opinion objecting to the proclamation on political grounds. ``There is therefore no public sentiment at the North, even among extreme men which now demands the proposed measure,'' he wrote. It would ``endanger our power in Congress, and put the power in the next House of Representatives in the hands of those opposed to the war, or to our mode of carrying it on,'' but ``if adopted to meet foreign intervention and to make issue between the Governments of Europe and the people there,'' the measure might be favorably received (D, DLC-Chase Papers). Chase's Diary records the cabinet discussion as follows: ``The question of arming slaves was then brought up and I advocated it warmly. The President was unwilling to adopt this measure, but proposed to issue a proclamation, on the basis of the Confiscation Bill, calling upon the States to return to their allegiance . . . adding, on his own part, a declaration of his intention to renew, at the next session of Congress, his recommendation of compensation to States adopting the gradual abolishment of slavery---and proclaiming the emancipation of all slaves within States remaining in insurrection on the first of January, 1863.
``I said that I should give to such a measure my cordial support; but I should prefer that no new expression on the subject of compensation should be made, and I thought that the measure of Emancipation could be much better and more quietly accomplished by allowing Generals to organize and arm the slaves . . . and by directing the Commanders of Departments to proclaim emancipation within their Districts as soon as practicable; but I regarded this as so much better than inaction on the subject, that I should give it my entire support. . . .'' (Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, pp. 48-49).
[2] The sixth section provided that property of persons in States in rebellion, who did not cease to give aid to the rebellion within sixty days after proclamation by the president, would be liable to seizure. At Lincoln's direction Stanton prepared on July 22 the Executive Order authorizing seizure of property ``which may be necessary or convenient'' and the employment of ``so many persons of African descent as can be advantageously used for military or naval purposes.'' This order was issued by the Adjutant General's Office on August