Fremont Emancipation

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Oct 26, 2012
http://13thamendment.harpweek.com/hubpages/CommentaryPage.asp?Commentary=03FremontEmanOrder

On August 30, 1861, Union General John C. Fremont issued an order that included the emancipation of all slaves in Missouri whose owners who did not swear loyalty to the Union. The military order exceeded the scope of the First Confiscation Act, enacted by Congress earlier that month, which only mandated the freeing of slaves who had been used in the Confederate war effort and whose masters were disloyal to the Union. Although Missouri was technically in the Union, the Border State was a bloody battleground at the time between Union and Confederate forces.

An editorial in the Harper’s Weekly issue dated September 14, 1861 (published on September 4) supported Fremont’s policy. With the dramatic title, “The Beginning of the End,” the commentator (probably managing editor John Bonner) pointed out that the practical effect of Fremont’s order would not free many slaves, but it would send an important message to other slaveholding states. The editorialist argued that Fremont’s authority was based not on the (First) Confiscation Act but on “the war power,” and cited John Quincy Adams—the former president, secretary of state, and congressman—for a definition of it.

However, President Lincoln feared that Fremont’s emancipation order would provoke anti-Union sentiment in Missouri and other Border States (slave states that had not seceded), where attachment to the Union was uncertain in the early phase of the war. For those reasons, Lincoln asked Fremont to modify his order to comply with congressional legislation. When the general refused, the president rescinded the emancipation order on September 11, 1861. Lincoln's letter to Fremont appeared in the September 28, 1861 issue (published September 18). (Several times over the following months, Lincoln urged the Border States to emancipate their slaves by state law.)
 
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