which Senator Pomeroy espoused with
great zeal, and in which he had the favor of a majority of the
Cabinet, including Secretary Smith, who warmly endorsed the project.
Subsequent development, however, proved that it was simply an
organization for land-stealing and plunder, and it was abandoned;
but it is by no means certain that if the President had foreseen
this fact, his preliminary notice to the rebels would have been
given. There are strong reasons for saying that he doubted his
right to emancipate under the war power, and that he meant what he
said when he compared an executive order to that effect to the
"Pope's Bull against the Comet."

But he saw no way of escape. The demand for such an edict was wide-
spread and rapidly extending in the Republican party. The power
to issue it was taken for granted. All doubts on the subject were
consumed in the burning desire of the people, or forgotten in the
travail of war. The anti-slavery element was becoming more and
more impatient and impetuous. Opposition to that element now
involved more serious consequences than offending the Border States.
Mr. Lincoln feared that enlistments would cease, and that Congress
would even refuse the necessary supplies to carry on the war, if
he declined any longer to place it on a clearly defined anti-slavery
basis. It was in yielding to this pressure that he finally became
the liberator of the slaves through the triumph of our arms which
it ensured.

The authority to emancipate under the war power is well settled,
but it could only be asserted over territory occupied by our armies.
Each Commanding General, as fast as our flag advanced, could have
offered freedom to the slaves, as could the President himself.
This was the view of Secretary Chase. A paper proclamation of
freedom, as to States in the power of the enemy, could have no more
validity than a paper blockade of their coast. Mr. Lincoln's
proclamation did not apply to the Border States, which were loyal,
and in which slavery was of course untouched. It did not pretend
to operate upon the slaves in other large districts, in which it
would have been effective at once, but studiously excluded them,
while it applied mainly to States and parts of States within the
military occupation of the enemy, where it was necessarily void.
But even if the proclamation could have given freedom to the slaves
according to its scope, their permanent enfranchisement would not
have been sec