ncoln made mention of emancipating the slaves by
proclamation, if the rebels did not lay down their arms. He believed
that such action could be guaranteed only as a military necessity. He
thought that the slaves must be liberated, or the Union would be
exterminated. Lincoln reached a final conclusion and called the
cabinet together on July 21, the day preceding the close of that
session of Congress.[38] Since he was at the end of his tether, he
determined to take a more definite and decisive step. Accordingly, he
prepared several orders which, gave authority to commanders in the
field to subsist their troops in hostile territory and to employ
Negroes as paid laborers, and further provided for the colonization of
Negroes in some tropical country.[39]

As this discussion led to no definite conclusion, the subject was
resumed at a meeting on the following day; but Lincoln decided that
the time was inopportune. While he thought that more evil than good
would be derived from the wholesale arming of Negroes, yet he was not
unwilling that the commanders arm, purely for defensive purposes,
those slaves who came within the Union lines. But the President had
reached a decision on the correlated policy of emancipation with which
it appears that his cabinet was not in accord. They were surprised
when he read to them the first draft of a proclamation warning the
rebels of the penalties provided by the Confiscation Act, suggesting
the renewal of his proposition of compensation to the loyal States,
and adding a summary order that, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and
Navy, he would declare free the slaves of all States that might be in
rebellion on January 1, 1863. The Cabinet was somewhat "bewildered by
the magnitude and boldness of this proposal."[40]

Only two members of the cabinet concurred in the proposal. Secretary
Chase favored this plan of military emancipation, but could not
approve the method of execution. Blair, the Postmaster General,
deprecated this policy on the ground that it would cost the
administration the fall elections. Secretary Seward approved it and
yet questioned the expediency of its issue at that stage of the war,
owing to the depression of the public mind and the repeated reversals
for the Union armies. He further deemed it to be a last measure of an
exhausted government that was crying for help, stretching forth its
arms to Ethiopia instead of awaiting a reverse appeal from Ethiopia.
Consequently he urg