Lincoln defends his emancipation policies to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862
![Perhaps the most famous example is Honest Abe, who first grew his beard in response to a letter he received in 1860 from an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell suggesting the idea. She wrote, in part: "I have got 4 brother's and part of them will vote for you any way and if you will let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband's to vote for you and then you would be President." Several months later when stopping by her home town in New York, Lincoln made a point of meeting Bedell in person -- now with a full beard.](https://www.politico.com/dims4/default/ddafadb/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1160x629+0+0/resize/1260x684!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F77%2F97%2F6764609b4e339f476a0a50e9bc49%2Fpresident-abraham-lincoln.jpg "Perhaps the most famous example is Honest Abe, who first grew his beard in response to a letter he received in 1860 from an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell suggesting the idea. She wrote, in part: "I have got 4 brother's and part of them will vote for you any way and if you will let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband's to vote for you and then you would be President." Several months later when stopping by her home town in New York, Lincoln made a point of meeting Bedell in person -- now with a full beard.")
On this day in 1862, during the first full year of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivered an 8,400-word message to Congress in which he sought to strike a politically risky balance on the divisive issue of emancipating enslaved African-Americans.
Lincoln spoke 10 weeks after having issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, in which he said slaves in areas under the control of Confederate rebels would be free as of Jan. 1, 1863. That measure, while welcomed by radical Republicans, proved unpopular among many conservative Democrats in the North who viewed the war as an effort to preserve the Union, not to free slaves.
The 1862 midterm elections had seen a Democratic gain of 34 House seats. However, Republicans had picked up five Senate seats and retained control of most legislatures in states that had not seceded from the Union.
Faced with a murky political scene during wartime, Lincoln said he favored a process of gradual emancipation, with just compensation to former slaveholders. At the same time, he asserted that liberated slaves would remain free.
Near the close of his message, Lincoln memorably declared:
“Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here — Congress and Executive — can secure its adoption? Will not the good people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means, so certainly, or so speedily, assure these vital objects?
“We can succeed only by concert. It is not ‘can any of us imagine better?’ but, ‘can we all do better?’ The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
“We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.
“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.”
SOURCE: “THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY,” BY THOMAS PATTERSON (1993)