Lincoln’s September 17, 1862 Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation had a major political flaw. It stirred up opposition to Lincoln among whites, but its principal beneficiaries, enslaved blacks, could not vote. When Lincoln’s cabinet member Montgomery Blair saw the draft of the proclamation, he said “it would cost the administration the fall elections.” 1
An Ohio Republican Congressional candidate saw his fate foreordained. He wrote to Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase that “the President’s proclamation has come just in the nic of time to save the country perhaps, while from present appearance it will defeat me and every other Union candidate along the border.” He was, in fact, beaten.2
The anti-emancipation Democrats nearly doubled the number of seats they occupied in the House of Representatives in the 1862 elections that were held just weeks after Lincoln’s proclamation. In heavily immigrant New York, Democrats squeaked out a victory, electing anti-war candidate Horatio Seymour governor. Democrats also won big in Indiana, a state with one of the smallest immigrant populations in the North. 3
This cartoon pokes fun at Northern racists. Even though African Americans were offering to save the whites from drowning, the “Negrophobe” refuses the black man’s rescue rope.
Emancipation alone did not account for the Republican defeat. War weariness, worsening casualty rates in 1862’s massive battles, and the erosion of civil liberties under the Republicans all alienated voters. Word that a military draft would soon be imposed led many voters to complain that while black men were being freed, white men would soon be enslaved involuntarily by being thrown into the army.4
There were other possible explanations for the electoral outcome. The president’s party historically loses seats in off-year elections. The absence of many Republican voters from their hometowns on Election Day because they were in the army likely also played a role. Soldiers not allowed to cast absentee ballots were effectively disenfranchised because they had volunteered to risk their lives for their country.5
In the days after the voting ended, one of America’s most prominent immigrants would place the blame for the political setback on the shoulders of Abraham Lincoln.6
President Lincoln, Writing the Proclamation of Freedom by David Gilmore Blythe (1864)
Video
Historian Matthew Pinsker Talks About the Emancipation Proclamation
Sources
1. Lincoln’s Hundred Days by Luis P. Masur published by Belknap/Harvard (2012) p. 151; Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo published by Simon & Schuster (2006); Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures) by Harold Holzer published by Harvard University Press (February 2012)
2. Lincoln’s Hundred Days by Luis P. Masur published by Belknap/Harvard (2012) p. 153; Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo published by Simon & Schuster (2006); Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures) by Harold Holzer published by Harvard University Press (February 2012)
3. Lincoln’s Hundred Days by Luis P. Masur published by Belknap/Harvard (2012) p. 151-152; Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo published by Simon & Schuster (2006); Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures) by Harold Holzer published by Harvard University Press (February 2012)
4. Lincoln’s Hundred Days by Luis P. Masur published by Belknap/Harvard (2012); Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo published by Simon & Schuster (2006); Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures) by Harold Holzer published by Harvard University Press (February 2012)
5. Lincoln’s Hundred Days by Luis P. Masur published by Belknap/Harvard (2012); Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo published by Simon & Schuster (2006); Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures) by Harold Holzer published by Harvard University Press (February 2012)
6. Lincoln’s Hundred Days by Luis P. Masur published by Belknap/Harvard (2012); Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo published by Simon & Schuster (2006); Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures) by Harold Holzer published by Harvard University Press (February 2012)
