This last bill was signed by the President and became
a law on April 16, 1862. So, although he had been unable to bring
it about when a member of Congress thirteen years before, it was
he, after all, who finally swept away that scandal of the "negro
livery-stable" in the shadow of the dome of the Capitol.
Congress as well as the President was thus pledged to compensated
emancipation, and if any of the border slave States had shown a
willingness to accept the generosity of the government, their
people might have been spared the loss that overtook all
slave-owners on the first of January, 1863. The President twice
called the representatives and senators of these States to the
White House, and urged his plan most eloquently, but nothing came
of it. Meantime, the military situation continued most
discouraging. The advance of the Army of the Potomac upon
Richmond became a retreat; the commanders in the West could not
get control of the Mississippi River; and worst of all, in spite
of their cheering assurance that "We are coming, Father Abraham,
three hundred thousand strong," the people of the country were
saddened and filled with the most gloomy forebodings because of
the President's call for so many new troops.
"It had got to be midsummer, 1862," Mr. Lincoln said, in telling
an artist friend the history of his most famous official act.
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