Illinois Denounces Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation

“Damn ’em, they were foolish enough to think by laying down their arms they would enjoy all the rights they once had…......I am not one of those to ask forgiveness for that which I believe today is right.”
--General J. O. Shelby in a letter 1 Nov. 1865
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With Lincoln’s war against his own people going badly and army enlistments dwindling rapidly, Northern Democrats by 1863 had had enough of war and promoted measures to stop the killing of Americans who sought political freedom and independence. Predictably, government-friendly newspapers like the Chicago Tribune defended Lincoln’s unconstitutional actions, though a majority of people of Lincoln’s own State opposed the war.

Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
www.cfhi.net
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Illinois Denounces Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation:

“{Stephen A.] Douglas had originally secured the support of the Democrats in Illinois for the war; but Douglas had died, and the North had suffered a long series of humiliating defeats on the battlefields. The Lincoln administration had announced in September, 1862, that on January 1 he would issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Many had pressed Lincoln to take that step. He had resisted largely through fear of losing the support of the War Democrats.

Governor Yates, a Republican, in his address to the legislature scraped the raw wounds. He congratulated the country on the prolongation of the war since it had resulted in the Emancipation Proclamation. The house at first refused to print this message except with “a solemn protest against its revolutionary and unconstitutional doctrines.”

The first task of the [Illinois] legislature was the election of a United States Senator. There were several candidates who, according to the Chicago Tribune, “vied with each other in the their expression of disloyalty.” One of the candidates was [Melville Weston] Fuller’s sponsor [Democrat W.C.] Goudy. Goudy declared that “in the event of the President’s refusing to withdraw the [Emancipation] Proclamation he was in favor of marching an army to Washington and hurling the officers of the present administration from their positions.”

“A Union man,” the Tribune reported, “is in as much danger in some localities here as if he were in Richmond.” Both the Illinois and Indiana legislatures were Democratic in 1863, while the governors of both States were Republicans. In each State the House of Representatives as a strict party measure passed resolutions protesting against further prosecution of the war unless the Emancipation Proclamation were withdrawn. In Illinois this resolution denounced “the flagrant and monstrous usurpations” of the administration, demanded an immediate armistice, and appointed several prominent Democrats…as commissioners to secure the cooperation of other States for a peace convention at Louisville, Kentucky.”

(Melville Weston Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States, 1888-1910, Willard L. King, MacMillan Company, 1950, pp. 54-55)
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Illinois Denounces Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation