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Ask the average American citizen to-day why the Civil War was fought; and the chances are that he will reply, “To free the slaves.”
Was it?
Let's see. Here is a sentence taken from Lincoln's first inaugural address: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
The fact is that the cannon had been booming and the wounded groaning for almost eighteen months before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. During all that time the radicals and the Abolitionists had urged him to act at once, storming at him through the press and denouncing him from the public platform.
Once a delegation of Chicago ministers appeared at the White House with what they declared was a direct command from Almighty God to free the slaves immediately. Lincoln told them that he imagined that if the Almighty had any advice to offer He would come direct to headquarters with it, instead of sending it around via Chicago.
Finally Horace Greeley, irritated by Lincoln's procrastination and inaction, attacked the President in an article entitled, “The Prayer of Twenty Millions.” Two columns bristling with bitter complaints.
Lincoln's answer to Greeley is one of the classics of the war —clear, terse, and vigorous. He closed his reply with these memorable words:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oftexpressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Lincoln believed that if he saved the Union and kept slavery from spreading, slavery would, in due time, die a natural death. But if the Union were destroyed, it might persist for centuries.
Four slave States had remained with the North, and Lincoln realized that if he issued his Emancipation Proclamation too early in the conflict he would drive them into the Confederacy, strengthen the South, and perhaps destroy the Union forever. There was a saying at the time that “Lincoln would like to have God Almighty on his side; but he must have Kentucky.”
So he bided his time, and moved cautiously.
He himself had married into a slave-owning, border-State family. Part of the money that his wife received upon the settlement of her father's estate had come from the sale of slaves. And the only really intimate friend that he ever had—Joshua Speed—was a member of a slave-owning family. Lincoln sympathized with the Southern point of view. Besides, he had the attorney's traditional respect for the Constitution and for law and property. He wanted to work no hardships on any one.
He believed that the North was as much to blame for the existence of slavery in the United States as was the South; and that in getting rid of it, both sections should bear the burden equally. So he finally worked out a plan that was very near to his heart. According to this, the slave-owners in the loyal border States were to receive four hundred dollars for each of their negroes. The slaves were to be emancipated gradually, very gradually. The process was not to be entirely completed until January 1, 1900. Calling the representatives of the border States to the White House, he pleaded with them to accept his proposal.
“The change it contemplates,” Lincoln argued, “would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done, by one effort, in all past time, as, in the providence of God, it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament you have neglected it.”
But they did neglect it, and rejected the whole scheme. Lincoln was immeasurably disappointed.
“I must save this Government, if possible,” he said; “and it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game, leaving any available card unplayed.... I believe that freeing the slaves and arming the blacks has now become an indispensable military necessity. I have been driven to the alternative of either doing that or surrendering the Union.”
He had to act at once, for both France and England were on the verge of recognizing the Confederacy. Why? The reasons were very simple.
Take France's case first. Napoleon III had married Marie Eugénie de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the world, and he wanted to show off a bit. He longed to cover himself with glory, as his renowned uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, had done. So when he saw the States slashing and shooting at one another, and knew they were much too occupied to bother about enforcing the Monroe Doctrine, he ordered an army to Mexico, shot a few thousand natives, conquered the country, called Mexico a French empire, and put the Archduke Maximilian on the throne.
Napoleon believed, and not without reason, that if the Confederates won they would favor his new empire; but that if the Federals won, the United States would immediately take steps to put the French out of Mexico. It was Napoleon's wish, therefore, that the South would make good its secession, and he wanted to help it as much as he conveniently could.
At the outset of the war, the Northern navy closed all Southern ports, guarded 189 harbors and patrolled 9,614 miles of coast line, sounds, bayous, and rivers.
It was the most gigantic blockade the world had ever seen.
The Confederates were desperate. They couldn't sell their cotton; neither could they buy guns, ammunition, shoes, medical supplies, or food. They boiled chestnuts and cotton-seed to make a substitute for coffee, and brewed a decoction of blackberry leaves and sassafras root to take the place of tea. Newspapers were printed on wall-paper. The earthen floors of smokehouses, saturated with the drippings of bacon, were dug up and boiled to get salt. Church bells were melted and cast into cannon. Street-car rails in Richmond were torn up to be made into gunboat armor.
The Confederates couldn't repair their railroads or buy new equipment, so transportation was almost at a standstill; corn that could be purchased for two dollars a bushel in Georgia, brought fifteen dollars in Richmond. People in Virginia were going hungry.
Something had to be done at once. So the South offered to give Napoleon III twelve million dollars' worth of cotton if he would recognize the Confederacy and use the French fleet to lift the blockade. Besides, they promised to overwhelm him with orders that would start smoke rolling out of every factory chimney in France night and day.
Napoleon therefore urged Russia and England to join him in recognizing the Confederacy. The aristocracy that ruled England adjusted their monocles, poured a few drinks of Johnny Walker, and listened eagerly to Napoleon's overtures. The United States was getting too rich and powerful to please them. They wanted to see the nation divided, the Union broken. Besides, they needed the South's cotton. Scores of England's factories had closed, and a million people were not only idle but destitute and reduced to actual pauperism. Children were crying for food; hundreds of people were dying of starvation. Public subscriptions to buy food for British workmen were taken up in the remotest corners of the earth: even in far-off India and povertystricken China.
There was one way, and only one way, that England could get cotton, and that was to join Napoleon III in recognizing the Confederacy and lifting the blockade.
If that were done, what would happen in America? The South would get guns, powder, credit, food, railroad equipment, and a tremendous lift in confidence and morale.
And what would the North get? Two new and powerful enemies. The situation, bad enough now, would be hopeless then.
Nobody knew this better than Abraham Lincoln. “We have about played our last card,” he confessed in 1862. “We must either change our tactics now or lose the game.”
As England saw it, all the colonies had originally seceded from her. Now the Southern colonies had, in turn, seceded from the Northern ones; and the North was fighting to coerce and subdue them. What difference did it make to a lord in London or a prince in Paris whether Tennessee and Texas were ruled from Washington or Richmond? None. To them, the fighting was meaningless and fraught with no high purpose.
“No war ever raging in my time,” wrote Carlyle, “was to me more profoundly foolish looking.”
Lincoln saw that Europe's attitude toward the war must be changed, and he knew how to do it. A million people in Europe had read “Uncle Tom's Cabin—” had read it and wept and learned to abhor the heartaches and injustice of slavery. So Abraham Lincoln knew that if he issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, Europeans would see the war in a different light. It would no longer be a bloody quarrel over the preservation of a Union that meant nothing to them. Instead, it would be exalted into a holy crusade to destroy slavery. European governments would then not dare to recognize the South. Public opinion wouldn't tolerate the aiding of a people supposed to be fighting to perpetuate human bondage.
Finally, therefore, in July, 1862, Lincoln determined to issue his proclamation; but McClellan and Pope had recently led the army to humiliating defeats. Seward told the President that the time was not auspicious, that he ought to wait and launch the proclamation on the crest of a wave of victory.
That sounded sensible. So Lincoln waited; and two months later the victory came. Then Lincoln called his Cabinet together to discuss the issuing of the most famous document in American history since the Declaration of Independence.
It was a momentous occasion—and a grave one. But did Lincoln act gravely and solemnly? He did not. Whenever he came across a good story, he liked to share it. He used to take one of Artemus Ward's books to bed with him; and when he read something humorous, he would get up, and, clad in nothing but his night-shirt, he would make his way through the halls of the White House to the office of his secretaries, and read it to them.
The day before the Cabinet meeting which was to discuss the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln had gotten hold of Ward's latest volume. There was a story in it that he thought very funny. So he read it to the Cabinet now, before they got down to business. It was entitled, “High-handed Outrage in Utiky.”
After Lincoln had had his laugh, he put the book aside and began solemnly: “When the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of emancipation. I said nothing to any one, but I made the promise to myself and—to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfil that promise. I have called you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice upon the main matter, for that I have determined for myself. What I have written is that which my reflections have determined me to say. But if there is anything in the expressions I use, or in any minor matter, which any of you thinks had best be changed, I shall be glad to receive the suggestions.”
Seward suggested one slight change in wording; then, a few minutes later, he proposed another.
Lincoln asked him why he hadn't made both suggestions at the same time. And then Lincoln interrupted the consideration of the Emancipation Proclamation to tell a story. He said a hired man back in Indiana told the farmer who had employed him that one steer in his best yoke of oxen had died. Having waited a while, the hired man said, “The other ox in that team is dead, too.”
“Then why didn't you tell me at once,” asked the farmer, “that both of them were dead?”
“Well,” answered the hired man, “I didn't want to hurt you by telling you too much at the same time.”
Lincoln presented the proclamation to his Cabinet in September, 1862; but it was not to take effect until the first day of January, 1863. So when Congress met the following December, Lincoln appealed to that body for support. In making his plea he uttered one of the most magnificent sentences he ever penned —a sentence of unconscious poetry.
Speaking of the Union, he said:
“We shall nobly save or meanly lose
The last, best hope of earth.”
On New Year's Day, 1863, Lincoln spent hours shaking hands with the visitors that thronged the White House. In the middle of that afternoon, he retired to his office, dipped his pen in the ink, and prepared to sign his proclamation of freedom. Hesitating, he turned to Seward and said: “If slavery isn't wrong, nothing is wrong, and I have never felt more certain in my life that I was doing right. But I have been receiving calls and shaking hands since nine o'clock this morning, and my arm is stiff and numb. Now this signature is one that will be closely examined, and if they find my hand trembled, they will say, ‘He had some compunctions.’”
He rested his arm a moment, then slowly signed the document, and gave freedom to three and a half million slaves.
The proclamation did not meet with popular approval then. “The only effect of it,” wrote Orville H. Browning, one of Lincoln's closest friends and strongest supporters, “was to unite and exasperate the South and divide and distract us in the North.”
A mutiny broke out in the army. Men who had enlisted to save the Union swore that they wouldn't stand up and be shot down to free niggers and make them their social equals. Thousands of soldiers deserted, and recruiting fell off everywhere.
The plain people upon whom Lincoln had depended for support failed him utterly. The autumn elections went overwhelmingly against him. Even his home state of Illinois repudiated the Republican party.
And quickly, on top of the defeat at the polls, came one of the most disastrous reverses of the war—Burnside's foolhardy attack on Lee at Fredericksburg and the loss of thirteen thousand men. A stupid and futile butchery. This sort of thing had been going on for eighteen months now. Was it never going to stop? The nation was appalled. People were driven to despair. The President was violently denounced everywhere. He had failed. His general had failed. His policies had failed. People wouldn't put up with this any longer. Even the Republican members of the Senate revolted; and, wanting to force Lincoln out of the White House, they called upon him, demanding that he change his policies and dismiss his entire Cabinet.
This was a humiliating blow. Lincoln confessed that it distressed him more than any other one event of his political life.
“They want to get rid of me,” he said, “and I am half disposed to gratify them.”
Horace Greeley now sharply regretted the fact that he had forced the Republicans to nominate Lincoln in 1860.
“It was a mistake,” he confessed, “the biggest mistake of my life.”
Greeley and a number of other prominent Republicans organized a movement having these objects in view: to force Lincoln to resign, to put Hamlin, the Vice-President, in the White House, and then to compel Hamlin to give Rosecrans command of all the Union armies.
“We are now on the brink of destruction,” Lincoln confessed. “It appears to me that even the Almighty is against us. I can see hardly a ray of hope.”
中文
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如今随便找一个美国人，问他们为什么要发动南北战争，他们很可能会说“为了解放黑奴”。
真的是这样吗？
让我们探个究竟。下面这句话摘自林肯的第一次就职演说：“不管是直接还是间接，我都没有打算干预蓄奴州现存的奴隶制度。我想我没有权利干预，也不愿意这样做。”
事实上，加农炮火轰鸣，伤兵哀号了将近十八个月后，林肯才签署了《解放奴隶宣言》。在那期间，激进派和废奴派都敦促他立刻行动，他们通过媒体攻击他，还在各种公共场合诋毁他。
有一次，芝加哥牧师代表团携带着他们称为“来自上帝的命令”的东西来到白宫，要求林肯立刻解放黑奴。林肯对他们说，如果上帝真的要插手此事，肯定会亲自带着指令莅临指挥部，而不是通过芝加哥辗转发令。
最终，霍勒斯·格里利实在忍受不了林肯的拖延和不作为，写了一篇《两千万人的祈祷》来攻击总统。这篇文章洋洋洒洒地占据了两个专栏，字里行间都是强烈的怨气。
林肯针对格里利的责难进行了答复，而这篇回复文章也成了战争期间的经典作品——简洁、精练又强悍有力。而文章的结尾更是令人难以忘怀：
通过这场战争我最重要的目标既不是保全奴隶制，也不是废除奴隶制，而是拯救联邦。如果不用解放黑奴就能拯救联邦，我就不解放。如果要解放全部的黑奴才能拯救联邦，我就全部解放。如果只要解放一部分的黑奴就能拯救联邦，我就只解放一部分，不会管剩下的人。我为奴隶制和有色人种做了些事，这是因为我认为这么做有助于解救联邦。我也忍耐了很多事，这是因为我相信这么做有助于解救联邦。凡是我认为会破坏解救联邦这项事业的事，我会尽力少做；凡是我认为对解救联邦有好处的事，我会尽力多做。凡是被证明是错误的事，我都会尽力改正；凡是被证明是正确的观点，我都会立刻接受。
今天我是站在对自己所负公职的立场上陈述这个目标的。我常说我的个人愿望是愿普天之下所有人都能得到自由，而我并不想修改这个愿望。
林肯相信如果他能拯救联邦，阻止奴隶制的扩散，那么到了合适的时间奴隶制必会自然消亡。但如果联邦被摧毁了，那么奴隶制也许会留存几百年。
当时，有四个蓄奴州是站在北方这边的。林肯很清楚，如果他在冲突期间过早地签署《解放奴隶宣言》，那么势必会促使这几个州转投南方联盟，增加南方的实力。如此一来，联邦便有可能被彻底摧毁。当时流传着这样一句话：“对于上帝，林肯只是希望上帝能站在自己这一边，但对于肯塔基州，林肯却是一定要得到的。”
于是他小心谨慎，等待时机。
林肯自己的夫人便是来自一个拥有奴隶的边界州家族。林肯夫人从她父亲那儿得到的遗产中，一部分便是贩卖奴隶的收入。而林肯唯一的密友——约书亚·斯皮德——也来自蓄奴家庭。所以林肯在心里对于南方是持同情态度的。而且，林肯是律师出身，对于宪法、法律和私人财产有着本能的尊重，所以他不愿意苛待任何人。
他认为在奴隶制这个问题上，北方和南方一样负有责任。若想废除奴隶制，双方都应该承担同等责任。最终林肯想出了一个十分贴合他心意的计划。根据这份计划，效忠于北方的边界州的奴隶主们每释放一个黑奴便会得到四百美金的补偿。黑奴也不会一下子全部得到解放，这是一个循序渐进的过程，按照计划，要到一九〇〇年一月一日才能解放全部黑奴。林肯将边界州的代表们请到了白宫，恳请他们接受他的提案。
“这份提案带来的变化，”林肯据理力争道，“将会像天堂的露水一样温和，不会强势地夺取或者摧毁任何东西。这么好的提议，你们还不赞成吗？在过去那么多岁月中，还没有哪件事能带来如此大的好处。但是现在，在上帝的旨意下，你们有特权去做这样一件事。希望在以后漫长的岁月中，你们不会因为曾忽视了这份提案而追悔莫及。”
但这些代表真的忽视了林肯的提议，而且全盘否定了这份提案。林肯感到极度失望。
“如果可以的话，我将竭尽全力保全联邦，”他说，“我不妨一次把话说清楚，我决不会留着未打完的牌投降……我现在已经认识到，解放黑奴以及武装黑人同胞已成了必不可少的军事需要。我现在已被逼到了要么这么做，要么放弃联邦的地步。”
林肯必须立刻采取行动，因为英国和法国已准备承认南方联盟。为什么呢？理由很简单。
先说法国。拿破仑三世娶了特巴女伯爵玛丽·欧仁妮·德蒙蒂霍（Marie Eugénie de Montijo）。欧仁妮被誉为世界上最美丽的女人，于是拿破仑三世就想炫耀一把。他渴望和他那位举世闻名的叔叔拿破仑·波拿巴（Napoleon Bonaparte）一样满身荣耀，于是当他看到美国人自相残杀时，就料定美国人没有时间和精力继续执行门罗主义(4)，于是派了一支军队入侵墨西哥，杀了几千名当地人，占领了这个国家，将它命名为法属墨西哥，并将奥利地大公马克西米利安（Archduke Maximilian）送上了王位。
拿破仑毫无依据地相信，如果南方联盟赢了，南方定会支持他的新帝国，但若是北方联邦赢了，那么美国一定会采取措施将法国军队赶出墨西哥。因此，拿破仑希望南方能够成功分裂美国，而他也会尽力促成此事。
战争伊始，北方海军关闭了所有南方口岸，派兵驻守一百八十九个港口，巡逻九千六百一十四英里长的海岸线，监控海湾、河口和河道。
这是世界上有史以来范围最大的封锁。
南方联盟非常绝望。他们无法出售棉花，也买不了枪支、弹药、鞋、医疗用品或食物。他们只能用煮熟的栗子和棉花种子代替咖啡，用黑莓叶子和檫树根酿成的饮料代替茶。报纸只能印在壁纸上。没有盐吃，便将熏制房里的浸着培根汁液的地板挖出来，煮开提炼盐。教堂的钟熔化后制成了加农炮。有轨电车的轨道也拆了下来，制成了炮艇的装甲。
南方联盟无法维修铁路，也不能购买新设备，因此运输基本处于停滞状态。在佐治亚州一蒲式耳玉米只卖两美金，但在里士满却卖到了十五美金。整个弗吉尼亚州都处在饥饿之中。
南方必须采取行动改变这一局面。于是他们向法国提议，若拿破仑三世承认南方联盟，并为南方提供军舰解除北方的封锁，南方联盟愿意向法国提供价值一千两百万美金的棉花。此外，他们还承诺会给拿破仑三世足够多的订单，让法国每家工厂的烟囱都夜以继日地冒出滚滚浓烟。
因此，拿破仑三世怂恿俄罗斯、英国和他一起承认南方联盟。英国的统治者们调了调鼻梁上的单片眼镜，倒上一杯尊尼获加，热切地听拿破仑三世陈述他的提案。美国的日益强大、富庶让他们很不开心，因此他们希望美国分裂，联邦解体。此外，他们也需要南方的棉花。英国的很多工厂都倒闭了，上百万人不仅无业又贫穷，还沦落至需要救济的地步。孩子们哭闹着要食物，数百人被活活饿死。即便是那些最遥远的角落——印度和贫困的中国——的救助金也被抢去给英国工人买面包吃。
有一条路，唯一的一条路，可以让英国获得棉花——加盟拿破仑三世，认可南方联盟，帮助他们解除封锁。
如果这件事成了，美国会如何呢？南方会得到枪支、火药、贷款、食物和铁路设备，并极大地提高自信和士气。
那北方又能得到什么呢？两个强大的新敌人。现在的局势已然很糟，若真的到了那一天，那便毫无希望可言了。
亚伯拉罕·林肯比任何人都清楚这一点。“我们必须打出最后一张牌了。”他在一八六二年承认道，“现在要么改变战略，要么满盘皆输。”
在英国人看来，所有北美殖民地一开始都是从他们手里分割出去的。现在南方殖民地要脱离北方，而北方镇压南方，迫使南方臣服。可是对于伦敦的贵族或法国的亲王来说，田纳西州和得克萨斯州是由华盛顿还是里士满统治又有什么区别呢？没有区别。对于他们来说，南北战争毫无意义，没有崇高的目标。
“在我所处的年代，”卡莱尔写道，“没有哪场战争像南北战争这样愚蠢得这么彻底。”
林肯明白，必须改变欧洲对这场战争的态度，而他也知道该怎么做。在欧洲，上百万人读过《汤姆叔叔的小屋》。他们为黑奴的悲惨遭遇伤心哭泣，憎恨奴隶制的不公和残忍。林肯知道，如果他签署《解放奴隶宣言》，欧洲人便会用不同的眼光看待这场战争。南北战争不再是一场欧洲人眼中毫无意义的、血淋淋的联邦保卫战，而上升成了一场摧毁奴隶制的伟大变革。届时，欧洲政府便不敢承认南方，因为公众舆论不会容忍和帮助那些想要延续人性枷锁的人。
因此，一八六二年七月，林肯终于下定决心签署《解放奴隶宣言》。但是当时麦克莱伦和波普输了好几场丢人至极的战役，于是苏华德告诉总统，现在时机不对，应该等获得了一波胜利后再发布宣言。
这个建议听起来合情合理。于是林肯等待着。两个月后，北方军迎来了胜利。于是林肯召集内阁，商讨发布美国历史上自《独立宣言》后最著名的宣言。
这是一个重大的时刻，也是一个极其庄严的时刻。可是林肯会庄严肃穆地对待这件事吗？才不会呢。无论何时，只要读到了好故事，林肯就会分享给其他人。他睡前常常阅读阿特姆斯·沃德的书，当看到幽默的故事时，他便会爬起来，只穿着睡衣，穿过白宫的走廊来到秘书办公室，读给秘书们听。
在内阁召开会议讨论《解放奴隶宣言》发布事宜的前一天，林肯得到了沃德最新的一卷书。书中有一则故事让林肯觉得非常有趣。于是，在内阁成员们开始做正事之前，他便将这则故事读给他们听。这篇故事名叫《在尤蒂卡的高调愤怒》。
林肯笑够了之后才将书放在一边，肃穆地开口道：“当叛军在弗雷德里克的时候，我就决定，一旦将他们逐出马里兰，我就发表解放奴隶的宣言。这件事我没有跟任何人说，但我对自己和上帝发了誓。现在叛军已经被逐出去了，我也将实现当时的诺言。我召集你们来，是想请你们听一听我写的东西。我不希望你们修改其主体大意，因为我已经决定好了。我所写的是我思考后想说的。但是在措辞或者其他小问题方面，你们若觉得最好改掉，我会非常高兴地接受你们的建议。”
苏华德建议改动一处措辞，几分钟后，他又提出了一条新的改动建议。
林肯问他为什么不将两条建议一起说出来。随后林肯终止了对《解放奴隶宣言》的思考，讲述了一个故事。他说，印第安纳州的一个雇工告诉聘请自己的农场主，最好的两头牛死了一头。过了一会儿，雇工又说：“另外一头也死了。”
农场主问：“你为什么不一次性告诉我两头都死了呢？”
“其实，”雇工回答道，“我不想一次全告诉你，怕你会伤心。”
一八六二年九月，林肯向内阁提交了他的宣言，但这份宣言直到一八六三年一月一日才正式施行。因此在一八六二年十二月的国会会议上，林肯恳求国会支持他的宣言。在恳求的过程中，林肯说出了他曾写过的最为壮丽的话——充满了意想不到的诗意。
谈到联邦的时候，林肯说：
我们要么高尚地挽救，要么卑鄙地丧失
这地球上最后的、最美好的希望。
一八六三年元旦那天，林肯花了好几个小时与挤满了白宫的访客一一握手。那天下午晚些时候，林肯回到办公室，拿起笔蘸了蘸墨水，准备签署他的解放宣言。他犹豫了一会儿，转身对苏华德说：“如果说奴隶制不是一个错误，那就没有正确的事了。我这一生从没像现在这样，认定自己正在做一件正确的事。但是今天早上自九点钟起我就一直在接待来访者，与人握手。我的手臂现在又酸又麻。这个签名肯定是会被人仔细审视的，如果他们看出我的手抖了，他们会说‘林肯后悔了’。”
他让手臂休息了一会，然后缓缓地在文件上签上了自己的名字。三百五十万奴隶因此得到了自由。
当时，这份宣言并没有得到普遍的支持。“这份宣言的唯一效果是，”林肯的挚友及忠实拥护者奥维尔·布朗宁（Orville H.Browning）写道，“激怒了南方，让他们更加团结，同时让北方意见分歧，军心涣散。”
军队中发生了兵变。那些应召入伍誓死捍卫联邦的将士发誓绝不会拥护黑奴解放，也绝不会为了让黑奴与自己平起平坐而牺牲自己的性命。数以千计的士兵逃跑了，各地募兵处皆是一片萧条。
林肯曾获得了广大平民的支持，但他们却让林肯彻底失望了。林肯在秋季选举中一败涂地，即便是他的家乡伊利诺伊州也否定了共和党。
很快，林肯在选举失败之后又迎来了南北战争中损失最为惨重的一场战役——伯恩赛德鲁莽地在弗雷德里克斯堡攻击了李，然后损失了一万三千人。又是一场愚蠢而无用的屠戮。十八个月来，同类事件一而再再而三地上演，到底何时才是尽头？整个国家都处于惊恐之中，人们心中满是绝望。全国各地都在强烈谴责总统。林肯失败了，他的将军失败了，他的政策也失败了。人们再也忍受不了了，即便是参议院的共和党成员也生出了反叛之心。他们想把林肯赶出白宫，于是前往白宫拜见林肯，要求他改变政策并且解散内阁。
这一打击让人颜面尽失。林肯承认这是他政治生涯中最为痛苦的时刻。
“他们想要摆脱我，”林肯说，“而我内心竟然愿意满足他们。”
此时，霍勒斯·格里利对自己在一八六〇年迫使共和党提名林肯这件事感到非常后悔。
“这绝对是一个错误。”他承认道，“这是我一生中犯下的最大的错误。”
格里利和其他几位声名显赫的共和党人发起了一项运动，主要目的如下：迫使林肯辞职，让副总统哈姆林入主白宫，然后迫使哈姆林任命罗斯克兰斯接管北方联军。
“我们如今站在毁灭的边缘。”林肯承认道，“在我看来，上帝似乎也没有站在我们这边。我看不到任何希望。”
