Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 363

Domestic reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation seemed as furious as it was remarkably shortsighted. The Republican press in giving the proclamation strong editorial support assured their readers that liberated slaves would not stampede into the North and steal their jobs. Even so, this decision cost the Lincoln administration a huge price: by-partisan support for the war disappeared like snow in spring. ‘It is impudent and insulting to God as to man,’ cried one Democrat, ‘for it declares those equal whom God created unequal.’ There was trouble in the army as well with white soldiers cursing liberated slaves with an ‘unreasoning hatred.’ But Lincoln was immovable as stone. He was determined to strike at the rebellion at its very core. He also estimated that making this an overt fight against slavery would doom any hopes the South had of foreign recognition. Finally, he anticipated great advantage not only from depleting the South of slave labor but also in swelling Union ranks with black soldiers [in the end an estimated 186,000 blacks joined the Union war effort].