committee on emancipation, consisting of nine members, a majority of whom were from border slave States, was appointed; and this committee on July 16 reported a comprehensive bill authorizing the President to give compensation at the rate of three hundred dollars for each slave to any one of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, that might adopt immediate or gradual emancipation.  Some subsequent proceedings on this subject occurred in Congress in the case of Missouri; but as to the other States named in the bill, either the neglect or open opposition of their people and representatives and senators prevented any further action from the committee.

Meanwhile a new incident once more brought the question of military emancipation into sharp public discussion.  On May 9, General David Hunter, commanding the Department of the South, which consisted mainly of some sixty or seventy miles of the South Carolina coast between North Edisto River and Warsaw Sound, embracing the famous Sea Island cotton region which fell into Union hands by the capture of Port Royal in 1861, issued a military order which declared: 

“Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States—­Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina—­heretofore held as slaves are therefore declared forever free.”

The news of this order, coming by the slow course of ocean mails, greatly surprised Mr. Lincoln, and his first comment upon it was positive and emphatic.  “No commanding general shall do such a thing, upon my responsibility, without consulting me,” he wrote to Secretary Chase.  Three days later, May 19, 1862, he published a proclamation declaring Hunter’s order entirely unauthorized and void, and adding: 

“I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether, at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field.  These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.”

This distinct reservation of executive power, and equally plain announcement of the contingency which would justify its exercise, was coupled with a renewed recital of his plan and offer of compensated abolishment and reinforced by a powerful appeal to the public opinion of the border slave States.