Stanton’s motive was probably economy.  Congress was terrified by the expense of the war.  The Committee was deeply alarmed over the political effect of war taxation.  They and Stanton were all convinced that McClellan was amply strong enough to crush the Confederacy.

But even in this dire extremity, he would not give way without a last attempt to save his earlier policy.  On July twelfth, he called together the Senators and Representatives of the Border States.  He read to them a written argument in favor of compensated emancipation, the Federal government to assist the States in providing funds for the purpose.

“Let the States that are in rebellion,” said he, “see definitely and certainly that in no event will the States you represent ever join their proposed Confederacy, and they can not much longer maintain the contest.  But you can not divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within your own States. . . .  If the war continues long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion—­by the mere incidents of war. . . .  Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring it speedy relief.  Once relieved its form of government is saved to the world, its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand."(12)

He made no impression.  They would commit themselves to nothing.  Lincoln abandoned his earlier policy.

Of what happened next, he said later, “It had got to be. . . .  Things had gone on from bad to worse until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card and must change our tactics or lose the game.  I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy. . . “(13)

The next day he confided his decision and his reasons to Seward and Welles.  Though “this was a new departure for the President,” both these Ministers agreed with him that the change of policy had become inevitable.(14)

Lincoln was now entirely himself, astute in action as well as bold in thought.  He would not disclose his change of policy while Congress was in session.  Should he do so, there was no telling what attempt the Cabal would make to pervert his intention, to twist his course into the semblance of an acceptance of the congressional theory.  He laid the matter aside until Congress should be temporarily out of the way, until the long recess between July and December should have begun.  In this closing moment of the second session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, which is also the opening moment of the great period of Lincoln, the feeling against him in Congress was extravagantly bitter.  It caught at anything with