Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/331

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 267 mont had seized the occasion of the passage of this act to issue an order to confiscate and emancipate the slaves of rebels in the state of Missouri. Presi dent Lincoln, unwilling, in a matter of such tran scendent importance, to leave the initiative to any subordinate, revoked this order, and directed Gen. Fremont to modify it so that it should conform to the confiscation act of congress. This excited violent opposition to the president among the radical anti-slavery men in Missouri and elsewhere, while it drew upon him the scarcely less embarras sing importunities of the conservatives, who wished him to take still more decided ground against the radicals. On March 6, 1862, he sent a special message to congress inclosing a resolution, the passage of which he recommended, to offer pecuni ary aid from the general government to states that should adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery. This resolution was promptly passed by congress; but in none of the slave-states was public sentiment sufficiently advanced to permit them to avail them selves of it. The next month, however, congress passed a law emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia, with compensation to owners, and President Lin coln had the happiness of affixing his signature to a measure that he had many years before, w r hile a representative from Illinois, fruitlessly urged upon the notice of congress. As the war went on,