ok then any
interest in the enterprise, though it has since been fostered by the
Secretary of War. At the suggestion of the Secretary, the President
appointed an interview with the agent. Mr. Lincoln, who was then chafing
under a prospective bereavement, listened for a few moments, and then
said, somewhat impatiently, that he did not think he ought to be
troubled with such details,--that there seemed to be an itching to get
negroes into our lines; to which the agent replied, that these negroes
were within them by the invitation of no one, being domiciled there
before we commenced occupation. The President then wrote and handed to
the agent the following card:--

"I shall be obliged if the Sec. of the Treasury will in his discretion
give Mr. Pierce such instructions in regard to Port Royal contrabands as
may seem judicious.

"A. LINCOLN.

"Feb. 15, 1862."

The President, so history must write it, approached the great question
slowly and reluctantly; and in February, 1862, he little dreamed of the
proclamations he was to issue in the September and January following.
Perhaps that slowness and reluctance were well, for thereby it was given
to this people to work out their own salvation, rather than to be saved
by any chief or prophet.

Notwithstanding the plan of superintendents was accepted, there were no
funds wherewith to pay them. At this stage the "Educational Commission,"
organized in Boston on the 7th of February, and the "Freedmen's Relief
Association," organized in New York on the 20th of the same month,
gallantly volunteered to pay both superintendents and teachers, and did
so until July 1st, when the Government, having derived a fund from the
sale of confiscated cotton left in the territory by the Rebels,
undertook the payment of the superintendents, the two societies,
together with another organized in Philadelphia on the 3d of March, and
called the "Port Royal Relief Committee," providing for the support of
the teachers.

When these voluntary associations sprang into being to save an
enterprise which otherwise must have failed, no authoritative assurance
had been given as to the legal condition of the negroes. The Secretary,
in a letter to the agent, had said, that, after being received into our
service, they could not, without great injustice, be restored to their
masters, and should therefore be fitted to become self-supporting
citizens. The President was reported to have said freely, in private,
tha