to the
"critical" condition of the Army of the Potomac, and the danger of its
being "overwhelmed" by the Enemy in front, the President must now
substantially assume and exercise the powers of a Dictator, or all would
be lost; that "neither Confiscation of property * * * nor forcible
Abolition of Slavery, should be contemplated for a moment;" and that "A
declaration of Radical views, especially upon Slavery, will rapidly
disintegrate our present Armies."

Harried, and worried, on all sides,--threatened even by the Commander of
the Army of the Potomac,--it is not surprising, in view of the
apparently irreconcilable attitude of the loyal Border-State men to
gradual and compensated Emancipation, that the tension of President
Lincoln's mind began to feel a measure of relief in contemplating
Military Emancipation in the teeth of all such threats.

He had long since made up his mind that the existence of Slavery was not
compatible with the preservation of the Union. The only question now
was, how to get rid of it? If the worst should come to the worst
--despite McClellan's threat--he would have to risk everything on the turn
of the die--would have to "play his last card;" and that "last card" was
Military Emancipation. Yet still he disliked to play it. The time and
necessity for it had not yet arrived--although he thought he saw them
coming.

[In the course of an article in the New York Tribune, August, 1885,
Hon. George S. Boutwell tells of an interview in "July or early
in August" of 1862, with President Lincoln, at which the latter
read two letters: one from a Louisiana man "who claimed to be a
Union man," but sought to impress the President with "the dangers
and evils of Emancipation;" the other, Mr. Lincoln's reply to him,
in which, says Mr. B., "he used this expression: 'you must not
expect me to give up this Government without playing my last card.'
Emancipation was his last card."]

Things were certainly, at this time, sufficiently unpromising to chill
the sturdiest Patriot's heart. It is true, we had scored some important
victories in the West; but in the East, our arms seemed fated to
disaster after disaster. Belmont, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and
Pittsburg Landing, were names whose mention made the blood of Patriots
to surge in their veins; and Corinth, too, had fallen. But in the East,
McClellan's profitless campaign against Richmond, and especially his
d