ase
Missouri shall adopt gradual emancipation, the General Government
will protect slave-owners in that species of property during the
short time it shall be permitted by the State to exist within it,
has been received.

"Desirous as I am that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri,
and believing as I do that _gradual_ can be made better than
_immediate_, for both black and white, except when military necessity
changes the case, my impulse is to say that such protection would
be given. I cannot know exactly what shape an act of emancipation
may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end should
be comparatively short, and the act should prevent persons being
sold during that period into more lasting slavery, the whole world
would be easier. I do not wish to pledge the General Government
to the affirmative support of even temporary slavery, beyond what
can be fairly claimed under the Constitution. I suppose, however,
this is not desired; but that it is desired for the military force
of the United States, while in Missouri, not to be used in subverting
the temporarily reserved legal rights in slaves during the progress
of emancipation. This I would desire also. I have very earnestly
urged the slave States to adopt emancipation; and it ought to be,
and is, an object with me not to overthrow or thwart what any of
them may in good faith do to that end. You are therefore authorized
to act in the spirit of this letter, in conjunction with what may
appear to be the military necessities of your department.

"Although this letter will become public at some time, it is not
intended to be made so now.

"Yours truly,
"A. Lincoln."

My impression is that the nature of this quarrel in Missouri was
not fully understood at the time in Washington, as General Halleck
wrote me that neither of the factions was regarded as really friendly
to the President. But my belief is that they were then, as they
subsequently proved to be, divided on the Presidential question as
well as in State politics; that the conservative were sincere in
their friendship and support of Mr. Lincoln, and desired his
renomination, while the radicals were intriguing for Mr. Chase or
some other more radical man.

This struggle between extreme radicalism and conservatism among
the Union men of Missouri was long and bitter, but I have nothing
to do with its history beyond the period of my command in that
department. It resulted, as is