On March 12, the Border State delegations held a caucus at which they angrily rejected emancipation, “whether coated with sugar or gunpowder.” The efforts of George Fisher of Delaware, Horace Maynard of Tennessee, Samuel L. Casey of Kentucky, and John W. Noell of Missouri proved unavailing. With evident disgust, Fisher reported that most of the caucus members opposed the liberation of any slaves whatsoever. The proslavery spokesmen were more deeply committed, more earnest, more energetic, and more determined than Fisher and his few allies. (Simultaneously, a Kentucky lawmaker moved to suspend the rules of the state legislature in order to propose that any advocate of emancipation in the commonwealth, or any sympathizer with abolition, be “disfranchised for life.” The motion to suspend, supported by forty-eight legislators and opposed by twenty-nine, failed because it did not quite win the necessary two-thirds vote.) Congress nevertheless passed Lincoln’s resolution by wide margins: 88 to 31 in the House, 32 to 10 in the senate.
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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