When a Missouri congressman complained that the New York Tribune had interpreted Lincoln’s proposal “to mean that we must accept gradual emancipation according to the plan suggested, or get something worse,” the president replied that “he must not be expected to quarrel with the New York Tribune before the right time; he hoped never to have to do it.” To Crisfield, who asked what would happen if the Border States rejected the plan, Lincoln said “that he had no designs beyond the action of the States on this particular subject. He should lament their refusal to accept it, but he had no designs beyond their refusal of it.” Crisfield added that his constituents felt the administration was coercing them indirectly. Lincoln replied that as long as he remained in office “Maryland had nothing to fear, either for her institutions or her interests, on the points referred to.” The congressman asked permission to make this pledge public, but Lincoln demurred, saying “it would force me into a quarrel before the proper time.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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