Most Radical Republicans, however, agreed with the New York Tribune, which praised “the message of freedom” as “the day-star of a new national dawn” and “one of those few great scriptures that live in history and mark an epoch in the lives of nations and of races.” It was, said the editors, “the most important document ever issued from the White House.” Enthusiastically, they predicted that March 6 “will yet be celebrated as a day which initiated the Nation’s deliverance from the most stupendous wrong, curse and shame of the Nineteenth Century.” The president’s “admirable and comprehensive” suggestions would “conduce to National integrity and internal peace.” Similarly, Charles Sumner thought “it must take its place among the great events of history,” and Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that it “marks the happiest day in the political year.” To a critic of Lincoln’s plan, George William Curtis replied: “I have rather more faith in the President’s common-sense and practical wisdom.” Deeming Lincoln “very wise,” Curtis said that his “policy has been to hold the border states. He has held them. Now he makes his next move, and invites emancipation. I think he has the instinct of a statesman: the knowledge of how much is practicable without recoil. From the first he has steadily advanced—and there has been no protest against anything he has said or done. It is easy to say he has done nothing,—until you compare March 6 ’61 & ’62.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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