While the Illinois State Journal rejoiced to find “no ‘niggerism’ in it” (that is, no mention of slavery), Frederick Douglass regretted that omission. “Any one reading that document, with no previous knowledge of the United States, would never dream from any thing there written that we have a slaveholders war waged upon the Government,” Douglass complained. At the other end of the political spectrum, some Democrats objected that the “necessity of circumstances placed in extenuation of the President’s guilt, is precisely the same plea put in by tyrants, despots, and usurpers of every age of the world.” Kentucky Senator Lazarus Powell denied that there was any necessity for extraconstitutional action, arguing that there “never was a king, potentate, or sovereign, when he was assuming powers that did not belong to him for the purpose of crushing the liberties of his people, who did not do it under the plea of necessity.” Echoing this charge, an Ohio Democrat complained that Lincoln “makes himself a perfect monarch. I would see him d[amne]d before I would by my official vote legalize his unconstitutional acts.” Other Democrats protested against Lincoln’s statement that the government should lift “artificial weights” from the shoulders of all men, for that implied that the shackles of slaves ought to be struck off. The Southern press condemned the message as the work of an “old perjurer,” a “Usurper,” and a “vulgar savage who seems to be making desperate efforts to imitate the Neros and Caligulas of old.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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