Sold – Lincoln Is Grateful For Support For His Emancipation Proclamation

On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued a Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation declaring that all slaves in states which were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863 “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” This caused a firestorm in the North, so while many praised the President, opposition was strong. Conservatives were mainly foursquare opposed to it. In the upcoming Congressional elections of 1862, the Democrats fought on a fierce anti-emancipation platform, with one delegate at their conference adapting their slogan to read; ‘The Constitution as it is, the Union as it was, and the Negroes where they are.’ The correspondence of soldiers in the field indicates that quite a number were against emancipation, and some threatened to throw down their arms if the war came to be about freeing Negroes rather than saving the Union. The election results in November 1862 seemed to endorse Democratic opposition to emancipation, with a net gain for them of 36 Congressional seats; they won other victories too, including the governorships of New York and New Jersey. The Republican Party actually gained some seats in the Senate, but this was before popular election of Senators, so it was hard to make a connection between that gain and public approval of the President’s actions.

On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Lincoln needed support now more than ever, and it was all the more satisfying if the support was public and helped enlist others to reach similar conclusions. George E. Fawcett was a teacher of instrumental music at Greenwood Academy in Muscatine, Iowa. He had published a number of previous musical compositions, and he was in the President’s corner. In late 1862, he wrote “The President’s Emancipation March” and dedicated it to Abraham Lincoln, who was, he wrote, “a foe to tyrants and my country’s friend.” The sheet music was published and disseminated by the well-known Chicago-based music publishing firm Root & Cady, which was the most successful music publisher of the Civil War and published many of the war’s most popular songs. The firm’s founders were Chauncey Marvin Cady and E. T. Root, whose older brother was George F. Root, one of the Civil War’s greatest composers whose his biggest hit was “The Battle Cry of Freedom”.

After the January 1 proclamation date, Fawcett sent a copy of the march to President Lincoln himself. Lincoln soon responded. Letter Signed on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, January 26, 1863, to Fawcett. “Allow me to thank you cordially for your thoughtful courtesy in sending me a copy of your “Emancipation March.” The body of the letter is in the handwriting of Lincoln’s secretary, future Secretary of State, John Hay.

We searched the papers of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, auction records going back 38 years, and the primary resource in the field, Basler’s “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.” We discovered that despite the enormity of his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, following its signing on January 1, 1863, Lincoln wrote about or mentioned emancipation by name in just three letters during that month. One, written to John A. McClernand on January 8, was an important defense of the proclamation; it sold two decades ago for some $750,000 and is now owned by a foundation and on loan to the Library of Congress. The other two letters were references to the proclamation; one was sent to John W. Forney on January 18, and it is in an institution; the other is this letter to George Fawcett.

“The President’s Emancipation March” was well-received, and being celebratory, doubtless assisted in generating support for both Lincoln and emancipation. A copy of the sheet music is in the American Memory section of the Library of Congress.