Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 4

[62] and that the editor could thus cite it as evidence of the anti-slavery purpose of the Administration. His first feeling, however, on carefully reading the document, was not one of exultation, and a friend who called to¹ congratulate him, the morning it appeared, was surprised to find how quietly he took it, and wondered at his lack of enthusiasm; but having indulged the hope that the proclamation, if issued, would be unreserved and sweeping, he was disappointed and disturbed that the President should confine it to the rebellious States, giving them one hundred days of grace, and should couple with it his scheme for gradual and compensated emancipation in the Border States, and for colonization.² Still, he welcomed it as ‘an important step in the right direction,³ and an⁴ act of immense historic consequence,’ and commended especially the clauses in which the President enjoined the army and navy to obey and enforce the anti-slavery acts already passed by Congress. He congratulated Mr.⁵ Lincoln, too, on the abuse now heaped upon him by the semidisloyal Democratic press which had so lately praised him without stint. Only a fortnight before, he was fearing⁶ that its influence and that of the Border States had become all-powerful with the President.

W. L. Garrison to Oliver Johnson.

Boston, Sept. 9, 1862.

⁷ I commend your anxiety in regard to the course to be pursued both by the Standard and the Liberator, respecting the present