Once again, collective intelligence is best based on both thought and feeling. Kearns Goodwin (2005, p. 465) provides the following narrative regarding Bates’ contribution:
“Bates, as one of the more conservative members of the cabinet, surprised his colleagues with his enthusiastic approval of the proclamation. He had previously registered disapproval of the more limited emancipation measures attempted by the military and had expressed grave misgivings about the confiscation legislation. His sudden support of this far more radical step can be traced, in part, to the terrible division that slavery and the war had wrought upon his family.”
This manifestation of collective intelligence did not immediately change entrenched opinions. It rarely does (Kearns Goodwin, 2005, p. 466-468):
“The division of sentiment within the cabinet was manifest as Blair, Chase, and Seward spoke. Arriving late, after Lincoln’s announcement that he had already resolved to issue the proclamation, Blair spoke up vigorously in opposition and asked to file his objections. While he supported the idea of compensated, gradual emancipation linked to colonization, he feared that the president’s radical proclamation would cause such an outcry among conservatives and Democrats that Republicans would lose the fall elections. More important, it would ‘put in jeopardy the patriotic element in the border States, already severely tried,’ and ‘would, as soon as it reached them, be likely to carry over those States to the secessionists.’ Lincoln replied that while he had considered these dangers, he had tried for months to get the border states ‘to move in this matter, convinced in his own mind that it was their true interest to do so, but his labors were in vain.’ The time had come to move ahead. He would, however, willingly let Blair file his written objections.
. . . Seward had little faith in the efficacy of proclamations that he considered nothing more than paper without the muscle of the advancing Union Army to enforce them. ‘The public mind seizes quickly upon theoretical schemes for relief,’ he pointedly told Frances, who had long yearned for a presidential proclamation against slavery, ‘but is slow in the adoption of the practical means necessary to give them effect.’ Seward’s position, in fact, was nearly identical to that held by Chase. His preference, he said, ‘would have been to confiscate all rebel property, including slaves, is fast as the territory was conquered.’ Only an immediate military presence could assure escaped slaves of protection. Yet Seward’s practical focus underestimated the proclamation’s power to unleash the moral fervor of the North and keep the Republican Party united by making freedom for the slaves an avowed objective of the war.”
Here is where Lincoln’s gift of building loyalty and alliances despite fundamental differences of perspective and value (Kearns Goodwin, 2005, p. 468):
“Despite his concerns about the effect of the proclamation, Seward had no thought of opposing it. Once Lincoln had made up his mind, Seward was steadfast in his loyalty to him. He demurred only on the issue of timing. ‘Mr. President,’ he said, ‘I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear it may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help . . . our last shriek, on the retreat.’ Better to wait, he grandiloquently suggested, ‘until the eagle of victory takes his flight,’ and buoyed by military success, ‘hang your proclamation about his neck.'”
