(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Dana Richard Henry Letter questionin

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(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Dana, Richard Henry. Letter questioning the legal validity of the Emancipation Proclamation. Autograph Letter Signed as "R.H. Dana" to G.W. Shelley[?]. 4 pages, 7 x 4 1/2 inches, on one folding sheet; minor wear at folds. Geneva, Switzerland, 27 September 1880

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The prominent white lawyer and author Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815-1882) had been a prominent abolitionist before the war, but had long been troubled by the possible illegality of the Emancipation Proclamation, expressing concern in private as early as October 1862 (see the biography of Dana by Charles Francis Adams, page II:263). He worried that the act only freed slaves under enemy control. He kept quiet on the subject for many years, hoping not to undermine the positive effects of the proclamation. However, one of the last publications of his career was an August 1880 article for the North American Review, "Nullity of the Emancipation Edict." This letter seeks confirmation of his interpretation from another legal scholar: "Will you do me the favor . . . to read my article on Pres. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in the August number of the North American Review? . . . It may offer the Democrats a chance to sneer at what has been popularly considered a great act of the great Republican president. You will see my position. If an edict issued at Washington would emancipate a slave in the hands of a master in the enemy's control, the president, as commander in chief, would be the person to issue it. . . . It is not an operative weapon of war. I have so thought from the first, and have never met a thinking man who would see it otherwise."