Residents felt deeply the nation's struggle over the future of slavery. On the one hand the border states held fewer slaves - only 11 percent of the nation's total slave population in -- than states further south. Yet the number of slaveholders was not insignificant either, as Kentucky had more slave owners than Mississippi and ranked third behind Virginia and Georgia by this measure.
Public opinion surrounding slavery shared much of the intensity of the national struggle too, as abolitionists made deep inroads in the border states before the war, by setting up new organizations and newspapers, while proslavery vigilantes tried to stop them with mob violence.
Border State politicians saw among their constituents nothing less than the divided nation on a smaller scale. Holding this internally divided population together was a problem that intensified with the secession crisis and pushed border state leaders into a particular form of compromise: neutrality. While the four other slaveholding states that had been similarly reluctant to secede - Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina -- eventually did so by the end of April , the remaining border states initially sought to take no side at all the exception was Delaware, where Union loyalties were never in doubt.
But this proved difficult to sustain. Residents found it hard to be neutral in their daily lives, especially men of military age who began leaving the states in order to enlist elsewhere. These states were also located geographically in too central a place to stay apart from the conflict, as both the Union and Confederacy recognized the strategic value of the region.
Maryland surrounded Washington, D. Kentucky possessed the Ohio River, a well-traveled route for western troops, as well as railways into the South, while St. Louis was the home to one of the nation's largest arsenals. The Border States possessed human and material resources that could help either side, and with the opening shots of the war, both set out to win them over.
The earliest challenge to the border states' neutrality took place in Maryland on April 19, Here, as the 6th Massachusetts Regiment answered Lincoln's call for troops and moved through Maryland on the way to Washington, D. The Massachusetts soldiers fired back, and by the end of the day, 16 people had died.
More Union troops continued to arrive, occupying the capital of Annapolis and opening up a safer route into D. The state legislature left Annapolis, and although its members openly criticized Union leaders, no convention was called to consider secession.
By mid-June, latent Union sentiment emerged powerfully to elect Unionists to all six Maryland seats in the U. Any lingering hope for neutrality, or even secession, faded away. Similar defeats for neutrality took place over the coming months in Kentucky, which, despite the governor's southern sympathies, continued to raise the U. The border states posed particular political problems for President Abraham Lincoln as he tried to guide the nation during the Civil War.
He often felt the need to move with caution on the issue of enslavement, so as not to offend the citizens of the border states and that tended to annoy Lincoln's own supporters in the North. The situation greatly feared by Lincoln, of course, was that being too aggressive in dealing with the issue might lead the pro-enslavement elements in the border states to rebel and join the Confederacy, which could be disastrous. If the border states joined the other states that allowed enslavement in rebelling against the Union, it would have given the rebel army more manpower as well as more industrial capacity.
Furthermore, if the state of Maryland joined the Confederacy, the national capital, Washington, D. In the summer of , for instance, he was condemned by many in the North for telling a group of African American visitors to the White House about a plan to send free Black people to colonies in Africa. When prodded by Horace Greeley , the legendary editor of the New York Tribune , to move faster to free enslaved people in , Lincoln responded with a famous and deeply controversial letter.
The most prominent example of Lincoln paying heed to the particular circumstances of the border states would be in the Emancipation Proclamation , which stated that enslaved people in states in rebellion would be freed. It's notable that the enslaved people in the border states, and thereby part of the Union, were not set free by the proclamation.
The ostensible reason for Lincoln excluding the enslaved people in the border states from the Emancipation Proclamation was that the proclamation was a wartime executive action and thus only applied to the states that allowed enslavement in rebellion—but it also avoided the issue of freeing enslaved people in border states which could, perhaps, have led some of the states to rebel and join the Confederacy.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Kentucky sent nearly 75, men into the Union Armies, and Kentuckians fought with the Confederate Army. Kentucky voted against Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential election as the State suffered from a particularly vicious form of guerrilla warfare during the conflict.
Ironically, after the war, Kentucky became a Confederate State. The four border states in the civil war were Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware. Also considering the events that led a piece of the state of Virginia, to split from the state and form a new state called West Virginia, which in effect became a fifth border state.
Kentucky stayed in the union because on September 3, , Confederate General Leonidas Polk ordered Southern troops to occupy Columbus, Kentucky, a strong point on the Mississippi River. It was a wise military move but politically it was a disaster, so the Unionist asked the federal government to help drive the Confederates out by creating a military force to oppose Confederates in the state. The two sides in the civil war were called the states of Union and the states of Confederacy.
By Gary Gallagher, Ph. Would they side with Confederacy, or would they remain loyal to the Union? There was a level of uncertainty as to whether the border states would join the Union or not. Abraham Lincoln intended to keep the border states in the Union. Henry Clay was an expert at pushing for a compromise like the Missouri compromise and the compromise of Image: T. Emancipation, black troops, military arrests, and suppression had all combined to unite Unionists and conservatives in the Democratic organization.
Governor Bramlette, who supported Lincoln longer than most Kentuckians before breaking with him in , warned the president that the extreme measures of his military commanders "have aroused the determined opposition to your reelection of at least three fourths of the people of Kentucky.
It was in Missouri, however, that Lincoln's policies achieved the least success. The disappearance of many of the arrest records for Missouri precludes a precise tabulation, but it is clear that a staggering number of civilians were arrested for disloyal activity, and that the number of arbitrary arrests far exceeded that in any other loyal state.
As in Kentucky, the onset of war in Missouri found a secessionist, Claiborne F. Jackson, in the governor's chair and a legislature that was more secessionist than the population as a whole. Jackson refused Lincoln's call for troops in April, but the secessionists were not strong enough to stampede the state out of the Union. Harney, commander of the U.
Louis, gaining strength daily. Even prior to his transfer, Lyon, who had aided the antislavery forces during the turmoil in Kansas, had concluded that "it is no longer useful to appeal to reason but to the sword, and trifle no longer in senseless wrangling. Louis arsenal, the impatient Lyon began recruiting large numbers of volunteers while keeping a close watch on the secessionists. Harney, commander of the Department of the West, for consultations and put Lyon temporarily in charge of the troops in St.
The rash and impulsive Lyon lost little time in upsetting the delicate balance and throwing the situation into chaos by surrounding Camp Jackson, which posed no military threat, and capturing the state militia encamped there. Lyon's action was a major blunder: it achieved no crucial military end, provoked a serious riot in St.
Louis by Confederate sympathizers, and, worst of all, drove many conditional Unionists over to the Confederacy. Quickly returning from Washington, Harney, who believed that precipitate application of force would make matters worse, worked to defuse the situation and allow Union sentiment to develop. To this end, he negotiated an understanding with Sterling Price, commander of the state militia, to maintain the peace.
Harney bluntly informed the government that aggressive military force "could not secure the results the Government seeks, viz: The Maintenance of the loyalty now fully aroused in the State, and her firm security in the Union. Unconditional Unionists were dismayed at the Harney-Price agreement, while conservatives endorsed Harney's action.
In the end, under heavy pressure from the Blairs, Lincoln once again removed Harney. Placed in command of the department, Lyon, who was devoid of common sense, promptly stirred up additional trouble. In a contentious four-hour meeting with the governor, he made clear his intention to use force against those he deemed disloyal. Jackson hastened back to the capital and issued a proclamation of war against the United States.
Two days later, Lyon marched on the capital and put Jackson and other secessionist state officials to flight; skirmishing soon broke out between Lyon's forces and secessionists, who eventually organized a phantom Confederate state government with Jackson as governor. In less than two months, the reckless Lyon had plunged the state into a civil war that would never be completely suppressed during the next four years. With the regular state government deposed, the state convention, which had been originally elected to consider secession, reconvened shorn of its secessionist members.
It proceeded to declare the state offices vacant, dissolve the legislature, and establish a provisional state government with Hamilton R. Gamble, a conservative Whig, as governor. Gamble was the brother-in-law of Edward Bates, Lincoln's attorney general. The provisional government was to serve only until November, when new elections would be held, but the election was postponed several times and the provisional government remained in power until January , when it was replaced by regularly elected officers.
Lincoln meanwhile had appointed John C. He arrived the darling of the Blair clan, but their ardor began to cool when he failed to reinforce Lyon, who lost his life at the Battle of Wilson's Creek. When the dim-witted but stubborn general refused, Lincoln publicly revoked it. Yet the removal of this threat did not bring peace and order to the state.
Federal officials, reluctant to divert regular troops from the fighting, wanted the state government to handle the problem. The provisional government created a special force, the Enrolled Missouri Militia, to maintain order and put down the guerrillas, but it proved ineffective.
Eventually in exasperation the army adopted the draconian solution of evacuating civilians from four western counties, a process that produced twenty thousand refugees. No policy pursued by the federal government, however, was able to end the fighting or eliminate the irregular bands of Confederate partisans. Disputes arose over control of the state militia and its relationship to federal troops in the state.
As in the other border states, there was constant trouble over the army and slavery. Lincoln's secretaries noted with regard to the state that "as a rule, serious local quarrels in any part of the country, whether of personal politics or civil or military administration, very soon made their way Page [End Page 30] to President Lincoln for settlement.
Both Gamble and his opponents looked to the federal military commander for support and assistance in their struggle for state power. In a position that required tact, tolerance, and a delicate balancing of political interests, Lincoln's commanders were unequal to the task. Curtis, a former Iowa congressman, sided with the radical antislavery forces in the state against Gamble. Lincoln's tireless efforts to heal the breach and get the two men to work together were unsuccessful, so he finally removed Curtis in order to break up the quarrel.
The new commander, John Schofield, threw the power of his command behind Gamble and the conservatives, which produced a Radical outcry against him and eventually led to his replacement by William S. Lincoln threw up his hands in frustration at the failure of his commanders to stay out of the state's politics. The Republican party in Missouri was rent by bitter factionalism as Radicals demanding the end of slavery battled against conservatives who gave priority to the Union issue.
Charges and countercharges were hurled back and forth, and one delegation after another regularly trooped to the capital to win support in its battle for state supremacy. Caught between these rival groups, Lincoln and his military commander inevitably were unable to satisfy either side and became a target for both.
In temper and spirit he was closer to Gamble and the conservatives, while on questions of policy, especially emancipation, he was closer to the Radicals. Lincoln's unwillingness to take sides in the state's factional disputes led Gamble, in an outburst to Bates, to dismiss the president as "a mere intriguing, pettifogging, piddling politician.
General Samuel R. Gamble's death in left the conservatives disorganized and without a leader and enabled the Radicals to assume dominance. At the Republican convention, Missouri was the only state to oppose Lincoln's renomination, and even though the state supported him in the election that fall Table 2 and adopted emancipation in , affairs in the state remained a persistent and insoluble problem for the president.
The vicious irregular fighting in the state, the endemic political factionalism, and the large number of arbitrary arrests were all testimony to the failure of Lincoln's policies in Missouri. The most sensitive problem Lincoln confronted in dealing with the border states was slavery. In , he negated another order freeing the slaves by one of his generals, David Hunter, in South Carolina.
During this period, as the president carefully considered the problem Page [End Page 32] of slavery and the Union war effort, he prodded the border states to abolish the institution by state action. The first step he took in this direction was his message to Congress in December , in which he recommended compensated emancipation in the border states. Lincoln's proposed bill was very conservative: it provided federal compensation to slave owners, authorized an apprenticeship system for minors, and ended slavery gradually over a thirty-year period.
Nevertheless, hostility in the Delaware legislature was so strong the bill's supporters declined to even introduce it. When Congress took no notice of the proposal in his annual message, the president sent a special message on March 6, proposing federal funding for a program of compensated emancipation in the loyal slave states.
Four days later, he summoned the representatives of the border states in Congress to the White House, where he urged them to adopt a program of gradual compensated emancipation, noting that the controversies among the Union's supporters over slavery and its associated problems were "numerous, loud and deep.
Undaunted, Lincoln held a second meeting with border state leaders on July 12, Earlier, in annulling Hunter's proclamation, he Page [End Page 33] had told the border state men, "You cannot He emphasized the great dissatisfaction his action had produced. It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. Despite Lincoln's plea, the border state leaders remained obdurate.
A minority announced that they would urge the people of their states to consider Lincoln's plan, but the majority, including Crittenden and Garrett Davis of Kentucky, signed a report reiterating all their previous objections to emancipation.
These objections were summarized by a Maryland Unionist who characterized emancipation as the beginning "of a great social revolution of labor and representation, in the midst of a political revolution.
In the wake of the border state leaders' rejection of his second appeal, Lincoln decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet even after he released the preliminary proclamation in September , he continued to cling to the hope that the border states would adopt his program of gradual compensated emancipation. Lincoln's whole soul is absorbed in his plan of remunerative emancipation," his old associate David Davis of Illinois reported after visiting Washington in November.
By this time, however, the initiative had to come from the border states themselves. Public opinion in Maryland was generally hostile to the Emancipation Proclamation. Governor Bradford refused to sign an address of the Union governors approving Lincoln's action, and Congressman John W.
Crisfield, one of the largest slaveholders in the state, publicly broke with the president over this question. The state's congressional delegation opposed the bill abolishing slavery in Page [End Page 34] the District of Columbia, which the state had originally ceded to the federal government, and the Maryland House of Delegates denounced the law as a threat to the state and a violation of its rights.
The state's Union coalition, which united former Whigs, Know Nothings, and War Democrats, increasingly divided on the issue, and in the party split in two over the questions of emancipation and a new state constitution.
The election was a test of strength between the radical wing of the party, who called themselves the Unconditional Unionists, and their opponents. Led by Henry Winter Davis, the Unconditional Unionists favored immediate and uncompensated emancipation, black enlistments in the Union army, and a strict loyalty test in order to weaken the Democratic party. The conservatives and moderates, led by Montgomery Blair, favored emancipation along the lines Lincoln had proposed, opposed black soldiers, and sought to win Democratic support.
Capitalizing on popular frustration with the war and discontent over the policies on which it was being waged, the Unconditionals won a decisive victory in the fall election, carrying the one statewide office with 69 percent of the vote, winning four of the state's five congressional seats, and gaining control of the legislature. Following the election, Lincoln counseled harmony in the Union ranks. Asserting that "I am very anxious for emancipation to be effected in Maryland in some substantial form," he indicated that while he preferred a gradual program, believing it would produce less confusion and destitution, he was not opposed to immediate emancipation.
What I have dreaded," he continued, "is the danger that by jealousies, rivalries, and consequent ill-blood Capitalizing on their new power, the Radicals now moved to end Page [End Page 35] slavery in the state.
The voters approved holding a constitutional convention, and a majority of the delegates elected were emancipationists. The proposed new constitution abolished slavery in the state, subject to popular ratification.
In an important move, the convention authorized soldiers in the field to vote on the proposed constitution. Referring to the upcoming vote on the antislavery constitution, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton told Lew Wallace, the new commanding general in the state, that "the President has set his heart on the abolition by that way; and mark, he don't want it to be said by anybody that the bayonet had anything to do with the election.
In a public letter to a meeting in Baltimore, he endorsed the extinction of slavery in the state: "I wish success to this provision. I desire it on every consideration. I wish all men to be free. In his final annual message, he hailed the "complete success" of emancipation in the state. The emancipation forces prevailed in Missouri as well.
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