Draft of a Letter by an Unknown Member of Frémont’s Circle in the Western Department Outlining the Legal Arguments for Emancipation, Addressed to Frémont during his Tenure at the Western Department: “If you grant a pass to the slave, you recognize his power to enter into a solemn compact - so doing he ceases to be a slave, and your power of rendition ceases.”
[St. Louis, Missouri]: 1861. Handwritten letter on Western Department letterhead, 9 x 5 ½ inches bifolium. Docketed on rear “Rough sketch of letter to Maj Gen JC Fremont touching the rendition of a slave.”. Item #List3704
In the turbulent summer and autumn of 1861, the headquarters of John C. Frémont’s Western Department in St. Louis became one of the principal laboratories of early Union emancipation policy. Amid martial law, guerrilla conflict, divided loyalties in Missouri, and mounting numbers of enslaved people fleeing into federal lines, Frémont’s command found itself grappling with questions the Lincoln administration itself had not yet fully answered: in particular, whether escaped slaves were property, contraband, refugees, military assets, or persons entitled to federal protection.
Offered here is an extraordinary unpublished Civil War headquarters manuscript written by an unknown author within or adjacent to Frémont’s headquarters staff, concerning the legal status of escaped enslaved people within Union military lines. It was composed during the explosive 1861 emancipation controversy surrounding Frémont and his command of the Western Department.
Written on official “Head Quarters, Western Department” stationery and docketed on the reverse “Rough sketch of letter to Maj Gen J. C. Fremont touching the rendition of a slave,” the document presents a sophisticated argument, directed to Frémont himself, against the return of enslaved people who escaped into Union lines during the opening phase of the Civil War.
The anonymous author—almost certainly someone operating within or adjacent to Frémont’s headquarters staff—constructs an advanced constitutional and military critique of slave rendition. Rather than relying on moral arguments, the manuscript attacks enslavement through the logic of military governance itself. The author writes:
“Maj. Genl. John C. Fremont
Sir -
“Permit me respectfully to present to your consideration the following views regarding the return of slaves who may escape from Union men and take refuge within the military lines of this or other encampments.
“The Master coming to claim said slave is not allowed to depart until he enters into an obligation ‘to be ever loyal to the U.S.; and if hereafter found in arms against the Union, or in any way aiding her enemies, the penalty will be death’. If he should decline to subscribe to such obligation, his pass would be refused, and he would be obliged to remain within the lines during the war, or until the military necessity which rendered his detention necessary had passed away.
“The slave cannot enter into any such compact, the fundamental law of slavery which treats him as a ‘thing’ forbids it. - you cannot bind him by death penalties to loyalty to our United States, for as a slave he can know no higher allegiance than his master’s will - - yet as a man he can perform the very acts which you would guard against in restraining the liberty of his master. By the cruel refusal of refuge, you make him your enemy, and furnish him a motive to strike you by giving information to your country’s foes, perhaps to act as guide to the very arsenal from which you send him.
“How can the sentinel pass the two men (for they are both men in the eyes of the U.S. soldier) on the single pass of the Master - he would surely risk punishment by so doing.
“If you grant a pass to the slave, you recognize his power to enter into a solemn compact - so doing he ceases to be a slave, and your power of rendition ceases. It may be urged that the Master is loyal. ‘Granted’ you cannot know who may have prompted the Slave to come within your lines, nor the purpose for which he came - he may be to all intents and purposes a spy, willing to destroy the Union forces thereby to strike his loyal Master, yet he is protected from the fate of a spy, and thrown back within the reach of those who sent him. I would respectfully suggest that you allow the slave to depart from our lines only on the same conditions as you would the Master. If held incapable of making the compact, then detain him within the lines until after the war, or the necessity for vigilance ceases.”
Two additional notes read: “if a slave prevents your binding him to good behavior,” and “time & penalty.”
The author’s position is notable for the sophistication of its legal and military reasoning. Rather than attacking slavery on moral grounds, the author argues that Union military administration itself undermines the legal foundations of slavery by necessarily recognizing enslaved people as thinking political actors. The central argument—that granting a pass to an enslaved person implicitly recognizes their legal personhood and therefore destroys the logic of slave rendition—is a remarkably early recognition of the contradictions that would eventually push Union war policy toward emancipation. Of particular note, too, is the line asserting that enslaved and free men alike were “both men in the eyes of the U.S. soldier.”
Though his stint lasted only about 100 days, Frémont’s Western Department stood at the epicenter of one of the first national crises over wartime emancipation. On August 30, 1861, Frémont issued his famous Missouri emancipation proclamation freeing enslaved people belonging to Confederates, provoking fierce political controversy and eventual intervention by President Lincoln. The present manuscript reflects the internal thinking within Fremont’s circle as to whether enslaved people entering federal lines were property, contraband, refugees, military assets, or persons entitled to federal protection, while presenting an advanced legal argument that foreshadows later Union emancipation policy.
We find no other records of internal memoranda from Fremont’s tenure at the Western Department in auction records or the trade at the time of writing. An exceptional Civil War headquarters manuscript documenting the unstable legality of slavery during the opening year of the war.
Price: $6,000.00
Status: On Hold