“Giving Massa Notice,” Harper’s Weekly, 10 January 1863. The
cartoon is captioned: POMPEY. ”What day ob de month id dis,
Massa?” MASTER. ”Twenty-sixth December. Why?” POMPEY. ”Oh! cause
you knows Massa LINKUM he gib us our Papers on de First January,
God bless um; and now I wants to say as how you allus was a good
Massa, and so I’ll gib you a Mont’s Notice to git anudder Boy.
Niggers is powerful cheap now, Massa!” As is quite well-known,
the Emancipation Proclamation did not cover slaves in the loyal
border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.
Abraham Lincoln did not want to risk alienating Unionists
slaveholders there by taking their slaves and he did not believe
that his power as commander-in-chief, which he had used to free
slaves in the rebellious states as a military necessity,
extended to states that were ostensibly loyal. Yet that did not
mean that the Emancipation Proclamation did not have a powerful
effect in the border states that had stayed in the Union. Some
slaves in these states