President Abraham Lincoln’s Delaware-based plan to end the Civil War

Michael Morgan, Special to Salisbury Daily Times Published 7:23 a.m. ET May 30, 2021

Harriet Tubman knew the fields, marsh and woods from her slave duties. This knowledge helped her escape and as an Underground Railroad conductor. Salisbury Daily Times

Delaware Congressman George P. Fisher waited in President Abraham Lincoln’s White House office for another Delaware guest to arrive.

Over six feet tall and with a military, straight-as-an-arrow bearing, Fisher usually dressed in a blue cut-away coat with brass buttons and a ruffled shirt. A rising star in Delaware politics, the Republican congressman had run counter to the Democratic tide in 1860 to be elected to Delaware’s seat in the House of Representatives.

Although usually genial, affable and courteous, Fisher would not back away from a fight, and when Benjamin Burton, the largest slave-owner in Delaware, entered Lincoln’s office, Fisher began a fight for his political life.

The Burton family was one of the oldest in the coastal region. During the 17th century, the first Burtons settled on Long Neck. At that time, most colonists in southern Delaware planted tobacco, which they raised with the help of slave labor.

Abraham Lincoln

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After the Burton family and other settlers abandoned tobacco for corn and other crops, many southern Delaware farmers retained slaves to work as field hands and house servants. In 1861, Benjamin Burton, who lived near Millsboro, owned 28 slaves, more than any other slave owner in Delaware.

Like Burton, Congressman George P. Fisher’s family was steeped in history. One of the congressman’s ancestors was Bishop John Fisher, who was beheaded in England for opposing Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

Thomas Fisher, the congressman’s father, held several important public offices in Sussex County. He commanded a brigade of Sussex County militia when the British bombarded Lewes during the War of 1812.

Congressman Fisher studied law under the eminent John Clayton; and when Clayton became secretary of state, Fisher served as his confidential clerk. On the eve of the Civil War, Fisher was elected to the House of Representatives, and after the war began, Fisher and Burton went to the White House for a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln.

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Lincoln believed that a solution to the slavery question could lead to the collapse of the rebel government; and the president devised a plan that he thought would end slavery, stop the war, and save thousands of lives.

Integral to the success of the president’s plan were slave-owner Burton and Congressman Fisher.

When the Civil War began, Delaware was a slave state with 1,798 people held in bondage; and of these, 1,341 lived in Sussex County. If Lincoln could get Sussex County to abandon slavery, Delaware might end the practice.

If Delaware voluntarily ended slavery, Lincoln reasoned, the movement might spread to Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.

Under Lincoln’s plan, the federal government would compensate slave owners for their economic losses when they freed their slaves. The cost for freeing the slaves of Delaware would be less than the government spent on a single day of fighting the Confederacy.

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“This,” Lincoln declared, “was the cheapest and most humane way of ending this war.”

Burton agreed to assist the president. As the largest slave owner in the state, Burton was convinced that the other slave owners of Delaware would recognize the favorable economics of the plan and react enthusiastically. He was wrong.

The plan failed miserably. Burton was embarrassed; the backlash against Fisher was so great that he was never again elected to political office; and Lincoln faced four more years of terrible war.

Charles B. Lore, “The Life and Character of George P. Fisher,” Papers of the Historical Society of Delaware, Wilmington: The Historical Society of Delaware, 1902, pp.  3-12.

Wilmington Sunday Morning Star, Feb. 9, 1919, “One Delaware Legislator Frustrated Lincoln’s Hope to End the Civil War.”

Harold Hancock Delaware in the Civil War, Wilmington: Historical Society of  Delaware, Reprinted 2003, pp. 106-109.

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