His Loyal Opposition: Lincoln's Border States' Critics

On January 29, 1863, Senator Willard Saulsbury of Delaware rose in the United States Senate and launched a blistering attack on Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation. Although more personal in his criticism of Lincoln than most of his colleagues, Saulsbury was not the only member of Congress from the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and his own Delaware to attack the president on the floor of Congress. Usually the intensity of their opposition and criticism correlated with their political antecedents. Adapted from the source document.