clarionledger.com – Ida B. Wells was born July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She became a crusading journalist, exposing lynchings, and helped start the NAACP. (Photo: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)

July 12, 1862: President Lincoln appealed to congressmen from border states to support gradual, compensated emancipation, warning that if they did not act soon, slavery in their states would “be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion – by the mere incidents of the war.” Two days later, most of the congressmen rejected Lincoln’s appeal.