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the laws," and that the people of the South under the flag of the Union should "enjoy the same protection of life and property as in former days." "It does not belong to the military," said this order, "to decide upon the relation of master and slave. Such questions must be settled by the civil courts. No fugitive slave will, therefore, be admitted within our lines or camps except when specially ordered by the General commanding." * So also General Burnside, when about to land on the soil of North Carolina, issued an order, February 3d, 1862, calling upon the soldiers of his army to remember that they were there "to support the Constitution and the laws, to put down rebellion, and to protect the persons and property of the loyal and peaceable citizens of the State." And on the 18th of the same month, after Fort Henry and Roanoke Island had fallen into our hands, Commodore Goldsborough and General Burnside issued a joint proclamation, denouncing as false and slanderous the attempt of the rebel leaders to impose on the credulity of the Southern people by telling them of "our desire to destroy their freedom, demolish their property, and liberate their slaves," and declaring that the Government asked only that its authority might be recognized, and that “in no way or manner did it desire to interfere with their laws, constitutionally established, their institutions of any kind whatever, their property of any sort, or their usages in any respect.' And, on the 1st of March, General Curtis, in Arkansas, had addressed a proclamation to the

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*In regard to this order, which was afterwards severely criticised in Congress, General Halleck wrote the following letter of explanation:

HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
ST. LOUIS, December 8, 1861.

MY DEAR COLONEL :-Yours of the 4th instant is just received. Order No. 8 was, in my mind, elearly a military necessity. Unauthorized persons, black or white, free or slaves, must be kept out of our camps, unless we are willing to publish to the enemy every thing we do or intend to do. It was a military and not a political order.

I am ready to carry out any lawful instructions in regard to fugitive slaves which my supe riors may give me, and to enforce any law which Congress may pass. But I cannot make law, and will not violate it. You know my private opinion on the policy of confiscating the slave property of the rebels in arms. If Congress shall pass it, you may be certain that I shall enforce it. Perhaps my policy as to the treatment of rebels and their property is as well set out in Order No. 18, issued the day your letter was written, as I could now describe it.

Hon. F. P. BLAIR, Washington.

people of that State, denouncing as false and calumnious the statements widely circulated of the designs and sentiments of the Union armies, and declaring that they sought only "to put down rebellion by making war against those in arms, their aiders and abettors”—and that they came to "vindicate the Constitution, and to preserve and perpetuate civil and religious liberty under a flag that was embalmed in the blood of our Revolutionary fathers." In all this the Government adhered, with just and rigorous fidelity, to the principles it had adopted for its conduct at the outset of the war; and in its anxiety to avoid all cause of complaint and all appearance of justification for those who were in arms against its authority, it incurred the distrust and even the denunciation of the more zealous and vehement among its own friends and supporters in the Northern States.

On the 22d of July, in order to secure unity of action among the commanders of the several military departments, upon the general use to be made of rebel property, the President directed the issue of the following order :

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, July 22, 1862.

First. Ordered that military commanders within the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, in an orderly manner seize and use any property, real or personal, which may be necessary or convenient for their several commands, for supplies, or for other military purposes; and that while property may be destroyed for proper military objects, none shall be destroyed in wantonness or malice.

Second. That military and naval commanders shall employ as laborers, within and from said States, so many persons of African descent as can be advantageously used for military or naval purposes, giving them reasonable wages for their labor.

Third. That, as to both property, and persons of African descent, accounts shall be kept sufficiently accurate and in detail to show quantities and amounts, and from whom both property and such persons shall have come, as a basis upon which compensation can be made in proper cases; and the several departments of this Government shall attend to and perform their appropriate parts towards the execution of these orders. By order of the President:

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

And on the 25th of July he issued the following procla

mation, warning the people of the Southern States against persisting in their rebellion, under the penalties prescribed by the confiscation act passed by Congress at its preceding session:

By order of the President of the United States.

A PROCLAMATION.

In pursuance of the sixth section of the Act of Congress, entitled "An Act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17th, 1862, and which Act, and the joint resolution explanatory thereof, are herewith published, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion, or any rebellion, against the Government of the United States, and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States, on pain of the forfeiture and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this twenty-fifth day of July, in the

[L. s.] year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two,

and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM II. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Our relations with foreign nations during the year 1862 continued to be in the main satisfactory. The President held throughout, in all his intercourse with European powers, the same firm and decided language in regard to the rebellion which had characterized the correspondence of the previous year. Our Minister in London, with vigilance and ability, pressed upon the British Government the duty of preventing the rebel authorities from building and fitting out vessels of war in English ports to prey upon the commerce of the United States; but in every instance these remonstrances were without practical effect. The Government could never be convinced that the evidence in any specific case was sufficient to warrant its interference, and thus one vessel after another was allowed to leave British ports, go to some other equally neutral

locality and take on board munitions of war, and enter upon its career of piracy in the rebel service. As early as the 18th of February, 1862, Mr. Adams had called the attention of Earl Russell to the fact that a steam gunboat, afterwards called the Oreto, was being built in a Liverpool ship-yard, under the supervision of well-known agents of the rebel Government, and evidently intended for the rebel service. The Foreign Secretary replied that the vessel was intended for the use of parties in Palermo, Sicily, and that there was no reason to suppose she was intended for any service hostile to the United States. Mr. Adams sent evidence to show that the claim of being designed for service in Sicily was a mere pretext; but he failed, by this dispatch, as in a subsequent personal conference with Earl Russell on the 15th of April, to induce him to take any steps for her detention. She sailed soon after, and was next heard of at the British "neutral" port of Nassau, where she was seized by the authorities at the instance of the American consul, but released by the same authorities on the arrival of Captain Semmes to take command of her as a Confederate privateer. In October an intercepted letter was sent to Earl Russell by Mr. Adams, written by the Secretary of the Navy of the Confederate Government, to a person in England, complaining that he had not followed the Oreto on her departure from England and taken command of her, in accordance with his original appointment. In June, Mr. Adams called Earl Russell's attention to another powerful war-steamer, then in progress of construction in the ship-yard of a member of the House of Commons, evidently intended for the rebel service. This complaint went through the usual formalities, was referred to the "Lords Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury," who reported in due time that they could discover no evidence sufficient to warrant the detention of the vessel. Soon afterwards, however, evidence was produced which was sufficient to warrant the collector of the port of Liverpool in ordering her detention; but before the necessary formalities could be gone through with, and through delays

caused, as Earl Russell afterwards explained, by the "sudden development of a malady of the Queen's advocate, totally incapacitating him for the transaction of business," the vessel, whose managers were duly advertised of every thing that was going on, slipped out of port, took on board an armament in the Azores, and entered the rebel service as a privateer. Our Government subsequently notified the British Government that it would be held responsible for all the damage which this vessel, known first as "290," and afterwards as the Alabama, might inflict on American commerce.

Discussions were had upon the refusal of the British authorities to permit American vessels of war to take in coal at Nassau, upon the systematic attempts of British merchants to violate our blockade of Southern ports, and upon the recapture, by the crew, of the Emily St. Pierre, which had been seized in attempting to run the blockade at Charleston, and was on her way as a prize to the port of New York. The British Government vindicated her rescue as sanctioned by the principles of international law.

The only incident of special importance which occurred during the year in our foreign relations, grew out of an attempt on the part of the Emperor of the French to secure a joint effort at mediation between the Government of the United States and the rebel authorities, on the part of Great Britain and Russia in connection with his own Government. Rumors of such an intention on the part of the Emperor led Mr. Dayton to seek an interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 6th of November, at which indications of such a purpose were apparent. The attempt failed, as both the other powers consulted declined to join in any such action. The French Government thereupon determined to take action alone, and on the 9th of January, 1863, the Foreign Secretary wrote to the French Minister at Washington a dispatch, declaring the readiness of the French Emperor to do any thing in his power which might tend towards the termination of the war, and suggesting that "nothing would hinder the Government of the United States, without renouncing the

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