ioning and relief of Fort Sumter. He ranked among the ablest of our financiers, and was of great service to the country in evolving and formulating those financial plans, which E. G. Spaulding, "the father of the Greenback," introduced in the House, but he was never friendly to Lincoln, whom he hoped to succeed in the Presidency, was never satisfied with his position, and tendered his resignation so often that he was surprised when it was at last accepted.

Montgomery Blair, a conservative from a Slave State, was the first to oppose the peace policy of these two old radical Anti-Slavery

SALMON P CHASE.

Senators from Free States. He evidently understood the South better than they.

With a Cabinet thus divided and discordant, with the party which had elected him and the papers which had supported him weakening in the North, it looked as if Lincoln's Administration would go to pieces at the very outset.

The bombardment of Fort Sumter on the morning of the 12th of April, and its surren der after thirty-three hours of heroic defense, changed all that. It

unified the Cabinet. It woke the North from its dream of peace, roused its latent patriotism and heroism, and led to a prompt response to the President's proclamation, which came three days later, calling for 75,000 volunteers. The same proclamation called a special session of Congress to meet July 4. Congress, thus convened, the President sent a long message, reciting the events that led to open hostilities, repeating some of the arguments against the right of a State to secede, and recommending the placing at the control of the Government of at least 400,000 men, and $400,000,000 as a "means for making the contest a short and decisive one."

The response of Congress was prompt and liberal. It was overwhelmingly Republican, but most of the Democrats also favored measures for the prompt suppression of the rebellion and with the exception of C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, those that did not attempted no obstructive tactics. The session lasted thirty-three days, and in that time transacted business that, in extent and importance, was never approached by any other Congress in an equal duration of time. It passed sixty-one public bills and five joint resolutions. It exceeded the President's request in regard to the number of men allowed, since it authorized the enlistment of 500,000 men for three years. Among other important measures were those authorizing a loan of $250,000,000; greatly increasing, for the purpose of war revenue, the duties levied under the Morrill tariff of March 2, 1861; levying an internal revenue and income tax; directing a blockade of the Southern ports; levying a direct tax of $20,000,000 on the states and territories; defining and punishing conspiracy; legalizing the supension of the writ of habeas corpus, which had been made by the President, through the Commanding General; and confiscating property, including slaves, used against the Government. The House also passed a resolution, "That this House hereby pledges itself to vote for any amount of money, and any number of men which may be necessary to insure a speedy and effectual suppression of the Rebellion, and the permanent restoration of the Federal authority everywhere within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States."

On motion of Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, the House also resolved, "That in the judgment of this House, it is no part of the duty of the soldiers of the United States to capture and return fugitive slaves." On this the yeas were 92, all Republicans. The nays included six Republicans, and all the Democrats and border State conservatives.

The slavery question had already begun to trouble the President. He had announced that the paramount purpose of his actions was to preserve the Union, with slavery if necessary or without slavery, but in any event to preserve the Union. He was between two fires, the wishes of the Anti-Slavery men of the North on one side, and his own desire to keep Maryland and Missouri, and especially Kentucky in the Union, on the other. General Benjamin F. Butler had found a solution of the subject that satisfied him so far as fugitives were concerned. He called them "contraband of war," and set them to work. In this he was supported by Secretary Cameron, who was in advance of the President and of Congress in dealing with slavery, and who

instructed General Butler not to surrender to their masters slaves "employ them in the services to The President tacitly sanctioned

that came within his lines, but to which they may be best adapted." this, and after the passage of the Confiscation Act, he wrote to General Butler at length explaining the views of the President and the Administration on the subject. All existing rights in all the states were to be fully maintained. Cases of fugitives from service in states and territories that still remained in the Union were to be disposed of by civil process, under existing laws.

Fugitives from the

seceded states were to be kept within the lines, a record made of them, and the General's action with regard to them reported to the War Department at least twice a month. The letter ended with the injunction: "You will, however, neither authorize nor permit any interference, by the troops under your command, with the servants of peaceful citizens, in house or field, nor will you, in any way, encourage such servants to leave the lawful service of their masters; nor will you, except in cases where the public safety may seem to require it, prevent the voluntary return of any fugitive to the service from which he may have escaped."

Aside from the actual work of prosecuting the war the subject of slavery continued to occupy public attention more than any other. August 31, 1861, three weeks after the Confiscation Act was passed, General Fremont, in command of the Western Department, issued a proclamation, freeing all the slaves in Missouri, belonging to men in the Confederate service and declaring that the property of all such persons was confiscated to the public use. The President told Fremont that this transcended the Act of Congress, that it would ruin the Union cause in Kentucky and asked him to modify the order so as to make it correspond to that Act. Fremont, not desiring to take the responsibility of changing his own action, desired an explicit order on the subject, which the President gave. This action on the part of the President, produced a bitter feeling throughout the North. Republicans, both in Congress and in private life had generally applauded the proclamation, and even the conservative Democratic press had approved it, and its revocation was a terrible disappointment. Men "could not see why loyal slaveholders in Kentucky should be offended because the slaves of rebels in Missouri were declared free.” May 9, 1862, General David Hunter, who was in command of a department, including South Carolina, issued a proclamation abolishing slavery in his department. This also was disavowed, and the disa

vowal added to the feeling against the President, which was not much mitigated, until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued a year after the Fremont affair.

Some of the sharpest of the criticisms were summed up in a letter addressed by Horace Greeley to the President, and published in the New York Tribune, August 19, 1862. In this case Mr. Lincoln departed from his usual custom, and answered the attack by a personal reply. In this reply he clearly defined his position in the following terse paragraphs:

"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.

"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. "My paramount object is to save the Union and not either to save or destroy slavery.

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it-if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it—and if I could do it by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

"What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I think it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

"I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause."

This correspondence occurred about three weeks after Lincoln had shown the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to the Cabinet, proving clearly that the issuing of that proclamation resulted from his own convictions, and not from popular clamor.

The work of Congress in regard to slavery came later than the two events narrated above. April 16, 1862, it abolished slavery in the District of Columbia; June 19, the same year, a bill became law, prohibiting slavery in all the territories, and June 28, 1864, the Fugitive Slave Law was repealed. These three measures covered all, and somewhat more than the Republican platform of 1856 had asked.

Later developments showed that President Lincoln had not abated anything of his old hostility to slavery, but he was opposed to March 6, 1862, he framed a special message premature action. recommending to Congress the passage of a joint resolution looking to co-operation with states consenting to abolish slavery, with com

pensation to the owners. At this time he would have been willing to pay $400,000,000, if it would have sufficed to purchase peace and remove this disturbing cause which had brought on the war. Νο response was made by the South to this overture, and he soon became convinced that compulsory emancipation was the only thing that would render complete restoration of the Union possible. August 1, 1862, he submitted to the Cabinet the draft of an Emancipation Proclamation, which Seward induced him to postpone, on the ground that if issued then, while the North was depressed, and the South elated over Union defeats, it would be considered a despairing appeal. The Union victories at South Mountain, September 14, and at Antietam on the 17th, changed this aspect of affairs. Lincoln called the Cabinet together, and with great solemnity informed them that his mind was fully made up that the time had come for proclaiming emancipation. That question was settled, but he was willing to receive suggestions as to the phraseology of the proclamation. But few changes were made from his first draft of the paper, and it was issued September This was warning that unless the states in insurrection returned to their allegiance by January 1, 1863, the slaves in them would be declared free, and their freedom would be maintained by the military and naval forces of the United States. As the Southern states took no action in response to this, the proclamation proper followed in January. It quoted the substance of the former proclamation, and declared that the slaves in all the states in insurrection, except the forty-eight counties in Virginia, subsequently formed into the State of West Virginia, and in the districts in the other part of Virginia and in Louisiana within the Union lines, were free, and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, would recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. Congress subsequently gave legal sanction to this proclamation. That was the last of completed legislation on the subject of slavery under Lincoln's first Administration. The Thirteenth amendment was introduced in the Thirty-eighth Congress, elected in 1862, but did not pass until January, 1865, and did not become operative till December 18, 1865.

22.

The elections of 1862 were very discouraging to the Administration, as various forms of dissatisfaction among the people found expression at the polls. There was a strong peace party among the Republicans and a much stronger one among the Democrats. One set denounced the war as an abolition war. Another denounced the