Twenty Years of Congress Volume I Part 26

General Halleck, who had command of the Western Department, became anxious for reputation on the field, and was thought by many to be jealous of the daily increasing fame of General Grant. After the battle of s.h.i.+loh, he took command in person of the army which Grant had already rendered ill.u.s.trious, leaving Grant to command its right wing. Uniting the Western forces into one large army General Halleck marched southward in pursuit of the Confederate column now under the command of Beauregard, and strongly intrenched at Corinth.

As the army approached, Corinth was evacuated, and the campaign of General Halleck, leading to no important engagement, did not add to his military fame. Meanwhile there had been increasing dissatisfaction in Congress and among the people with the supersedure of General Grant, and to relieve the situation General Halleck was called to Was.h.i.+ngton in the early part of July to take command of the army which had been relinquished by McClellan in March, when he set forth upon the Peninsular campaign. In the intervening months there had been no General-in-Chief of the army, the duties being performed by the Secretary of War.

GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.

The Western victories, important as they were, did not remove the pressure in the East. The popular interest was more largely concentrated in the success of the Army of the Potomac, which would secure the safety of the National Capital, and possibly the possession of the capital of the Confederacy. High hopes had been staked upon the issue. Elaborate preparations had been made and the utmost care had been taken in the organization and discipline of the army.

General George B. McClellan was intrusted with the command. He was a native of Pennsylvania, a distinguished graduate of West Point, a man of high personal character. His military skill was vouched for by older officers whose opinions would have weight with the President. But he had been six months in command of the Army of the Potomac and had done nothing in the field. The autumn had pa.s.sed in inaction, the winter had worn away, and the spring had come without finding him ready to move. Whatever might be the justification for delay, it was his misfortune to become the subject of controversy. There was a McClellan party and an anti-McClellan party, in the press, among the people, in Congress, and in the army. How far this may have impaired the efficiency of his command cannot be known, but it no doubt seriously undermined him in the confidence of the War Department. Before he had fired a gun in the Peninsular campaign he was in a disputation with both the President and Secretary Stanton. On the 9th of April (1862) Mr.

Lincoln wrote him, "Your dispatches complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much." General McClellan had complained that the President had detained McDowell's corps, and thus weakened the strength of his army, and the President was defending the policy as one necessary to the safety of Was.h.i.+ngton. McClellan protested that he had but eighty-five thousand men at Yorktown. The President insisted that he had a hundred and eight thousand. "And once more," said the President, "in conclusion, let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember that I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Mana.s.sas, was only s.h.i.+fting and not surmounting the difficulty; that we would find the same enemy and the same or equal intrenchments at either place. The country will not fail to note (is now noting) that the present hesitation to move upon the intrenched enemy is but the story of Mana.s.sas repeated. I beg to a.s.sure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose of sustaining you so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can."

This condition of affairs with the indication of increasing discord between the Commander-in-Chief and General McClellan boded no good to the Union cause, and the entire Peninsular campaign was but a succession of "hopes deferred" that made the heart sick; of disappointment, of great sacrifice of life and treasure, and in the end of positive disaster and humiliating retreat.

As General McClellan neared Richmond and needed re-enforcements for a decisive battle with General Lee's army, the Confederates used the most admirable tactics for the purpose of alarming the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton and compelling them to withhold help from the Army of the Potomac. Stonewall Jackson came thundering down the Shenandoah Valley with a force which the exaggeration of the day placed far beyond his real numbers. He brushed aside the army of General Banks at Winchester by what might well be termed a military cyclone, and created such consternation that our troops in the Potomac Valley were at once thrown upon the defensive.

McDowell with his corps was at Fredericksburg, hurrying to Hanover Court-House for the purpose of aiding McClellan. With our forces thus remote from Was.h.i.+ngton, and the fortifications around the city imperfectly manned, something akin to panic seized upon the Government. General McDowell, by direct order of the President, was turned from his march on Richmond, to follow or intercept Jackson. On the 25th of May the Secretary of War telegraphed to the governors of the Loyal States: "Intelligence from various quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are marching on Was.h.i.+ngton. You will please organize and forward immediately all the militia and volunteer forces in your State." The governors in turn issued alarming proclamations, some of which were eminently calculated to spread the contagion of fear prevailing at Was.h.i.+ngton.

Governor Andrew, with evident apprehension of the worst, informed the people of Ma.s.sachusetts that "The wily and barbarous horde of traitors to the people, to the Government, to our country, and to liberty, menace again the National Capital: they have attacked and routed Major-General Banks, are advancing on Harper's Ferry, and are marching on Was.h.i.+ngton. The President calls on Ma.s.sachusetts to rise at once for its rescue and defense." Throughout the entire North there was for several days a genuine belief that the National Capital might soon be in possession of the Confederate army, and the senators and representatives in Congress be seized as prisoners of war.

STONEWALL JACKSON'S STRATEGY.

Meanwhile Stonewall Jackson having marched to the very banks of the Potomac and sh.e.l.led Harper's Ferry, and having succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectation in the object which he had in view, deliberately began his retreat. He was followed up the Shenandoah Valley by the commands of four Major-Generals and one Brigadier- General of the Union army. He drew these united forces after him precisely as he desired, for the benefit of Lee's army at Richmond.

He did not fly from them as if dreading a battle, for that would have been to dismiss the large Union force to the aid of General McClellan. Occasionally detailing a fraction of his command to engage in a skirmish with his pursuers, who far outnumbered his whole force, he managed to keep his main body at a safe distance, and to reserve it for a more important work ahead. After thus drawing our troops so far up the valley that it was impossible for them to retrace their steps in season for concentration on Richmond, he rapidly transported the main body of his own troops by rail from Staunton, and rejoined General Lee in time to take part in the final and memorable series of engagements which, by the close of June, had compelled General McClellan to take refuge on the banks of the James, where he could have the co-operation of the gunboats which lay at Harrison's Landing.

General Halleck took command as General-in-Chief of the army directly after the Army of the Potomac had closed its campaign against Richmond. He visited Harrison's Landing on the 24th of July to make personal inquiry into the situation, and the result was an order for the transfer of the army to Acquia Creek. General McClellan protested earnestly, and, in the judgment of many of the most skilled in military science, wisely, against this movement.

The Army of the Potomac, he said, was "within twenty-five miles of Richmond, and with the aid of the gunboats we can supply the army by water during its advance to within twelve miles of Richmond.

At Acquia Creek we would be seventy miles from Richmond, with land transportation all the way." He thought the government had ample troops to protect Was.h.i.+ngton and guard the line of the Potomac, and he could not see the wisdom of transporting the Army of the Potomac two hundred miles at enormous cost, only to place it three times as far from Richmond as it then was. General Halleck's position was sustained by the President, and the Secretary of War, and the argument of General McClellan, convincing and conclusive as it seems, was overruled by the peremptory mandate of his military superiors.

The failure of the Peninsular campaign will always be a subject of controversy. At the time it was one of prolonged and angry dispute.

Where military critics so widely differ, civilians gain the right to a personal judgment. The weakness of that great military movement was the lack of cordiality and confidence between the commander and the Administration at Was.h.i.+ngton. The seeds of distrust had been sown and a bountiful crop of disaster was the natural growth.

The withdrawal of McDowell's corps was a fatal blow to McClellan.

Before a military court which was inquiring into the transaction, General McClellan stated under oath that he had "no doubt that the Army of the Potomac would have taken Richmond had not the corps of General McDowell been separated from it; and that, had the command of General McDowell in the month of May joined the Army of the Potomac by way of Hanover Court-House, we would have had Richmond a week after the junction." He added, with evident reference to Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton, "I do not hold General McDowell responsible for a failure to join me on that occasion."

STONEWALL JACKSON'S SUCCESSFUL RAID.

When General McDowell was turned back from Fredericksburg to take part in the fruitless chase after Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, he was doing precisely what the President of the Confederate States would have ordered, had he been able to issue the orders of the President of the United States. McDowell saw the blunder, but his directions were peremptory and nothing was left but to obey.

He telegraphed the Secretary of War, "The President's order is a crus.h.i.+ng blow to us." Mr. Lincoln personally and immediately replied to General McDowell, "The change is as painful to me as it can possibly be to you or to any one." McDowell then ventured to argue the case with the President. He distinctly told Mr. Lincoln that he could effect nothing in trying to cut off Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. "I shall," he continued, "gain nothing for you there, and I shall lose much for you here. It is therefore not only on personal ground that I have a heavy heart in this matter, but I feel that it throws us all back, and from Richmond north we shall have all our large ma.s.s paralyzed, and shall have to repeat what we have just accomplished." Mr. Lincoln's order and the whole of this correspondence were by telegraph on the twenty- fourth day of May. Conclusive as the reasoning of General McDowell seems, it did not move Mr. Lincoln from his purpose; and the heavy re-enforcement which was then within three days of the point where it could most effectively aid McClellan, was diverted to a hopeless and useless pursuit. Had McDowell been allowed to proceed as he desired and as General McClellan confidently expected, he would have re-enforced the Army of the Potomac for an attack on Lee, while Stonewall Jackson's corps was in the Shenandoah Valley. By the unfortunate diversion ordered by Mr. Lincoln, precisely the reverse occurred. Stonewall Jackson's corps arrived before Richmond in season to aid in defeating McClellan, while McDowell with his splendid contingent was aimlessly loitering in a distant part of Virginia.

The President was led into this course by the urgent advice of the Secretary of War. When McClellan went to the field, Mr. Stanton undertook personally to perform the duties of General-in-Chief in Was.h.i.+ngton. This was evidently an egregious blunder. Neither by education, temper, temperament, nor by any other trait of his character, was Mr. Stanton fitted for this duty. He was very positively and in a high degree unfitted for it. With three Major- Generals--McDowell, Banks, and Fremont--exercising independent commands in the Potomac Valley, with their movements exerting a direct and important influence upon the fortunes of the main army under McClellan, there was especial need of a cool-headed, experienced, able general at the Capital. Had one of the three great soldiers who have been at the head of the army since the close of the war, then been in chief command at Was.h.i.+ngton, there is little hazard in saying that the brilliant and das.h.i.+ng tactics of Stonewall Jackson would not have been successful, and that if General McClellan had failed before Richmond, it would not have been for lack of timely and adequate re-enforcement.

Before these military disasters occurred, Congress had made progress in its legislation against the inst.i.tution of Slavery. At the beginning of the war there had been an ill-defined policy, or rather an absence of all policy, in relation to the most important of pending questions. The winter preceding the outbreak of the rebellion had been so a.s.siduously devoted by Congress to efforts of compromise and conciliation, that it was difficult to turn the public mind promptly to the other side, and to induce the people to accept the logical consequences of the war. There was no uniform policy among our generals. Each commander was treating the question very much according to his own personal predilection, and that was generally found to be in accordance with his previous political relations. The most conspicuous exception to this rule was General Benjamin F. Butler, who had been identified with the extreme pro- slavery wing of the Democratic party. He was in command in May, 1861, at Fortress Monroe, and he found that when fugitive slaves sought the protection of his camp they were pursued under flags of truce, and their return was requested as a right under the Const.i.tution of the United States by men who were in arms against the Const.i.tution.

The anomaly of this situation was seen by General Butler, and he met it promptly by refusing to permit the slaves to be returned, declaring them to be contraband of war. As they were useful to the enemy in military operations, they were to be cla.s.sed with arms and ammunition. This opinion was at first received joyously by the country, and the word "contraband" became the synonym of fugitive slave. But General Butler's judgment is justified by the rules of modern warfare, and its application solved a question of policy which otherwise might have been fraught with serious difficulty.

In the presence of arms the Fugitive-slave Law became null and void, and the Dred Scott decision was trampled under the iron hoof of war.

SLAVERY ABOLISHED IN THE DISTRICT.

The first exercise of legislative power hostile to the inst.i.tution of slavery, already detailed, was promptly followed by one still more decisive. Congress provided for the abolition of the inst.i.tution in the District of Columbia. A bill for this purpose was introduced in the Senate on the 16th of December, 1861, and two months later Mr. Morrill of Maine, from the Committee on the District, reported it to the Senate with a favorable recommendation. Garrett Davis of Kentucky spoke in support of an amendment requiring the colonization, beyond the limits of the United States, of all persons who might be liberated by the Act. He was firmly persuaded that the liberation of slaves with their continued residence among the whites would result in a war of races. Mr. Hale of New Hamps.h.i.+re combated his opinion by arguments and facts drawn from the history of emanc.i.p.ation in Jamaica. Mr. Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts gave an interesting history of the circ.u.mstances which led to the selection of the site for the National Capital upon slave territory.

Mr. Sumner dealt with the subject at great length, enforcing his views by numerous authorities drawn from history, from the decisions of courts, and from the opinions of publicists and statesmen of modern times. The opponents of the measure did not conceal their apprehension that the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia portended its overthrow in the States. Mr. Sumner and his a.s.sociates hailed the movement as the inauguration of a policy destined to produce that result. "The future," said the Ma.s.sachusetts senator, "cannot be doubtful. At the National Capital slavery will give way to freedom. But the good work will not stop here: it must proceed. What G.o.d and Nature decree, Rebellion cannot arrest."

Mr. Sherman of Ohio maintained that it was not a measure for the preservation of the government, but a munic.i.p.al regulation, and that the time had come when it was evidently wise to exercise the powers granted by the Const.i.tution. Mr. Willey of Virginia deprecated the existence of slavery in the capital of the country, but he opposed the emanc.i.p.ation bill as the first of a series of measures that would end in the abolition of slavery in all the States by act of Congress. The bill pa.s.sed the Senate the third day of April by a vote of 29 to 14.

When the measure reached the House and was read for information it was at once challenged by Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio; and upon the parliamentary question "Shall the bill be rejected?" the yeas were 45 and the nays were 93. The debate which immediately followed was in good temper, with a notable absence of the exasperation which it was feared the subject would call forth. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky stated the objections of the minority, and especially of the Border slave States, fairly and temperately. The time seemed to him unpropitious inasmuch as the moving cause of the secession of the States was the apprehension on their part that Congress was likely to take measures for the abolition of slavery. The pa.s.sage of the bill necessarily rendered futile every attempt at reconciliation.

Secondly, there was an implied agreement with Virginia and Maryland at the time of the cession of the District that "the system of slavery shall not be disturbed." And finally, the bill, although it provided for compensation to lawful owners, was in effect a measure of confiscation. It pa.s.sed the House by a vote of 92 to 38. The President accompanied his approval with a special message in which, while not doubting the const.i.tutionality of the measure, he intimated that there were "matters within and about the Act which might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to his judgment." He especially commended the provision made for compensation to the owners of slaves, and referred with satisfaction to the appropriation made to aid any colored person of the District who might desire to emigrate "to Liberia, Hayti, or any country beyond the limits of the United States which the President may determine."

The sum of one hundred thousand dollars was appropriated for this purpose by the Act--one hundred dollars being allowed to each emigrant. The experiment came to nothing. The colored persons who had resided in the United States as slaves were obviously desirous of trying their fortunes as freemen among the people whom they knew, and in the homes to which they were attached.

THE PRESIDENT'S CONSERVATIVE COURSE.

Mr. Lincoln had always been a firm believer in the scheme of African colonization; and in his message of December, 1861, he recommended a provision for colonizing the slaves set free by the influence of war. From the slave States which had remained loyal to the Union he was willing to accept slaves in lieu of the direct tax, according to some mode of valuation that might be agreed upon, and he was anxious that adequate provision should be made for their settlement in some place or places with a climate congenial to them. But the experiment with the manumitted negroes of the District, which was made in compliance with this recommendation of the President and in deference to his personal wishes, frequently and earnestly expressed, demonstrated the impracticability of the plan. Colonization could be effected only by the forcible removal of the colored people, and this would have been a more cruel violation of their natural rights than a continuance of the slavery in which they were born. If free choice between the two conditions had been offered, nine-tenths, perhaps even a larger proportion of the slaves, would have preferred to remain in their old homes. In an economic point of view the scheme was indefensible. We were at the time the only country with undeveloped agricultural resources in warm lat.i.tudes, that was not engaged in seeking labor from all quarters of the world. The Colonization scheme deliberately proposed to strip the United States of patient, faithful laborers, acclimated to the cotton and sugar fields of the South, and capable of adding great wealth to the nation. Colonization would deprive us of this much needed labor, would entail vast expense in the deportation of the negroes, and would devolve upon this country, by a moral responsibility which it could not avoid, the protection and maintenance of the feeble government which would be planted on the sh.o.r.es of Africa.

The Liberian experiment, honorable as it was to the colored race, and successful as it had proved in establis.h.i.+ng civilization in Africa, had not attained such material prosperity as would justify the United States in the removal of millions of its population to a remote country where there was no demand for labor.

Mr. Lincoln's course on the Slavery question at that period of his Administration was steadily and studiously conservative. He had checked the Secretary of War (Mr. Cameron) in the issuing of an anti-slavery order which was considered premature and unwise; he had countermanded and annulled the proclamations of General Hunter and General Fremont declaring the slaves to be free within the districts of their respective commands. He now recommended a measure in the line of his conservative policy, to which he attached great weight, and from which he antic.i.p.ated important consequences.

On the 6th of March, 1862, the President sent a message to Congress recommending the adoption of a joint resolution declaring that "the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid to be used in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system." Mr. Lincoln believed that if the leaders of the existing Rebellion could conquer their independence, the Border slave States would necessarily join them from sympathy with their inst.i.tutions. By the initiation of emanc.i.p.ation all possible desire or tendency in that direction would be removed, and thus a severe blow be given to the Rebellion.

He believed in compensation to the slave-holder, and expressed his opinion that "gradual and not sudden emanc.i.p.ation is better for all." He asked Congress to consider "how very soon the current expenses of the war would purchase at a fair valuation all the slaves in any named State."

When the message reached the House it was referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union. Four days later Mr. Roscoe Conkling moved to suspend the rules in order to bring the resolution before the House "in the exact form in which the President had recommended it." The motion prevailed by 86 to 35. Francis P.

Blair of Missouri and the representatives from West Virginia were the only Border State men who voted to suspend the rules. Mr.

Conkling thought an immediate vote might be taken because he presumed "every member had made up his mind on the question involved." But the Kentucky delegation desired time for consultation. They concluded to oppose the resolution. Mr. Crittenden, speaking the sentiments of all, asked, "Why do you exact of Kentucky more than she has already done to show her loyalty? Has she not parted with all her former allies, with all her natural kindred in other States?

Why should it be asked that she should now surrender up her domestic inst.i.tutions?" Against the protest of Kentucky the resolution was pa.s.sed, such radical abolitionists as Owen Lovejoy warmly supporting the proposition to pay for slaves out of the Treasury of the United States. Mr. Henderson of Missouri and Mr. Willey of West Virginia were the only Border State senators who saw the vast advantage to be secured to their own const.i.tuents by the pa.s.sage of the measure.

They supported it ably and heartily. It was earnestly opposed by the senators from Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Mr. Carlile of West Virginia was the only senator in nominal sympathy with the Administration who voted against it. The hostility to the President's policy by senators from the Border slave States was so fixed as to prevent even a free discussion of the measure, and it was therefore remanded to a future day for consideration.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

A still more aggressive movement against slavery was made by Congress before the close of this eventful session. On the day that Congress convened, in the preceding December, Mr. Trumbull gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill "for the confiscation of the property of rebels, and giving freedom to the persons they hold in slavery." Three days later he formally introduced the bill, and made a lucid explanation of its provisions and its objects. He "disdained to press it upon the ground of a mere military power superior to the civil in time of war." "Necessity," said he, "is the plea of tyrants; and if our Const.i.tution ceases to operate, the moment a person charged with its observance thinks there is a necessity to violate it, is of little value." So far from admitting that the superiority of the military over the civil power in time of war, Mr. Trumbull held that "under the Const.i.tution the military is as much the subject of control by the civil power in war as in peace." He was for suppressing the rebellion "according to law, and in no other way;" and he warned his countrymen who stood "ready to tolerate almost any act done in good faith for the suppression of the rebellion, not to sanction usurpations of power which may hereafter become precedents for the destruction of const.i.tutional liberty." Though the bill was introduced on the second day of December, 1861, it did not become a law until the 17th of July in the next year.

In the months intervening, it was elaborately debated, almost every senator taking part in the discussion. Garrett Davis of Kentucky, who had succeeded Mr. Breckinridge in the Senate, made a long speech against the bill, contending that Congress had no power to free any slaves. He wanted a bill of great severity against the rebel leaders: "to those that would repent" he would give "immunity, peace, and protection; to the impenitent and incorrigible he would give the gallows, or exile and the forfeiture of their whole estate."

Such a law as that, he said, his "own State of Kentucky desired.

As Hamilcar brought his infant son Hannibal to the family altar, and made him swear eternal enmity to the Roman power, so I have sworn and will ever maintain eternal enmity to the principle of secession and all its adherents." It was seen throughout the debate that the bill under consideration was in large part provoked by the confiscation measures of the Confederate Congress, and Mr.

Davis declared that "the debts due to the North, estimated at $200,000,000, seized, confiscated, and appropriated by the rebel government, shall be remunerated fully."

Mr. John B. Henderson of Missouri who, as a Union man of prominence and ability, had succeeded Trusten Polk in the Senate, opposed the bill because it would "cement the Southern mind against us and drive new armies of excited and deluded men from the Border States to espouse the cause of rebellion." He urged that "the Union sentiment of the South should be cultivated, and radical measures tending to destroy that sentiment should be dropped." Mr. Fessenden was conservative on this as on other questions, and insisted upon the reference of Mr. Trumbull's bill to a committee; which was the occasion of some little pa.s.sage between himself and Mr. Trumbull, not without temper. Mr. Trumbull suggested that "the senator from Maine would not be likely to get any light from the deliberations of five men unless he were himself one of them." Retorting in the same spirit, but, as he said, good-naturedly, Mr. Fessenden said he should not "hope that _any_ deliberation of anybody would enlighten the senator from Illinois."

Sustaining the extreme power of confiscation, Mr. Sumner desired "the Act to be especially leveled at the inst.i.tution of Slavery."

He recalled the saying of Charles XII. of Sweden, that the cannoneers were perfectly right in directing their shots at him, for the war would be at an instant end if they could kill him; whereas they would reap little from killing his princ.i.p.al officers. "There is,"

said the senator, "no shot in this war so effective as one against Slavery, which is king above all officers; nor is there better augury of complete success than the willingness at last to fire upon this wicked king." By this means, Mr. Sumner believed that we should "take from the rebellion its mainspring of activity and strength, stop its chief stores of provisions and supplies, remove a motive and temptation to prolonged resistance, and destroy forever the disturbing influence which, so long as it exists, will keep this land a volcano, ever ready to break forth anew." Mr. Sumner, Mr. Wade, and Mr. Chandler, the senators who were regarded as most radical, desired more stringent provisions than they could secure.

The really able lawyers of the Senate, Mr. Fessenden and Judge Collamer, repressed the extreme measures which but for their interposition would have been enacted. As the bill was finally perfected, Mr. Chandler and his colleague Mr. Howard voted against it, as did also Mr. Browning of Illinois and the Border-State Senators Davis of Kentucky, Henderson of Missouri, and Carlile of Virginia. To the Michigan senators the bill was too weak; to the others it was too strong. Mr. Willey of Virginia was the only senator from a slave-holding State who voted on the radical side.

With the exceptions noted, Republican senators all voted for the bill.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

A series of measures in the House relating to confiscation were under discussion while the Senate was considering the same subject.

The House pa.s.sed a more stringent bill than the Senate would accept, and the subject was finally sent to a committee of conference, which from the points of disagreement framed the measure that ultimately became a law. As in the Senate, the Border-State men opposed the measure, but were overborne by the popular opinion which nearly consolidated the Republican vote of the North in favor of it. It was however an undoubted weakness, morally and politically, that such men as Crittenden and Mallory of Kentucky, James S.

Rollins of Missouri, and Francis Thomas and Edwin H. Webster of Maryland were recorded against it. The bill was pa.s.sed in the House by a vote of 82 to 42. The conference report having somewhat strengthened the original measure pa.s.sed by the Senate, Messrs.

Howard and Chandler of Michigan gave it their support, but for the same reason Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania and Mr. Willey of Virginia opposed it. The final vote was 27 in favor to 12 against it.

The Act, as it finally pa.s.sed, affixed to the crime of treason the punishment of death, or, at the discretion of the court, imprisonment for not less than five years and a fine of not less than ten thousand dollars,--all the slaves, if any, to be declared free. "To insure the speedy termination of the present rebellion" it was made the duty of the President to cause the seizure of the estate and property, money, stocks, credits, and effects of the following cla.s.ses of persons: First, all those hereafter acting as officers of the army or the navy of the rebels in arms against the government of the United States; second, of any person acting as President, Vice-President, member of Congress, judge of any court, cabinet officer, foreign minister, commissioner, or consul of the so-called Confederate States; third, of any person acting as governor of a State, member of a convention or Legislature, or judge of any court of any of the so-called Confederate States of America; fourth, of any person who having held an office of honor, trust, or profit in the United States shall hereafter hold an office in the so-called Confederate States; fifth, of any person hereafter holding any office or agency under the so-called Confederate States or under any of the several States of said Confederacy; sixth, of any person who owning property in any loyal State or Territory of the United States, or in the District of Columbia, shall hereafter a.s.sist and give aid and comfort to the rebellion. "And all sales, transfers, or conveyances of any such property shall be null and void; and it shall be a sufficient bar to any suit brought by such persons for the possession or use of such property, or any of it, to allege and prove that he is one of the persons described in this section."

In the provisions of the Act directly affecting slavery it was declared that "All slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army, and all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them and coming under the control of the Government of the United States, and all slaves of such persons found or being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterward occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives, shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." This provision had a very sweeping application. Even if the war had ended without a formal and effective system of emanc.i.p.ation, it is believed that this statute would have so operated as to render the slave system practically valueless. When the war closed it is probable that not less than one-half of all the slaves of the rebel States had come within the scope of this statute, and had therefore been declared legally free by the legislative power of the United States.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.