Democratic allies from the North to their assistance, made vehement opposition, and again they were overwhelmed beneath an irresistible majority: 83 to 42 in the House, 29 to 9 in the Senate. The President signed the bill on March 13, 1862, and thereafter "nigger hunting" was a dangerous sport in the Union camps.

On March 24, Mr. Arnold,1 of Illinois, introduced a bill ambitiously purporting "to render freedom national and slavery sectional." It prohibited slavery wherever Congress could do so, that is to say, in all Territories, present and future, in all forts, arsenals, dockyards, etc., in all vessels on the high seas and on all national highways beyond the territory and jurisdiction of the several States. Both by its title and by its substance it went to the uttermost edge of the Constitution and, in the matter of Territories, perhaps beyond that edge. Mr. Arnold himself supported it with the bold avowal that slavery was in deadly hostility to the national government, and therefore must be destroyed. Upon a measure so significant, and so defended, debate waxed hot, so that one gentleman proposed that the bill should be sent back to the Committee with instructions not to report it back "until the cold weather." The irritation and alarm of the Border States rendered modification necessary unless tact and caution were to be wholly thrown to the winds.

1 Lincoln's intimate personal and political friend, and afterward his biographer.

Ultimately, therefore, the offensive title was exchanged for the simple one of "An Act to secure freedom to all persons within the Territories of the United States," and the bill, curtailed to accord with this expression, became law by approval of the President on June 19.

A measure likely in its operation to affect a much greater number of persons than any other of those laws which have been mentioned, was introduced by Senator Trumbull of Illinois. This was "for the confiscation of the property of rebels, and giving freedom to the persons they hold in slavery." It made the slaves of all who had taken up arms against the United States "forever thereafter free.” It came up for debate on February 25, and its mover defended it as "destroying to a great extent the source and origin of the rebellion, and the only thing which had ever seriously threatened the peace of the Union." The men of the Border States, appalled at so general a manumission, declared that it would produce intolerable conditions in their States, leading either to reënslavement or extermination. So strenuous an anti-slavery man as Senator Hale also suggested that the measure was unconstitutional. Similar discussion upon similar propositions went forward contemporaneously in the House. For once, in both bodies, the Democrats won in many skirmishes. Ultimately, as the outcome of many amendments, substitutes, recommitments, and conferences, a bill was patched up, which passed by 27 to 12 in the Senate and 82 to

42 in the House, and was approved by the President July 17. It was a very comprehensive measure; so much so, that Mr. Blaine has said of it: "Even if the war had ended without a formal and effective system of emancipation, it is believed that this statute would have so operated as to render the slave system practically valueless."

The possibility of enlisting negroes as soldiers received early consideration. Black troops had fought in the Revolution; why, then, should not black men now fight in a war of which they themselves were the ultimate provocation? The idea pleased the utilitarian side of the Northern mind and shocked no Northern prejudice. In fact, as early as the spring of 1862 General Hunter, in the Department of the South, organized a negro regiment. In July, 1862, pending consideration of a bill concerning calling forth the militia, reported by the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, amendments were moved declaring that "there should be no exemption from military service on account of color," permitting the enlistment of "persons of African descent," and making "forever thereafter free" each person so enlisted, his mother, his wife and his children. No other measure so aroused the indignation of the borderstate men. Loyalty to the Union could not change their opinion of the negro. To put arms into the

hands of slaves, or ex-slaves, was a terrible proposition to men who had too often vividly conceived the dread picture of slave insurrection. To set

black men about the business of killing white men, to engage the inferior race to destroy the superior race, seemed a blasphemy against Nature. A few also of the Northerners warmly sympathized with this feeling. Black men shooting down white men was a spectacle which some who were friends of the black men could not contemplate without a certain shudder. Also many persons believed that the white soldiers of the North would feel degraded by having regiments of ex-slaves placed beside them in camp and in battle. Doubts were expressed as to whether negroes would fight, whether they would not be a useless charge, and even a source of peril to those who should depend upon them. Language could go no further in vehemence of protest and denunciation than the words of some of the slave-state men in the House and Senate. Besides this, Garrett Davis, of Kentucky, made a very effective argument, when he said: "There is not a rebel in all Secessia whose heart will not leap when he hears that the Senate of the United States is originating such a policy. It will strengthen his hopes of success by an ultimate union of all the slave States to fight such a policy to the death." It was, however, entirely evident that, in the present temper of that part of the country which was represented in Congress, there was not much use in opposing any anti-slavery measure by any kind of argument whatever; even though the special proposition might be distasteful to many Republicans, yet at last, when pressed to

the issue, they all faithfully voted Yea. In this case the measure, finally so far modified as to relate only to slaves of rebel owners, was passed and was signed by the President on July 17. Nevertheless, although it thus became law, the certainty that, by taking action under it, he would alienate great numbers of loyalists in the Border States induced him to go very slowly. At first actual authority to enlist negroes was only extorted from the administration with much effort. On August 25 obstinate importunity elicited an order permitting General Saxton, at Hilton Head, to raise 5000 black troops; but this was somewhat strangely accompanied, according to Mr. Wilson, with the suggestive remark, that it "must never see daylight, because it was so much in advance of public sentiment." After the process had been on trial for a year, however, Mr. Lincoln said that there was apparent "no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military force, no loss by it anyhow or anywhere." On the other hand, it had brought a reinforcement of 130,000 soldiers, seamen, and laborers. "And now," he said, “let any Union man who complains of this measure, test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms, and in the next that he is for taking these 130,000 men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be best for the measure he condemns." Yet so ineradicable was the race prejudice that it was