exercise of powers of whose very absence he was sincerely ig

norant.

On the resignation and retirement of General Scott, in the following November, General McClellan, as the then senior major-general of the army, was advanced to the chief command. It was his serious misfortune that with his advancement he accepted and retained a vague idea that the President, a mere civil and elective functionary, had somehow ceased to be his military superior and actual commander-in-chief.

Through all the trials and changes which followed, it is well to say here, Mr. Lincoln never materially modified his original estimate of General McClellan and much regretted his inability to add to it. Just before the final act of removing him from command, he at last remarked to a member of his personal staff:

"For organizing an army, for preparing an army for the field, for fighting a defensive campaign, I will back General McClellan against any general of modern times. I don't know but of ancient times, either. But I begin to believe that he will never get ready to go forward!"

It was said with somewhat of sadness but with more than ordinary emphasis, for it implied that the forward movement was of more importance, in the eyes of Mr. Lincoln, than were the personal fortunes of any one commander. That was a point overlooked by many people, both then and afterwards.

McClellan assumed command on July 27, 1861. The work of equipping the army and navy went steadily forward. The Southern statesmen and generals toiled at their similar task on the other side of the now rigidly tightening army lines. Mr. Lincoln saw more and more clearly the magnitude of the struggle before him, while hourly the people began to clamor more loudly for the battles and victories which were not ready and did not come.

CHAPTER XXXV.

NEW NATIONAL LIFE.

A Shattered Idol-A New State-Contraband of War-Transitions and Processes-Lincoln a Dictator-The Law of Revolution.

It is not altogether easy at this day to understand how deeply ingrained in the minds of the American people was once the idea of the legality of human slavery. Only a small percentage of even the men who cast their votes for Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, were thorough-going enemies of slavery for its own sake, or were at all entitled or willing to be classed as "Abolitionists." If, however, those who hated the institution were few at the beginning, every day of the continuance of the war added to their numbers. Every drop of good blood wasted by the slaveholders' rebellion intensified the horror with which human bondage fast grew to be regarded. Nevertheless, the great majority of the people yet required a prolonged and severe course of instruction and of mental and moral awakening to prepare them for the final breaking of the old-time idol.

Mr. Lincoln knew very well that slavery must perish. He had so declared in public and in private. He was fully convinced, from the first, that the downfall of the Rebellion must carry with it the destruction of the one cause and object of the Rebellion, but his own hands were for the moment tied. He was fettered by the opinions and prejudices of the very people upon whom he was calling and depending for men and money. He was fettered by the prevailing sentiment of the army itself and by that of many of its best commanders. He was fettered by the unforfeited legal rights of slaveholders in

the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and that part of Virginia known as West Virginia, which had loyally repudiated the "ordinance of secession" on the 23d of May.

In this latter area, indeed, an important political action had followed. The Union men in about forty counties, between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River, strengthened by the presence of Northern troops and by their first successes in arms, held a convention of delegates at Wheeling, as early as June 11, 1861. They provided speedily for a new State government, and the Legislature gathered under the direction of the convention met at Wheeling, on the first day of July, to declare its adhesion to the Union and to elect two Senators of the United States. These latter were sworn in as members of the Senate on the 13th of July, but it was not until two years later that the new State of West Virginia was admitted into the Union as a separate commonwealth.

and

Mr. Lincoln was dealing with a subject of which he had made a life-long study. He was hourly studying it now, clearly perceived the delicate and dangerous nature of the situation. The deeply rooted prejudices of millions were not to be trifled with. Time must be given for changes to take place, and these would be made at great cost of blood and treasure and untold suffering; but the price so to be paid for them was unavoidable.

Nevertheless, at the very threshold of the war, Mr. Lincoln was compelled to meet and deal with the African-American slave, in actual, personal presence. Eager, hopeful, jubilant, the colored men and women, by day and by night, came marching into every camp on the long border. They brought their children with them when they could, and their continual arrival seemed to shout in the ears of the troubled ruler, whom they already regarded as a divinely appointed deliverer :

"Here we are! What are you going to do with us?"

The whole country heard it, more or less distinctly, and

floods of conflicting counsels as to the matter and manner of the answer poured in upon the President.

There were men among his newly appointed generals who were ready and willing to answer it for him as to the areas under their direction, oblivious of the need of uniformity in the policy to be pursued and of some other important considerations.

Decidedly the best solution of the difficulty was offered by General B. F. Butler, himself a former pro-slavery Democrat. Accepting in its fullness the idea that slaves were not human beings but mere personal property, they were also "property used for military purposes," of many kinds, and so, when captured or found, were "contraband of war," as much as a loaded musket or a quartermaster's wagon. They could not be sent back to strengthen the military hands of the enemy, and few "Contrabands" were returned to their owners after the slightly grotesque idea became well lodged in the minds of the army and its officers. The practice in this respect varied much for a while, but a fair degree of uniformity came at last in the sure course of human events. All Mr. Lincoln could do was to prevent pernicious haste, and this he managed to accomplish. His precise action in the most important case arising, that of Frémont in Missouri, was complicated with other considerations, and must be treated in another place. There is, however, something not a little absurd in the idea entertained and advocated by many: that for a number of months, at and about this time, Mr. Lincoln ceased to be the earnest foe of slavery he so long had been, and that he was afterwards happily reconverted in time to write and issue the proclamation of emancipation, in 1863. He underwent no such falling away, and he required no such subsequent change of heart and purpose. In order to perceive the entire consistency of his course it is but necessary to form an approximately correct idea of the condition of our national affairs and of his relations to them in the remaining months of the year 1861 and during 1862.

The country was semi-chaotic in all its conditions, foreign relations and domestic affairs alike, political, moral, financial, and industrial. A revolution had arrived and was progressing which affected every citizen in all his relations in life, and the very excitement men were under prevented all but a very few from perceiving, studying, or comprehending the changes they were passing through. There is a sense in which Mr. Lincoln was an embodiment and expression of these changes. He also was developing, learning, advancing, and it is enough for his greatness that he was at all points and continually so much more advanced than other men, and so much better informed, that he was able to lead them wisely and not into ruin.

The national government at Washington, such as it was prior to the outbreak of the Rebellion, had been the object of varied degrees of patriotic devotion, but the average American voter had but a faint and fragmentary understanding of his duties relating to it or of its rights and powers relating to him.

These latter might be exceeded with impunity by Mr. Lincoln, so far as the masses of the people were concerned, so long as his action accorded at all with their conception of what it was best for him to do. It is therefore not very far from the truth to say that the President assumed and freely used, from time to time, all powers required by any emergency as being conferred upon him by the emergency. If these powers were also conferred upon him by the Constitution and the laws, as previously interpreted, so much the better for those instruments and for their previous interpretation. If not, it would answer equally well if Congress afterwards should pass laws covering the matters involved, and if the Constitution should be duly amended at the defective spot so discovered. Such is the fundamental law of all human societies in all revolutionary states and conditions. For Mr. Lincoln to have failed to utilize this would have been idiotically weak and would have involved sure destruction of the interests in his keeping.