should they peril their lives for that which was at the bottom of all these troubles?

John Cochrane, of New York, was a member of Congress before the war. He had always been conservative; but when South Carolina fired upon Fort Sumter he forgot his conservatism in his zeal for the preservation of the Union. He commanded a regiment called "United States Chasseurs," from New York. He held a review, and the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, was present. After the review Colonel Cochrane made a speech to his soldiers. He said that to put an end to the war the Government had a right to confiscate property, seize cotton, and as slaves were an element of power, it was the duty of the Government to seize them; and not only that, but to put arms in their hands to aid in suppressing the rebellion and to secure their freedom! Any general who should fail or refuse to do this was as unfit for service as he who should decline to explode a mine which had been prepared for the destruction of the enemy!

Up to this moment his men had stood mute and motionless, with arms at rest, but in an instant, as if all had been moved by an electric impulse, they burst into enthusiastic applause. This, the colonel said, was not abolitionism; it was only using the means at hand for suppressing the rebellion and saving the country.

At the close of the speech Mr. Cameron was called upon. He said that he fully indorsed every word Colonel Cochrane had said, and lest he should be misunderstood he would repeat that the sentiments of Colonel Cochrane upon this subject were his own, and he was glad to hear them.

This declaration, so straightforward and explicit, was received with great demonstrations of delight by the troops, and when Mr. Cameron descended from the platform they gave him three hearty cheers.

On December 2, 1861, I learned that there was a large number of negroes in Washington jail who had been arrested by the police, not for the commission of crime, but because they were slaves, and had run away from their masters. I visited the jail to see about it. Ascending the stone stairs and passing along a dark corridor to a great iron door which the jailer unlocked, we entered a room where there were sixty negroes-old men bending with age and young boys. There was no bed, no mattress or straw on the stone floor, not even a blanket to protect them from the cold. They were in rags, vermin were creeping over them, and the room was reeking with filth. They had been arrested under the slave laws of Maryland.

The statutes affecting the men in prison were passed when Maryland was a colony. If a slave went abroad at night without leave he could be punished by whipping, cropping, and branding with the letter R. If a

slave were convicted of treason, arson, or murder, he was to have his right hand cut off, and then he was to be hanged, his head severed from his body, the body divided into four quarters, and the head and quarters set up in the most public place in the county. It was lawful for any one to shoot and kill a runaway slave.

Under an Act passed 1820 a slave breaking a street lamp, or tying a horse to a tree in the street, flying a kite, attending a religious meeting, unless led by a white man, was to be whipped. A free negro must prove his freedom and enter into bonds with five good bondsmen to obey the laws. If he could not obtain them he must pay a fine of one thousand dollars or be sent to the workhouse. A free colored person found in the streets after ten o'clock at night was to be arrested and sent to jail. The police suspecting a negro of being a runaway slave were to put him in jail, and the negro must prove his innocence or be sold to pay the fees.

The poor creatures in the jail looked up wonderingly when I entered. Had I come to sell them into slavery? I asked them questions, and here are the notes written at the time:

James Munroe, sixteen years old; belongs to Captain Demmington, who was captain of the police at the Capitol during Buchanan's administration, but who is now captain of a Confederate battery. When he went to Virginia he left James behind, who has been arrested because he has no master.

"Charles Jackson, from Fairfax County, Virginia; owned by William Dulin; lived near Fairfax Court-house; fifty years old. When the Union army entered Virginia his master sold his wife and children. Charles fled to the Union lines, was arrested by the police, and has been in jail three months.

"You see, sir,' he said, 'when master sold my wife and children it broke me all up. I am sick; I can't eat. I sha'n't live long, but I don't want to die here. Oh, sir, can you do anything to get me out?' There were tears upon his cheeks as he knelt in supplication at my feet.

"George Washington (the slave-masters frequently named their slaves for the great men of the country); belonged to Benjamin Walker, near Oak Grove, Orange County, Virginia. He ran away and reached Washington. He thought the Union soldiers would be his friends. 'Liberty is sweet to me,' he said.

"Joe Curtis. He is a free negro; always has been free. arrested by the police on the supposition that he was a slave. jail fees. Under the law he must be sold."

He lived in Alexandria, was
There is no one to pay his

It was profitable business for the police to arrest negroes and put them in jail. They had a fee for every arrest, which was paid by the Government of the United States. Under the old law, if no one claimed them, free negroes were sold into slavery to pay the fees. The jailer and sheriff made a great deal of money.

"Robert Paine; owned by George Silkman, near Occoquon Mills, Virginia. His master is in the Confederate army. Robert took a boat, made his way up the Potomac to Washington to find freedom. He has been at work on the fortifications around Washington for forty days. Government owes him for his labor. He was arrested one night by the Georgetown police, and had been in jail ten weeks."

When the poor creatures saw me making notes of their answers they did not at first know what to make of it. Were they to be sold? Was I about to do something to help them? Their eyes kindled, their countenances became eloquent with hope. They crowded around me, begging me to aid them. My blood was boiling, and I determined that they should be free, and that the law under which they had been imprisoned should be wiped from the statutes.

"Please put down my name, sir,” each said, crowding around me. Some of them had caught cold from sleeping on the stone floor, and were fast going in consumption.

"God bless you, massa!" was the chorus that fell upon my ears as I walked away. Fifteen minutes later I was in the Capitol reading my notes to Henry Wilson, Senator from Massachusetts. Together we returned to the jail.

ures.

"My God! Is it possible!" he said, as he gazed upon the poor creat"We will have this thing ripped up as sure as there is a God in

heaven."

I called upon Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, read to him what I had written, and he too visited the jail and came out of it with his blood at fever heat.

The next day Senator Wilson introduced a resolution into the Senate "directing the discharge of all persons claimed as fugitives from service or labor confined in the jail in the District of Columbia."

"I have visited the jail, and have found such a scene of degradation as I never before witnessed," said Mr. Wilson.

"There are persons there," said Senator Sumner, "almost entirely naked, some of them without even a shirt. Some of them are free persons. Most of them have run away from disloyal masters. Some have been sent there by their masters for safe-keeping till the war is over."

"I think," said Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, "that when the Northern States find out that they are supporting here in jail the slaves of rebels who are fighting against us-that we are keeping, at the public expense, their slaves for them till the war is over-it will have a tendency to enlighten the minds of some of them in answering the question, 'What has the North to do with slavery?"