[1]
"It was," says Mr. Blaine, "a fair reflection of the popular sentiment
throughout the North." So Mr. Lincoln's inaugural was ratified.
But events control. The Northern armies ran against slavery immediately.
Almost in the very hours when the resolution of Mr. Crittenden was
gliding so easily through the House, thousands of slaves at Manassas
were doing the work of laborers and servants, and rendering all the
whites of the Southern army available for fighting. The handicap was so
severe and obvious that it immediately provoked the introduction of a
bill freeing slaves belonging to rebels and used for carrying on the
war. The Democrats and the men of the Border States generally opposed
the measure, with very strong feeling. No matter how plausible the
reason, they did not wish slavery to be touched at all. They could not
say that this especial bill was wrong, but they felt that it was
dangerous. Their protests against it, however, were of no avail, and it
became law on August 6. The extreme anti-slavery men somewhat
sophistically twisted it into an assistance to the South.
The principle of this legislation had already been published to the
country in a very fortunate way by General Butler. In May, 1861, being
in command at Fortress Monroe, he had refused, under instructions from
Cameron, to return three fugitive slaves to their rebel owner, and he
had ingeniously put his refusal on the ground that they were "contraband
of war.
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