Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/613

 I86i] The question of slavery forced on by the war. 581 Jefferson Davis, in his book, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," has asserted that the South did not fight for slavery but for equality. The whole mass of Secessionist literature, speeches, proclama- tions, legislative resolutions and Acts, show this statement to be an error, which is also demonstrated by the famous speech of Alexander H. Stephens, the Confederate Vice-President, in which he declared slavery to be the corner-stone of the new government. Public opinion in the Free States, realising that slavery had caused the war, readily indulged the hope that the war might destroy it. In the border Slave States however, where loyalty predominated, it was a difficult choice that the loyal slave-owner had to make between the duty of supporting the Constitution, and the danger of sacrificing his property, alienating his friends, and uprooting the prejudices of a lifetime. It was this grave alternative which caused the long political struggle in the interior Slave States, among which Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy, while Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri adhered to the Union. The question, however, did not take this extreme form at the beginning. At the special session of Congress which met on July 4, 1861, the Republican members, being left by the war in a majority in both branches, passed, with only four dissenting votes in each House, the Crittenden resolution, which declared that the war was not waged to overthrow or interfere with rights or established institutions of Southern States. While this declaration satisfied political theory, it was quickly found to be incapable of solving questions of practical military adminis- tration. No sooner were camps established and movements begun, than the Unionist commanders, without pausing to consider slavery as an institution, found it necessary to deal with two classes of slaves as individuals slaves whom Secessionist masters left behind in their flight, and slaves of either Secessionist or loyal masters who sought refuge as fugitives, and whom Federal soldiers and officers willingly received to serve them in Federal camps. In regard to the first class of cases, General Butler, commanding at Fortress Monroe, found a ready and acceptable course of action. Appli- cation was made to him to give up, under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law, three negroes who had taken refuge in his camp. General Butler responded that since Virginia claimed to be a foreign country, the Fugitive Slave Law could not possibly be in operation there. He therefore declined to give them up, unless their master would come to the fort and take the oath of allegiance; which, as a Secessionist, the owner did not venture to do. A still more pertinent reply is credited to the general in the same interview. Everywhere in the South, Confederate commanders made sweeping impressments of negro slaves to dig trenches and build earthworks ; and, citing this practice, Butler declared them to be properly contraband of war. The judicial equity OH. XVIII.