Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/620

 588 Democratic opposition to Lincoln. [1862 South Carolina, heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared for ever free." No political intrigue, but merely a deep sense of moral duty seems to have moved him to issue the order. Acrimonious comments immediately followed its publication, and the President promptly condemned it. " No commanding general shall do such a thing upon my responsibility without consulting me," he wrote. On May 19, 1862, he published a proclamation reciting that the government had no knowledge or part in the issuing of Hunter's order of emancipation; that neither Hunter nor any other person had been authorised to emancipate the slaves of any State; and that Hunter's order in that respect was altogether void. The President continued: "I further make it known that whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in- Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps." In the same proclamation he also pointedly called the attention of the loyal Slave States to his offer of compensated abolition. " I do not argue," he said, "I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times." To all sagacious and liberal-minded men the signs were indeed significant. Everywhere the march of Federal armies was disturbing, relaxing, abrading the institution. In Congress the most determined resistance which the Democratic minority and pro-slavery conservatives could make had constantly to give way before the onslaughts of anti-slavery enthusiasts in debate, and the steady votes of the Republican majority on resolutions and bills. The subject of slavery touched almost every measure of legislation at some point. A single year of war had advanced public and parliamentary opinion more than a whole decade of party politics. The reactionary claims of the Charleston Convention were consigned to oblivion. The vital Republican issue of the Fremont and Lincoln presidential campaigns prohibition of slavery in the territories was placed in the statute books as a merely pro forma and sentimental enactment. The various military laws contained provisions which in the aggregate amounted to a sweeping confiscation of slave property for almost all forms of participation in rebellion, and included a virtual repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. One section, framed in guarded language, was made sufficiently elastic to permit even the formation of coloured regiments. The conservatives of the border Slave States and the Democratic leaders in the Free States seemed, however, incapable of comprehending, and unwilling to acknowledge, this profound transformation of the public thought and will. Too weak in numbers to resist, they yielded under the