Page:Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction.djvu/68

 unceasingly the application of the war powers of Congress to the desired end, both in seceded and in loyal states.

We have already seen how adaptable the principles of the Confiscation Acts were to the purposes of emancipation in the rebel districts. Mr. Lincoln was careful to point out in his message of July 17, 1862, that the method of setting free slaves here employed did not involve the assumption by Congress of the power to regulate the status of slaves within a state. The slaves, he showed, were forfeited to, and became the property of, the national government in consequence of their masters' crimes, and the government elected to set them free rather than to hold or sell them. Another means employed by Congress to make inroads on slavery was the peremptory prohibition of the return of fugitive slaves by the military authorities. By various prescriptions in the Confiscation Acts and in the Articles of War the return of fugitives to masters in the rebel states was rendered practically impossible.

Still another device for effecting emancipation was developed in the employment of negroes in the army. There was here, however, no new principle but merely a change of application. It was first enacted that any slave of a rebel should, upon entering the military service of the government,