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return fugitive slaves to their masters.1 The war department required McDowell to forbid the harboring of fugitive slaves in camps, or their accompanying the troops on a march; this was at the President's instance, though the fact of his interposition was at his request kept from the public.2 Negroes were forbidden to leave Washington except on proof of freedom.
The Attorney-General, in a letter of instructions, recognized the duty of marshals to return fugitive slaves.
The Secretary of the Interior at a public meeting denied the right of the government to interfere with slavery in South Carolina.
The Secretary of War abstained from approving General Butler's doctrine that the slaves of rebels should be treated as ‘contraband of war,’ and cautioned him against interfering with the slaves of peaceable citizens, or preventing the voluntary return of fugitive slaves.
The President himself revoked General Fremont's order emancipating the slaves of rebels within his command in Missouri, and later revoked a similar order of General Hunter issued in South Carolina.
These revocations greatly disturbed the antislavery men; but emancipation was clearly a matter of general policy which he had a right to retain in his own hands.
A similar spirit pervaded our diplomatic correspondence.
Just before the attack on Fort Sumter (April 10), Seward instructed Adams ‘not to consent to draw into debate before the British government any opposing moral principles which may be supposed to lie at the foundation of the controversy between those (the Confederate) States and the federal Union;’ and a week after the surrender (April 22) he instructed Dayton that ‘the Territories will remain in all respects the same whether the revolution shall succeed or shall fail; the condition of slavery in the several States will remain just the same whether it shall succeed or shall fail.’
These disavowals of any moral issue in the contest made our cause appear one of empire only, and tended to repel foreign sympathy and remove the greatest impediment
1 Halleck's order excluding fugitive slaves from the lines of his army came later,—Nov. 20, 1801. The reason given in the order for the exclusion was that they carried information to the enemy; whereas, instead of doing so, they brought information to our government. The President expressed to the writer, Feb. 15, 1812, much impatience at the hesitation of the Senate to confirm Halleck's nomination as major-general on account of this order. As to the military orders and other official action concerning fugitive slaves at this time, see McPherson's ‘History of the Rebellion,’ pp. 234-260.
2 Nicolay and Hay's ‘Life of Lincoln,’ vol. IV. pp. 390, 391.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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