fugitive slaves be returned to both, or either, or neither of the owners in insurrectionary States? There were moreover five or six border States, where slavery existed, which did not secede. The governments and a majority of the people of those States were patriotic supporters of the Union, but there was a large minority in each of them who were violent enemies of the Government and of the Union. Many of them were serving in the rebel armies. For a time there was no alternative but to return slaves to their owners who resided in border States which had neither seceded nor resisted the Government. The Administration was not authorized to discriminate, for instance, between slave-owners on the eastern shore of the Potomac in the lower counties of Maryland and those on the western shore in Virginia. There were, however, no secessionists, through the whole South, more malignantly hostile to the Federal Union than a large portion of the slave-owners in the southern counties of Maryland; but the State not having seceded, and there being no organized resistance to the Government, masters who justified secession continued to reclaim their slaves, while on the opposite side of the river, in Virginia, slave-owners who claimed to be loyal or neutral, could not reclaim or obtain a restoration of their escaped servants. The Executive was compelled to act in each of these cases, and its policy, the dictate of necessity in the peculiar war that existed, was denounced by each of the disagreeing factions. Affairs were in this unsettled and broken condition when Congress convened at its second session in December, 1861. The action of the President in these conflicting cases as they arose, if not condemned, was not fully approved. Many, if not a majority, in Congress were undetermined what course to take. Democrats insisted that the laws must be obeyed in all cases, in war as in peace. The radical portion of the Republicans began to take extreme opposite grounds, and claim that the laws were inoperative in regard to slavery—that slavery was at all times inconsistent with a republican government, and should now be extinguished. Among the revolutionary resolutions of Senator Sumner of the 11th of February were some on the subject of slavery. Other but not dissimilar propositions, antagonistic to slavery, found expression, increasing in intensity as the war was prolonged. While it was evident to most persons that one of the results of the insurrection would be, in some way or form, the emancipation of the slaves, there was no person who seemed capable of devising a constitutional, practical plan for its accomplishment, except by subjugation and violence. To these the President was unwilling to resort; yet the necessity of doing something that did not transcend the law, was morally right, and would tend to the ultimate freedom of the slaves was felt to be an essential and indispensable duty. Unavailing but seductive appeals continued in the mean time to be made by the secessionists to the people of the border slave States to unite with the further South for the security and protection of slavery, in which they had a common interest, and against which there was increasing hostility through the North. It was under these circumstances, with a large and growing portion of the North in favor of abolition—the slave States, including the border States, opposed to the measure and for the preservation of the institution—that the President was to prescribe a policy on which the government in the disordered state of the country was to be administered.

To surmount the difficulties, without setting aside the law, or giving just offence to any, the President, with his accustomed prudence and regard for existing legal rights, devised a course which, if acquiesced in by those most in interest, would, he believed, in a legal way open the road to ultimate, if not immediate, emancipation. Instead of assenting to the demands of the radical extremists that he should, by arbitrary proceedings, and in disregard of law and Constitution, decree freedom to all slaves, he preferred milder and more conciliatory measures. The authority or right of the national Government to abolish or interfere with an institution that was reserved and belonged exclusively to the States, he was not prepared to act upon or admit, though entreated and urged thereto by sincere party friends, and also by party supporters, whose sincerity was doubtful.

There could be no excuse or pretext for such interference but the insurrection; and, even as a war measure, there were obstacles in the condition of the border slave States, to say nothing of loyal, patriotic citizens in the insurrectionary region, that could not be overlooked.

On the 6th of March, within less than three weeks after Senator Sumner had submitted his revolutionary resolution, for reconstruction, and a declaration that it is the duty of Congress "to see that everywhere in this extensive (secession) territory slavery shall cease to exist practically, as it has already ceased to exist constitutionally or morally," that President Lincoln, not assenting to the assumption, sent a message to Congress proposing a plan of voluntary and compensated emancipation. In this message he suggested that "the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid," etc., and he invited an interview upon the 10th of March, with the representatives of the border States, to consider the subject. They did not conclude at this interview to adopt his suggestions, and some of them were much incensed that the proposition had been made, believing it would alienate and drive many, hitherto rightly disposed, into secession.

Nevertheless, the fact that slavery was doomed, and had received a death blow from the war of secession, was so obvious, that the moderate and reflecting began seriously to consider whether they ought not to give the President's plan favorable consideration.

While the policy of voluntary emancipation, in which the States should be aided by the national Government, was not immediately successful, it made such advance as, by the aid of the Federal Government, led to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The advocates of immediate, general, and forcible emancipation, if not satisfied with the conciliatory policy of the President, could not well oppose it.

Warm discussions in Congress, and altercations out of it, on most of the important questions growing out of the war, and particularly on those of confiscation, emancipation, and reconstruction, or the restoration of the States to their rightful position, and the reëstablishment of the Union, were had during the whole of the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress. All of these were exciting and important questions, the last involving grave principles affecting our federal system, and was most momentous in its consequences. As time and events passed on, the convictions and conclusions of the President became more clear and distinct as to the line of policy which it was his duty and that of the Administration to pursue.

Dissenting, wholly and absolutely, from the revolutionary views and schemes of Senator Sumner and those who agreed with him, the President became convinced, as the subject had been prematurely introduced and agitated, with an evident intent to forestall and shape the action of the Government, that the actual status of the rebel States and their true relation to the Federal Government should be distinctly understood. The resolution of Mr. Dixon, a gentleman of culture and intelligence, who, as well as Mr. Sumner, was a New England Senator, and also of the same party, was, it will be observed, diametrically opposed to the principles and the project of the Massachusetts Senator on the great, impending, and forthcoming subject of reconstruction. It was directly known that the President coincided with the Connecticut