"I understand a proposed amendment to the constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconception of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional Law, I have no objection to its being made expressed and irrevocable."
Even after the conflict of arms had occurred, the position of the Administration was reiterated in the most solemn form. On the 22nd of April, 1861, Mr. Seward, as Secretary of State, in an official communication to Mr. Dayton, Minister to France, wrote:
"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 succeed or fail.... The rights of the states and the condition of every being in them will remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether it shall fail. In one case the states would be federally connected with the new Confederacy; in the other, they would, as now, be members of the United States; but their constitutions and laws, customs, habits and institutions, in either case, will remain the same."[[281]]
PLEDGE OF CONGRESS AS TO OBJECT OF WAR
On the 22nd of July, 1861, both houses of Congress, with but few dissenting votes, adopted a joint resolution which declared:
"This war is not waged, on our part, in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired; that, as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease."[[282]]
Such were the attitude of the Republican Party, the avowals and pledges of President Lincoln and the enactments of Congress, with respect to slavery, at the time of Virginia's secession.
It is not, however, to be concluded that the Republican Party had renounced its hostility to slavery. The pledges referred to were simply assurances of the purpose of the Federal administration to respect the constitutional rights of states where the institution existed, and of their slave-holding citizens. Nor is it claimed that slavery itself had acquired, in Virginia, or elsewhere, in the Union, an indefinite lease of life. The forces which had destroyed slavery in other lands were ever at work. They were dynamic, and gathered ever increasing influence from the economic, political and ethical conditions of the times.
REPUBLICANS AND ABOLITIONISTS
Care must be taken not to confound the formally declared attitude of the Republican Party with that of the Abolitionists. The exact position of many of the leading anti-slavery men of the period is not always easy to determine. Garrison and Phillips were, of course, Abolitionists. Sumner and Chase might be classed as belonging to either or both—Republicans and Abolitionists. "Yet," says Professor A. B. Hart, "two such conspicuous champions of anti-slavery as John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln always said that they were not Abolitionists."[[283]]