An interesting phase of the war, in the beginning of 1863, was the culmination of the policy of the Federal Government respecting the subject of slavery. A brief space will suffice to exhibit a record of violated pledges, of constitutional infractions, and abuse of power by the Federal Government, altogether unexampled in a war to be hereafter noted for its arbitrary measures.
In the early stages of the war the North assumed, as the justification of coercive measures, not only the purpose of preserving the Union, but the relief of a “loyal party” in the South, who were oppressed by a violent minority having “command of the situation.” Of this theory of the war, as waged by the North, the conversation of President Lincoln with a Kentucky member of Congress, in the presence of Senator Crittenden, was sufficiently declaratory:
“‘Mr. Mallory, this war, so far as I have any thing to do with it, is carried on on the idea that there is a Union sentiment in those States, which, set free from the control now held over it by the presence of the Confederate or rebel power, will be sufficient to replace those States in the Union. If I am mistaken in this, if there is no such sentiment there, if the people of those States are determined with unanimity, or with a feeling approaching unanimity, that their States shall not be members of this Confederacy, it is beyond the power of the people of the other States to force them to remain in the Union; and,’ said he, ‘in that contingency—in the contingency that there is not that sentiment there—THIS WAR IS NOT ONLY AN ERROR, IT IS A CRIME.’”
Mr. Lincoln was probably not a very close student of the philosophy of history, or he would hardly have thus emphatically committed himself to a pledge, which, if observed, would have inevitably ended the war in a few weeks. The teachings of history were valueless, without their unvarying testimony to the potency of the sword of the common enemy in healing the divisions of an invaded country. It would be difficult, too, to imagine what he would have deemed that approximation to unity in the South, which would render a further prosecution of the war a crime. A faction of “Union men,” truculent, treacherous, and insidious, in their hostility to the Confederate Government, unquestionably existed in the South during the entire progress of the war, but they were few in numbers, and their recognized leaders were, with hardly a single exception, men of abandoned character, notoriously without influence, save with their ignorant and unpatriotic followers. But this pretense of a Union party in the South, which the North, at first, declared a majority, was conveniently abandoned, when other pretexts were sought. In the face of evidence not to be denied, of the profound and sincere purpose of separation, entertained by more than seven-eighths of the citizens of the seceded States, the Northern conscience easily overcame its scruples as to a war which the Northern President had, by anticipation, pronounced a “Crime.”
Palpable violations of vows were, indeed, marked characteristics of the conduct of the war as justified by the facile and pliant conscience of the North. The paramount purpose of coercion was to maintain the authority and dignity of the Constitution, assailed by “rebels in arms.” No theory was avowed contemplating any other termination of the war, than a simple restoration of the “Union under the Constitution.” The assertions of the Northern press, and the resolutions of mass meetings were re-affirmed by the most solemn enactments of the Federal Congress, and public declarations of Mr. Lincoln, that the North sought merely to save the Union, with the form and spirit of the Constitution unimpaired. In view of subsequent events, it is almost incredible that in Mr. Lincoln’s first inaugural address should be found this passage:
“I declare that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.... The right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depended.”
Then, after the defeat at Bull Run, Congress passed the following resolution, which was signed by Mr. Lincoln as President:
“Resolved, That this war is not waged upon our part with any purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of these 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.”
As if to give every possible form of assurance of the legitimate and constitutional objects of the war, and leaving no room for doubt in the mind of posterity, of complete and unredeemed perfidy, the Federal authorities were at especial pains to declare their policy to foreign governments.
Mr. Seward, as Mr. Lincoln’s Secretary of State, in his instructions to Mr. Dayton, Minister to France, says: