The resolution was adopted with only five dissenting votes,— Breckinridge and Powell of Kentucky, Johnson and Polk of Missouri, and Trumbull of Illinois. Mr. Trumbull voted in the negative, because he did not like the form of expression.
The Crittenden Resolution, as it has always been termed, was thus adopted respectively, not jointly, by the two Houses of Congress. Its declarations, contained in the concluding clauses, though made somewhat under the pressure of national adversity, were nevertheless a fair reflection of the popular sentiment throughout the North. The public mind had been absorbed with the one thought of restoring the Union promptly and completely, and had not even contemplated interference with slavery as an instrumentality to that end. Many wise and far-seeing men were convinced from the first that the Rebellion would result in the destruction of slavery, but for various reasons deemed it inexpedient to make a premature declaration of their belief. Indeed, the wisest of them saw that a premature declaration would probably prove a hinderance and not a help to the conclusion they most desired. In the Senate it was noted that Mr. Sumner withheld his vote, as did Thaddeus Stevens and Owen Lovejoy in the House. But almost the entire Republican vote, including such men as Fessenden, Hale, Chandler, and Grimes, sustained the resolution. It was the voice of the Republican party, with no one openly opposing it in either branch of Congress.
ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT DEVELOPED.
It was soon discovered, however, that if the National Government did not interfere with slavery, slavery would seriously interfere with the National Government. In other words, it was made apparent that the slaves if undisturbed were to be a source of strength to the Rebellion. Mr. Crittenden's resolution had hardly passed the House when it was learned from the participants in the battle of Bull Run that slaves by the thousand had been employed on the Confederate side in the construction of earthworks, in driving teams, in cooking, in the general work of the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments, and in all forms of camp drudgery. To permit this was simply adding four millions to the population from which the Confederates could draw their quotas of men for military service. It was no answer to say that they never intended to put arms in the hands of negroes. Their use in the various forms of work to which they were allotted, and for which they were admirably qualified, released the same number of white men, who could at once be mustered into the ranks. The slaves were therefore an effective addition to the military strength of the Confederacy from the very beginning of the war, and had seriously increased the available force of fighting men at the first engagement between the two armies.
As soon as this fact became well established, Congress proceeded to enact the first law since the organization of the Federal Government by which a slave could acquire his freedom. The "Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes" was on the calendar of the Senate when the disaster at Bull Run occurred, and had been under consideration the day preceding the battle. As originally framed, it only confiscated "any property used or employed in aiding, abetting, or promoting insurrection, or resistance to the laws." The word "property" would not include slaves, who, in the contemplation of the Federal law, were always "persons." A new section was now added, declaring that "whenever hereafter during the present insurrection against the Government of the United States, any person held to labor or service under the law of any State shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is due to take up arms against the United States, or to work in or upon any fort, dock, navy-yard, armory, intrenchment, or in any military or naval service whatever against the Government of the United States, the person to whom such service or labor is due shall forfeit his claim thereto." The law further provided in effect that "whenever any person shall seek to enforce his claim to a slave, it shall be a sufficient answer to such claim, that the slave had been employed in the military or naval service against the United States contrary to the provisions of this Act."
ZEAL AND INDUSTRY OF CONGRESS.
The virtue of this law consisted mainly in the fact that it exhibited a willingness on the part of Congress to strike very hard blows and to trample the institution of slavery under foot whenever or wherever it should be deemed advantageous to the cause of the Union to do so. From that time onward the disposition to assail slavery was rapidly developed, and the grounds on which the assurance contained in the Crittenden Resolution was given, had so changed in consequence of the use of slaves by the Confederate Government that every Republican member of both Senate and House felt himself absolved from any implied pledge therein to the slave-holders of the Border States. Humiliating as was the Bull Run disaster to the National arms, it carried with it many compensating considerations, and taught many useful lessons. The nation had learned that war must be conducted according to strict principles of military science, and cannot be successfully carried on with banners and toasts and stump speeches, or by the mere ardor of patriotism, or by boundless confidence in a just cause. The Government learned that it is lawful to strike at whatever gives strength to the enemy, and that an insurgent against the National authority must, by the law of common sense, be treated as beyond the protection of the National Constitution, both as to himself and his possessions.
Though the Act thus conditionally confiscating slave property was signed by Mr. Lincoln, it did not meet his entire approval. He had no objection to the principle involved, but thought it ill- timed and premature,—more likely to produce harm than good. He believed that it would prove brutum fulmen in the rebellious States, and a source of injury to the Union cause in the Border slave States. From the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Lincoln regarded the position of those States as the key to the situation, and every thing which tended to weaken their loyalty as a blow struck directly and with fearful power against the Union. He could not however veto the bill, because that would be equivalent to declaring that the Confederate army might have the full benefit of the slave population as a military force. What he desired was that Congress should wait on his recommendations in regard to the question of Slavery. He felt assured that he could see the whole field more clearly; that, above all, he knew the time and the method for that form of intervention which would smite the States in rebellion and not alienate the slave States which still adhered to the Union.
The rapidity with which business was dispatched at this session gave little opportunity for any form of debate except that which was absolutely necessary in the explanation of measures. Active interest in the House centred around the obstructive and disloyal course of Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio and Mr. Burnett of Kentucky. Still greater interest attached to the course of Mr. Breckinridge in the Senate. He had returned to Washington under a cloud of suspicion. He was thoroughly distrusted by the Union men of Kentucky, who had in the popular election won a noble victory over the foes of the National Government, of whom Mr. Breckinridge had been reckoned chief. No overt act of treason could be charged against him, but the prevalent belief was that his sympathies were wholly with the government at Richmond. He opposed every act designed to strengthen the Union, and continually found fault with the attitude and with the intentions of the National Government. He was considered by many to be in Washington only that he might the more efficiently aid the cause of the Confederacy. During the consideration of "a bill to suppress insurrection and sedition," a debate arose between Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Baker, the new senator from Oregon, which fixed the attention of the country upon the former, and subjected him to general condemnation in the Loyal States.