It appears from the official returns of the Army of the Potomac that on June 20th General McClellan had present for duty 115,102 men. It is stated that McClellan reached the James River with "between 85,000 and 90,000 men," and that his loss in the seven days' battles was 15,249; this would make the army 105,000 strong at the commencement of the battles.[45] Probably General Dix's corps of 9,277 men, stationed at Fortress Monroe, is not included in this last statement.
[Footnote 42: Reports of Generals Robert E. Lee, Pendleton, A. P. Hill, Huger, Alexander, and Major W. H. Taylor, in his "Four Years with Lee," have been drawn upon for the foregoing.]
[Footnote 43: No report of cavalry]
[Footnote 44: "Four Years with General Lee.">[
[Footnote 45: Swinton's "History of the Army of the Potomac.">[
CHAPTER XXV.
Forced Emancipation.—Purposes of the United States Government at the Commencement of 1862.—Subjugation or Extermination.—The Willing Aid of United States Congress.—Attempt to legislate the Subversion of our Social Institutions.—Could adopt any Measure Self-Defense would justify.—Slavery the Cause of all Troubles, therefore must be removed.—Statements of President Lincoln's Inaugural.—Declaration of Sumner.—Abolition Legislation.—The Power based on Necessity.—Its Formula.—The System of Legislation devised.—Confiscation.—How permitted by the Law of Nations.— Views of Wheaton; of J. Q. Adams; of Secretary Marcy; of Chief-Justice Marshall.—Nature of Confiscation and Proceedings.— Compared with the Acts of the United States Congress.—Provisions of the Acts.—Five Thousand Millions of Property involved.—Another Feature of the Act.—Confiscates Property within Reach.—Procedure against Persons.—Held us as Enemies and Traitors.—Attacked us with the Instruments of War and Penalties of Municipal Law.— Emancipation to be secured.—Remarks of President Lincoln on signing the Bill.—Remarks of Mr. Adams compared.—Another Alarming Usurpation of Congress.—Argument for it.—No Limit to the War-Power of Congress; how maintained.—The Act to emancipate Slaves in the District of Columbia.—Compensation promised.—Remarks of President Lincoln.—The Right of Property violated.—Words of the Constitution.—The Act to prohibit Slavery in the Territories.-The Act making an Additional Article of War.—All Officers forbidden to return Fugitives.—Words of the Constitution.—The Powers of the Constitution unchanged in Peace or War.—The Discharge of Fugitives commanded in the Confiscation Act.—Words of the Constitution.
At the commencement of the year 1862 it was the purpose of the United States Government to assail us in every manner and at every point and with every engine of destruction which could be devised. The usual methods of civilized warfare consist in the destruction of an enemy's military power and the capture of his capital. These, however, formed only a small portion of the purposes of our enemy. If peace with fraternity and equality in the Union, under the Constitution as interpreted by its framers, had been his aim, this was attainable without war; but, seeking supremacy at the cost of a revolution in the entire political structure, involving a subversion of the Constitution, the subjection of the States, the submission of the people, and the establishment of a union under the sword, his efforts were all directed to subjugation or extermination. Thus, while the Executive was preparing immense armies, iron-clad fleets, and huge instruments of war, with which to invade our territory and destroy our citizens, the willing aid of an impatient, enraged Congress was invoked to usurp new powers, to legislate the subversion of our social institutions, and to give the form of legality to the plunder of a frenzied soldiery.
That body had no sooner assembled than it brought forward the doctrine that the Government of the United States was engaged in a struggle for its existence, and could therefore resort to any measure which a case of self-defense would justify. It pretended not to know that the only self-defense authorized in the Constitution for the Government created by it, was by the peaceful method of the ballot-box; and that, so long as the Government fulfilled the objects of its creation (see preamble of the Constitution), and exercised its delegated powers within their prescribed limits, its surest and strongest defense was to be found in that ballot-box.
The Congress next declared that our institution of slavery was the cause of all the troubles of the country, and therefore the whole power of the Government must be so directed as to remove it. If this had really been the cause of the troubles, how easily wise and patriotic statesmen might have furnished a relief. Nearly all the slaveholding States had withdrawn from the Union, therefore those who had been suffering vicariously might have welcomed their departure, as the removal of the cause which disturbed the Union, and have tried the experiment of separation. Should the trial have brought more wisdom and a spirit of conciliation to either or both, there might have arisen, as a result of the experiment, a reconstructed fraternal Union such as our fathers designed.