It may here be remarked that while Mr. Douglas held that "So far as the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty and Nonintervention is concerned, the Colorado Bill, the Nevada Bill, and the Dakota Bill, are identically the same with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and in its precise language"—these former Bills having been passed at the last Session of the 36th Congress—the Republicans, on the contrary, held that neither in these nor other measures had they abandoned any distinctive Republican principle; while Breckinridge declared that they had passed those Territorial Bills, without the Wilmot proviso, because they felt perfectly secure in those Territories, with all the Federal patronage in Republican hands.
However that may be, we have here, brought out in strong contrast, the conciliatory feeling which inspired such Union men as Douglas, and the strong and persistent efforts they made in behalf of Concession and Peace up to a period only a few weeks before the bombardment of Sumter; and the almost total revulsion in their sentiments after that event, as to the only proper means to preserve the Union. For it was only then that the truth, as it fell from Douglas's lips at Springfield, was fully recognized, to wit: that there was no half-way ground betwixt Patriotism and Treason; that War was an existing fact; and that Patriots must arm to defend and preserve the Union against the armed Traitors assailing it.
At last, July 4, 1861, the Congress met, and proceeded at once with commendable alacrity and patriotism, to the consideration and enactment of measures sufficient to meet the extraordinary exigency, whether as regards the raising and equipment of the vast bodies of Union volunteers needed to put down Rebellion, or in the raising of those enormous amounts of money which the Government was now, or might thereafter be, called upon to spend like water in preserving the Union.
It was at this memorable Session, of little over one month, that the chief of the great "War Measures" as they were termed, were enacted.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE STORM OF BATTLE.
We have seen how Fort Sumter fell; how the patriotic North responded to President Lincoln's Call, for 75,000 three-months volunteers, with such enthusiasm that, had there been a sufficiency of arms and accoutrements, he might have had, within three months of that Call, an Army of 500,000 men in the field; how he had called for 42,000 three-years volunteers early in May, besides swelling what little there was of a regular Army by ten full regiments; and how a strict blockade of the entire Southern Coast-line had not only been declared, but was now enforced and respected.
General Butler, promoted Major-General for his Military successes at Annapolis and Baltimore, was now in command of Fortress Monroe and vicinity, with some 12,000 volunteers under him, confronted, on the Peninsula, by a nearly equal number of Rebel troops, under Generals Huger and Magruder—General Banks, with less than 10,000 Union troops, occupying Baltimore, and its vicinage.