ed in Part by Border States.--Last Session of
Thirty-seventh Congress.--President urges Compensated Emancipation
again.--Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863.--Long Controversy
over Question of Compensation for Slaves.--Test Case of Missouri.
--Fourteen Million Dollars offered her.--General Pope's Campaign.
--Army of the Potomac.--Battle of Antietam.--McClellan removed.--
Burnside succeeds him.--Defeat at Fredericksburg.--Hooker succeeds
Burnside.--General Situation.--Arming of Slaves.--Habeas Corpus.--
Conscription Law.--Depressed and Depressing Period.

Popular interest in the summer of 1862 was divided between events
in the field and the election of Representatives to the Thirty-
eighth Congress. A year before, the line of partisan division had
been practically obliterated in the Loyal States--the whole people
uniting in support of the war. The progress of events had to a
large extent changed this auspicious unanimity, and the Administration
was now subjected to a fight for its life while it was fighting
for the life of the Nation.

The conservatism which Mr. Lincoln had maintained on the Slavery
question had undoubtedly been the means of bringing to the support
of the war policy of his Administration many whom a more radical
course at the outset would have driven into hostility. As he
advanced however towards a more aggressive position, political
divisions became at each step more pronounced. The vote on the
question of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia had been
strictly on the line of party, and the same is true of the proposition
for compensated emancipation in the Border States, and of the Act
confiscating the property of Rebels. Not a single Democrat in the
Senate or House sustained one of these measures. They were all
passed by Republican votes alone, the Democratic minority protesting
each time with increasing earnestness and warmth.

The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress adjourned on the
17th of July, 1862, but long before that date the excitement
prevailing in Congress had extended to the people, and political
divisions were every day growing more earnest, partisan leaders
every day more active, their followers every day more excited.
The Slavery question was the source of the agitation, and by a
common instinct throughout the free States, the Democrats joined
in the cry against an Abolition war. They were as ready, they
declared, as on the day after the firing on Su