ws of this proclamation did not travel rapidly. It was published
in the newspapers one week later, owing to the slow mail by sea from
the South. By this means even Lincoln first learned of this decree, on
account of which he was being assailed in many parts. When the news
reached Lincoln he took decisive and prompt action. On May 19, he
published a proclamation in which he revoked the order of emancipation
and recited that the Government had no knowledge of such a decree nor
had it authorized General Hunter to give such an order.[29]

Lincoln, however, used this occasion for an admonition to the border
slave States, although he carefully distinguished between the limited
powers of the commanders in the field and his full executive
authority. He reminded the border States of the joint resolution
passed by Congress, to authorize compensated emancipation, and he
warned them not to neglect this opportunity to obtain financial
indemnity, for the "signs of the times" were multiplying to a degree
that should have convinced the border States that slavery was doomed.

In the very beginning of the Thirty-seventh Congress there came a
series of antislavery measures which constituted a complete and
decisive reversal of the policy of the Federal Government.[30] On
March 13, 1862, Congress approved an act, which prohibited all
military and naval officers and enlisted personnel from returning
fugitive slaves. Section 10 of the Confiscation Act, virtually an
amendment of the Fugitive Slave Law, which withheld from the claimant
the right to use his authority until he had taken an oath of
allegiance, and made it tantamount to a crime for any person in the
army or navy to surrender a fugitive slave or attempt to validate the
owner's claim, was rigidly enforced. Wishing to see Liberia and Haiti
welcomed into the family of nations, moreover, Lincoln in his annual
message in the previous December recommended the recognition of their
independence and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the
new nations. This resolution was passed by a Congress and approved
June 5, 1862. Lincoln then effected the passage of a measure to carry
into execution the treaty between Great Britain and the United States
for the suppression of the African slave trade. Soon thereafter
followed an act to secure freedom to all persons within the
territories of the United States. The Republican party had thus
carried out its platform by its restoration of the Mis