d property which have been seized
from the Union."

It commanded the persons composing the combinations referred to,
"to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within
twenty days."

It called Congress to convene Thursday, July 4, 1861, in extraordinary
session, "to consider and determine such measures as, in their
wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand."

This proclamation was the first announcement by President Lincoln
of a deliberate purpose to preserve the integrity of the Republic
by a resort to arms. In his recent Inaugural Address he had, almost
pathetically, pleaded for peace--for friendship; and there is no
doubting that his sincere desire was to avoid bloodshed. He then
had no thought of attacking slavery, but rather to protect and
grant it more safeguards in the States where it existed. Later,
on many occasions, when the war had done much to inflame public
sentiment in the North against the South, he publicly declared he
would save the "Union as it was." His most pronounced utterance
on this point was:

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under
the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored,
the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be
those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same
time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those
who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time
destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in
this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any
slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and
leaving others alone, I would also do that."(22)

But Abraham Lincoln was not understood in 1861, nor even later
during the war, and not fully during life, by either his enemies
or his personal or party friends. The South, in its leadership,
was implacable in the spirit of its hostility, but the masses, even
there, in time came to understand his true purposes and sincere
character.

Two days after the call for seventy-five thousand troops, President
Davis responded to it by proclaiming to the South that President
Lincoln had announced the intention of "invading the Confederacy
with an armed force for the purpose of capturing its fortresses,
subverting its independence, and subjecting the free people thereof
to a foreig