ity, equality,
and rights of the several States unimpaired." After the example of the
Constitution, this resolution was carefully saved from the contamination
of a certain offensive word; but every one knew its meaning and its
purpose; and with this knowledge all the votes save two in the House of
Representatives, and all save five in the Senate, were given for it.[1]
"It was," says Mr. Blaine, "a fair reflection of the popular sentiment
throughout the North." So Mr. Lincoln's inaugural was ratified.

But events control. The Northern armies ran against slavery immediately.
Almost in the very hours when the resolution of Mr. Crittenden was
gliding so easily through the House, thousands of slaves at Manassas
were doing the work of laborers and servants, and rendering all the
whites of the Southern army available for fighting. The handicap was so
severe and obvious that it immediately provoked the introduction of a
bill freeing slaves belonging to rebels and used for carrying on the
war. The Democrats and the men of the Border States generally opposed
the measure, with very strong feeling. No matter how plausible the
reason, they did not wish slavery to be touched at all. They could not
say that this especial bill was wrong, but they felt that it was
dangerous. Their protests against it, however, were of no avail, and it
became law on August 6. The extreme anti-slavery men somewhat
sophistically twisted it into an assistance to the South.

The principle of this legislation had already been published to the
country in a very fortunate way by General Butler. In May, 1861, being
in command at Fortress Monroe, he had refused, under instructions from
Cameron, to return three fugitive slaves to their rebel owner, and he
had ingeniously put his refusal on the ground that they were "contraband
of war." The phrase instantly became popular. General Butler says that,
"as a lawyer, [he] was never very proud of it;" but technical inaccuracy
does not hurt the force of an epigram which expresses a sound principle.
"Contraband" underlay the Emancipation Proclamation.

Thus the slaves themselves were forcing the issue, regardless of
polities and diplomacy. With a perfectly correct instinctive insight
into the true meaning of the war, they felt that a Union camp ought to
be a place of refuge, and they sought it eagerly and in considerable
numbers. Then, however, their logical owners came and reclaimed them,
and other commanders were not s