When the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter, its sullen echoes sounded the funeral knell of Slavery.  Years before, it had been foretold, and now it was to happen.  Years before, it had been declared, by competent authority, that among the implications of the Constitution was that of the power of the General Government to Emancipate the Slaves, as a War measure.  Hence, in thus commencing the War of the Rebellion, the South marched with open eyes upon this, as among other of the legitimate and logical results of such a War.

Patrick Henry, in opposing the ratification by Virginia of the Federal Constitution, had declared to the Slaveholders of that State that “Among ten thousand implied powers” which Congress may assume, “they may, if we be engaged in War, liberate every one of your Slaves, if they please, Have they not power to provide for the General Defense and Welfare?  May they not think that these call for the abolition of Slavery?  May they not pronounce all Slaves Free? and will they not be warranted by that power? They have the power, in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it.”

So, too, in his great speech of May 25, 1836, in the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams had declared that in “the last great conflict which must be fought between Slavery and Emancipation,” Congress “must and will interfere” with Slavery, “and they will not only possess the Constitutional power so to interfere, but they will be bound in duty to do it, by the express provisions of the Constitution itself.”  And he followed this declaration with the equally emphatic words:  “From the instant that your Slave-holding States become the theatre of War ­civil, servile, or foreign ­from that instant, the War powers of Congress extend to interference with the Institution of Slavery in every Way by which it can be interfered with.”

The position thus announced by these expounders of the Constitution ­the one from Virginia, the other from Massachusetts ­was not to be shaken even by the unanimous adoption, February 11, 1861, by the House of Representatives on roll call, of the resolution of Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, in these words: 

“Resolved, That neither the Congress of the United States nor the people or governments of the non-Slaveholding States have the Constitutional right to legislate upon or interfere with Slavery in any of the Slaveholding States in the Union.”

Ex-President J. Q. Adams’s cogent exposition of the Constitution, twenty-five years before, in that same House, demonstrating not only that Congress had the right but the Constitutional power to so interfere ­and his further demonstration April 15, 1842, of his statement that under the laws of War, “when a Country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the Commanders of both Armies have power to Emancipate all the Slaves in the invaded territory” ­as not to be overcome by a mere vote of one House, however unanimous.  For the time being, however, it contributed, with other circumstances, to confuse the public mind and conscience.  Indeed as early as May of 1861, the attitude of our Government and its troops toward Negro Slaves owned or used by Rebels in rebellious States, began to perturb the public, bother the Administration, and worry the Military officers.

For instance, in Major-General McClellan’s proclamation to the Union men of West Virginia, issued May 26, 1861, he said: 

“The General Government cannot close its ears to the demand you have made for assistance.  I have ordered troops to cross the river.  They come as your friends and brothers ­as enemies only to armed Rebels, who are preying upon you; your homes, your families, and your property are safe under our protection.  All your rights shall be religiously respected, notwithstanding all that has been said by the Traitors to induce you to believe our advent among you will be signalized by an interference with your Slaves.  Understand one thing clearly:  not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand crush any attempt at insurrection on their part.”

On the other hand, the very next day, May 27, 1861, Major-General Butler, in command of the “Department of A Virginia,” wrote to Lieutenant-General Scott as follows: 

“Since I wrote my last dispatch the question in regard to Slave property is becoming one of very serious magnitude.  The inhabitants of Virginia are using their Negroes in the batteries, and are preparing to send the women and children South.  The escapes from them are very numerous, and a squad has come in this morning to my pickets bringing their women and children.  Of course these cannot be dealt with upon the theory on which I designed to treat the services of able-bodied men and women who might come within my lines, and of which I gave you a detailed account in my last dispatch.  I am in the utmost doubt what to do with this species of Property.

“Up to this time I have had come within my lines men and women with their children, entire families, each family belonging to the same owner.  I have, therefore, determined to employ, as I can do very profitably, the able-bodied persons in the party, issuing proper food for the support of all, and charging against their services the expense of care and sustenance of the non-laborers, keeping a strict and accurate account as well of the services as of the expenditure, having the worth of the services, and the cost of the expenditure, determined by a Board of Survey, to be hereafter detailed.  I know of no other manner in which to dispose of this subject and the questions connected therewith.

“As a matter of Property to the Insurgents, it will be of very great moment, the number that I now have amounting, as I am informed, to what, in good times, would be of the value of sixty thousand dollars.  Twelve of these Negroes, I am informed, have escaped from the batteries on Sewall’s Point, which, this morning, fired upon my expedition as it passed by out of range.  As a means of offense, therefore, in the Enemy’s hands, these Negroes, when able-bodied, are of the last importance.  Without them the batteries could not have been erected, at least for many weeks.

“As a Military question it would seem to be a measure of necessity to deprive their masters of their services.  How can this be done?  As a political question and a question of humanity, can I receive the services of a father and mother, and not take the children?  Of the humanitarian aspect I have no doubt.  Of the political one I have no right to judge.  I therefore submit all this to your better judgment, and as the questions have a political aspect, I have ventured, and I trust I am not wrong in so doing, to duplicate the parts of my dispatch relating to this subject, and forward them to the Secretary of War.”

In reply to the duplicate copy of this letter received by him, Secretary Cameron thus answered: 

“Washington, May 30, 1861.

“Sir:  Your action in respect to the Negroes who came within your lines from the service of the Rebels is approved.  The Department is sensible of the embarrassments which must surround officers conducting Military operations in a State by the laws of which Slavery is sanctioned.

“The Government cannot recognize the rejection by any State of the Federal obligations, nor can it refuse the performance of the Federal obligations resting upon itself.  Among these Federal obligations, however, none can be more important than that of suppressing and dispersing armed combinations formed for the purpose of overthrowing its whole Constitutional authority.

“While, therefore, you will permit no interference by the persons under your command, with the relations of Persons held to Service under the laws of any State, you will, on the other hand, so long as any State, within which your Military operations are conducted, is under the control of such armed combinations, refrain from surrendering to alleged masters any Person who may come within your lines.

“You will employ such Persons in the services to which they may be best adapted, keeping an account of the labor by them performed, of the value of it, and the expenses of their maintenance.  The question of their final disposition will be reserved for future determination.

                              “SimonCameron,                               “Secretary of War.

“To Major General Butler.”

Great tenderness, however, was exhibited by many of the Union Generals for the doomed Institution.  On June 3, 1861, from Chambersburg, Pa., a proclamation signed “By order of Major General Patterson, F. J. Porter, Asst.  Adj.  General,” was issued from “Headquarters Department of Pennsylvania,” “To the United States troops of this Department,” in which they are admonished “that, in the coming campaign in Virginia, while it is your duty to punish Sedition, you must protect the Loyal, and, should the occasion offer, at once suppress Servile Insurrection.”

“General Orders N,” issued from “Headquarters Department of Washington,” July 17, 1861, “By command of Brigadier General Mansfield, Theo.  Talbot, Assistant Adjutant General,” were to this effect:  “Fugitive Slaves will under no pretext whatever, be permitted to reside, or be in any way harbored, in the quarters or camps of the troops serving in this Department.  Neither will such Slaves be allowed to accompany troops on the march.  Commanders of troops will be held responsible for a strict observance of this order.”  And early in August a Military order was issued at Washington “that no Negroes, without sufficient evidence of their being Free or of their right to travel, are permitted to leave the city upon the cars.”

But Bull Run did much to settle the Military as well as public mind in proper grooves on this subject.

Besides employing Negro Slaves to aid Rebellion, by the digging of ditches, the throwing up of intrenchments, and the erection of batteries, their Rebel masters placed in their hands arms with which to shoot down Union soldiers at the Battle of Bull Run, which, as we have seen, occurred on Sunday, July 21, 1861 ­and resulted in a check to the Union Cause.

The terror and confusion and excitement already referred to, that prevailed in Washington all that night and the next day, as the panic-stricken crowd of soldiers and civilians poured over the Long Bridge, footsore with running, faint with weariness, weak with hunger, and parched with thirst and the dust of the rout, can hardly be described.

But, however panicky the general condition of the inhabitants of the National Capital, the Congress bravely maintained its equanimity.

In the Senate, on the day following the disaster, a bill touching the Confiscation of Property used for insurrectionary purposes being up for consideration, the following amendment was offered to it: 

“And be it further enacted, That whenever any person claiming to be entitled to the Service or Labor of any other Person under the laws of any State, shall employ such Person in aiding or promoting any Insurrection, or in resisting the Laws of the United States, or shall permit him to be so employed, he shall forfeit all right to such Service or Labor, and the Person whose Labor or Service is thus claimed shall be thenceforth discharged therefrom, any law to the contrary notwithstanding.”

This amendment, emancipating Slaves employed by their masters to aid Rebellion, was adopted by 33 yeas to 6 nays.

As showing the feeling expressed right upon the very heels of what seemed to be a great disaster, and when rumor, at any rate, placed the victorious Enemy at the very gates of the Capital City, a few lines from the debate may be interesting.

Mr. Trumbull said:  “I am glad the yeas and nays have been called to let us see who is willing to vote that the Traitorous owner of a Negro shall employ him to shoot down the Union men of the Country, and yet insist upon restoring him to the Traitor that owns him.  I understand that Negroes were in the fight which has recently occurred.  I take it that Negroes who are used to destroy the Union, and to shoot down the Union men by the consent of Traitorous masters, ought not to be restored to them.  If the Senator from Kentucky is in favor of restoring them, let him vote against the amendment.”

Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, said:  “I shall vote with more heart than I vote for ordinary measures, for this proposition.  I hope the Senate and the House of Representatives will sustain it, and that this Government will carry it out with an inflexibility that knows no change.  The idea that men who are in arms destroying their Country shall be permitted to use others for that purpose, and that we shall stand by and issue orders to our Commanders, that we should disgrace our Cause and our Country, by returning such men to their Traitorous masters, ought not longer to be entertained.  The time has come for that to cease; and, by the blessing of God, so far as I am concerned, I mean it shall cease.

“If there is anybody in this Chamber that chooses to take the other path, let him do it; let him know what our purpose is.  Our purpose is to save this Government and save this Country, and to put down Treason; and if Traitors use bondsmen to destroy this Country, my doctrine is that the Government shall at once convert these bondsmen into men that cannot be used to destroy our Country.  I have no apologies to make for this position, I take it proudly.

“I think the time has come when this Government, and the men who are in arms under the Government, should cease to return to Traitors their Fugitive Slaves, whom they are using to erect batteries to murder brave men who are fighting under the flag of their Country.  The time has come when we should deal with the men who are organizing Negro companies, and teaching them to shoot down loyal men for the only offence of upholding the flag of their Country.

“I hope further, Sir, that there is a public sentiment in this Country that will blast men who will rise, in the Senate or out it, to make apologies for Treason, or to defend or to maintain the doctrine that this Government is bound to protect Traitors in converting their Slaves into tools for the destruction of the Republic.”

Senator McDougall, of California, said:  “I regard this as a Confiscation for Treason, and I am for the proposition.”

Mr. Ten Eyck, said:  “No longer ago than Saturday last I voted in the Judiciary Committee against this amendment, for two reasons:  First, I did not believe that persons in Rebellion against this Government would make use of such means as the employment of Persons held to Labor or Service, in their Armies; secondly, because I did not know what was to become of these poor wretches if they were discharged.  God knows we do not want them in our Section of the Union.  But, Sir, having learned and believing that these persons have been employed with arms in their hands to shed the blood of the Union-loving men of this Country, I shall now vote in favor of that amendment with less regard to what may become of these people than I had on Saturday.  I will merely instance that there is a precedent for this.  If I recollect history aright, General Jackson, in the Seminole War, declared that every Slave who was taken in arms against the United States should be set Free.”

So, too, in the House of Representatives, the retrograde of a badly demoralized Army, its routed fragments still coming in with alarming stories of a pursuing Enemy almost at the gates of the city, had no terrors for our legislators; and there was something of Roman dignity, patriotism, and courage, in the adoption, on that painfully memorable Blue Monday, (the first ­[Offered by Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky] ­with only two dissenting votes, on a yea and nay vote; and, the second ­[Offered by Mr. Vandever, of Iowa.] ­with entire unanimity) of the following Resolutions: 

“Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, That the present deplorable Civil War has been forced upon the Country by the Disunionists of the Southern States, now in arms against the Constitutional Government, and in arms around the Capital; that in this National emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole Country; that this War is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established Institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished, the War ought to cease.”

“Resolved, That the maintenance of the Constitution, the preservation of the Union, and the enforcement of the Laws, are sacred trusts which must be executed; that no disaster shall discourage us from the most ample performance of this high duty; and that we pledge to the Country and the World, the employment of every resource, National and individual, for the suppression, overthrow, and punishment of Rebels in arms.”

The first of these Resolutions was intended to calm the fears of the Border States ­excited by Rebel emissaries; the second, to restore confidence and courage to the patriot hearts of Union-men, everywhere.  Both were effectual.

And here it will hardly be amiss to glance, for an instant, toward the Senate Chamber; and especially at one characteristic incident.  It was the afternoon of August the 1st, 1861, ­scarce ten days since the check to the Union arms at Bull Run; and Breckinridge, of Kentucky, not yet expelled from the United States Senate, was making in that Body his great speech against the “Insurrection and Sedition Bill,” and upon “the sanctity of the Constitution.”

Baker, of Oregon, ­who, as Sumner afterward said:  “with a zeal that never tired, after recruiting men drawn by the attraction of his name, in New York and Philadelphia and elsewhere, held his Brigade in camp, near the Capitol, so that he passed easily from one to the other, and thus alternated the duties of a Senator and a General,” having reached the Capitol, direct from his Brigade-camp, entered the Senate Chamber, in his uniform, while Breckinridge was speaking.

When the Kentucky Senator “with Treason in his heart, if not on his lips,” resumed his seat, the gray-haired soldier-Senator at once rose to reply.  “He began,” ­said Charles Sumner, in alluding to the incident ­“simply and calmly; but as he proceeded, his fervid soul broke forth in words of surpassing power.  As on a former occasion he had presented the well-ripened fruits of study, so now he spoke with the spontaneous utterance of his own mature and exuberant eloquence ­meeting the polished Traitor at every point with weapons keener and brighter than his own.”

After demolishing Breckinridge’s position touching the alleged Unconstitutionality of the measure, and characterizing his other utterances as “reproof, malediction, and prediction combined,” the Patriot from the Far-West turned with rising voice and flashing eye upon the gloomy Kentuckian: 

“I would ask him,” said he, “what would you have us do now ­a Confederate Army within twenty miles of us, advancing, or threatening to advance, to overwhelm your Government; to shake the pillars of the Union, to bring it around your head, if you stay here, in ruins?  Are we to stop and talk about an uprising sentiment in the North against the War?  Are we to predict evil, and retire from what we predict?  Is it not the manly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, and levy Armies, to organize them, to prepare to advance; when we do advance, to regulate that advance by all the laws and regulations that civilization and humanity will allow in time of battle?  Can we do anything more?  To talk to us about stopping, is idle; we will never stop.  Will the Senator yield to Rebellion?  Will he shrink from armed Insurrection?  Will his State justify it?  Will its better public opinion allow it?  Shall we send a flag of Truce?  What would he have?  Or would he conduct this War so feebly, that the whole World would smile at us in derision?”

And then cried the orator-his voice rising to a higher key, penetrating, yet musical as the blast from a silver trumpet:  “What would he have?  These speeches of his, sown broadcast over the Land, what clear distinct meaning have they?  Are they not intended for disorganization in our very midst?  Are they not intended to dull our weapons?  Are they not intended to destroy our zeal?  Are they not intended to animate our enemies?  Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished Treason, even in the very Capitol of the Nation?

“What would have been thought, if, in another Capitol, in another Republic, in a yet more martial age, a Senator as grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the Senator from Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flowing over his shoulder, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that the cause of advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace?  What would have been thought if, after the battle of Cannae, a Senator there had risen in his place and denounced every levy of the Roman People, every expenditure of its treasure, and every appeal to the old recollections and the old glories?”

The speaker paused.  The sudden and intent silence was broken by another voice:  “He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock.”

“Sir,” continued the soldier-orator, “a Senator, himself learned far more than myself in such lore, [Mr. Fessenden,] tells me, in a voice that I am glad is audible, that he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock!  It is a grand commentary upon the American Constitution that we permit these words [Senator Breckinridge’s] to be uttered.

“I ask the Senator to recollect, too, what, save to send aid and comfort to the Enemy, do these predictions of his amount to?  Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear.  Every sound thus uttered is a word, (and, falling from his lips, a mighty word) of kindling and triumph to a Foe that determines to advance.

“For me, I have no such word as a Senator, to utter.  For me” ­and here his eyes flashed again while his martial voice rang like a clarion-call to battle ­“amid temporary defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me to utter another word, and that word is, bold, sudden, forward, determined, war, according to the laws of War, by Armies, by Military Commanders clothed with full power, advancing with all the past glories of the Republic urging them on to conquest!

“I tell the Senator,” continued the inspired Patriot, “that his predictions, sometimes for the South, sometimes for the Middle States, sometimes for the North-East, and then wandering away in airy visions out to the Far Pacific, about the dread of our people, as for loss of blood and treasure, provoking them to Disloyalty, are false in sentiment, false in fact, and false in Loyalty.  The Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them all.

“Five hundred million dollars!  What then?  Great Britain gave more than two thousand million in the great Battle for Constitutional Liberty which she led at one time almost single-handed against the World.  Five hundred thousand men!  What then?  We have them; they are ours; they are the children of the Country; they belong to the whole Country; they are our sons; our kinsmen; and there are many of us who will give them all up before we will abate one word of our just demand, or will retreat one inch from the line which divides right from wrong.

“Sir, it is not a question of men or of money in that sense.  All the money, all the men, are, in our judgment, well bestowed in such a cause.  When we give them, we know their value.  Knowing their value well, we give them with the more pride and the, more joy.  Sir, how can we retreat?  Sir, how can we make Peace?  Who shall treat?  What Commissioners?  Who would go?  Upon what terms?  Where is to be your boundary line?  Where the end of the principles we shall have to give up?  What will become of Constitutional Government?  What will become of public Liberty?  What of past glories?  What of future hopes?

“Shall we sink into the insignificance of the grave ­a degraded, defeated, emasculated People, frightened by the results of one battle, and scared at the visions raised by the imagination of the Senator from Kentucky on this floor?  No, Sir! a thousand times, no, Sir!  We will rally ­if, indeed, our words be necessary ­we will rally the People, the Loyal People, of the whole Country.  They will pour forth their treasure, their money, their men, without stint, without measure.  The most peaceable man in this body may stamp his foot upon this Senate Chamber floor, as of old a warrior and a Senator did, and from that single tramp there will spring forth armed Legions.

“Shall one battle determine the fate of empire, or a dozen? ­the loss of one thousand men, or twenty thousand? or one hundred million or five hundred million dollars?  In a year’s Peace ­in ten years, at most, of peaceful progress ­we can restore them all.  There will be some graves reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection.  There will be some privation; there will be some loss of luxury; there will be somewhat more need for labor to procure the necessaries of life.  When that is said, all is said.  If we have the Country, the whole Country, the Union, the Constitution, Free Government ­with these there will return all the blessings of well-ordered civilization; the path of the Country will be a career of greatness and of glory such as, in the olden time, our Fathers saw in the dim visions of years yet to come, and such as would have been ours now, to-day, if it had not been for the Treason for which the Senator too often seeks to apologize.”

This remarkable speech was the last utterance of that glorious and courageous soul, in the National Senate.  Within three months, his lifeless body, riddled by Rebel rifle balls, was borne away from the fatal field of Ball’s Bluff ­away, amid the lamentations of a Nation ­away, across land and ocean ­to lie beside his brave friend Broderick, on that Lone Mountain whose solemn front looks out upon the calm Pacific.

He had not lived in vain.  In his great speech at the American Theatre in San Francisco, after his election by Oregon (1860) to represent her in the United States Senate, he had aroused the people to a sense of shame, that, as he said:  “Here, in a land of written Constitutional Liberty it is reserved for us to teach the World that, under the American Stars and Stripes, Slavery marches in solemn procession; that, under the American flag, Slavery is protected to the utmost verge of acquired territory; that under the American banner, the name of Freedom is to be faintly heard, the songs of Freedom faintly sung; that, while Garibaldi, Victor Emanuel, every great and good man in the World, strives, struggles, fights, prays, suffers and dies, sometimes on the scaffold, sometimes in the dungeon, often on the field of battle, rendered immortal by his blood and his valor; that, while this triumphal procession marches on through the arches of Freedom ­we, in this land, of all the World, shrink back trembling when Freedom is but mentioned!”

And never was a shamed people more suddenly lifted up from that shame into a grand frenzy of patriotic devotion than were his auditors, when, with the inspiration of his matchless genius, he continued: 

“As for me, I dare not, will not, be false to Freedom.  Where the feet of my youth were planted, there, by Freedom, my feet shall ever stand.  I will walk beneath her banner.  I will glory in her strength.  I have watched her in history struck down on an hundred chosen fields of battle.  I have seen her friends fly from her; her foes gather around her.  I have seen her bound to the stake; I have seen them give her ashes to the winds.  But when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face to face, resplendent in complete steel, brandishing in her strong right hand a flaming sword, red with Insufferable light!  I take courage.  The People gather around her.  The genius of America will, at last, lead her sons to Freedom.”

Never were grander utterances delivered by man in all the ages; never was there exhibited a more sublime faith; never a truer spirit of prophecy; never a more heroic spirit.

He was then on his way to Washington; on his way to perform the last acts in the drama of his own career ­on his way to death.  He knew the time had come, of which, ten years before, he had prophetically spoken in the House of Representatives, when he said:  “I have only to say that, if the time should come when Disunion rules the hour, and discord is to reign supreme, I shall again be ready to give the best blood in my veins to my Country’s Cause.  I shall be prepared to meet all antagonists with lance in rest, to do battle in every land, in defense of the Constitution of the Country which I have sworn to support, to the last extremity, against Disunionists, and all its Enemies, whether of the South or North; to meet them everywhere, at all times, with speech or hand, with word or blow, until thought and being shall be no longer mine.”  And right nobly did he fulfil in all respects his promise; so that at the end ­as was afterward well said of him by Mr. Colfax ­he had mounted so high, that, “doubly crowned, as statesman, and as warrior ­

     ‘From the top of Fame’s ladder he stepped to the Sky!’”