CHAPTER II

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ON the day after the battle of Bull Run, Congress met at the usual hour and transacted the usual amount of business. Outwardly at least the members were calm. The House, with only four dissenting votes, adopted a resolution of Crittenden's, introduced two days previously, which gave expression to the common sentiment of the country regarding the object of the war. This resolution declared that the war was not waged for conquest or subjugation or in order to overthrow or interfere with the rights or established institutions of the Southern States, but to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union: three days later it passed the Senate by a vote of 30:5.1

      Congress had convened July 4, and, in response to the President's request for means to make the war "short and decisive," had authorized him to accept the services of 500,000 volunteers for three years unless sooner discharged, and had empowered the Secretary of the Treasury "to borrow on the credit of the United States" two hundred and fifty million dollars. Although failing to use its power of taxation as effectively as the occasion required, Congress nevertheless did something in that direction, increasing some of the tariff duties, imposing a direct tax of twenty millions on the States and territories and an income tax of three per cent subject to an exemption of eight hundred dollars.

Congress showed great confidence in the President and went far toward meeting his wishes. As one of its members afterwards wrote, it was during this session only "a giant committee of ways and means." But it hesitated in regard to two of his dictatorial acts: the call for three years' volunteers and the increase of the regular army and navy by proclamation; and his order to Scott, the Commanding General of the Army, authorizing him personally or by deputy, to suspend, if necessary for the public safety, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus at any point on any military line between Philadelphia and Washington.2 A rider to the bill, raising the pay of private soldiers passed on the last day of the session [August 6], legalized the proclamation increasing the army and navy; but senators differed so widely as to suspension of the writ of habeas corpus that they were unable to agree upon any action. Some senators thought that an act of Congress was necessary to suspend the writ and in this belief were sustained by a decision of Chief Justice Marshall, the opinions of Story and Taney and English precedents for two centuries. Others agreeing that the Constitution vested this power in Congress alone were nevertheless willing to make legal and valid the President's orders for the suspension of the writ. Still other senators did not care to take any action whatever; believing that the President, as commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, had complete power to suspend the habeas corpus, they did not wish to bring this power in question by an act of confirmation.

Encouraged by the attitude of the President and Congress, the country soon recovered from the dismay caused by the defeat at Bull Run. A second uprising took place. Men came forward in great numbers, enlisting for three years. On account of some successes in Western Virginia McClellan was placed in command of the troops at Washington [July 27], which he soon named the Army of the Potomac.3

Lincoln and Davis were both willing to obscure the true reason of the conflict: Lincoln, because he did not wish the border slave States, the Northern Democrats and conservative Republicans to get the idea that the war was waged for the destruction of slavery; Davis, because he knew that the Southerner's devotion to slavery, if allowed to appear in too strong a light, would stand in the way of the recognition of the Confederate States by European powers which he so ardently desired. But as the Union armies advanced southward, they came into contact with the negro who had to be dealt with. On the day after Virginia had ratified by popular vote her ordinance of secession, three negroes, who had come to Fort Monroe, were claimed by an agent of their owner. General Butler, who was in command, refused to deliver them up on the ground that, as they belonged