Alas! these appeals for peace were received by those to whom they were addressed with coarse ribaldry, with sneers and jeers, and all the savage and barbarous passions which riot in blood. Lincoln was somewhat slow to learn that it was to force only--stern, unflinching force--that treason would yield.
And now opened that terrible civil war which has no parallel in history. Space will not permit me to follow the President through those long and terrible days of victory and defeat, to final triumph. Through all, Lincoln was firm, constant, hopeful, sagacious, wise, confiding always in God, and in the people.
The special session of the Thirty-seventh Congress met on the 4th of July, 1861, agreeably to the call of the President. Many vacant chairs in the National Council impressed the spectator with the magnitude of the impending struggle. The old chiefs of the slave party were nearly all absent, some of them as members of a rebel government at Richmond, others in arms against their country. The President calmly, clearly, sadly reviewed the facts which compelled him to call into action the _war powers_ of the Government, and constrained him, as the Chief Magistrate, "_to accept war_." He asked Congress to confer upon him the power to make the war short and decisive. He asked for 400,000 men and 400 millions of money. With hearty appreciation of the fidelity of the common people, he proudly points to the fact that, while large numbers of the officers of the Army and Navy had been guilty of the infamous crime of desertion, "not one common soldier or sailor is known to have deserted his flag."
Congress responded promptly to this call, voting 500,000 men and 500 millions of dollars to suppress the rebellion. From the beginning of the contest, the slaves flocked to the Union army as a place of security from their masters. They seemed to feel instinctively that freedom was to be found within its picket-lines and under the folds of its flag. They were ready to act as guides, as servants, to work, dig, and to fight for their liberty. And yet early in the war some officers permitted masters and agents to follow the blacks into the Union lines and carry away fugitive slaves. This action was rebuked by a resolution of Congress. At this session a law was passed giving freedom to all slaves employed in aiding the rebellion. In October, 1861, the military was authorized by the Secretary of War to avail itself of the services of "fugitives from labor," in such way as might be most beneficial to the service.