If the national government intended to maintain its authority and to °execute the law in all the States,;' there was nothing for the South to do but to yield or fight. The South's answer was the defiant attack on the national authority at Sumter. The call for 75,000 three months' volunteers and the uprising of the national spirit followed. Party issues were forgotten, and the great body of the Democratic voters in the North, following their leader, Mr. Douglas, rallied patriotically to the support of the government, as did also many Brecken ridge Democrats. (See. DOUGLAS; BRECKEN RIME, J. C.). In the proclamation calling for volunteers Lincoln commanded the insurgents to disperse within 20 days, called Congress into extraordinary session for 4 July 1861, and announced that the object of the military force was to repossess the forts and places seized from the Union. The time limit of three months for the troops was made necessary by the Act of 1795, as this law authorized the use of the militia °until the expiration of three months after the commencement of the then next session of Congress.° Virginia's secession followed immediately (17 April) upon Lincoln's call for troops, upon the plea of resisting "coercion° and °invasion.° Tennessee and Arkansas soon afterward fol lowed Virginia and joined the Confederacy, but the attempt to carry Missouri and Kentucky into the secession movement was foiled by the co-operation of the national government with the Union forces in those States. After the bombardment of Sumter and before the meeting of Congress (12 April-4 July 1861), President Lincoln assumed extraordinary war powers. (See STATES — THE CE). He proclaimed a blockade of Con federate ports (19 and 27 April); he increased the forces of the regular army and navy (3 May) by his mere executive order, and he au thorized his military subordinates in several places to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. (See HABEAS CORPUS). The orders of block ade had been evoked by the purpose of the Con federate government, indicated by Mr. Davis' letters of marque and reprisal (17 April), to use its ports for fitting out privateers to prey upon the commerce of the United States. The other measures of the President were held to be justified by the emergency. (See PRIVATEER ING ; BLOCKADE; BELLIGERENT). Upon the as sembling of Congress these executive acts were approved, and, as far as endorsement and Con gressional resolution could do so, they were lepalized; and Congress proceeded to make military and financial provision for a vigorous conduct of the war.
Slavery had been the primary cause of seces sion and war. But slavery was not the issue on which the men of either side were called upon to fight. The cause for which the North rallied to arms was union and nationality; the cause of the South was independence and the rights of the States. Both disclaimed slavery as the cause of arms. But slavery, as it was the ever lasting cause of strife before the war, was the chief cause of political difference during the war; and the relation of, the war to slavery is the most important point of view from which the political events of the war are to be studied. To what extent should the war he distinctly an anti-slavery war and be made an instrument of emancipation? To what extent should the war be conducted solely to preserve the Union, and to restore national authority without disturbing in any way the "domestic of the States? On these questions Mr. Lincoln was
constantly subject to pressure in opposite direc tions. The conservatism in his nature and the conservative wing of his party required that he should not assume a more radical and aggres sive anti-slavery attitude than the public senti ment of the country would support; while his party opponents were vigilant and quick to de nounce and oppose him for converting and de grading the war from a noble effort for the Union into a mere abolition war for the °nig ger.° On the other hand the radical anti-slav ery forces were constantly urginkt him to strike at the real strength of the rebellion by striking at its cause. This wing of the Union forces held with Sumner that the °rebellion was but slavery in arms.° Congress attempted to define the purpose of the war and its relation to slavery in the famous Crittenden Resolution of 22 July 1861, which was passed in both Houses by an almost unanimous vote. It was declared that the war was forced upon the country by the disunionists of the South; that °the War is not waged upon our part for any purpose of conquest or subju gation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established insti tutions of those States; but to defend and main tain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equal ity, and rights of the several States unim paired; that as soon as these objects are accom plished the War ought to cease." See Carr TEPIDEN COMPROMISE.
This is the platform upon which the con servative Democracy of the North insisted that the war should be conducted, and for any de parture from this policy they were ready to de nounce the administration and displace it from power. In saving the Union by war the ad ministration must not be allowed to violate the Constitution in any way nor in any way inter fere with the rights of the States or the legal status of the slaves. The political and party struggles of the Civil War focus themselves largely about this issue. On the one side were those of a conservative, purely Union-saving purpose, who were disposed to demand that the war be conducted strictly according to the forms and canons of the Constitution. Among these were probably many who cared more to save slavery and the rights of the States than to save the Union. On the other hand were the radical anti-slavery men who were de termined that, while the war should be for the Union, it should not cease until emancipation should be secured. Among these were many who cared more to destroy slavery than to save the Union. Lincoln, as we shall see, occupied middle ground between these opposing ex tremes.
In the gradual but constant progress of the administration toward an anti-slavery policy— in its movements from an attempt to save slavery and the Union together to the policy of emancipation and the reconstruction of a new Union wholly free, there are certain notable features and landmarks. Among these we may notice, first, the attitude of the administration toward military emancipation.