They were enraged by an order,early in August,informing generals that it was the President's desire "that all existing rights in all the States be fully respected and maintained;in cases of fugitives from the loyal Slave States,the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law by the ordinary forms of judicial proceedings must be respected by the military authorities;in the disloyal States the Confiscation Act of Congress must be your guide."[10]Especially,the Abolitionists were angered because of Lincoln's care for the forms of law in those Slave States that had not seceded.They vented their bitterness in a famous sneer--"The President would like to have God on his side,but he must have Kentucky."A new temper was forming throughout the land.It was not merely the old Abolitionism.It was a blend of all those elements of violent feeling which war inevitably releases;it was the concentration of all these elements on the issue of Abolition as upon a terrible weapon;it was the resurrection of that primitive blood-lust which lies dormant in every peaceful nation like a sleeping beast.This dreadful power rose out of its sleep and confronted,menacing,the statesman who of all our statesmen was most keenly aware of its evil,most determined to put it under or to perish in the attempt With its appearance,the deepest of all the issues involved,according to Lincoln's way of thinking,was brought to a head.Was the Republic to issue from the war a worthy or an unworthy nation?
That was pretty definitely a question of whether Abraham Lincoln or,say,Zachary Chandler,was to control its policy.
A vain,weak man precipitated the inevitable struggle between these two.Fremont had been flattered to the skies.He conceived himself a genius.He was persuaded that the party of the new temper,the men who may fairly be called the Vindictives,were lords of the ascendent.He mistook their volubility for the voice of the nation.He determined to defy Lincoln.He issued a proclamation freeing the slaves of all who had "taken an active part"with the enemies of the United States in the field.He set up a "bureau of abolition."Lincoln first heard of Fremont's proclamation through the newspapers.His instant action was taken in his own extraordinarily gentle way."I think there is great danger,"he wrote,"that the closing paragraph (of Fremont's proclamation)in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating of slaves of traitorous owners,will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them against us;perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky.Allow me,therefore,to ask that you will,as of your own motion,modify that paragraph so as to conform"to the Confiscation Act.He added,"This letter is written in the Spirit of caution,not of censure."[11]
Fremont was not the man to understand instruction of this sort.
He would make no compromise with the President.If Lincoln wished to go over his head and rescind his order let him do so-and take the consequences.Lincoln quietly did so.His battle with the Vindictives was on.For a moment it seemed as if he had destroyed his cause.So loud was the outcry of the voluble people,that any one might have been excused momentarily for thinking that all the North had risen against him.Great meetings of protest were held.Eminent men--even such fine natures as Bryant--condemned his course.In the wake of the incident,when it was impossible to say how significant the outcry really was,Chandler,who was staunch for Fremont,began his active interference with the management of the army.
