were fired upon by the people, and the women along the route
upbraided the officers with bitter maledictions. Perhaps the
feature of the two invasions most discouraging to the Confederates
was the condition of the popular mind which they found in the Border
States. They had expected to arouse fresh revolt, but they met a
people tired of conflict and longing for repose under the flag of
the Nation.

Congress felt that the situation was one of uncertainty if not of
positive adversity. They did not however abate one jot or tittle
of earnest effort in providing for a renewal of the contest in the
ensuing spring. They appropriated some seven hundred and forty
millions of dollars for the army and some seventy-five millions
for the navy, and they took the very decisive step of authorizing
"the President to enroll, arm, equip, and receive into the land
and naval service of the United States such number of volunteers
of African descent as he may deem useful to suppress the present
Rebellion for such term of service as he may prescribe, not exceeding
five years." The enactment of this bill was angrily resisted by
the Democratic party and by the Union men of the Border States.
But the Republicans were able to consolidate their ranks in support
of it. In the popular opinion it was a radical measure, and therein
lay its chief merit. Aside from the substantial strength which
the accession of these colored men to the ranks would give to the
Union army, was the moral effect which would be produced on the
minds of Southern men by the open demonstration that the President
did not regard the Proclamation of Emancipation as _brutum fulmen_,
but intended to enforce it by turning the strong arm of the slave
against the person of the master. It was a policy that required
great moral courage, and it was abundantly rewarded by successful
results. It signalized to the whole world the depth of the
earnestness with which the Administration was defending the Union,
and the desperate extent to which the contest would be carried
before American nationality should be surrendered. The measure
had long been demanded by the aggressive sentiment of the North,
and its enactment was hailed by the mass of people in the Loyal
States as a great step forward.

SUSPENSION OF HABEAS CORPUS.

A subject of striking interest at this session of Congress was the
passage of the "Act relating to _habeas corpus