lessons. The nation had learned that war
must be conducted according to strict principles of military science,
and cannot be successfully carried on with banners and toasts and
stump speeches, or by the mere ardor of patriotism, or by boundless
confidence in a just cause. The Government learned that it is
lawful to strike at whatever gives strength to the enemy, and that
an insurgent against the National authority must, by the law of
common sense, be treated as beyond the protection of the National
Constitution, both as to himself and his possessions.

Though the Act thus conditionally confiscating slave property was
signed by Mr. Lincoln, it did not meet his entire approval. He
had no objection to the principle involved, but thought it ill-
timed and premature,--more likely to produce harm than good. He
believed that it would prove _brutum fulmen_ in the rebellious
States, and a source of injury to the Union cause in the Border
slave States. From the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Lincoln regarded
the position of those States as the key to the situation, and every
thing which tended to weaken their loyalty as a blow struck directly
and with fearful power against the Union. He could not however
veto the bill, because that would be equivalent to declaring that
the Confederate army might have the full benefit of the slave
population as a military force. What he desired was that Congress
should wait on his recommendations in regard to the question of
Slavery. He felt assured that he could see the whole field more
clearly; that, above all, he knew the time and the method for that
form of intervention which would smite the States in rebellion and
not alienate the slave States which still adhered to the Union.

The rapidity with which business was dispatched at this session
gave little opportunity for any form of debate except that which
was absolutely necessary in the explanation of measures. Active
interest in the House centred around the obstructive and disloyal
course of Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio and Mr. Burnett of Kentucky.
Still greater interest attached to the course of Mr. Breckinridge
in the Senate. He had returned to Washington under a cloud of
suspicion. He was thoroughly distrusted by the Union men of
Kentucky, who had in the popular election won a noble victory over
the foes of the National Government, of whom Mr. Breckinridge had
been reckoned chief. No overt act of treason could be charged
against h