philanthropic than the giving of freedom to four million of
people. 2. I confess to a sympathy for and faith in the slave,
and cherish the belief that if freed, the war would become
comparatively bloodless, and that as a people we should enter on
the discharge of higher duties and a more enlarged prosperity. 3.
The war would hasten to a close, and the end secured would then
form a brilliant dawn to a career of prosperity unsurpassed in
the annals of mankind."[76]

Brave, prophetic words! But a thousand vituperative editors sprang at
Mr. Fulton's utterances, and as snapping curs, growled at and shook
every sentence. He stood his ground. He took no step backward. When
notice was kindly sent him that a committee would wait on him to treat
him to a coat of tar and feathers, against the entreaties of anxious
friends, he sent word that he would give them a warm reception. When
the best citizens of Albany said the draft could not be enforced
without bloody resistance, the Rev. Mr. Fulton exclaimed: "If the
floodgates of blood are to be opened, we will not shoot down the poor
and ignorant, but the swaggering and insolent men whose hearts are not
in this war!"

The "Atlas and Argus," in an editorial on _Ill-Timed Pulpit
Abolitionism_, denounced Rev. Mr. Fulton in bitterest terms; while the
"Evening Standard" and "Journal" both declared that the views of the
preacher were as a fire-brand thrown into the magazine of public
sentiment.

Everywhere throughout the North the Negro was counted as on the
outside. Everywhere it was merely "a war for the Union," which was
half free and half slave.

When the Union army got into the field at the South it was confronted
by a difficult question. What should be done with the Negroes who
sought the Union lines for protection from their masters? The
sentiment of the press, Congress, and the people of the North
generally, was against interference with the slave, either by the
civil or military authorities. And during the first years of the war
the army became a band of slave-catchers. Slave-holders and sheriffs
from the Southern States were permitted to hunt fugitive slaves under
the Union flag and within the lines of Federal camps. On the 22d of
June, 1861, the following paragraph appeared in the "Baltimore
American":

"Two free negroes, belonging to Frederick, Md., who concealed
themselves in the cars which conveyed the Rhode Island regimen