said that ten days before McClellan marched toward Manassas,
contrabands had come to him with the information that the rebels
were preparing to retreat, but that McClellan said he could not
trust them. Wade was now roused, and declared that he had heard
McClellan say he had uniformly found the statements of these people
reliable, and had got valuable information from them. But McClellan
was still king, and the country was a long way yet from that vigorous
war policy which alone could save it.

In the meantime the strife between the radical and conservative
elements in the Republican party found expression in other directions.
Secretary Seward, in his letter to Mr. Dayton, of the 22d of April,
declared that "the rights of the States and the condition of every
human being in them will remain subject to exactly the same laws
and forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed
of whether it shall fail." Secretary Smith had previously declared,
in a public speech, that "this is not a war upon the institution
of slavery, but a war for the restoration of the Union," and that
"there could not be found in South Carolina a man more anxious,
religiously and scrupulously, to observe all the features of the
Constitution, than Abraham Lincoln." He also opposed the arming
of the negroes, declaring that "it would be a disgrace to the people
of the free States to call upon four millions of blacks to aid in
putting down eight millions of whites." Similar avowals were made
by other members of the Cabinet. This persistent purpose of the
Administration to save the Union and save slavery with it, naturally
provoked criticism, and angered the anti-slavery feeling of the
loyal States. The business of slave-catching in the army continued
the order of the day, till the pressure of public opinion finally
compelled Congress to prohibit it by a new article of war, which
was approved by the President on the 13th of March. The repressive
power of the Administration, however, was very formidable, and
although the House of Representatives, as early as the 20th of
December, 1861, had adopted a resolution offered by myself,
instructing the Judiciary Committee to report a bill so amending
the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as to forbid the return of fugitives
without proof first made of the loyalty of the claimant, yet on
the 26th of May, 1862, the House, then overwhelmingly Republican,
voted down a bill declaring free the slaves of a