m such classes of the population, irrespective
of color, in each State as the proper authorities thereof may
determine." However, "nothing in this act shall be construed to
authorize a change in the relation which the said slaves shall bear
toward their owners, except by consent of the owners and of the States
in which they may reside and in pursuance of the laws thereof."

The results of this act were negligible. Its failure to offer the
slave-soldier his freedom was at once seized upon by critics as evidence
of the futility of the course of the Administration. The sneer went
round that the negro was to be made to fight for his own captivity.
Pollard--whose words, however, must be taken with a grain of salt--has
left this account of recruiting under the new act: "Two companies of
blacks, organized from some negro vagabonds in Richmond, were allowed to
give balls at the Libby Prison and were exhibited in fine fresh uniforms
on Capitol Square as decoys to obtain recruits. But the mass of their
colored brethren looked on the parade with unenvious eyes, and little
boys exhibited the early prejudices of race by pelting the fine uniforms
with mud."

Nevertheless both Davis and Lee busied themselves in the endeavor to
raise black troops. Governor Smith cooperated with them. And in the
mind of the President there was no abandonment of the program of
emancipation, which was now his cardinal policy. Soon after the passage
of the act, he wrote to Smith: "I am happy to receive your assurance
of success [in raising black troops], as well as your promise to seek
legislation to secure unmistakable freedom to the slave who shall enter
the Army, with a right to return to his old home, when he shall have
been honorably discharged from military service."

While this final controversy was being fought out in Congress, the
enthusiasm for the Administration had again ebbed. Its recovery of
prestige had run a brief course and was gone, and now in the midst of
the discussion over the negro soldiers' bills, the opposition once
more attacked the Cabinet, with its old enemy, Benjamin, as the
target. Resolutions were introduced into the Senate declaring that "the
retirement of the Honorable Judah P. Benjamin from the State Department
will be subservient of the public interests"; in the House resolutions
were offered describing his public utterances as "derogatory to his
position as a high public functionary of the Confederate Government,
a ref