inions were concerned, it would have been
impossible to rank him in any of these sections. He had as strong a
sympathy with the Southern people as any Democrat, but he was for the
restoration of the Union absolutely and without compromise. He was the
most cautious of men, but his caution veiled a detestation of slavery
of which he once said that he could not remember the time when he had
not felt it. It was his business, so far as might be, to retain the
support of all sections in the North to the Union. In the course, full
of painful deliberation, which we shall see him pursuing, he tried to
be guided by a two-fold principle which he constantly avowed. The
Union was to be restored with as few departures from the ways of the
Constitution as was possible; but such departures became his duty
whenever he was thoroughly convinced that they were needful for the
restoration of the Union.

Before the war was four months old, the inevitable subject of dispute
between Northern parties had begun to trouble Lincoln. As soon as a
Northern force set foot on Southern soil slaves were apt to escape to
it, and the question arose, what should the Northern general do with
them, for he was not there to make war on the private property of
Southern citizens. General Butler--a newspaper character of some fame
or notoriety throughout the war--commanded at Fort Monroe, a point on
the coast of Virginia which was always held by the North. He learnt
that the slaves who fled to him had been employed on making
entrenchments for the Southern troops, so he adopted a view, which took
the fancy of the North, that they were "contraband of war," and should
be kept from their owners. The circumstances in which slaves could
thus escape varied so much that great discretion must be left to the
general on the spot, and the practice of generals varied. Lincoln was
well content to leave the matter so. Congress, however, passed an Act
by which private property could be confiscated, if used in aid of the
"insurrection" but not otherwise, and slaves were similarly dealt with.
This moderate provision as to slaves met with a certain amount of
opposition; it raised an alarming question in slave States like
Missouri that had not seceded. Lincoln himself seems to have been
averse to any legislation on the subject. He had deliberately
concentrated his mind, or, as his critics would have said, narrowed it
down to the sole question of maintaining the Union, a