erve more than a passing notice.

During the short administration of General Fremont in Missouri,
the Union party had split into two factions, "radical" and
"conservative," hardly less bitter in their hostility to each other
than to the party of secession. The more advanced leaders of the
radicals held that secession had abolished the constitution and
all laws restraining the powers of the government over the people
of the Confederate States, and even over disloyal citizens of States
adhering to the Union. They advocated immediate emancipation of
the slaves, and confiscation by military authority of all property
of "rebels and rebel sympathizers"--that is to say, of all persons
not of the radical party, for in their partizan heat they disdained
to make any distinction between "conservatives," "copperheads,"
and "rebels." So powerful and persistent was the radical influence
that even so able a lawyer as Edwin M. Stanton, then Secretary of
War, was constrained to send an order to the commander of the
District of Missouri, directing him to execute the act of Congress
of July 17, 1862, relative to the confiscation of property of
persons engaged in the rebellion, although the law provided for
its execution in the usual way by the judicial department of the
government, and gave no shadow of authority for military action.

It is only necessary here to remark that the order was not, as it
could not be lawfully, obeyed. Action under it was limited to the
securing of property subject to confiscation, and liable to be
removed or otherwise disposed of, and the collection of evidence
for the use of the judicial officers. The following is Secretary
Stanton's order sent by telegraph, September 5, 1862:

"It is represented that many disloyal persons residing at St. Louis
and elsewhere in your command are subject to the provisions of the
Confiscation Act, and that it would be expedient to enforce against
them the provisions of that act. You are instructed to enforce
that act within your command, and will please send directions for
that purpose to your provost-marshal."

In compliance with the Secretary's instructions, I issued an order,
on September 11, providing for the action above stated, and no
further.

These instructions from the Secretary of War were subsequently
repudiated by President Lincoln; but in the meantime they produced
serious evil under my successor, who fully enforced them by apparently
committing the nat