And while some of the Union
Generals obstructed the execution of the Act enforcing that right, by
repelling and even as we have seen, expelling, from the Union lines all
Fugitive Slaves--whether such as had or had not been used in hostility
to us--yet still the cause of Freedom to all, was slowly and silently
perhaps, yet surely and irresistibly, marching on until the time when,
becoming a chief factor in the determination of the question of "whether
we should have a Country at all," it should triumph coincidently with
the preservation of the Republic.
But now a new phase of the Slave question arose--a question not
involving what to do with Fugitive Slaves of any sort, whether engaged
or not engaged in performing services hostile to the Union cause, but
what to do with Slaves whom their panic-stricken owners had, for the
time being, abandoned in the presence of our Armies.
This question was well discussed in the original draft of the report of
the Secretary of War, December 1, 1861 in which Secretary Cameron said:
"It has become a grave question for determination what shall be done
with the Slaves abandoned by their owners on the advance of our troops
into Southern territory, as in the Beaufort district of South Carolina.
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