incident, the newspaper report stated that as the breastworks and batteries which had been so rapidly erected for Confederate defense in every direction on the Virginia peninsula were built by enforced negro labor under rigorous military impressment, negroes were manifestly contraband of war under international law.  The dictum was so pertinent, and the equity so plain, that, though it was not officially formulated by the general until two months later, it sprang at once into popular acceptance and application; and from that time forward the words “slave” and “negro” were everywhere within the Union lines replaced by the familiar, significant term “contraband.”

While Butler’s happy designation had a more convincing influence on public thought than a volume of discussion, it did not immediately solve the whole question.  Within a few days he reported that he had slave property to the value of $60,000 in his hands, and by the end of July nine hundred “contrabands,” men, women, and children, of all ages.  What was their legal status, and how should they be disposed of?  It was a knotty problem, for upon its solution might depend the sensitive public opinion and balancing, undecided loyalty and political action of the border slave States of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.  In solving the problem, President Lincoln kept in mind the philosophic maxim of one of his favorite stories, that when the Western Methodist presiding elder, riding about the circuit during the spring freshets, was importuned by his young companion how they should ever be able to get across the swollen waters of Fox River, which they were approaching, the elder quieted him by saying he had made it the rule of his life never to cross Fox River till he came to it.

The President did not immediately decide, but left it to be treated as a question of camp and local police, in the discretion of each commander.  Under this theory, later in the war, some commanders excluded, others admitted such fugitives to their camps; and the curt formula of General Orders, “We have nothing to do with slaves.  We are neither negro stealers nor negro catchers,” was easily construed by subordinate officers to justify the practice of either course. Inter arma silent leges.  For the present, Butler was instructed not to surrender such fugitives, but to employ them in suitable labor, and leave the question of their final disposition for future determination.  Congress greatly advanced the problem, soon after the battle of Bull Run, by adopting an amendment which confiscated a rebel master’s right to his slave when, by his consent, such slave was employed in service or labor hostile to the United States.  The debates exhibited but little spirit of partizanship, even on this feature of the slavery question.  The border State members did not attack the justice of such a penalty.  They could only urge that it was unconstitutional and inexpedient.  On the general policy of the war, both houses, with