The Fiery Trial_ Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery - Eric Foner [108]
Butler called the escaped slaves “contrabands of war.” He claimed to be drawing on international law, even though the term “contraband” means goods used for military purposes that a neutral country ships to one side in a conflict, and which the other combatant may lawfully seize. Butler’s legal reasoning broke down further as escaping slaves who had not labored for the Confederate military, including women and children, joined male fugitives. Nonetheless, Butler had introduced a new word into the political lexicon. Soon, there would be contraband camps, contraband schools, and extended debate about the status and future of “the contrabands.” His policy won wide support in the North, including, wrote the Boston Radical Edward L. Pierce, among those who “would be repelled by formulas of broader and nobler import.” Butler’s actions did not imply a broad attack on slavery. He recognized the fugitives as property but used that very status to release them from service to their owners. Since it deprived the Confederacy of manpower, the strongly anti-abolitionist New York Herald approved of Butler’s order. But, the Chicago Tribune predicted, “if the war continues one year or more, ‘what shall we do with the slaves?’ will…become the question of the day.”10
Butler was an unlikely initiator of a new policy regarding slavery. A well-to-do Massachusetts lawyer and staunch Democrat, he had run unsuccessfully for governor in 1859 and the following year voted for John C. Breckinridge, the most pro-southern of the four candidates for president. When he marched into Maryland in April, Butler assured the state’s governor that his troops would help to suppress any slave insurrection. Nonetheless, word of his action at Fortress Monroe spread quickly among local slaves. On May 27, forty-seven more, including a three-month-old infant, arrived at what blacks now called the “freedom fort.” Butler set as many to work as servants or laborers as he could and requested instructions from Washington. “As a political question and a question of humanity,” he asked, could he continue to receive runaway slaves? “Of the humanitarian aspect I have no doubt. Of the political one, I have no right to judge.” Thus, less than two months into the war, the actions of runaway slaves had created a “political question” for the Lincoln administration.11
Postmaster General Montgomery Blair reported to Butler that Winfield Scott, the Union’s southern-born general in chief, wanted to overturn his contraband policy. Blair himself felt it should apply only to able-bodied fugitives, leaving nonworking slaves as a financial burden on Confederate owners. But Lincoln approved of what Butler had done. He laughingly called the order “Butler’s fugitive slave law,” adding, however, that the question required further consideration because of the large numbers the Union army would soon “have on hand in virtue of this new doctrine.” On May 30, 1861, in a convoluted letter that reflected the complexities of the situation, Secretary of War Simon Cameron informed Butler that his policy “is approved” (he did not say precisely by whom). Butler could employ slaves as workers, but he should keep a record of the value of their labor and the expense of their maintenance. Their “final disposition,” Cameron wrote, would be left for future determination. The letter said nothing about Butler’s offering refuge to women and children. And no public announcement followed, in order, Blair explained, to “escape responsibility from acting at all at this time.” (Predictably, reports of the cabinet discussion appeared immediately