Amid such confusion, some rule of universal
application was sorely needed. But what should it be?
Secretary Cameron twice nearly placed the administration in an
embarrassing position by taking very advanced ground upon the negro
question. In October, 1861, he issued an order to General Sherman, then
at Port Royal, authorizing him to employ negroes in any capacity which
he might "deem most beneficial to the service." Mr. Lincoln prudently
interlined the words: "This, however, not to mean a general arming of
them for military service." A few weeks later, in the Report which the
secretary prepared to be sent with the President's message to Congress,
he said: "As the labor and service of their slaves constitute the chief
property of the rebels, they should share the common fate of war.... It
is as clearly a right of the government to arm slaves, when it becomes
necessary, as it is to use gunpowder taken from the enemy. Whether it is
expedient to do so is purely a military question." He added more to the
same purport. He then had his report printed, and sent copies, by mail,
to many newspapers throughout the country, with permission to publish it
so soon as the telegraph should report the reading before Congress. At
the eleventh hour a copy was handed to Mr. Lincoln, to accompany his
message; and then, for the first time, he saw these radical passages.
Instantly he directed that all the postmasters, to whose offices the
printed copies had been sent on their way to the newspaper editors,
should be ordered at once to return these copies to the secretary.
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