The Southern people read the proclamation as evidence that the radical measures which had been long threatened would now be attempted as far as they could be made effective by military force. The conservatives in the Border States were astounded, and now realized the situation into which they had come by the drift of events. The slaves, however, did not rise in arms nor organize the exodus that had been predicted, but they pursued the plow in peace, and protected the homes where they had been reared. One ardent advocate who was helping to make the pressure on Mr. Lincoln effective, had written of the negroes that "one universal hallelujah of glory to God, echoed from every valley and hilltop of rebellion, would sound the speedy doom of treason." But while the hallelujahs of this class of Southern population were certainly heard, they were such as had been sounding for a century at the camp-meetings and corn shuckings. Where the Federal armies spread over the plantations there was indeed such a considerable flocking of the slaves into the Federal camps, that the increasing numbers of all ages more than supplied the demand for camp labor and created open complaint against the colored camp followers.
Southern resentment of the emancipation policy was not aroused so much by the attempt to proclaim a freedom which could not, as confessed by jurists, be thus conferred, as it was by the declaration of the intention to reinforce the armies of the United States with regiments of negroes. The use of this means to bring the South to terms had begun to be vehemently urged early in 1862. Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, the leader of the "war power wing, had openly advocated at the outset of the war " the arming of the negroes who were the slaves of the rebels," and at this date declared in Congress that "it is the only way left on earth in which these rebels can be exterminated." The United States Congress very rapidly moved up to this advanced line and adopted
