Humiliating as was the Bull Run disaster to the National arms, it carried with it many compensating considerations, and taught many useful lessons.

The nation had learned that war must be conducted according to strict principles of military science, and cannot be successfully carried on with banners and toasts and stump speeches, or by the mere ardor of patriotism, or by boundless confidence in a just cause.

The Government learned that it is lawful to strike at whatever gives strength to the enemy, and that an insurgent against the National authority must, by the law of common sense, be treated as beyond the protection of the National Constitution, both as to himself and his possessions.
Though the Act thus conditionally confiscating slave property was signed by Mr.Lincoln, it did not meet his entire approval.

He had no objection to the principle involved, but thought it ill- timed and premature,--more likely to produce harm than good.

He believed that it would prove _brutum fulmen_ in the rebellious States, and a source of injury to the Union cause in the Border slave States.