Indeed he had prepared a veto, but a joint resolution had been passed in order to remove the objections which in the President's view were absolutely fatal to the original bill, either as regarded its justice or its constitutionality.

He had insisted to certain senators that the Confiscation Law must in terms exclude the possibility of its being applied to any act done by a rebel prior to its passage, and that no punishment or proceeding under it should be so construed as to work a forfeiture of the real estate of the offender beyond his natural life.

These, with some minor defects, being corrected, the President affixed his signature and made public proclamation of the intended enforcement of the Act as qualified by the joint resolution approved on the same day.

But there is good reason for believing that Mr.Lincoln would have been glad to confine its application to slave property, and he felt moreover that he could deal with that subject without the co-operation of Congress.

The military situation was so discouraging that in the President's view it would have been wiser for Congress to refrain from enacting laws which, without success in the field, would be null and void, and which, with success in the field, would be rendered unnecessary.