"Why not make the issue at once, which shall inspire every man that shoulders his musket with a noble purpose? Our soldiers need to be reminded that this government was consecrated to freedom by those who first built here the altars of worship, and planted on the shore of the Western Continent the tree of liberty, whose fruit to-day fills the garners of national hope.... I would not forget that I am a messenger of the Prince of Peace. My motives for throwing out these suggestions are three-fold: 1. Because I believe God wants us to be actuated by motives not one whit less philanthropic than the giving of freedom to four million of people. 2. I confess to a sympathy for and faith in the slave, and cherish the belief that if freed, the war would become comparatively bloodless, and that as a people we should enter on the discharge of higher duties and a more enlarged prosperity. 3. The war would hasten to a close, and the end secured would then form a brilliant dawn to a career of prosperity unsurpassed in the annals of mankind."[76] Brave, prophetic words! But a thousand vituperative editors sprang at Mr. Fulton's utterances, and as snapping curs, growled at and shook every sentence. He stood his ground. He took no step backward. When notice was kindly sent him that a committee would wait on him to treat him to a coat of tar and feathers, against the entreaties of anxious friends, he sent word that he would give them a warm reception. When the best citizens of Albany said the draft could not be enforced without bloody resistance, the Rev. Mr. Fulton exclaimed: "If the floodgates of blood are to be opened, we will not shoot down the poor and ignorant, but the swaggering and insolent men whose hearts are not in this war!" The "Atlas and Argus," in an editorial on _Ill-Timed Pulpit Abolitionism_, denounced Rev. Mr. Fulton in bitterest terms; while the "Evening Standard" and "Journal" both declared that the views of the preacher were as a fire-brand thrown into the magazine of public sentiment. Everywhere throughout the North the Negro was counted as on the outside. Everywhere it was merely "a war for the Union," which was half free and half slave. When the Union army got into the field at the South it was confronted by a difficult question. What should be done with the Negroes who sought the Union lines for protection from their masters? The sentiment of the press, Congress, and the people of the North generally, was against interference with the slave, either by the civil or military authorities. And during the first years of the war the army became a band of slave-catchers. Slave-holders and sheriffs from the Southern States were permitted to hunt fugitive slaves under the Union flag and within the lines of Federal camps. On the 22d of June, 1861, the following paragraph appeared in the "Baltimore American":