General Hunter by an order of April 25 had extended martial law over South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Two weeks later he proclaimed persons in those States heretofore held as slaves forever free. “Slavery and martial law in a free country” he declared “altogether incompatible.” The President in his proclamation of May 19, 1862, rescinding this order once more reveals his sentiments on the slavery question. The act of the Department commander, he said, was wholly unauthorized. The document continues: “I further make known that, whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether, at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field.”[258] Mr. Lincoln took this opportunity to point out to those most nearly concerned the unmistakable signs of the times, and earnestly appealed to them to embrace the offer of compensated abolishment, quoting upon that subject the joint resolution of Congress. The order of General Hunter, so far as it concerned the President, could have been dismissed by its disavowal; but he went farther: he not only took advantage of this occasion earnestly to urge upon the border States very serious consideration of the principle of compensated emancipation, but he raised, without pausing to discuss it, the question of his right as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy to declare the freedom of slaves within the limits of a State should such a measure become indispensable to the maintenance of the Union. For refusing to employ his regiment in returning fugitive slaves of disloyal masters, Colonel Paine, of the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteers, was placed under arrest in the summer of 1862; about the same time Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony was similarly disciplined both for refusing permission to search his camp and for ordering the arrest of those hunting for slaves.[259] Instructions from the War Department, dated July 22, and applying to all the States in rebellion except South Carolina and Tennessee, authorized the employment as laborers of so many persons of African descent as the military and naval commanders could use to advantage, and the payment of reasonable wages for their labor.[260] On May 12, 1862, Representative Lovejoy proposed a bill, a substitute for one previously reported by him and introduced by Mr. Isaac N. Arnold: To the end that freedom may be and remain forever the fundamental law of the land in all places whatsoever, so far as it lies within the powers or depends upon the action of the Government of the United States to make it so: Therefore,