When it came up in the Senate, June 23, 1862, Mr. Clark moved to strike out all after the enacting clause, and to insert a substitute which would again unite the confiscation and emancipation bills. This amendment was rejected by the House, and a conference committee was appointed which reported July 11 and 12. The fugitive from a disloyal master was by this compromise to be deemed a captive of war, and forever freed from servitude.[333] The report was adopted by both houses, and approved by the President, July 17, 1862.[334] From that date any slave of a disloyal master who could make his way into the territory occupied by the Northern troops was _ipso facto_ free. The fugitive was to become a freeman.
=§ 92. Effect of the Emancipation Proclamation (1863).=--The complete emancipation of the negroes within the Confederate lines was the next logical step, and was demanded as a war measure. It deprived the Confederacy of the aid of these slaves, and at the same time made it possible to arm and employ the former slaves against their masters. September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued his preliminary proclamation, by which he warned the South that, unless it should return to its allegiance, all persons held as slaves in the States in rebellion on the 1st of January, 1863, should be "thenceforth and forever free."
At the end of one hundred days the final and absolute Proclamation was put forth, January 1, 1863. It declared also that negroes might be received into the armed service of the United States; and henceforth throughout the war, the former slaves were enrolled as soldiers and did good service for the government.
The effect of this proclamation was to end slavery, and with it the return of fugitives, within the Confederate lines. But here the legal machinery of the government had no effect; the State laws relating to slavery might be considered suspended, but practically the laws and practices of the Confederacy prevailed. On the other hand, the Fugitive Slave Law yet existed upon the statute-book where the Union had power; the arrest and imprisonment of fugitives was yet legal, and many desired to see the law repealed as another step toward the final crushing out of the system.