405

HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 1033

alter the legal status of the bondsmen themselves. Lincoln to [John C.] Fremont, 2, 11
September 1861, in Lincoln, Collected Works, ed. Basler, 4:506-07, 517-18; OR,ser.
1, 3:466-67; Gerteis, Contraband to Freedman, 16.

474.1 proposition to arm colored men] In March 1863 Congress passed the
Enrollment Act, enabling northern states to conscript "all able-bodied male citizens,"
including black men. This was followed on 22 May by the War Department's General
Order 143: creation of the U.S. Colored Troops, which established the Bureau for
Colored Troops, under the control of the adjutant general, to administer black military
units. Michael T. Meier, "Lorenzo Thomas and the Recruitment of Blacks in the
Mississippi Valley, 1863-1865," in Black Soldiers in Blue, ed. Smith, 249-75; John
David Smith, "Let Us All Be Grateful That We Have Colored Troops That Will
Fight," in ibid., 1-77.

474.13 William Edward Forster] William Edward Forster (1818-86), a woolen
manufacturer and reformer from Bradford, England, was educated in Quaker schools.
As an active lecturer in Bradford and Leeds after the early 1840s, he urged the adop-
tion of free-trade principles, a compromise with British Chartists, the reform of
Parliament, and the worldwide abolition of slavery. In 1859 he narrowly missed elec-
tion to Parliament as a Liberal but two years later secured a seat that he held until his
death. Over his long legislative career, Forster became increasingly more conserva-
tive, as illustrated by his later stands on educational reform and on the suppression of
the Land League in Ireland. DNB, 7:465-71.

474.14 permitted "Alabamas" to escape from British ports] In desperate need of
modern warships, the Confederacy entered into secret agreements with a number of
British and French shipbuilding firms. To avoid violations of neutrality laws, all
contracts were made with private citizens rather than with the Confederate govern-
ment, and armaments were not installed until after the sales had been completed and
the vessels had left the shipyards. In 1862 the cruisers Florida and Alabama were
permitted out of Britain under those conditions and soon afterward commenced
careers as commerce raiders. The protests of the Lincoln administration, as well as
fears that the precedent being established could someday be used against Britain
itself, caused the Palmerston government to change its policy by 1863. D. P. Crook,
The North, the South, and the Powers, 1861-1865 (New York, 1974), 258-62, 292,
322-30; Lynn M. Case and Warren F. Spencer, The United States and France: Civil
War Diplomacy (Philadelphia, 1970), 427-80; Adams, Britain and the Civil War,
2:116-51.

475.12-14 Curran once said ... the British soil."] An often-repeated remark by
John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), which he made while defending a fellow Irishman
from libel. Curran was a well-known Irish orator, politician, and lawyer. In his legal
work he frequently argued on behalf of "lost causes." He was recognized for his ready
wit and sharp tongue. Curran attended Trinity College, Dublin, before entering
Middle Temple, London, to study law. Entering the Irish bar in 1775, he mostly prac-
ticed chancery law and later served as a king's counsel and in the Irish House of