From Property to Person: Slavery and the Confiscation Acts, 1861-1862

From Property to Person, by Silvana R. Siddali, is one of the few close examinations of Federal confiscation legislation during the Civil War. For this reason alone, it is of scholarly interest. Though the laws called for sweeping expropriation of Confederates' slaves and property, the author contends they were “complicated, vague, and so softened” by congressional committees that they were “nearly useless” in practice (p. 6). Democrats and moderate Republicans insisted on due process protections and individual trials. This the author characterizes as a “retreat from tyrannical measures,” which well captures both the argument and the solicitude for property rights evident throughout the work (p. 250). Attitudes toward property are the book's focus. One novel emphasis is that seizure of Federal installations enraged the Northern public. National property per se was talked about a good deal, as the author demonstrates, but disunion was always the real issue; the topic was a convenient vehicle for expressing patriotic outrage. Siddali well conveys the process by which frustration with the war drove change by loosening the traditional attachment to private property. Most Northerners, even most Democrats, wanted to fund the war with individual Rebels' assets. This sentiment made it difficult to oppose slave liberation on property-rights grounds without appearing unpatriotic.