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  <h1>The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government</h1>
<h3>Volume One (of Two( </h3>
  <h3>By</h3>

  <h2>Jefferson Davis</h2>
  <hr class="full" />




<h2>PREFACE.</h2>


<p>The object of this work has been from historical data to
show that the Southern States had rightfully the power to
withdraw from a Union into which they had, as sovereign communities,
voluntarily entered; that the denial of that right was
a violation of the letter and spirit of the compact between the
States; and that the war waged by the Federal Government
against the seceding States was in disregard of the limitations
of the Constitution, and destructive of the principles of the
Declaration of Independence.</p>

<p>The author, from his official position, may claim to have
known much of the motives and acts of his countrymen immediately
before and during the war of 1861-'65, and he has
sought to furnish material far the future historian, who, when
the passions and prejudices of the day shall have given place
to reason and sober thought, may, better than a contemporary,
investigate the causes, conduct, and results of the war.</p>

<p>The incentive to undertake the work now offered to the
public was the desire to correct misapprehensions created by
industriously circulated misrepresentations as to the acts and
purposes of the people and the General Government of the Confederate
States. By the reiteration of such unappropriate terms
as "rebellion" and "treason," and the asseveration that the
South was levying war against the United States, those ignorant
of the nature of the Union, and of the reserved powers of the
States, have been led to believe that the Confederate States
were in the condition of revolted provinces, and that the United
States were forced to resort to arms for the preservation of
their existence. To those who knew that the Union was formed
for specific enumerated purposes, and that the States had never
surrendered their sovereignty it was a palpable absurdity to
apply to them, or to their citizens when obeying their mandates,
the terms "rebellion" and "treason"; and, further, it is shown
in the following pages that the Confederate States, so far from
making war or seeking to destroy the United States, as soon as
they had an official organ, strove earnestly, by peaceful recognition,
to equitably adjust all questions growing out of the separation
from their late associates.</p>

<p>Another great perversion of truth has been the arraignment
of the men who participated in the formation of the Confederacy
and who bore arms in its defense, as the instigators of a controversy
leading to disunion. Sectional issues appear conspicuously
in the debates of the Convention which framed the Federal
Constitution, and its many compromises were designed to secure
an equilibrium between the sections, and to preserve the interests
as well as the liberties of the several States. African servitude
at that time was not confined to a section, but was numerically
greater in the South than in the North, with a tendency
to its continuance in the former and cessation in the latter. It
therefore thus early presents itself as a disturbing element, and
the provisions of the Constitution, which were known to be
necessary for its adoption, bound all the States to recognize and
protect that species of property. When at a subsequent period
there arose in the Northern States an antislavery agitation, it
was a harmless and scarcely noticed movement until political
demagogues seized upon it as a means to acquire power. Had
it been left to pseudo-philanthropists and fanatics, most zealous
where least informed, it never could have shaken the foundations
of the Union and have incited one section to carry fire
and sword into the other. That the agitation was political in
its character, and was clearly developed as early as 1803, it is believed
has been established in these pages. To preserve a sectional
equilibrium and to maintain the equality of the States
was the effort on one side, to acquire empire was the manifest
purpose on the other.  This struggle began before the men of
the Confederacy were born; how it arose and how it progressed
it has been attempted briefly to show.  Its last stage was on the
question of territorial governments; and, if in this work it has
not been demonstrated that the position of the South was justified
by the Constitution and the equal rights of the people of
all the States, it must be because the author has failed to present
the subject with a sufficient degree of force and clearness.</p>

<p>In describing the events of the war, space has not permitted,
and the loss of both books and papers has prevented,
the notice of very many entitled to consideration, as well for
the humanity as the gallantry of our men in the unequal combats
they fought. These numerous omissions, it is satisfactory
to know, the official reports made at the time and the subsequent
contributions which have been and are being published
by the actors, will supply more fully and graphically than could
have been done in this work.</p>

<p>Usurpations of the Federal Government have been presented,
not in a spirit of hostility, but as a warning to the
people against the dangers by which their liberties are beset.
When the war ceased, the pretext on which it had been waged
could no longer be alleged. The emancipation proclamation
of Mr. Lincoln, which, when it was issued, he humorously admitted
to be a nullity, had acquired validity by the action of
the highest authority known to our institutions&mdash;the people
assembled in their several State Conventions.  The soldiers of
the Confederacy had laid down their arms, had in good faith
pledged themselves to abstain from further hostile operations,
and had peacefully dispersed to their homes; there could not,
then, have been further dread of them by the Government of
the United States. The plea of necessity could, therefore, no
longer exist for hostile demonstration against the people and
States of the deceased Confederacy. Did vengeance, which
stops at the grave, subside?  Did real peace and the restoration
of the States to their former rights and positions follow, as was
promised on the restoration of the Union?  Let the recital of
the invasion of the reserved powers of the States, or the people,
and the perversion of the republican form of government guaranteed
to each State by the Constitution, answer the question.
For the deplorable fact of the war, for the cruel manner in
which it was waged, for the sad physical and yet sadder moral
results it produced, the reader of these pages, I hope, will
admit that the South, in the forum of conscience, stands fully
acquitted.</p>

<p>Much of the past is irremediable; the best hope for a restoration
in the future to the pristine purity and fraternity of the
Union, rests on the opinions and character of the men who are
to succeed this generation: that they maybe suited to that
blessed work, one, whose public course is ended, invokes them
to draw their creed from the fountains of our political history,
rather than from the lower stream, polluted as it has been by
self-seeking place-hunters and by sectional strife.</p>

<p>THE AUTHOR.</p>




<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>


<p class="sc"><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></p>

<p><a href="#part-i">PART I.</a></p>

<p><a href="#chap-i-i">CHAPTER I.</a></p>

<p>African Servitude.&mdash;A Retrospect.&mdash;Early Legislation with Regard to the Slave-Trade.&mdash;The
Southern States foremost in prohibiting it.&mdash;A Common Error
corrected.&mdash;The Ethical Question never at Issue in Sectional Controversies.&mdash;The
Acquisition of Louisiana.&mdash;The Missouri Compromise.&mdash;The Balance of
Power.&mdash;Note.&mdash;The Indiana Case.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-ii">CHAPTER II.</a></p>

<p>The Session of 1849-'50.&mdash;The Compromise Measures.&mdash;Virtual Abrogation of the
Missouri Compromise.&mdash;The Admission of California.&mdash;The Fugitive Slave Law.&mdash;Death
of Mr. Calhoun.&mdash;Anecdote of Mr. Clay.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-iii">CHAPTER III.</a></p>

<p>Re&euml;lection to the Senate.&mdash;Political Controversies in Mississippi.&mdash;Action of the
Democratic State Convention.&mdash;Defeat of the State-Rights Party.&mdash;Withdrawal
of General Quitman and Nomination of the Author as Candidate for the Office
of Governor.&mdash;The Canvass and its Result.&mdash;Retirement to Private Life.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-iv">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>

<p>The Author enters the Cabinet.&mdash;Administration of the War Department.&mdash;Surveys
for a Pacific Railway.&mdash;Extension of the Capitol.&mdash;New Regiments organized.&mdash;Colonel
Samuel Cooper, Adjutant-General.&mdash;A Bit of Civil-Service Reform.&mdash;Re&euml;lection
to the Senate.&mdash;Continuity of the Pierce Cabinet.&mdash;Character of
Franklin Pierce.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-v">CHAPTER V.</a></p>

<p>The Territorial Question.&mdash;An Incident at the White House.&mdash;The Kansas and Nebraska
Bill.&mdash;The Missouri Compromise abrogated in 1850, not in 1854.&mdash;Origin
of "Squatter Sovereignty."&mdash;Sectional Rivalry and its Consequences.&mdash;The
Emigrant Aid Societies.&mdash;"The Bible and Sharpe's Rifles."&mdash;False Pretensions
as to Principle.&mdash;The Strife in Kansas.&mdash;A Retrospect.&mdash;The Original Equilibrium
of Power and its Overthrow.&mdash;Usurpations of the Federal Government.&mdash;The
Protective Tariff.&mdash;Origin and Progress of Abolitionism.&mdash;Who were the
Friends of the Union?&mdash;An Illustration of Political Morality.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-vi">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>

<p>Agitation continued.&mdash;Political Parties: their Origin, Changes, and Modifications.&mdash;Some
Account of the "Popular Sovereignty," or "Non-Intervention," Theory.&mdash;Rupture
of the Democratic Party.&mdash;The John Brown Raid.&mdash;Resolutions introduced
by the Author into the Senate on the Relations of the States, the Federal
Government, and the Territories; their Discussion and Adoption.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-vii">CHAPTER VII.</a></p>

<p>A Retrospect.&mdash;Growth of Sectional Rivalry.&mdash;The Generosity of Virginia.&mdash;Unequal
Accessions of Territory.&mdash;The Tariff and its Effects.&mdash;The Republican
Convention of 1860, its Resolutions and its Nominations.&mdash;The Democratic
Convention at Charleston, its Divisions and Disruption.&mdash;The Nominations at
Baltimore.&mdash;The "Constitutional-Union" Party and its Nominees.&mdash;An Effort
in Behalf of Agreement declined by Mr. Douglas.&mdash;The Election of Lincoln and
Hamlin.&mdash;Proceedings in the South.&mdash;Evidences of Calmness and Deliberation.&mdash;Mr.
Buchanan's Conservatism and the weakness of his Position.&mdash;Republican
Taunts.&mdash;The "New York Tribune," etc.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-viii">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p>

<p>Conference with the Governor of Mississippi.&mdash;The Author censured as "too slow."&mdash;Summons
to Washington.&mdash;Interview with the President.&mdash;His Message.&mdash;Movements
in Congress.&mdash;The Triumphant Majority.&mdash;The Crittenden Proposition.&mdash;Speech
of the Author on Mr. Green's Resolution.&mdash;The Committee of
Thirteen.&mdash;Failure to agree.&mdash;The "Republicans" responsible for the Failure.&mdash;Proceedings
in the House of Representatives.&mdash;Futility of Efforts for an Adjustment.&mdash;The
Old Year closes in Clouds.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-ix">CHAPTER IX.</a></p>

<p>Preparations for Withdrawal from the Union.&mdash;Northern Precedents.&mdash;New
England Secessionists.&mdash;Cabot, Pickering, Quincy, etc.&mdash;On the Acquisition
of Louisiana.&mdash;The Hartford Convention.&mdash;The Massachusetts Legislature
on the Annexation of Texas, etc., etc.      70</p>


<p><a href="#chap-i-x">CHAPTER X.</a></p>

<p>False Statements of the Grounds for Separation.&mdash;Slavery not the Cause, but an
Incident.&mdash;The Southern People not "Propagandists" of Slavery.&mdash;Early Accord
among the States with regard to African Servitude.&mdash;Statement of the
Supreme Court.&mdash;Guarantees of the Constitution.&mdash;Disregard of Oaths.&mdash;Fugitives
from Service and the "Personal Liberty Laws."&mdash;Equality in the Territories
the Paramount Question.&mdash;The Dred Scott Case.&mdash;Disregard of the
Decision of the Supreme Court.&mdash;Culmination of Wrongs.&mdash;Despair of their
Redress.&mdash;Triumph of Sectionalism.</p>


<p><a href="#part-ii">PART II.</a></p>

<p><i>THE CONSTITUTION.</i></p>

<p><a href="#chap-ii-i">CHAPTER I.</a></p>

<p>The Original Confederation.&mdash;"Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union."&mdash;Their
Inadequacy ascertained.&mdash;Commercial Difficulties.&mdash;The Conference at
Annapolis.&mdash;Recommendation of a General Convention.&mdash;Resolution of Congress.&mdash;Action
of the Several States.&mdash;Conclusions drawn therefrom.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-ii">CHAPTER II.</a></p>

<p>The Convention of 1787.&mdash;Diversity of Opinion.&mdash;Luther Martin's Account of the
Three Parties.&mdash;The Question of Representation.&mdash;Compromise effected.&mdash;Mr.
Randolph's Resolutions.&mdash;The Word "National" condemned.&mdash;Plan of Government
framed.&mdash;Difficulty with Regard to Ratification, and its Solution.&mdash;Provision
for Secession from the Union.&mdash;Views of Mr. Gerry and Mr. Madison.&mdash;False
Interpretations.&mdash;Close of the Convention.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-iii">CHAPTER III.</a></p>

<p>Ratification of the Constitution by the States.&mdash;Organization of the New
Government.&mdash;Accession
of North Carolina and Rhode Island.&mdash;Correspondence between
General Washington and the Governor of Rhode Island.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-iv">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>

<p>The Constitution not adopted by one People "in the Aggregate."&mdash;A Great Fallacy
exposed.&mdash;Mistake of Judge Story.&mdash;Colonial Relations.&mdash;The United Colonies
of New England.&mdash;Other Associations.&mdash;Independence of Communities traced
from Germany to Great Britain, and from Great Britain to America.&mdash;Mr.
Everett's "Provincial People."&mdash;Origin and Continuance of the Title "United
States."&mdash;No such Political Community as the "People of the United States."</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-v">CHAPTER V.</a></p>

<p>The Preamble to the Constitution.&mdash;"We, the People."</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-vi">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>

<p>The Preamble to the Constitution&mdash;subject continued.&mdash;Growth of the Federal
Government and Accretions of Power.&mdash;Revival of Old Errors.&mdash;Mistakes and
Misstatements.&mdash;Webster, Story, and Everett.&mdash;Who "ordained and established"
the Constitution?</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-vii">CHAPTER VII.</a></p>

<p>Verbal Cavils and Criticisms.&mdash;"Compact," "Confederacy," "Accession," etc.&mdash;The
"New Vocabulary."&mdash;The Federal Constitution a Compact, and the States
acceded to it.&mdash;Evidence of the Constitution itself and of Contemporary Records.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-viii">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p>

<p>Sovereignty</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-ix">CHAPTER IX.</a></p>

<p>The same Subject continued.&mdash;The Tenth Amendment.&mdash;Fallacies exposed.&mdash;"Constitution,"
"Government," and "People" distinguished from each other.&mdash;Theories
refuted by Facts.&mdash;Characteristics of Sovereignty.&mdash;Sovereignty identified.&mdash;Never
thrown away.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-x">CHAPTER X.</a></p>

<p>A Recapitulation.&mdash;Remarkable Propositions of Mr. Gouverneur Morris in the Convention
of 1787, and their Fate.&mdash;Further Testimony.&mdash;Hamilton, Madison,
Washington, Marshall, etc.&mdash;Later Theories.&mdash;Mr. Webster: his Views at
Various Periods.&mdash;Speech at Capon Springs.&mdash;State Rights not a Sectional
Theory.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-xi">CHAPTER XI.</a></p>

<p>The Right of Secession.&mdash;The Law of Unlimited Partnerships.&mdash;The "Perpetual
Union" of the Articles of Confederation and the "More Perfect Union" of
the Constitution.&mdash;The Important Powers conferred upon the Federal Government
and the Fundamental Principles of the Compact the same in both Systems.&mdash;The
Right to resume Grants, when failing to fulfill their Purposes, expressly
and distinctly asserted in the Adoption of the Constitution.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-xii">CHAPTER XII.</a></p>

<p>Coercion the Alternative to Secession.&mdash;Repudiation of it by the Constitution and
the Fathers of the Constitutional Era.&mdash;Difference between Mr. Webster and Mr.
Hamilton.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-xiii">CHAPTER XIII.</a></p>

<p>Some Objections considered.&mdash;The New States.&mdash;Acquired Territory.&mdash;Allegiance,
false and true.&mdash;Difference between Nullification and Secession.&mdash;Secession a
Peaceable Remedy.&mdash;No Appeal to Arms.&mdash;Two Conditions noted.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-xiv">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p>

<p>Early Foreshadowings.&mdash;Opinions of Mr. Madison and Mr. Rufus King.&mdash;Safeguards
provided.&mdash;Their Failure.&mdash;State Interposition.&mdash;The Kentucky and Virginia
Resolutions.&mdash;Their Endorsement by the People in the Presidential Elections of
1800 and Ensuing Terms.&mdash;South Carolina and Mr. Calhoun.&mdash;The Compromise
of 1833.&mdash;Action of Massachusetts in 1843-'45.&mdash;Opinions of John Quincy
Adams.&mdash;Necessity for Secession.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-ii-xv">CHAPTER XV.</a></p>

<p>A Bond of Union necessary after the Declaration of Independence.&mdash;Articles
of Confederation.&mdash;The
Constitution of the United States.&mdash;The Same Principle for obtaining
Grants of Power in both.&mdash;The Constitution an Instrument enumerating
the Powers delegated.&mdash;The Power of Amendment merely a Power to amend
the Delegated Grants.&mdash;A Smaller Power was required for Amendment than
for a Grant.&mdash;The Power of Amendment is confined to Grants of the
Constitution.&mdash;Limitations
on the Power of Amendment.</p>


<p><a href="#part-iii">PART III.</a></p>

<p><i>SECESSION AND CONFEDERATION.</i></p>

<p><a href="#chap-iii-i">CHAPTER I.</a></p>

<p>Opening of the New Year.&mdash;The People in Advance of their Representatives.&mdash;Conciliatory
Conduct of Southern Members of Congress.&mdash;Sensational Fictions.&mdash;Misstatements
of the Count of Paris.&mdash;Obligations of a Senator.&mdash;The Southern
Forts and Arsenals.&mdash;Pensacola Bay and Fort Pickens.&mdash;The Alleged "Caucus"
and its Resolutions.&mdash;Personal Motives and Feelings.&mdash;The Presidency
not a Desirable Office.&mdash;Letter from the Hon. C. C. Clay.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-ii">CHAPTER II.</a></p>

<p>Tenure of Public Property ceded by the States.&mdash;Sovereignty and Eminent
Domain.&mdash;Principles
asserted by Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and other States.&mdash;The
Charleston Forts.&mdash;South Carolina sends Commissioners to Washington.&mdash;Sudden
Movement of Major Anderson.&mdash;Correspondence of the Commissioners
with the President.&mdash;Interviews of the Author with Mr. Buchanan.&mdash;Major Anderson.&mdash;The
Star of the West.&mdash;The President's Special Message.&mdash;Speech of
the Author in the Senate.&mdash;Further Proceedings and Correspondence relative to
Fort Sumter.&mdash;Mr. Buchanan's Rectitude in Purpose and Vacillation in Action.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-iii">CHAPTER III.</a></p>

<p>Secession of Mississippi and Other States.&mdash;Withdrawal of Senators.&mdash;Address of
the Author on taking Leave of the Senate.&mdash;Answer to Certain Objections.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-iv">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>

<p>Threats of Arrest.&mdash;Departure from Washington.&mdash;Indications of Public Anxiety.&mdash;"Will
there be war?"&mdash;Organization of the "Army of Mississippi."&mdash;Lack
of Preparations for Defense in the South.&mdash;Evidences of the Good Faith and
Peaceable Purposes of the Southern People.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-v">CHAPTER V.</a></p>

<p>Meeting of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States.&mdash;Adoption of a Provisional
Constitution.&mdash;Election of President and Vice-President.&mdash;Notification
to the Author of his Election.&mdash;His Views with Regard to it.&mdash;Journey to
Montgomery.&mdash;Interview
with Judge Sharkey.&mdash;False Reports of Speeches on the
Way.&mdash;Inaugural Address.&mdash;Editor's Note.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-vi">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>

<p>The Confederate Cabinet.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-vii">CHAPTER VII.</a></p>

<p>Early Acts of the Confederate Congress.&mdash;Laws of the United States continued in
Force.&mdash;Officers of Customs and Revenue continued in Office.&mdash;Commission to
the United States.&mdash;Navigation of the Mississippi.&mdash;Restrictions on the Coasting-Trade
removed.&mdash;Appointment of Commissioners to Washington.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-viii">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p>

<p>The Peace Conference.&mdash;Demand for "a Little Bloodletting."&mdash;Plan proposed by
the Conference.&mdash;Its Contemptuous Reception and Treatment in the United
States Congress.&mdash;Failure of Last Efforts at Reconciliation and Reunion.&mdash;Note.&mdash;Speech
of General Lane, of Oregon.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-ix">CHAPTER IX.</a></p>

<p>Northern Protests against Coercion.&mdash;The "New York Tribune," Albany "Argus,"
and "New York Herald."&mdash;Great Public Meeting in New York.&mdash;Speeches of
Mr. Thayer, ex-Governor Seymour, ex-Chancellor Walworth, and Others.&mdash;The
Press in February, 1861.&mdash;Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural.&mdash;The Marvelous Change or
Suppression of Conservative Sentiment.&mdash;Historic Precedents.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-x">CHAPTER X.</a></p>

<p>Temper of the Southern People indicated by the Action of the Confederate Congress.&mdash;The
Permanent Constitution.&mdash;Modeled after the Federal Constitution.&mdash;Variations
and Special Provisions.&mdash;Provisions with Regard to Slavery and
the Slave-Trade.&mdash;A False Assertion refuted.&mdash;Excellence of the Constitution.&mdash;Admissions
of Hostile or Impartial Criticism.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-xi">CHAPTER XI.</a></p>

<p>The Commission to Washington City.&mdash;Arrival of Mr. Crawford.&mdash;Mr. Buchanan's
Alarm.&mdash;Note of the Commissioners to the New Administration.&mdash;Mediation
of Justices Nelson and Campbell.&mdash;The Difficulty about Forts Sumter and Pickens.&mdash;Mr.
Secretary Seward's Assurances.&mdash;Duplicity of the Government at
Washington.&mdash;Mr. Fox's Visit to Charleston.&mdash;Secret Preparations for Coercive
Measures.&mdash;Visit of Mr. Lamon.&mdash;Renewed Assurances of Good Faith.&mdash;Notification
to Governor Pickens.&mdash;Developments of Secret History.&mdash;Systematic
and Complicated Perfidy exposed.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-xii">CHAPTER XII.</a></p>

<p>Protests against the Conduct of the Government of the United States.&mdash;Senator
Douglas's Proposition to evacuate the Forts, and Extracts from his Speech in
Support of it.&mdash;General Scott's Advice.&mdash;Manly Letter of Major Anderson, protesting
against the Action of the Federal Government.&mdash;Misstatements of the
Count of Paris.&mdash;Correspondence relative to Proposed Evacuation of the Fort.&mdash;A
Crisis.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iii-xiii">CHAPTER XIII.</a></p>

<p>A Pause and a Review.&mdash;Attitude of the Two Parties.&mdash;Sophistry exposed and Shams
torn away.&mdash;Forbearance of the Confederate Government.&mdash;Who was the Aggressor?&mdash;Major
Anderson's View, and that of a Naval Officer.&mdash;Mr. Horace
Greeley on the Fort Sumter Case.&mdash;The Bombardment and Surrender.&mdash;Gallant
Action of ex-Senator Wigfall.&mdash;Mr. Lincoln's Statement of the Case.</p>


<p><a href="#part-iv">PART IV.</a></p>

<p><i>THE WAR.</i></p>

<p><a href="#chap-iv-i">CHAPTER I.</a></p>

<p>Failure of the Peace Congress.&mdash;Treatment of the Commissioners.&mdash;Their
Withdrawal.&mdash;Notice
of an Armed Expedition.&mdash;Action of the Confederate Government.&mdash;Bombardment
and Surrender of Fort Sumter.&mdash;Its Reduction required
by the Exigency of the Case.&mdash;Disguise thrown off.&mdash;President Lincoln's Call
for Seventy-five Thousand Men.&mdash;His Fiction of "Combinations."&mdash;Palpable
Violation of the Constitution.&mdash;Action of Virginia.&mdash;Of Citizens of Baltimore.&mdash;The
Charge of Precipitation against South Carolina.&mdash;Action of the Confederate
Government.&mdash;The Universal Feeling.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-ii">CHAPTER II.</a></p>

<p>The Supply of Arms; of Men.&mdash;Love of the Union.&mdash;Secessionists few.&mdash;Efforts to
prevent the Final Step.&mdash;Views of the People.&mdash;Effect on their Agriculture.&mdash;Aid
from African Servitude.&mdash;Answer to the Clamors on the Horrors of Slavery.&mdash;Appointment
of a Commissary-General.&mdash;His Character and Capacity.&mdash;Organization,
Instruction, and Equipment of the Army.&mdash;Action of Congress.&mdash;The
Law.&mdash;Its Signification.&mdash;The Hope of a Peaceful Solution early entertained;
rapidly diminished.&mdash;Further Action of Congress.&mdash;Policy of the Government
for Peace.&mdash;Position of Officers of United States Army.&mdash;The Army
of the States, not of the Government.&mdash;The Confederate Law observed by the
Government.&mdash;Officers retiring from United States Army.&mdash;Organization of
Bureaus.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-iii">CHAPTER III.</a></p>

<p>Commissioners to purchase Arms and Ammunition.&mdash;My Letter to Captain
Semmes.&mdash;Resignations
of Officers of United States Navy.&mdash;Our Destitution of Accessories
for the Supply of Naval Vessels.&mdash;Secretary Mallory.&mdash;Food-Supplies.&mdash;The
Commissariat Department.&mdash;The Quartermaster's Department.&mdash;The Disappearance
of Delusions.&mdash;The Supply of Powder.&mdash;Saltpeter.&mdash;Sulphur.&mdash;Artificial
Niter-Beds.&mdash;Services of General G. W. Rains.&mdash;Destruction at Harper's
Ferry of Machinery.&mdash;The Master Armorer.&mdash;Machinery secured.&mdash;Want of
Skillful Employees.&mdash;Difficulties encountered by Every Department of the Executive
Branch of the Government.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-iv">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>

<p>The Proclamation for Seventy-five Thousand Men by President
Lincoln further examined.&mdash;The
Reasons presented by him to Mankind for the Justification of his
Conduct shown to be Mere Fictions, having no Relation to the Question.&mdash;What
is the Value of Constitutional Liberty, of Bills of Rights, of Limitations of Powers,
if they may be transgressed at Pleasure?&mdash;Secession of South Carolina.&mdash;Proclamation
of Blockade.&mdash;Session of Congress at Montgomery.&mdash;Extracts
from the President's Message.&mdash;Acts of Congress.&mdash;Spirit of the People.&mdash;Secession
of Border States.&mdash;Destruction of United States Property by Order of
President Lincoln.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-v">CHAPTER V.</a></p>

<p>Maryland first approached by Northern Invasion.&mdash;Denies to United States Troops
the Right of Way across her Domain.&mdash;Mission of Judge Handy.&mdash;Views of
Governor Hicks.&mdash;His Proclamation.&mdash;Arrival of Massachusetts Troops at
Baltimore.&mdash;Passage through the City disputed.&mdash;Activity of the Police.&mdash;Burning
of Bridges.&mdash;Letter of President Lincoln to the Governor.&mdash;Visited
by Citizens.&mdash;Action of the State Legislature.&mdash;Occupation of the Relay House.&mdash;The
City Arms surrendered.&mdash;City in Possession of United States Troops.&mdash;Remonstrances
of the City to the Passage of Troops disregarded.&mdash;Citizens
arrested; also, Members of the Legislature.&mdash;Accumulation of Northern Forces
at Washington.&mdash;Invasion of West Virginia by a Force under McClellan.&mdash;Attack
at Philippi; at Laurel Hill.&mdash;Death of General Garnett.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-vi">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>

<p>Removal of the Seat of Government to Richmond.&mdash;Message to Congress at
Richmond.&mdash;Confederate
Forces in Virginia.&mdash;Forces of the Enemy.&mdash;Letter to General
Johnston.&mdash;Combat at Bethel Church.&mdash;Affair at Romney.&mdash;Movements
of McDowell.&mdash;Battle of Manassas.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-vii">CHAPTER VII.</a></p>

<p>Conference with the Generals after the Battle.&mdash;Order to pursue the Enemy.&mdash;Evidences
of a Thorough Rout.&mdash;"Sweet to die for such a Cause."&mdash;Movements
of the Next Day.&mdash;What more it was practicable to do.&mdash;Charge against
the President of preventing the Capture of Washington.&mdash;The Failure to
pursue.&mdash;Reflection
on the President.&mdash;General Beauregard's Report.&mdash;Endorsement
upon it.&mdash;Strength of the Opposing Forces.&mdash;Extracts relating to the
Battle, from the Narrative of General Early.&mdash;Resolutions of Congress.&mdash;Efforts
to increase the Efficiency of the Army.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-viii">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p>

<p>The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-'99.&mdash;Their Influence on Political Affairs.&mdash;Kentucky
declares for Neutrality.&mdash;Correspondence of Governor Magoffin with the
President of the United States and the President of the Confederate States.&mdash;Occupation
of Columbus, Kentucky, by Major-General Polk.&mdash;His Correspondence
with the Kentucky Commissioners.&mdash;President Lincoln's View of Neutrality.&mdash;Acts
of the United States Government.&mdash;Refugees.&mdash;Their Motives of Expatriation.&mdash;Address
of ex-Vice-President Breckinridge to the People of the
State.&mdash;The Occupation of Columbus secured.&mdash;The Purpose of the United
States Government.&mdash;Battle of Belmont.&mdash;Albert Sidney Johnston commands
the Department.&mdash;State of Affairs.&mdash;Line of Defense.-Efforts to obtain Arms;
also Troops.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-ix">CHAPTER IX.</a></p>

<p>The Coercion of Missouri.&mdash;Answers of the Governors of States to President Lincoln's
Requisition for Troops.&mdash;Restoration of Forts Caswell and Johnson to
the United States Government.&mdash;Condition of Missouri similar to that of
Kentucky.&mdash;Hostilities,
how initiated in Missouri.&mdash;Agreement between Generals
Price and Harney.&mdash;Its Favorable Effects.&mdash;General Harney relieved of Command
by the United States Government because of his Pacific Policy.&mdash;Removal
of Public Arms from Missouri.&mdash;Searches for and Seizure of Arms.&mdash;Missouri
on the Side of Peace.&mdash;Address of General Price to the People.&mdash;Proclamation
of Governor Jackson.&mdash;Humiliating Concessions of the Governor to the United
States Government, for the sake of Peace.&mdash;Demands of the Federal Officers.&mdash;Revolutionary
Principles attempted to be enforced by the United States Government.&mdash;The
Action at Booneville.&mdash;The Patriot Army of Militia.&mdash;Further
Rout of the Enemy.&mdash;Heroism and Self-sacrifice of the People.&mdash;Complaints and
Embarrassments&mdash;Zeal: its effects.&mdash;Action of Congress.&mdash;Battle of Springfield.&mdash;General
Price.&mdash;Battle at Lexington.&mdash;Bales of Hemp.&mdash;Other Combats.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-x">CHAPTER X.</a></p>

<p>Brigadier-General Henry A. Wise takes command in Western Virginia.&mdash;His
Movements.&mdash;Advance
of General John B. Floyd.&mdash;Defeats the Enemy.&mdash;Attacked
by Rosecrans.&mdash;Controversy between Wise and Floyd.&mdash;General R. E. Lee takes
the Command in West Virginia.&mdash;Movement on Cheat Mountain.&mdash;Its Failure.&mdash;Further
Operations.&mdash;Winter Quarters.&mdash;Lee sent to South Carolina.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-xi">CHAPTER XI.</a></p>

<p>The Issue.&mdash;The American Idea of Government.&mdash;Who was responsible for the
War?&mdash;Situation of Virginia.&mdash;Concentration of the Enemy against Richmond.&mdash;Our
Difficulty.&mdash;Unjust Criticisms.&mdash;The Facts set forth.&mdash;Organization of
the Army.&mdash;Conference at Fairfax Court-House.&mdash;Inaction of the Army.&mdash;Capture
of Romney.&mdash;Troops ordered to retire to the Valley.&mdash;Discipline.&mdash;General
Johnston regards his Position as unsafe.&mdash;The First Policy.&mdash;Retreat of General
Johnston.&mdash;The Plans of the Enemy.&mdash;Our Strength magnified by the
Enemy.&mdash;Stores destroyed.&mdash;The Trent Affair.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-xii">CHAPTER XII.</a></p>

<p>Supply of Arms at the Beginning of the War; of Powder; of Batteries; of other
Articles.&mdash;Contents of Arsenals.&mdash;Other Stores, Mills, etc.&mdash;First Efforts to obtain
Powder, Niter, and Sulphur.&mdash;Construction of Mills commenced.&mdash;Efforts
to supply Arms, Machinery, Field-Artillery, Ammunition, Equipment, and Saltpeter.&mdash;Results
in 1862.&mdash;Government Powder-Mills; how organized.&mdash;Success.&mdash;Efforts
to obtain Lead.&mdash;Smelting-Works.&mdash;Troops, how armed.&mdash;Winter
of 1862.&mdash;Supplies.&mdash;Niter and Mining Bureau.&mdash;Equipment of First Armies.&mdash;Receipts
by Blockade-Runners.&mdash;Arsenal at Richmond.&mdash;Armories at Richmond
and Fayetteville.&mdash;A Central Laboratory built at Macon.&mdash;Statement of General
Gorgas.&mdash;Northern Charge against General Floyd answered.&mdash;Charge of
Slowness against the President answered.&mdash;Quantities of Arms purchased that
could not be shipped in 1861.&mdash;Letter of Mr. Huse.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-xiii">CHAPTER XIII.</a></p>

<p>Extracts from my Inaugural.&mdash;Our Financial System: Receipts and Expenditures
of the First Year.&mdash;Resources, Loans, and Taxes.&mdash;Loans authorized.&mdash;Notes
and Bonds.&mdash;Funding Notes.&mdash;Treasury Notes guaranteed by the States.&mdash;Measure
to reduce the Currency.&mdash;Operation of the General System.&mdash;Currency
fundable.&mdash;Taxation.&mdash;Popular Aversion.&mdash;Compulsory Reduction of the Currency.&mdash;Tax
Law.&mdash;Successful Result.&mdash;Financial Condition of the Government
at its Close.&mdash;Sources whence Revenue was derived.&mdash;Total Public Debt.&mdash;System
of Direct Taxes and Revenue.&mdash;The Tariff.&mdash;War-Tax of Fifty Cents on a
Hundred Dollars.&mdash;Property subject to it.&mdash;Every Resource of the Country to
be reached.&mdash;Tax paid by the States mostly.&mdash;Obstacle to the taking of the
Census.&mdash;The Foreign Debt.&mdash;Terms of the Contract.&mdash;Premium.&mdash;False charge
against me of Repudiation.&mdash;Facts stated.</p>


<p><a href="#chap-iv-xiv">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p>

<p>Military Laws and Measures.&mdash;Agricultural Products diminished.&mdash;Manufactures
flourishing.&mdash;The Call for Volunteers.&mdash;The Term of Three Years.&mdash;Improved
Discipline.&mdash;The Law assailed.&mdash;Important Constitutional Question raised.&mdash;Its
Discussion at Length.&mdash;Power of the Government over its own Armies and
the Militia.&mdash;Object of Confederations.&mdash;The War-Powers granted.&mdash;Two
Modes of raising Armies in the Confederate States.&mdash;Is the Law necessary and
proper?&mdash;Congress is the Judge under the Grant of Specific Power.&mdash;What is
meant by Militia.&mdash;Whole Military Strength divided into Two Classes.&mdash;Powers
of Congress.&mdash;Objections answered.&mdash;Good Effects of the Law.&mdash;The Limitations
enlarged.&mdash;Results of the Operations of these Laws.&mdash;Act for the Employment
of Slaves.&mdash;Message to Congress.&mdash;"Died of a Theory."&mdash;Act to use Slaves as
Soldiers passed.&mdash;Not Time to put it in Operation.</p>


<p><a href="#appendixes">APPENDIXES.</a></p>

<p>[Transcriber's Note: There is no Appendix A.]</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-b">APPENDIX B.</a></p>

<p>Speech of the Author on the Oregon Question</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-c">APPENDIX C.</a></p>

<p>Extracts from Speeches of the Author on the Resolutions of Compromise proposed
by Mr. Clay</p>

<p>On the Reception of a Memorial from Inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Delaware,
praying that Congress would adopt Measures for an Immediate and
Peaceful Dissolution of the Union</p>

<p>On the Resolutions of Mr. Clay relative to Slavery in the Territories</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-d">APPENDIX D.</a></p>

<p>Speech of the Author on the Message of the President of the United States,
transmitting to Congress the "Lecompton Constitution" of Kansas</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-e">APPENDIX E.</a></p>

<p>Address of the Author to Citizens of Portland, Maine</p>

<p>Address of the Author at a Public Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston; with the
Introductory Remarks by Caleb Cushing</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-f">APPENDIX F.</a></p>

<p>Speech of the Author in the Senate, on the Resolutions relative to the Relations
of the States, the Federal Government, and the Territories</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-g">APPENDIX G.</a></p>

<p>Correspondence between the Commissioners of South Carolina and the President
of the United States (Mr. Buchanan), relative to the Forts in the
Harbor of Charleston</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-h">APPENDIX H.</a></p>

<p>Speech of the Author on a Motion to print the Special Message of the President
of the United States of January 9, 1861</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-i">APPENDIX I.</a></p>

<p>Correspondence and Extracts from Correspondence relative to Fort Sumter,
from the Affair of the Star of the West, January 9, 1861, to the Withdrawal
of the Envoy of South Carolina from Washington, February 8, 1861</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-k">APPENDIX K.</a></p>

<p>The Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, adopted February 8,
1861</p>

<p>The Constitution of the United States and the Permanent Constitution of the
Confederate States, in Parallel Columns</p>


<p><a href="#appendix-l">APPENDIX L.</a></p>

<p>Correspondence between the Confederate Commissioners, Mr. Secretary Seward,
and Judge Campbell</p>


<span class="pagenum"><a name="page1" id="page1"></a>[pg 1]</span>




<h2><a name="introduction" id="introduction"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2>


<p>A duty to my countrymen; to the memory of those who
died in defense of a cause consecrated by inheritance, as well
as sustained by conviction; and to those who, perhaps less fortunate,
staked all, and lost all, save life and honor, in its behalf,
has impelled me to attempt the vindication of their cause and
conduct. For this purpose I have decided to present an historical
sketch of the events which preceded and attended the struggle
of the Southern States to maintain their existence and their
rights as sovereign communities&mdash;the creators, not the creatures,
of the General Government.</p>

<p>The social problem of maintaining the just relation between
constitution, government, and people, has been found so difficult,
that human history is a record of unsuccessful efforts to
establish it. A government, to afford the needful protection
and exercise proper care for the welfare of a people, must have
homogeneity in its constituents. It is this necessity which has
divided the human race into separate nations, and finally has
defeated the grandest efforts which conquerors have made to
give unlimited extent to their domain.  When our fathers dissolved
their connection with Great Britain, by declaring themselves
free and independent States, they constituted thirteen
separate communities, and were careful to assert and preserve,
each for itself, its sovereignty and jurisdiction.</p>

<p>At a time when the minds of men are straying far from the
lessons our fathers taught, it seems proper and well to recur to
the original principles on which the system of government they
devised was founded. The eternal truths which they announced,
the rights which they declared "<i>unalienable</i>," are the foundation-stones
on which rests the vindication of the Confederate cause.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page2" id="page2"></a>[pg 2]</span>

<p>He must have been a careless reader of our political history
who has not observed that, whether under the style of "United
Colonies" or "United States," which was adopted after the Declaration
of Independence, whether under the articles of Confederation
or the compact of Union, there everywhere appears the
distinct assertion of State sovereignty, and nowhere the slightest
suggestion of any purpose on the part of the States to consolidate
themselves into one body. Will any candid, well-informed man
assert that, at any time between 1776 and 1790, a proposition to
surrender the sovereignty of the States and merge them in a
central government would have had the least possible chance
of adoption?  Can any historical fact be more demonstrable
than that the States did, both in the Confederation and in the
Union, retain their sovereignty and independence as distinct
communities, voluntarily consenting to federation, but never
becoming the fractional parts of a nation?  That such opinions
should find adherents in our day, may be attributable to the
natural law of aggregation; surely not to a conscientious regard
for the terms of the compact for union by the States.</p>

<p>In all free governments the constitution or organic law is
supreme over the government, and in our Federal Union this
was most distinctly marked by limitations and prohibitions
against all which was beyond the expressed grants of power
to the General Government. In the foreground, therefore, I
take the position that those who resisted violations of the compact
were the true friends, and those who maintained the usurpation
of undelegated powers were the real enemies of the constitutional
Union.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id="page3"></a>[pg 3]</span>




<h2><a name="part-i" id="part-i"></a>PART I.</h2>

<h2><a name="chap-i-i" id="chap-i-i"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
African Servitude.&mdash;A Retrospect.&mdash;Early Legislation with Regard to the Slave-Trade.&mdash;The
Southern States foremost in prohibiting it.&mdash;A Common Error
corrected.&mdash;The Ethical Question never at Issue in Sectional Controversies.&mdash;The
Acquisition of Louisiana.&mdash;The Missouri Compromise.&mdash;The Balance of
Power.&mdash;Note.&mdash;The Indiana Case.
</p></blockquote>


<p>Inasmuch as questions growing out of the institution of
negro servitude, or connected with it, will occupy a conspicuous
place in what is to follow, it is important that the reader should
have, in the very outset, a right understanding of the true nature
and character of those questions. No subject has been more
generally misunderstood or more persistently misrepresented.
The institution itself has ceased to exist in the United States;
the generation, comprising all who took part in the controversies
to which it gave rise, or for which it afforded a pretext, is passing
away; and the misconceptions which have prevailed in our
own country, and still more among foreigners remote from the
field of contention, are likely to be perpetuated in the mind of
posterity, unless corrected before they become crystallized by
tacit acquiescence.</p>

<p>It is well known that, at the time of the adoption of the
Federal Constitution, African servitude existed in all the States
that were parties to that compact, unless with the single exception
of Massachusetts, in which it had, perhaps, very recently
ceased to exist. The slaves, however, were numerous in the
Southern, and very few in the Northern, States. This diversity
was occasioned by differences of climate, soil, and industrial
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page4" id="page4"></a>[pg 4]</span>
interests&mdash;not in any degree by moral considerations, which at
that period were not recognized, as an element in the question.
It was simply because negro labor was more profitable in the
South than in the North that the importation of negro slaves
had been, and continued to be, chiefly directed to the Southern
ports.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> For the same reason slavery was abolished by the States
of the Northern section (though it existed in several of them for
more than fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution),
while the importation of slaves into the South continued to be
carried on by Northern merchants and Northern ships, without
interference in the traffic from any quarter, until it was prohibited
by the spontaneous action of the Southern States themselves.</p>

<p>The Constitution expressly forbade any interference by Congress
with the slave-trade&mdash;or, to use its own language, with the
"migration or importation of such persons" as any of the States
should think proper to admit&mdash;"prior to the year 1808."  During
the intervening period of more than twenty years, the matter
was exclusively under the control of the respective States.
Nevertheless, every Southern State, without exception, either
had already enacted, or proceeded to enact, laws forbidding the
importation of slaves.<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a>  Virginia was the first of all the States,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page5" id="page5"></a>[pg 5]</span>
North or South, to prohibit it, and Georgia was the first to incorporate
such a prohibition in her organic Constitution.</p>

<p>Two petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade
were presented February 11 and 12, 1790, to the very first Congress
convened under the Constitution.<a id="footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3"><sup>3</sup></a>  After full discussion
in the House of Representatives, it was determined, with regard
to the first-mentioned subject, "that Congress have no authority
to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of
them within any of the States"; and, with regard to the other,
that no authority existed to prohibit the migration or importation
of such persons as the States might think proper to admit,
prior to the year 1808." So distinct and final was this statement
of the limitations of the authority of Congress considered
to be that, when a similar petition was presented two or three
years afterward, the Clerk of the House was instructed to return
it to the petitioner.<a id="footnotetag4" name="footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4"><sup>4</sup></a></p>

<p>In 1807, Congress, availing itself of the very earliest moment
at which the constitutional restriction ceased to be operative,
passed an act prohibiting the importation of slaves into any part
of the United States from and after the first day of January,
1808. This act was passed with great unanimity. In the House
of Representatives there were one hundred and thirteen (113)
yeas to five (5) nays; and it is a significant fact, as showing the
absence of any sectional division of sentiment at that period,
that the five dissentients were divided as equally as possible between
the two sections: two of them were from Northern and
three from Southern States.<a id="footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a><a href="#footnote5"><sup>5</sup></a></p>

<p>The slave-trade had thus been finally abolished some months
before the birth of the author of these pages, and has never
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6" id="page6"></a>[pg 6]</span>
since had legal existence in any of the United States. The question
of the maintenance or extinction of the system of negro
servitude, already existing in any State, was one exclusively belonging
to such State. It is obvious, therefore, that no subsequent
question, legitimately arising in Federal legislation, could
properly have any reference to the merits or the policy of the
institution itself. A few zealots in the North afterward created
much agitation by demands for the abolition of slavery
within the States by Federal intervention, and by their activity
and perseverance finally became a recognized party, which, holding
the balance of power between the two contending organizations
in that section, gradually obtained the control of one, and
to no small degree corrupted the other.  The dominant idea,
however, at least of the absorbed party, was sectional aggrandizement,
looking to absolute control, and theirs is the responsibility
for the war that resulted.</p>

<p>No moral nor sentimental considerations were really involved
in either the earlier or later controversies which so long agitated
and finally ruptured the Union.  They were simply struggles
between different sections, with diverse institutions and interests.</p>

<p>It is absolutely requisite, in order to a right understanding of
the history of the country, to bear these truths clearly in mind.
The phraseology of the period referred to will otherwise be essentially
deceptive. The antithetical employment of such terms
as <i>freedom</i> and <i>slavery</i>, or "anti-slavery" and "pro-slavery," with
reference to the principles and purposes of contending parties
or rival sections, has had immense influence in misleading the
opinions and sympathies of the world. The idea of freedom is
captivating, that of slavery repellent to the moral sense of mankind
in general. It is easy, therefore, to understand the effect
of applying the one set of terms to one party, the other to another,
in a contest which had no just application whatever to the
essential merits of freedom or slavery. Southern statesmen may
perhaps have been too indifferent to this consideration&mdash;in their
ardent pursuit of principles, overlooking the effects of phrases.</p>

<p>This is especially true with regard to that familiar but most
fallacious expression, "the extension of slavery." To the reader
unfamiliar with the subject, or viewing it only on the surface,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page7" id="page7"></a>[pg 7]</span>
it would perhaps never occur that, as used in the great controversies
respecting the Territories of the United States, it does
not, never did, and never could, imply the addition of a single
slave to the number already existing. The question was merely
whether the slaveholder should be permitted to go, with his
slaves, into territory (the common property of all) into which
the non-slaveholder could go with <i>his</i> property of any sort.
There was no proposal nor desire on the part of the Southern
States to reopen the slave-trade, which they had been foremost
in suppressing, or to add to the number of slaves.  It was a
question of the distribution, or dispersion, of the slaves, rather
than of the "extension of slavery."  Removal is not extension.
Indeed, if emancipation was the end to be desired, the dispersion
of the negroes over a wider area among additional Territories,
eventually to become States, and in climates unfavorable to slave-labor,
instead of hindering, would have promoted this object by
diminishing the difficulties in the way of ultimate emancipation.</p>

<p>The distinction here defined between the distribution, or dispersion,
of slaves and the extension of slavery&mdash;two things
altogether different, although so generally confounded&mdash;was
early and clearly drawn under circumstances and in a connection
which justify a fuller notice.</p>

<p>Virginia, it is well known, in the year 1784, ceded to the
United States&mdash;then united only by the original Articles of
Confederation&mdash;her vast possessions northwest of the Ohio,
from which the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois,
Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, have since been formed. In
1787&mdash;before the adoption of the Federal Constitution&mdash;the
celebrated "Ordinance" for the government of this Northwestern
Territory was adopted by the Congress, with the full consent,
and indeed at the express instance, of Virginia.  This Ordinance
included six definite "Articles of compact between the
original States and the people and States in the said Territory,"
which were to "for ever remain unalterable unless by common
consent."  The sixth of these articles ordains that "there shall
be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory,
otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted."</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>[pg 8]</span>

<p>In December, 1805, a petition of the Legislative Council
and House of Representatives of the Indiana Territory&mdash;then
comprising all the area now occupied by the States of Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin&mdash;was presented to Congress.
It appears from the proceedings of the House of Representatives
that several petitions of the same purport from inhabitants of
the Territory, accompanied by a letter from William Henry
Harrison, the Governor (afterward President of the United
States), had been under consideration nearly two years earlier.
The prayer of these petitions was for a <i>suspension</i> of the sixth
article of the Ordinance, so as to permit the introduction of
slaves into the Territory. The whole subject was referred to a
select committee of seven members, consisting of representatives
from Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Kentucky,
and New York, and the delegate from the Indiana Territory.</p>

<p>On the 14th of the ensuing February (1806), this committee
made a report favorable to the prayer of the petitioners, and
recommending a suspension of the prohibitory article for ten
years.  In their report the committee, after stating their opinion
that a qualified suspension of the article in question would be
beneficial to the people of the Indiana Territory, proceeded to
say:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The suspension of this article is an object almost universally
desired in that Territory. It appears to your committee to be a
question entirely different from that between slavery and freedom,
inasmuch as it would merely occasion the removal of persons, already
slaves, from one part of the country to another. The good
effects of this suspension, in the present instance, would be to
accelerate the population of that Territory, hitherto retarded by
the operation of that article of compact; as slaveholders emigrating
into the Western country might then indulge any preference
which they might feel for a settlement in the Indiana Territory,
instead of seeking, as they are now compelled to do, settlements
in other States or countries permitting the introduction of slaves.
The condition of the slaves themselves would be much ameliorated
by it, as it is evident, from experience, that the more they are
separated and diffused the more care and attention are bestowed
on them by their masters, each proprietor having it in his power
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span>
to increase their comforts and conveniences in proportion to the
smallness of their numbers."
</p></blockquote>

<p>These were the dispassionate utterances of representatives of
every part of the Union&mdash;men contemporary with the origin of
the Constitution, speaking before any sectional division had
arisen in connection with the subject.  It is remarkable that the
very same opinions which they express and arguments which
they adduce had, fifty years afterward, come to be denounced
and repudiated by one half of the Union as partisan and sectional
when propounded by the other half.</p>

<p>No final action seems to have been taken on the subject
before the adjournment of Congress, but it was brought forward
at the next session in a more imposing form.  On the 20th
of January, 1807, the Speaker laid before the House of Representatives
a letter from Governor Harrison, inclosing certain
resolutions formally and <i>unanimously</i> adopted by the Legislative
Council and House of Representatives of the Indiana Territory,
in favor of the suspension of the sixth article of the
Ordinance and the introduction of slaves into the Territory,
which they say would "meet the approbation of at least nine
tenths of the good citizens of the same." Among the resolutions
were the following:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>Resolved unanimously</i>, That the abstract question of liberty
and slavery is not considered as involved in a suspension of the
said article, inasmuch as the number of slaves in the United States
<i>would not be augmented</i> by this measure.</p>

<p>"<i>Resolved unanimously</i>, That the suspension of the said article
would be equally advantageous to the Territory, to the States
from whence the negroes would be brought, and to the negroes
themselves....</p>

<p>"The States which are overburdened with negroes would be
benefited by their citizens having an opportunity of disposing of
the negroes which they can not comfortably support, or of removing
with them to a country abounding with all the necessaries of
life; and the negro himself would exchange a scanty pittance of
the coarsest food for a plentiful and nourishing diet, and a situation
which admits not the most distant prospect of emancipation
for one which presents no considerable obstacle to his wishes."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span>

<p>These resolutions were submitted to a committee drawn, like
the former, from different sections of the country, which again
reported favorably, reiterating in substance the reasons given by
the former committee. Their report was sustained by the House,
and a resolution to suspend the prohibitory article was adopted.
The proposition failed, however, in the Senate, and there the
matter seems to have been dropped. The proceedings constitute
a significant and instructive episode in the political history
of the country.</p>

<p>The allusion which has been made to the Ordinance of 1787,
renders it proper to notice, very briefly, the argument put forward
during the discussion of the Missouri question, and often
repeated since, that the Ordinance afforded a precedent in support
of the claim of a power in Congress to determine the question
of the admission of slaves into the Territories, and in justification
of the prohibitory clause applied in 1820 to a portion of
the Louisiana Territory.</p>

<p>The difference between the Congress of the Confederation
and that of the Federal Constitution is so broad that the action
of the former can, in no just sense, be taken as a precedent for
the latter.  The Congress of the Confederation represented the
States in their sovereignty, each delegation having one vote, so
that all the States were of equal weight in the decision of any
question.  It had legislative, executive, and in some degree judicial
powers, thus combining all departments of government in
itself.  During its recess a committee known as the Committee
of the States exercised the powers of the Congress, which was
in spirit, if not in fact, an assemblage of the States.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the Congress of the Constitution is only
the legislative department of the General Government, with
powers strictly defined and expressly limited to those delegated
by the States. It is further held in check by an executive and
a judiciary, and consists of two branches, each having peculiar
and specified functions.</p>

<p>If, then, it be admitted&mdash;which is at least very questionable&mdash;that
the Congress of the Confederation had rightfully the power
to exclude slave property from the territory northwest of the
Ohio River, that power must have been derived from its character
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span>
as an assemblage of the sovereign States; not from the Articles
of Confederation, in which no indication of the grant of
authority to exercise such a function can be found. The Congress
of the Constitution is expressly prohibited from the assumption
of any power not distinctly and specifically delegated
to it as the legislative branch of an organized government.
What was questionable in the former case, therefore, becomes
clearly inadmissible in the latter.</p>

<p>But there is yet another material distinction to be observed.
The States, owners of what was called the Northwestern Territory,
were component members of the Congress which adopted
the Ordinance for its government, and gave thereto their full
and free consent. The Ordinance may, therefore, be regarded
as virtually a treaty between the States which ceded and those
which received that extensive domain.  In the other case, Missouri
and the whole region affected by the Missouri Compromise,
were parts of the territory acquired from France under the
name of Louisiana; and, as it requires two parties to make or
amend a treaty, France and the Government of the United
States should have co&ouml;perated in any amendment of the treaty
by which Louisiana had been acquired, and which guaranteed
to the inhabitants of the ceded territory "all the rights, advantages,
and immunities of citizens of the United States," and "the
free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion they
profess."&mdash;("State Papers," vol. ii, "Foreign Relations," p. 507.)</p>

<p>For all the reasons thus stated, it seems to me conclusive
that the action of the Congress of the Confederation in 1787
could not constitute a precedent to justify the action of the
Congress of the United States in 1820, and that the prohibitory
clause of the Missouri Compromise was without constitutional
authority, in violation of the rights of a part of the joint owners
of the territory, and in disregard of the obligations of the treaty
with France.</p>

<p>The basis of sectional controversy was the question of the
balance of political power. In its earlier manifestations this
was undisguised. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory from
France in 1803, and the subsequent admission of a portion of
that Territory into the Union as a State, afforded one of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span>
earliest occasions for the manifestation of sectional jealousy,
and gave rise to the first threats, or warnings (which proceeded
from New England), of a dissolution of the Union. Yet,
although negro slavery existed in Louisiana, no pretext was
made of that as an objection to the acquisition. The ground
of opposition is frankly stated in a letter of that period from
one Massachusetts statesman to another&mdash;"that the influence of
<i>our</i> part of the Union must be diminished by the acquisition of
more weight at the other extremity."<a id="footnotetag6" name="footnotetag6"></a><a href="#footnote6"><sup>6</sup></a></p>

<p>Some years afterward (in 1819-'20) occurred the memorable
contest with regard to the admission into the Union of Missouri,
the second State carved out of the Louisiana Territory.  The
controversy arose out of a proposition to attach to the admission
of the new State a proviso prohibiting slavery or involuntary
servitude therein. The vehement discussion that ensued
was continued into the first session of a different Congress from
that in which it originated, and agitated the whole country during
the interval between the two. It was the first question that
ever seriously threatened the stability of the Union, and the
first in which the sentiment of opposition to slavery in the abstract
was introduced as an adjunct of sectional controversy.
It was clearly shown in debate that such considerations were
altogether irrelevant; that the number of existing slaves would
not be affected by their removal from the older States to Missouri;
and, moreover, that the proposed restriction would be
contrary to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the Constitution.<a id="footnotetag7" name="footnotetag7"></a><a href="#footnote7"><sup>7</sup></a>
Notwithstanding all this, the restriction was adopted, by a vote
almost strictly sectional, in the House of Representatives. It
failed in the Senate through the firm resistance of the Southern,
aided by a few patriotic and conservative Northern, members
of that body. The admission of the new State, without any
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span>
restriction, was finally accomplished by the addition to the bill
of a section for ever prohibiting slavery in all that portion of
the Louisiana Territory lying north of thirty-six degrees and
thirty minutes, north latitude, except Missouri&mdash;by implication
leaving the portion south of that line open to settlement either
with or without slaves.</p>

<p>This provision, as an offset to the admission of the new State
without restriction, constituted the celebrated Missouri Compromise.
It was reluctantly accepted by a small majority of the
Southern members. Nearly half of them voted against it,
under the conviction that it was unauthorized by the Constitution,
and that Missouri was entitled to determine the question
for herself, as a matter of right, not of bargain or concession.
Among those who thus thought and voted were some of the
wisest statesmen and purest patriots of that period.<a id="footnotetag8" name="footnotetag8"></a><a href="#footnote8"><sup>8</sup></a></p>

<p>This brief retrospect may have sufficed to show that the
question of the right or wrong of the institution of slavery was
in no wise involved in the earlier sectional controversies. Nor
was it otherwise in those of a later period, in which it was the
lot of the author of these memoirs to bear a part. They were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span>
essentially struggles for sectional equality or ascendancy&mdash;for
the maintenance or the destruction of that balance of power or
equipoise between North and South, which was early recognized
as a cardinal principle in our Federal system. It does not follow
that both parties to this contest were wholly right or wholly
wrong in their claims. The determination of the question of
right or wrong must be left to the candid inquirer after examination
of the evidence. The object of these preliminary investigations
has been to clear the subject of the obscurity produced
by irrelevant issues and the glamour of ethical illusions.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b><a href="#footnotetag1"> (return) </a><p>
It will be remembered that, during her colonial condition, Virginia made strenuous
efforts to prevent the importation of Africans, and was overruled by the Crown;
also, that Georgia, under Oglethorpe, did prohibit the introduction of African slaves
until 1752, when the proprietors surrendered the charter, and the colony became a
part of the royal government, and enjoyed the same privileges as the other colonies.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b><a href="#footnotetag2"> (return) </a><p>
South Carolina subsequently (in 1803) repealed her law forbidding the importation
of slaves.  The reason assigned for this action was the impossibility of enforcing
the law without the aid of the Federal Government, to which entire control of
the revenues, revenue police, and naval forces of the country had been surrendered
by the States.  "The geographical situation of our country," said Mr. Lowndes, of
South Carolina, in the House of Representatives on February 14, 1804, "is not unknown.
With navigable rivers running into the heart of it, it was impossible, with
our means, to prevent our Eastern brethren ... engaged in this trade, from introducing
them [the negroes] into the country.  The law was completely evaded....
Under these circumstances, sir, it appears to me to have been the duty of the Legislature
to repeal the law, and remove from the eyes of the people the spectacle of its
authority being daily violated."</p>

<p>The effect of the repeal was to permit the importation of negroes into
South Carolina during the interval from 1803 to 1808. It in probable
that an extensive <i>contraband</i> trade was carried on by the New
England slavers with other ports, on account of the lack of means to
enforce the laws of the Southern States forbidding it.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote3" name="footnote3"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b><a href="#footnotetag3"> (return) </a><p>One from the Society of Friends assembled at Philadelphia and New York, the
other from the Pennsylvania society of various religious denominations combined for
the abolition of slavery.</p>

<p>For report of the debate, see Benton's "Abridgment," vol. i, pp. 201-207, <i>et seq.</i></p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote4" name="footnote4"></a><b>Footnote 4:</b><a href="#footnotetag4"> (return) </a><p>See Benton's "Abridgment," vol. i, p. 397.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote5" name="footnote5"></a><b>Footnote 5:</b><a href="#footnotetag5"> (return) </a><p>One was from New Hampshire, one from Vermont, two from Virginia, and
one from South Carolina.&mdash;(Benton's "Abridgment," vol. iii, p. 519.)</p>

<p>No division on the final vote in the Senate.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote6" name="footnote6"></a><b>Footnote 6:</b><a href="#footnotetag6"> (return) </a><p>Cabot to Pickering, who was then Senator from Massachusetts.&mdash;(See "Life
and Letters of George Cabot," by H. C. Lodge, p. 334.)</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote7" name="footnote7"></a><b>Footnote 7:</b><a href="#footnotetag7"> (return) </a><p>The true issue was well stated by the Hon. Samuel A. Foot, a representative
from Connecticut, in an incidental reference to it in debate on another subject, a
few weeks after the final settlement of the Missouri case. He said: "The Missouri
question did not involve the question of freedom or slavery, but merely <i>whether slaves
now in the country might be permitted to reside in the proposed new State; and whether
Congress or Missouri possessed the power to decide</i>."</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote8" name="footnote8"></a><b>Footnote 8:</b><a href="#footnotetag8"> (return) </a><p>
The votes on the proposed <i>restriction</i>, which eventually failed of adoption, and
on the <i>compromise</i>, which was finally adopted, are often confounded. The advocacy
of the former measure was exclusively sectional, no Southern member voting for it
in either House. On the adoption of the compromise line of thirty-six degrees and
thirty minutes, the vote in the Senate was 34 yeas to 10 nays.  The Senate consisted
of forty-four members from twenty-two States, equally divided between the
two sections&mdash;Delaware being classed as a Southern State.  Among the yeas were
all the Northern votes, except two from Indiana&mdash;being 20&mdash;and 14 Southern. The
nays consisted of 2 from the North, and 8 from the South.</p>

<p>In the House of Representatives, the vote was 134 yeas to 42 nays. Of the
yeas, 95 were Northern, 39 Southern; of the nays, 5 Northern, and 37 Southern.</p>

<p>Among the nays in the Senate were Messrs. James Barbour and James Pleasants,
of Virginia; Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina; John Gaillard and William Smith,
of South Carolina.  In the House, Philip P. Barbour, John Randolph, John Tyler,
and William S. Archer, of Virginia; Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina (one of the
authors of the Constitution); Thomas W. Cobb, of Georgia; and others of more or
less note.</p>

<p>(See speech of the Hon. D. L. Yulee, of Florida, in the United States Senate, on
the admission of California, August 6, 1850, for a careful and correct account of the
compromise. That given in the second chapter of Benton's "Thirty Years' View"
is singularly inaccurate; that of Horace Greeley, in his "American Conflict," still
more so.)</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-i-ii" id="chap-i-ii"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Session of 1849-'50.&mdash;The Compromise Measures.&mdash;Virtual Abrogation of the
Missouri Compromise.&mdash;The Admission of California.&mdash;The Fugitive Slave Law.&mdash;Death
of Mr. Calhoun.&mdash;Anecdote of Mr. Clay.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The first session of the Thirty-first Congress (1849-'50) was
a memorable one.  The recent acquisition from Mexico of New
Mexico and California required legislation by Congress. In the
Senate the bills reported by the Committee on Territories were
referred to a select committee, of which Mr. Clay, the distinguished
Senator from Kentucky, was chairman. From this
committee emanated the bills which, taken together, are known
as the compromise measures of 1850.</p>

<p>With some others, I advocated the division of the newly
acquired territory by an extension to the Pacific Ocean of the
Missouri Compromise line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes
north latitude.  This was not because of any inherent merit
or fitness in that line, but because it had been accepted by the
country as a settlement of the sectional question which, thirty
years before, had threatened a rupture of the Union, and it had
acquired in the public mind a prescriptive respect which it
seemed unwise to disregard. A majority, however, decided
otherwise, and the line of political conciliation was then obliterated,
as far as it lay in the power of Congress to do so. An
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>[pg 15]</span>
analysis of the vote will show that this result was effected almost
exclusively by the representatives of the North, and that the
South was not responsible for an action which proved to be the
opening of Pandora's box.<a id="footnotetag9" name="footnotetag9"></a><a href="#footnote9"><sup>9</sup></a></p>

<p>However objectionable it may have been in 1820 to adopt
that political line as expressing a geographical definition of different
sectional interests, and however it may be condemned as
the assumption by Congress of a function not delegated to it, it
is to be remembered that the act had received such recognition
and <i>quasi</i>-ratification by the people of the States as to give it
a value which it did not originally possess. Pacification had
been the fruit borne by the tree, and it should not have been
recklessly hewed down and cast into the fire. The frequent assertion
then made was that all discrimination was unjust, and
that the popular will should be left untrammeled in the formation
of new States. This theory was good enough in itself, and
as an abstract proposition could not be gainsaid; but its practical
operation has but poorly sustained the expectations of its
advocates, as will be seen when we come to consider the events
that occurred a few years later in Kansas and elsewhere.  Retrospectively
viewed under the mellowing light of time, and
with the calm consideration we can usually give to the irremediable
past, the compromise legislation of 1850 bears the impress
of that sectional spirit so widely at variance with the general
purposes of the Union, and so destructive of the harmony and
mutual benefit which the Constitution was intended to secure.</p>

<p>The refusal to divide the territory acquired from Mexico by
an extension of the line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific
was a consequence of the purpose to admit California as a
State of the Union before it had acquired the requisite population,
and while it was mainly under the control of a military
organization sent from New York during the war with Mexico
and disbanded in California upon the restoration of peace. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span>
inconsistency of the argument against the extension of the line
was exhibited in the division of the Territory of Texas by that
parallel, and payment to the State of money to secure her consent
to the partition of her domain. In the case of Texas,
the North had everything to gain and nothing to lose by the
application of the practice of geographical compromise on an
arbitrary line. In the case of California, the conditions were
reversed; the South might have been the gainer and the North
the loser by a recognition of the same rule.</p>

<p>The compensation which it was alleged that the South received
was a more effective law for the rendition of fugitives
from service or labor.  But it is to be remarked that this law
provided for the execution by the General Government of obligations
which had been imposed by the Federal compact upon
the several States of the Union. The benefit to be derived from
a fulfillment of that law would be small in comparison with the
evil to result from the plausible pretext that the States had
thus been relieved from a duty which they had assumed in the
adoption of the compact of union. Whatever tended to lead the
people of any of the States to feel that they could be relieved
from their constitutional obligations by transferring them to
the General Government, or that they might thus or otherwise
evade or resist them, could not fail to be like the tares
which the enemy sowed amid the wheat. The union of States,
formed to secure the permanent welfare of posterity and to promote
harmony among the constituent States, could not, without
changing its character, survive such alienation as rendered its
parts hostile to the security, prosperity, and happiness of one
another.</p>

<p>It was reasonably argued that, as the Legislatures of fourteen
of the States had enacted what were termed "personal liberty
laws," which forbade the co&ouml;peration of State officials in the
rendition of fugitives from service and labor, it became necessary
that the General Government should provide the requisite
machinery for the execution of the law. The result proved
what might have been anticipated&mdash;that those communities
which had repudiated their constitutional obligations, which
had nullified a previous law of Congress for the execution of a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span>
provision of the Constitution, and had murdered men who came
peacefully to recover their property, would evade or obstruct, so
as to render practically worthless, <i>any</i> law that could be enacted
for that purpose. In the exceptional cases in which it might be
executed, the event would be attended with such conflict between
the State and Federal authorities as to produce consequent
evils greater than those it was intended to correct.</p>

<p>It was during the progress of these memorable controversies
that the South lost its most trusted leader, and the Senate its
greatest and purest statesman.  He was taken from us&mdash;</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>"Like a summer-dried fountain,</p>
<p>When our need was the sorest;"&mdash;</p>
  </div>  </div>

<p>when his intellectual power, his administrative talent, his love of
peace, and his devotion to the Constitution, might have averted
collision; or, failing in that, he might have been to the South
the Palinurus to steer the bark in safety over the perilous sea.
Truly did Mr. Webster&mdash;his personal friend, although his greatest
political rival&mdash;say of him in his obituary address, "There
was nothing groveling, or low, or meanly selfish, that came near
the head or the heart of Mr. Calhoun." His prophetic warnings
speak from the grave with the wisdom of inspiration.
Would that they could have been appreciated by his countrymen
while he yet lived!</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Note.</span>&mdash;While the compromise measures of 1850 were pending, and the excitement
concerning them was at its highest, I one day overtook Mr. Clay, of Kentucky,
and Mr. Berrien, of Georgia, in the Capitol grounds. They were in earnest
conversation. It was the 7th of March&mdash;the day on which Mr. Webster had delivered
his great speech. Mr. Clay, addressing me in the friendly manner which he
had always employed since I was a schoolboy in Lexington, asked me what I
thought of the speech. I liked it better than he did. He then suggested that I
should "join the compromise men," saying that it was a measure which he thought
would probably give peace to the country for thirty years&mdash;the period that had
elapsed since the adoption of the compromise of 1820. Then, turning to Mr. Berrien,
he said, "You and I will be under ground before that time, but our young
friend here may have trouble to meet." I somewhat impatiently declared my unwillingness
to transfer to posterity a trial which they would be relatively less able
to meet than we were, and passed on my way.
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote9" name="footnote9"></a><b>Footnote 9:</b><a href="#footnotetag9"> (return) </a><p>
The vote in the Senate on the proposition to continue the line of the Missouri
Compromise through the newly acquired territory to the Pacific was twenty-four yeas,
to thirty-two nays. Reckoning Delaware and Missouri as Southern States, the vote
of the two sections was exactly equal. The yeas were <i>all</i> cast by Southern Senators;
the nays were all Northern, except two from Delaware, one from Missouri, and one
from Kentucky.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-i-iii" id="chap-i-iii"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Re&euml;lection to the Senate.&mdash;Political Controversies in Mississippi.&mdash;Action of the
Democratic State Convention.&mdash;Defeat of the State-Rights Party.&mdash;Withdrawal
of General Quitman and Nomination of the Author as Candidate for the Office
of Governor.&mdash;The Canvass and its Result.&mdash;Retirement to Private Life.
</p></blockquote>


<p>I had been re&euml;lected by the Legislature of Mississippi as
my own successor, and entered upon a new term of service in
the Senate on March 4, 1851.</p>

<p>On my return to Mississippi in 1851, the subject chiefly agitating
the public mind was that of the "compromise" measures
of the previous year. Consequent upon these was a proposition
for a convention of delegates, from the people of the Southern
States respectively, to consider what steps ought to be taken for
their future peace and safety, and the preservation of their constitutional
rights. There was diversity of opinion with regard to
the merits of the measures referred to, but the disagreement no
longer followed the usual lines of party division. They who
saw in those measures the forerunner of disaster to the South
had no settled policy beyond a convention, the object of which
should be to devise new and more effectual guarantees against
the perils of usurpation. They were unjustly charged with a
desire to destroy the Union&mdash;a feeling entertained by few, very
few, if by any, in Mississippi, and avowed by none.</p>

<p>There were many, however, who held that the principles of
the Declaration of Independence, and the purposes for which
the Union was formed, were of higher value than the mere
Union itself. Independence existed before the compact of union
between the States; and, if that compact should be broken in
part, and therefore destroyed in whole, it was hoped that the
liberties of the people in the States might still be preserved.
Those who were most devoted to the Union of the Constitution
might, consequently, be expected to resist most sternly any
usurpation of undelegated power, the effect of which would be
to warp the Federal Government from its proper character, and,
by sapping the foundation, to destroy the Union of the States.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>

<p>My recent re&euml;lection to the United States Senate had conferred
upon me for six years longer the office which I preferred
to all others. I could not, therefore, be suspected of desiring
a nomination for any other office from the Democratic Convention,
the meeting of which was then drawing near. Having, as
a Senator of the State, freely participated in debate on the
measures which were now exciting so much interest in the public
mind, it was very proper that I should visit the people in
different parts of the State and render an account of my stewardship.</p>

<p>My devotion to the Union of our fathers had been so often
and so publicly declared; I had, on the floor of the Senate, so
defiantly challenged any question of my fidelity to it; my services,
civil and military, had now extended through so long a
period, and were so generally known&mdash;that I felt quite assured
that no whisperings of envy or ill will could lead the people of
Mississippi to believe that I had dishonored their trust by using
the power they had conferred on me to destroy the Government
to which I was accredited. Then, as afterward, I regarded the
separation of the States as a great, though not the greatest,
evil.</p>

<p>I returned from my tour among the people at the time appointed
for the meeting of the nominating convention of the
Democratic (or State-Rights) party.  During the previous year
the Governor, General John A. Quitman, had been compelled
to resign his office to answer an indictment against him for complicity
with the "filibustering" expeditions against Cuba. The
charges were not sustained; many of the Democratic party of
Mississippi, myself included, recognized a consequent obligation
to renominate him for the office of which he had been deprived.
When, however, the delegates met in party convention, the
committee appointed to select candidates, on comparison of opinions,
concluded that, in view of the effort to fix upon the party
the imputation of a purpose of disunion, some of the antecedents
of General Quitman might endanger success. A proposition
was therefore made, in the committee on nominations, that I
should be invited to become a candidate, and that, if General
Quitman would withdraw, my acceptance of the nomination
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span>
and the resignation of my place in the United States Senate,
which it was known would result, was to be followed by the
appointment by the Governor of General Quitman to the
vacated place in the Senate. I offered no objection to this
arrangement, but left it to General Quitman to decide. He
claimed the nomination for the governorship, or nothing, and
was so nominated.</p>

<p>To promote the success of the Democratic nominees, I engaged
actively in the canvass, and continued in the field until
stricken down by disease.  This occurred just before the election
of delegates to a State Convention, for which provision had
been made by the Legislature, and the canvass for which, conducted
in the main upon party lines, was in progress simultaneously
with that for the ordinary State officers. The Democratic
majority in the State when the canvass began was estimated at
eight thousand. At this election, in September, for delegates
to the State Convention, we were beaten by about seven thousand
five hundred votes.  Seeing in this result the foreshadowing
of almost inevitable defeat, General Quitman withdrew
from the canvass as a candidate, and the Executive Committee
of the party (empowered to fill vacancies) called on me to take
his place.  My health did not permit me to leave home at that
time, and only about six weeks remained before the election
was to take place; but, being assured that I was not expected
to take any active part, and that the party asked only the use
of my name, I consented to be announced, and immediately
resigned from the United States Senate.  Nevertheless, I soon
afterward took the field in person, and worked earnestly until
the day of election. I was defeated, but the majority of more
than seven thousand votes, that had been cast a short time before
against the party with which I was associated, was reduced
to less than one thousand.<a id="footnotetag10" name="footnotetag10"></a><a href="#footnote10"><sup>10</sup></a></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span>

<p>In this canvass, both before and after I became a candidate,
no argument or appeal of mine was directed against the perpetuation
of the Union.  Believing, however, that the signs of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span>
the time portended danger to the South from the usurpation by
the General Government of undelegated powers, I counseled
that Mississippi should enter into the proposed meeting of the
people of the Southern States, to consider what could and
should be done to insure our future safety, frankly stating my
conviction that, unless such action were taken then, sectional
rivalry would engender greater evils in the future, and that, if
the controversy was postponed, "the last opportunity for a
peaceful solution would be lost, then the issue would have to be
settled by blood."</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote10" name="footnote10"></a><b>Footnote 10:</b><a href="#footnotetag10"> (return) </a><p>
The following letter, written in 1853 to the Hon. William J. Brown, of Indiana,
formerly a member of Congress from that State, and subsequently published,
relates to the events of this period, and affords nearly contemporaneous evidence in
confirmation of the statements of the text:</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Washington D.C.</span>, <i>May 7, 1853</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>: I received the 'Sentinel' containing your defense of me against
the fate accusation of disunionism, and, before I had returned to you the thanks to
which you are entitled, I received this day the St. Joseph 'Valley Register,' marked
by you, to call my attention to an article in answer to your defense, which was
just in all things, save your too complimentary terms.</p>

<p>"I wish I had the letter quoted from, that you might publish the whole of that
which is garbled to answer a purpose. In a part of the letter not published, I put
such a damper on the attempt to fix on me the desire to break up our Union, and
presented other points in a form so little acceptable to the unfriendly inquirers, that
the publication of the letter had to be drawn out of them.</p>

<p>"At the risk of being wearisome, but encouraged by your marked
friendship, I will give you a statement in the case. The meeting of
October, 1849, was a convention of delegates equally representing the
Whig and Democratic parties in Mississippi. The resolutions were
decisive as to equality of right in the South with the North to the
Territories acquired from Mexico, and proposed a convention of the
Southern States. I was not a member, but on invitation addressed the
Convention. The succeeding Legislature instructed me, as a Senator, to
assert this equality, and, under the existing circumstances, to resist
by all constitutional means the admission of California as a State. At a
called session of the Legislature in 1850, a self-constituted committee
called on me, by letter, for my views. They were men who had enacted or
approved the resolutions of the Convention of 1849, and instructed me,
as members of the Legislature, in regular session, in the early part of
the year 1850. To them I replied that I adhered to the policy they had
indicated and instructed me in their official character to pursue.</p>

<p>"I pointed out the mode in which their policy could, in my opinion, be executed
without bloodshed or disastrous convulsion, but in terms of bitter scorn alluded to
such as would insult me with a desire to destroy the Union, for which my whole
life proved me to be a devotee.</p>

<p>"Pardon the egotism, in consideration of the occasion, when I say to you that
my father and my uncles fought through the Revolution of 1776, giving their youth,
their blood, and their little patrimony to the constitutional freedom which I claim
as my inheritance. Three of my brothers fought in the war of 1812. Two of
them were comrades of the Hero of the Hermitage, and received his commendation
for gallantry at New Orleans. At sixteen years of age I was given to the service
of my country; for twelve years of my life I have borne its arms and served it,
zealously, if not well. As I feel the infirmities, which suffering more than age has
brought upon me, it would be a bitter reflection, indeed, if I was forced to conclude
that my countrymen would hold all this light when weighed against the empty panegyric
which a time-serving politician can bestow upon the Union, for which he never
made a sacrifice.</p>

<p>"In the Senate I announced that, if any respectable man would call me a disunionist,
I would answer him in monosyllables.... But I have often asserted the
right, for which the battles of the Revolution were fought&mdash;the right of a people
to change their government whenever it was found to be oppressive, and subversive
of the objects for which governments are instituted&mdash;and have contended for
the independence and sovereignty of the States, a part of the creed of which Jefferson
was the apostle, Madison the expounder, and Jackson the consistent defender.</p>

<p>"I have written freely, and more than I designed. Accept my thanks for your
friendly advocacy. Present me in terms of kind remembrance to your family, and
believe me, very sincerely yours,</p>

<p><span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Note</span>.&mdash;No party in Mississippi ever advocated disunion. They differed as to
the mode of securing their rights in the Union, and on the power of a State to
secede&mdash;neither advocating the exercise of the power.</p>

<p>J.D."
</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-i-iv" id="chap-i-iv"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Author enters the Cabinet.&mdash;Administration of the War Department.&mdash;Surveys
for a Pacific Railway.&mdash;Extension of the Capitol.&mdash;New Regiments organized.&mdash;Colonel
Samuel Cooper, Adjutant-General.&mdash;A Bit of Civil-Service Reform.&mdash;Re&euml;lection
to the Senate.&mdash;Continuity of the Pierce Cabinet.&mdash;Character of
Franklin Pierce.
</p></blockquote>


<p>Happy in the peaceful pursuits of a planter; busily engaged
in cares for servants, in the improvement of my land, in building,
in rearing live-stock, and the like occupations, the time
passed pleasantly away until my retirement was interrupted by
an invitation to take a place in the Cabinet of Mr. Pierce, who
had been elected to the Presidency of the United States in
November, 1852. Although warmly attached to Mr. Pierce
personally, and entertaining the highest estimate of his character
and political principles, private and personal reasons led me
to decline the offer.  This was followed by an invitation to attend
the ceremony of his inauguration, which took place on the
4th of March, 1853.  While in Washington, on this visit, I was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span>
induced by public considerations to reconsider my determination
and accept the office of Secretary of War. The public
records of that period will best show how the duties of that
office were performed.</p>

<p>While in the Senate, I had advocated the construction of
a railway to connect the valley of the Mississippi with the Pacific
coast; and, when an appropriation was made to determine
the most eligible route for that purpose, the Secretary of War
was charged with its application. We had then but little of
that minute and accurate knowledge of the interior of the continent
which was requisite for a determination of the problem.
Several different parties were therefore organized to examine
the various routes supposed to be practicable within the northern
and southern limits of the United States. The arguments
which I had used as a Senator were "the military necessity
for such means of transportation, and the need of safe and rapid
communication with the Pacific slope, to secure its continuance
as a part of the Union."</p>

<p>In the organization and equipment of these parties, and in the
selection of their officers, care was taken to provide for securing
full and accurate information upon every point involved in the
determination of the route. The only discrimination made was
in the more prompt and thorough equipment of the parties for
the extreme northern line, and this was only because that was
supposed to be the most difficult of execution of all the surveys.</p>

<p>In like manner, my advocacy while in the Senate of an extension
of the Capitol, by the construction of a new Senate-Chamber
and Hall of Representatives, may have caused the
appropriation for that object to be put under my charge as
Secretary of War.</p>

<p>During my administration of the War Department, material
changes were made in the models of arms. Iron gun-carriages
were introduced, and experiments were made which led to the
casting of heavy guns hollow, instead of boring them after casting.
Inquiries were made with regard to gunpowder, which
subsequently led to the use of a coarser grain for artillery.</p>

<p>During the same period the army was increased by the addition
of two regiments of infantry and two of cavalry. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span>
officers of these regiments were chosen partly by selection from
those already in service in the regular army and partly by appointment
from civil life. In making the selections from the
army, I was continually indebted to the assistance of that pure-minded
and accurately informed officer, Colonel Samuel Cooper,
the Adjutant-General, of whom it may be proper here to say
that, although his life had been spent in the army, and he, of
course, had the likes and dislikes inseparable from men who
are brought into close contact and occasional rivalry, I never
found in his official recommendations any indication of partiality
or prejudice toward any one.</p>

<p>When the first list was made out, to be submitted to the
President, a difficulty was found to exist, which had not occurred
either to Colonel Cooper or myself.  This was, that the
officers selected purely on their military record did not constitute
a roster conforming to that distribution among the different
States, which, for political considerations, it was thought desirable
to observe&mdash;that is to say, the number of such officers of
Southern birth was found to be disproportionately great. Under
instructions from the President, the list was therefore revised
and modified in accordance with this new element of geographical
distribution. This, as I am happy to remember, was the
only occasion in which the current of my official action, while
Secretary of War, was disturbed in any way by sectional or political
considerations.</p>

<p>Under former administrations of the War Office it had not
been customary to make removals or appointments upon political
grounds, except in the case of clerkships.  To this usage I
not only adhered, but extended it to include the clerkships also.
The Chief Clerk, who had been removed by my predecessor,
had peculiar qualifications for the place; and, although known
to me only officially, he was restored to the position. It will
probably be conceded by all who are well informed on the subject
that his restoration was a benefit to the public service.<a id="footnotetag11" name="footnotetag11"></a><a href="#footnote11"><sup>11</sup></a></p>

<p>[The reader desirous for further information relative to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span>
administration of the War Department during this period may
find it in the various official reports and estimates of works of
defense prosecuted or recommended, arsenals of construction
and depots of arms maintained or suggested, and foundries employed,
during the Presidency of Mr. Pierce, 1853-'57.]</p>

<p>Having been again elected by the Legislature of Mississippi
as Senator to the United States, I passed from the Cabinet of
Mr. Pierce, on the last day of his term (March 4, 1857), to take
my seat in the Senate.</p>

<p>The Administration of Franklin Pierce presents the only instance
in our history of the continuance of a Cabinet for four
years without a single change in its <i>personnel</i>. When it is remembered
that there was much dissimilarity if not incongruity
of character among the members of that Cabinet, some idea
may be formed of the power over men possessed and exercised
by Mr. Pierce. Chivalrous, generous, amiable, true to his
friends and to his faith, frank and bold in the declaration of his
opinions, he never deceived any one. And, if treachery had
ever come near him, it would have stood abashed in the presence
of his truth, his manliness, and his confiding simplicity.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote11" name="footnote11"></a><b>Footnote 11:</b><a href="#footnotetag11"> (return) </a><p>Soon after my entrance upon duty as secretary of War,
General Jesup, the Quartermaster-General, presented to me a list of
names from which to make selection of a clerk for his department.
Observing that he had attached certain figures to these names, I asked
whether the figures were intended to indicate the relative
qualifications, or preference in his estimation, of the several
applicants; and, upon his answer in the affirmative, without further
question, authorized him to appoint "No. 1" of his list. A day or two
afterward, certain Democratic members of Congress called on me and
politely inquired whether it was true that I had appointed a Whig to a
position in the War Office. "Certainly not," I answered. "We thought you
were not aware of it," said they, and proceeded to inform me that Mr.
&mdash;&mdash;, the recent appointee to the clerkship just mentioned, was a Whig.
After listening patiently to this statement, I answered that it was they
who were deceived, not I. I had appointed a clerk. He had been appointed
neither as a Whig nor as a Democrat, but merely as the fittest candidate
for the place in the estimation of the chief of the bureau to which it
belonged. I further gave them to understand that the same principle of
selection would be followed in similar cases, so far as my authority
extended. After some further discussion of the question, the visitors
withdrew, dissatisfied with the result of the interview.</p>

<p>The Quartermaster-General, on hearing of this conversation, hastened to inform
me that it was all a mistake&mdash;that the appointee to the office had been confounded
with his father, who was a well-known Whig, but that he (the son) was a Democrat. I
assured the General that this was altogether immaterial, adding that it was "a
very pretty quarrel" as it stood, and that I had no desire to effect a settlement of it
on any inferior issue. Thenceforward, however, I was but little troubled with any
pressure for political appointments in the department.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-i-v" id="chap-i-v"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Territorial Question.&mdash;An Incident at the White House.&mdash;The Kansas and Nebraska
Bill.&mdash;The Missouri Compromise abrogated in 1850, not in 1854.&mdash;Origin
of "Squatter Sovereignty."&mdash;Sectional Rivalry and its Consequences.&mdash;The
Emigrant Aid Societies.&mdash;"The Bible and Sharpe's Rifles."&mdash;False Pretensions
as to Principle.&mdash;The Strife in Kansas.&mdash;A Retrospect.&mdash;The Original Equilibrium
of Power and its Overthrow.&mdash;Usurpations of the Federal Government.&mdash;The
Protective Tariff.&mdash;Origin and Progress of Abolitionism.&mdash;Who were the
Friends of the Union?&mdash;An Illustration of Political Morality.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The organization of the Territory of Kansas was the first
question that gave rise to exciting debate after my return to the
Senate. The celebrated Kansas-Nebraska Bill had become a
law during the Administration of Mr. Pierce. As this occupies
a large space in the political history of the period, it is proper
to state some facts connected with it, which were not public,
but were known to me and to others yet living.</p>

<p>The declaration, often repeated in 1850, that climate and the
will of the people concerned should determine their institutions
when they should form a Constitution, and as a State be admitted
into the Union, and that no legislation by Congress should
be permitted to interfere with the free exercise of that will
when so expressed, was but the announcement of the fact so
firmly established in the Constitution, that sovereignty resided
alone in the States, and that Congress had only delegated powers.
It has been sometimes contended that, because the Congress of
the Confederation, by the Ordinance of 1787, prohibited involuntary
servitude in all the Northwestern Territory, the framers
of the Constitution must have recognized such power to exist
in the Congress of the United States. Hence the deduction
that the prohibitory clause of what is known as the Missouri
Compromise was justified by the precedent of the Ordinance of
1787. To make the action of the Congress of the Confederation
a precedent for the Congress of the United States is to
overlook the great distinction between the two.</p>

<p>The Congress of the Confederation represented the States in
their sovereignty, and, as such representatives, had legislative,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span>
executive, and, in some degree, judicial power confided to it.
Virtually, it was an assemblage of the States. In certain cases a
majority of nine States were required to decide a question, but
there is no express limitation, or restriction, such as is to be found
in the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution of the
United States.  The General Government of the Union is composed
of three departments, of which the Congress is the legislative
branch, and which is checked by the revisory power of
the judiciary, and the veto power of the Executive, and, above
all, is expressly limited in legislation to powers expressly delegated
by the States. If, then, it be admitted, which is certainly
questionable, that the Congress of the Confederation had power
to exclude slave property northwest of the Ohio River, that
power must have been derived from its character as representing
the States in their sovereignty, for no indication of such a power
is to be found in the Articles of Confederation.</p>

<p>If it be assumed that the absence of a prohibition was equivalent
to the admission of the power in the Congress of the Confederation,
the assumption would avail nothing in the Congress
under the Constitution, where power is expressly limited to
what had been delegated. More briefly, it may be stated that
the Congress of the Confederation could, like the Legislature of
a State, do what had not been prohibited; but the Congress of
the United States could only do what had been expressly permitted.
It is submitted whether this last position is not conclusive
against the possession of power by the United States Congress
to legislate slavery into or exclude it from Territories belonging
to the United States.</p>

<p>This subject, which had for more than a quarter of a century
been one of angry discussion and sectional strife, was revived,
and found occasion for renewed discussion in the organization
of Territorial governments for Kansas and Nebraska. The Committees
on Territories of the two Houses agreed to report a bill
in accordance with that recognized principle, provided they
could first be assured that it would receive favorable consideration
from the President. This agreement was made on Saturday,
and the ensuing Monday was the day (and the only day for
two weeks) on which, according to the order of business established
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span>
by the rules of the House of Representatives, the bill
could be introduced by the Committee of that House.</p>

<p>On Sunday morning, the 22d of January, 1854, gentlemen
of each Committee called at my house, and Mr. Douglas, chairman
of the Senate Committee, fully explained the proposed
bill, and stated their purpose to be, through my aid, to obtain
an interview on that day with the President, to ascertain whether
the bill would meet his approbation. The President was known
to be rigidly opposed to the reception of visits on Sunday for
the discussion of any political subject; but in this case it was
urged as necessary, in order to enable the Committee to make
their report the next day. I went with them to the Executive
mansion, and, leaving them in the reception-room, sought the
President in his private apartments, and explained to him the
occasion of the visit.  He thereupon met the gentlemen, patiently
listened to the reading of the bill and their explanations
of it, decided that it rested upon sound constitutional principles,
and recognized in it only a return to that rule which had been
infringed by the compromise of 1820, and the restoration of
which had been foreshadowed by the legislation of 1850.  This
bill was not, therefore, as has been improperly asserted, a measure
inspired by Mr. Pierce or any of his Cabinet.  Nor was it
the first step taken toward the repeal of the conditions or obligations
expressed or implied by the establishment, in 1820, of
the politico-sectional line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes.
That compact had been virtually abrogated, in 1850, by
the refusal of the representatives of the North to apply it to the
territory then recently acquired from Mexico. In May, 1854,
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed; its purpose was declared
in the bill itself to be to carry into practical operation the "propositions
and principles established by the compromise measures
of 1850"  The "Missouri Compromise," therefore, was not repealed
by that bill&mdash;its virtual repeal by the legislation of 1850
was recognized as an existing fact, and it was declared to be
"inoperative and void."</p>

<p>It was added that the "true intent and meaning" of the act
was "not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to
exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span>
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."</p>

<p>From the terms of this bill, as well as from the arguments
that were used in its behalf, it is evident that its purpose was to
leave the Territories equally open to the people of all the States,
with every species of property recognized by any of them; to
permit climate and soil to determine the current of immigration,
and to secure to the people themselves the right to form their
own institutions according to their own will, as soon as they
should acquire the right of self-government; that is to say, as
soon as their numbers should entitle them to organize themselves
into a State, prepared to take its place as an equal, sovereign
member of the Federal Union. The claim, afterward advanced
by Mr. Douglas and others, that this declaration was
intended to assert the right of the first settlers of a Territory, in
its inchoate, rudimental, dependent, and transitional condition,
to determine the character of its institutions, constituted the
doctrine popularly known as "squatter sovereignty." Its assertion
led to the dissensions which ultimately resulted in a rupture
of the Democratic party.</p>

<p>Sectional rivalry, the deadly foe of the "domestic tranquillity"
and the "general welfare," which the compact of union
was formed to insure, now interfered, with gigantic efforts, to
prevent that free migration which had been promised, and to
hinder the decision by climate and the interests of the inhabitants
of the institutions to be established by these embryo States.
Societies were formed in the North to supply money and send
emigrants into the new Territories; and a famous preacher, addressing
a body of those emigrants, charged them to carry with
them to Kansas "the Bible and Sharpe's rifles." The latter
were of course to be leveled against the bosoms of their Southern
brethren who might migrate to the same Territory, but the
use to be made of the Bible in the same fraternal enterprise
was left unexplained by the reverend gentleman.</p>

<p>The war-cry employed to train the Northern mind for the
deeds contemplated by the agitators was "No extension of
slavery!" Was this sentiment real or feigned? The number
of slaves (as has already been clearly shown) would not have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span>
been increased by their transportation to new territory. It
could not be augmented by further importation, for the law of
the land made that piracy. Southern men were the leading authors
of that enactment, and the public opinion of their descendants,
stronger than the law, fully sustained it. The climate of
Kansas and Nebraska was altogether unsuited to the negro, and
the soil was not adapted to those productions for which negro
labor could be profitably employed. If, then, any negroes held
to service or labor, as provided in the compact of union, had
been transported to those Territories, they would have been such
as were bound by personal attachment mutually existing between
master and servant, which would have rendered it impossible
for the former to consider the latter as property convertible into
money.  As white laborers, adapted to the climate and its products,
flowed into the country, negro labor would have inevitably
become a tax to those who held it, and their emancipation would
have followed that condition, as it has in all the Northern States,
old or new&mdash;Wisconsin furnishing the last example.<a id="footnotetag12" name="footnotetag12"></a><a href="#footnote12"><sup>12</sup></a> It may,
therefore, be reasonably concluded that the "war-cry" was employed
by the artful to inflame the minds of the less informed
and less discerning; that it was adopted in utter disregard of
the means by which negro emancipation might have been peaceably
accomplished in the Territories, and with the sole object of
obtaining sectional control and personal promotion by means of
popular agitation.</p>

<p>The success attending this artifice was remarkable. To such
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span>
an extent was it made available, that Northern indignation was
aroused on the absurd accusation that the South had destroyed
"that sacred instrument, the compromise of 1820." The internecine
war which raged in Kansas for several years was substituted
for the promised peace under the operation of the natural
laws regulating migration to new countries. For the fratricide
which dyed the virgin soil of Kansas with the blood of
those who should have stood shoulder to shoulder in subduing
the wilderness; for the frauds which corrupted the ballot-box
and made the name of election a misnomer&mdash;let the authors of
"squatter sovereignty" and the fomenters of sectional hatred
answer to the posterity for whose peace and happiness the
fathers formed the Federal compact.</p>

<p>In these scenes of strife were trained the incendiaries who
afterward invaded Virginia under the leadership of John Brown;
and at this time germinated the sentiments which led men of
high position to sustain, with their influence and their money,
this murderous incursion into the South.<a id="footnotetag13" name="footnotetag13"></a><a href="#footnote13"><sup>13</sup></a></p>

<p>Now was seen the lightning of that storm, the distant muttering
of which had been heard so long, and against which the
wise and the patriotic had given solemn warning, regarding it
as the sign which portended a dissolution of the Union.</p>

<p>Diversity of interests and of opinions among the States of
the Confederation had in the beginning presented great difficulties
in the way of the formation of a more perfect union. The
compact was the result of compromise between the States, at
that time generally distinguished as navigating and agricultural,
afterward as Northern and Southern. When the first census
was taken, in 1790, there was but little numerical difference in
the population of these two sections, and (including States about
to be admitted) there was also an exact equality in the number
of States. Each section had, therefore, the power of self-protection,
and might feel secure against any danger of Federal aggression.
If the disturbance of that equilibrium had been the
consequence of natural causes, and the government of the whole
had continued to be administered strictly for the general welfare,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span>
there would have been no ground for complaint of the
result.</p>

<p>Under the old Confederation the Southern States had a
large excess of territory. The acquisition of Louisiana, of
Florida, and of Texas, afterward greatly increased this excess.
The generosity and patriotism of Virginia led her, before the
adoption of the Constitution, to cede the Northwest Territory to
the United States. The "Missouri Compromise" surrendered
to the North all the newly acquired region not included in the
State of Missouri, and north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees
and a half. The northern part of Texas was in like manner
given up by the compromise of 1850; and the North, having
obtained, by those successive cessions, a majority in both Houses
of Congress, took to itself all the territory acquired from Mexico.
Thus, by the action of the General Government, the means were
provided permanently to destroy the original equilibrium between
the sections.</p>

<p>Nor was this the only injury to which the South was subjected.
Under the power of Congress to levy duties on imports,
tariff laws were enacted, not merely "to pay the debts and provide
for the common defense and general welfare of the United
States," as authorized by the Constitution, but, positively and
primarily, for the protection against foreign competition of
domestic manufactures. The effect of this was to impose the
main burden of taxation upon the Southern people, who were
consumers and not manufacturers, not only by the enhanced
price of imports, but indirectly by the consequent depreciation
in the value of exports, which were chiefly the products of
Southern States. The imposition of this grievance was unaccompanied
by the consolation of knowing that the tax thus borne
was to be paid into the public Treasury, for the increase of price
accrued mainly to the benefit of the manufacturer. Nor was
this all: a reference to the annual appropriations will show that
the disbursements made were as unequal as the burdens borne&mdash;the
inequality in both operating in the same direction.</p>

<p>These causes all combined to direct immigration to the Northern
section; and with the increase of its preponderance appeared
more and more distinctly a tendency in the Federal Government
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span>
to pervert functions delegated to it, and to use them with
sectional discrimination against the minority.</p>

<p>The resistance to the admission of Missouri as a State, in
1820, was evidently not owing to any moral or constitutional
considerations, but merely to political motives; and the compensation
exacted for granting what was simply a right, was
the exclusion of the South from equality in the enjoyment of
territory which justly belonged equally to both, and which was
what the enemies of the South stigmatized as "slave territory,"
when acquired.</p>

<p>The sectional policy then indicated brought to its support the
passions that spring from man's higher nature, but which, like
all passions, if misdirected and perverted, become hurtful and,
it may be, destructive. The year 1835 was marked by the public
agitation for the abolition of that African servitude which
existed in the South, which antedated the Union, and had existed
in every one of the States that formed the Confederation. By
a great misconception of the powers belonging to the General
Government, and the responsibilities of citizens of the Northern
States, many of those citizens were, little by little, brought to
the conclusion that slavery was a sin for which <i>they</i> were answerable,
and that it was the duty of the Federal Government
to abate it. Though, at the date above referred to, numerically
so weak, when compared with either of the political parties at
the North, as to excite no apprehension of their power for evil,
the public demonstrations of the Abolitionists were violently rebuked
generally at the North. The party was contemned on
account of the character of its leaders, and the more odious
because chief among them was an Englishman, one Thompson,
who was supposed to be an emissary, whose mission was to prepare
the way for a dissolution of the Union. Let us hope that
it was reverence for the obligations of the Constitution as the
soul of the Union that suggested lurking danger, and rendered
the supposed emissary for its destruction so odious that he was
driven from a Massachusetts hall where he attempted to lecture.
But bodies in motion will overcome bodies at rest, and
the unreflecting too often are led by captivating names far from
the principles they revere.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id="page34"></a>[pg 34]</span>

<p>Thus, by the activity of the propagandists of abolitionism,
and the misuse of the sacred word Liberty, they recruited from
the ardent worshipers of that goddess such numbers as gave
them in many Northern States the balance of power between
the two great political forces that stood arrayed against each
other; then and there they came to be courted by both of the
great parties, especially by the Whigs, who had become the
weaker party of the two. Fanaticism, to which is usually
accorded sincerity as an extenuation of its mischievous tenets,
affords the best excuse to be offered for the original abolitionists,
but that can not be conceded to the political associates
who joined them for the purpose of acquiring power;
with them it was but hypocritical cant, intended to deceive.
Hence arose the declaration of the existence of an "irrepressible
conflict," because of the domestic institutions of sovereign,
self-governing States&mdash;institutions over which neither the Federal
Government nor the people outside of the limits of such
States had any control, and for which they could have no moral
or legal responsibility.</p>

<p>Those who are to come after us, and who will look without
prejudice or excitement at the record of events which have occurred
in our day, will not fail to wonder how men professing
and proclaiming such a belief should have so far imposed upon
the credulity of the world as to be able to arrogate to themselves
the claim of being the special friends of a Union contracted
in order to insure "domestic tranquillity" among the people
of the States united; that <i>they</i> were the advocates of peace, of
law, and of order, who, when taking an oath to support and
maintain the Constitution, did so with a mental reservation to
violate one of the provisions of that Constitution&mdash;one of the
conditions of the compact&mdash;without which the Union could
never have been formed. The tone of political morality which
could make this possible was well indicated by the toleration
accorded in the Senate to the flippant, inconsequential excuse
for it given by one of its most eminent exemplars&mdash;"Is thy
servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"&mdash;meaning thereby,
not that it would be the part of a dog to <i>violate</i> his oath, but to
<i>keep</i> it in the matter referred to. (See Appendix D.)</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote12" name="footnote12"></a><b>Footnote 12:</b><a href="#footnotetag12"> (return) </a><p>
Extract from a speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the United
States, May 17, 1860: "There is a relation belonging to this species of property,
unlike that of the apprentice or the hired man, which awakens whatever there is
of kindness or of nobility of soul in the heart of him who owns it; this can only be
alienated, obscured, or destroyed, by collecting this species of property into such
masses that the owner is not personally acquainted with the individuals who compose
it. In the relation, however, which can exist in the Northwestern Territories,
the mere domestic connection of one, two, or at most half a dozen servants in a
family, associating with the children as they grow up, attending upon age as it declines,
there can be nothing against which either philanthropy or humanity can
make an appeal.  Not even the emancipationist could raise his voice; for this is the
high-road and the open gate to the condition in which the masters would, from interest,
in a few years, desire the emancipation of every one who may thus be taken
to the northwestern frontier."</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote13" name="footnote13"></a><b>Footnote 13:</b><a href="#footnotetag13"> (return) </a><p>See "Report of Senate Committee of Inquiry into the John Brown Raid."</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id="page35"></a>[pg 35]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-i-vi" id="chap-i-vi"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Agitation continued.&mdash;Political Parties: their Origin, Changes, and Modifications.&mdash;Some
Account of the "Popular Sovereignty," or "Non-Intervention," Theory.&mdash;Rupture
of the Democratic Party.&mdash;The John Brown Raid.&mdash;Resolutions introduced
by the Author into the Senate on the Relations of the States, the Federal
Government, and the Territories; their Discussion and Adoption.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The strife in Kansas and the agitation of the territorial question
in Congress and throughout the country continued during
nearly the whole of Mr. Buchanan's Administration, finally culminating
in a disruption of the Union. Meantime the changes,
or modifications, which had occurred or were occurring in the
great political parties, were such as may require a word of explanation
to the reader not already familiar with their history.</p>

<p>The <i>names</i> adopted by political parties in the United States
have not always been strictly significant of their principles. The
old Federal party inclined to nationalism, or consolidation, rather
than federalization, of the States.  On the other hand, the party
originally known as Republican, and afterward as Democratic,
can scarcely claim to have been distinctively or exclusively such
in the primary sense of these terms, inasmuch as no party has
ever avowed opposition to the general principles of government
by the people.  The fundamental idea of the Democratic party
was that of the sovereignty of the States and the federal, or confederate,
character of the Union. Other elements have entered
into its organization at different periods, but this has been the
vital, cardinal, and abiding principle on which its existence has
been perpetuated. The Whig, which succeeded the old Federal
party, though by no means identical with it, was, in the main,
favorable to a strong central government, therein antagonizing the
transatlantic traditions connected with its name. The "Know-Nothing,"
or "American," party, which sprang into existence
on the decadence of the Whig organization, based upon opposition
to the alleged overgrowth of the political influence of naturalized
foreigners and of the Roman Catholic Church, had but
a brief duration, and after the Presidential election of 1856 declined
as rapidly as it had arisen.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id="page36"></a>[pg 36]</span>

<p>At the period to which this narrative has advanced, the
"Free-Soil," which had now assumed the title of "Republican"
party, had grown to a magnitude which threatened speedily to
obtain entire control of the Government.  Based, as has been
shown, upon sectional rivalry and opposition to the growth of
the Southern equally with the Northern States of the Union,
it had absorbed within itself not only the abolitionists, who
were avowedly agitating for the destruction of the system of
negro servitude, but other diverse and heterogeneous elements
of opposition to the Democratic party. In the Presidential
election of 1856, their candidates (Fremont and Dayton) had
received 114 of a total of 296 electoral votes, representing a
popular vote of 1,341,264 in a total of 4,053,967.  The elections
of the ensuing year (1857) exhibited a diminution of the so-called
"Republican" strength, and the Thirty-fifth Congress,
which convened in December of that year, was decidedly Democratic
in both branches.  In the course of the next two years,
however, the Kansas agitation and another cause, to be presently
noticed, had so swollen the ranks of the so-called Republicans,
that, in the House of Representatives of the Thirty-sixth Congress,
which met in December, 1859, neither party had a decided
majority, the balance of power being held by a few members
still adhering to the virtually extinct Whig and "American," or
Know-Nothing, organizations, and a still smaller number whose
position was doubtful or irregular.  More than eight weeks
were spent in the election of a Speaker; and a so-called "Republican"
(Mr. Pennington, of New Jersey) was finally elected
by a majority of one vote. The Senate continued to be decidedly
Democratic, though with an increase of the so-called
"Republican" minority.</p>

<p>The cause above alluded to, as contributing to the rapid
growth of the so-called Republican party after the elections of
the year 1857, was the dissension among the Democrats, occasioned
by the introduction of the doctrine called by its inventors
and advocates "popular sovereignty," or "non-intervention,"
but more generally and more accurately known as "squatter
sovereignty." Its character has already been concisely stated
in the preceding chapter.  Its origin is generally attributed to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id="page37"></a>[pg 37]</span>
General Cass, who is supposed to have suggested it in some
general expressions of his celebrated "Nicholson letter," written
in December, 1847. On the 16th and 17th of May, 1860, it
became necessary for me in a debate, in the Senate, to review
that letter of Mr. Cass.  From my remarks then made, the following
extract is taken:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The Senator [Mr. Douglas] might have remembered, if he
had chosen to recollect so unimportant a thing, that I once had to
explain to him, ten years ago, the fact that I repudiated the doctrine
of that letter at the time it was published, and that the Democracy
of Mississippi had well-nigh crucified me for the construction
which I placed upon it. There were men mean enough to
suspect that the construction I gave to the Nicholson letter was
prompted by the confidence and affection I felt for General Taylor.
At a subsequent period, however, Mr. Cass thoroughly reviewed
it.  He uttered (for him) very harsh language against all who had
doubted the true construction of his letter, and he construed it
just as I had done during the canvass of 1848.  It remains only
to add that I supported Mr. Cass, not because of the doctrine of
the Nicholson letter, but in despite of it; because I believed a
Democratic President, with a Democratic Cabinet and Democratic
counselors in the two Houses of Congress, and he as honest a man
as I believed Mr. Cass to be, would be a safer reliance than his
opponent, who personally possessed my confidence as much as any
man living, but who was of, and must draw his advisers from, a
party the tenets of which I believed to be opposed to the interests
of the country, as they were to all my political convictions.</p>

<p>"I little thought at that time that my advocacy of Mr. Cass
upon such grounds as these, or his support by the State of which
I am a citizen, would at any future day be quoted as an endorsement
of the opinions contained in the Nicholson letter, as those
opinions were afterward defined. But it is not only upon this
letter, but equally upon the resolutions of the Convention as constructive
of that letter, that the Senator rested his argument.  [I
will here say to the Senator that, if at any time I do him the least
injustice, speaking as I do from such notes as I could take while
he progressed, I will thank him to correct me.]</p>

<p>"But this letter entered into the canvass; there was a doubt
about its construction: there were men who asserted that they
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id="page38"></a>[pg 38]</span>
had positive authority for saying that it meant that the people of
a Territory could only exclude slavery when the Territory should
form a Constitution and be admitted as a State. This doubt continued
to hang over the construction, and it was that doubt alone
which secured Mr. Cass the vote of Mississippi.  If the true construction
had been certainly known, he would have had no chance
to get it."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Whatever meaning the generally discreet and conservative
statesman, Mr. Cass, may have intended to convey, it is not at
all probable that he foresaw the extent to which the suggestions
would be carried and the consequences that would result from it.</p>

<p>In the organization of a government for California in 1850,
the theory was more distinctly advanced, but it was not until
after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, in 1854, that it
was fully developed under the plastic and constructive genius
of the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois. The leading part
which that distinguished Senator had borne in the authorship
and advocacy of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which affirmed the
right of the people of the Territories "to form and regulate
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States," had aroused against him a
violent storm of denunciation in the State which he represented
and other Northern States.  He met it very manfully in some
respects, defended his action resolutely, but in so doing was led
to make such concessions of principle and to attach such an
interpretation to the bill as would have rendered it practically
nugatory&mdash;a thing to keep the promise of peace to the ear and
break it to the hope.</p>

<p>The Constitution expressly confers upon Congress the power
to admit new States into the Union, and also to "dispose of and
make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory
or other property belonging to the United States." Under these
grants of power, the uniform practice of the Government had
been for Congress to lay off and divide the common territory by
convenient boundaries for the formation of future States; to
provide executive, legislative, and judicial departments of government
for such Territories during their temporary and provisional
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" id="page39"></a>[pg 39]</span>
period of pupilage; to delegate to these governments
such authority as might be expedient&mdash;subject always to the
supervision and controlling government of the Congress. Finally,
at the proper time, and on the attainment by the Territory
of sufficient strength and population for self-government,
to receive it into the Union on a footing of entire equality with
the original States&mdash;sovereign and self-governing. All this is
no more inconsistent with the true principles of "popular sovereignty,"
properly understood, than the temporary subjection
of a minor to parental control is inconsistent with the doctrines
of the Declaration of Independence, or the exceptional discipline
of a man-of-war or a military post with the principles of republican
freedom.</p>

<p>The usual process of transition from a territorial condition
to that of a State was, in the first place, by an act of Congress
authorizing the inhabitants to elect representatives for a convention
to form a State Constitution, which was then submitted
to Congress for approval and ratification. On such ratification
the supervisory control of Congress was withdrawn, and the
new State authorized to assume its sovereignty, and the inhabitants
of the Territory became citizens of a State.  In the cases
of Tennessee in 1796, and Arkansas and Michigan in 1836, the
failure of the inhabitants to obtain an "enabling act" of Congress,
before organizing themselves, very nearly caused the rejection
of their applications for admission as States, though they
were eventually granted on the ground that the subsequent approval
and consent of Congress could heal the prior irregularity.
The entire control of Congress over the whole subject of territorial
government had never been questioned in earlier times.
Necessarily conjoined with the <i>power</i> of this protectorate, was
of course the <i>duty</i> of exercising it for the safety of the persons
and property of all citizens of the United States, permanently
or temporarily resident in any part of the domain belonging
to the States in common.</p>

<p>Logically carried out, the new theory of "popular sovereignty"
would apply to the first adventurous pioneers settling in the
wilderness before the organization of any Territorial government
by Congress, as well as afterward.  If "sovereignty" is inherent
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40"></a>[pg 40]</span>
in a thousand or five thousand persons, there can be no
valid ground for denying its existence in a dozen, as soon as
they pass beyond the limits of the State governments. The advocates
of this novel doctrine, however, if rightly understood,
generally disavowed any claim to its application prior to the
organization of a territorial government.</p>

<p>The Territorial Legislatures, to which Congress delegated a
portion of its power and duty to "make all needful rules and
regulations respecting the Territory," were the mere agents of
Congress, exercising an authority subject to Congressional supervision
and control&mdash;an authority conferred only for the sake of
convenience, and liable at any time to be revoked and annulled.
Yet it is proposed to recognize in these provisional, subordinate,
and temporary legislative bodies, a power not possessed
by Congress itself. This is to claim that the creature is endowed
with an authority not possessed by the creator, or that
the stream has risen to an elevation above that of its source.</p>

<p>Furthermore, in contending for a power in the Territorial
Legislatures permanently to determine the fundamental, social,
and political institutions of the Territory, and thereby virtually
to prescribe those of the future State, the advocates of "popular
sovereignty" were investing those dependent and subsidiary
bodies with powers far above any exercised by the Legislatures
of the fully organized and sovereign States. The authority of
the State Legislatures is limited, both by the Federal Constitution
and by the respective State Constitutions from which it
is derived.  This latter limitation did not and could not exist
in the Territories.</p>

<p>Strange as it may seem, a theory founded on fallacies so
flimsy and leading to conclusions so paradoxical was advanced
by eminent and experienced politicians, and accepted by many
persons, both in the North and in the South&mdash;not so much, perhaps,
from intelligent conviction as under the delusive hope that
it would afford a satisfactory settlement of the "irrepressible
conflict" which had been declared. The terms "popular sovereignty"
and "non-intervention" were plausible, specious, and
captivating to the public ear.  Too many lost sight of the elementary
truth that political sovereignty does not reside in unorganized
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id="page41"></a>[pg 41]</span>
or partially organized masses of individuals, but in
the people of regularly and permanently constituted States. As
to the "non-intervention" proposed, it meant merely the abnegation
by Congress of its duty to protect the inhabitants of the
Territories subject to its control.</p>

<p>The raid into Virginia under John Brown&mdash;already notorious
as a fanatical partisan leader in the Kansas troubles&mdash;occurred
in October, 1859, a few weeks before the meeting of the
Thirty-sixth Congress. Insignificant in itself and in its immediate
results, it afforded a startling revelation of the extent to
which sectional hatred and political fanaticism had blinded the
conscience of a class of persons in certain States of the Union;
forming a party steadily growing stronger in numbers, as well
as in activity.  Sympathy with its purposes or methods was
earnestly disclaimed by the representatives of all parties in Congress;
but it was charged, on the other hand, that it was only
the natural outgrowth of doctrines and sentiments which for
some years had been freely avowed on the floors of both Houses.
A committee of the Senate made a long and laborious investigation
of the facts, with no very important or satisfactory results.
In their final report, June 15, 1860, accompanying the evidence
obtained and submitted, this Committee said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It [the incursion] was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under
the sanction of no public or political authority, distinguishable
only from ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation
by them, and by the fact that the money to maintain the expedition,
and the large armament they brought with them, had been
contributed and furnished by the citizens of other States of the
Union under circumstances that must continue to jeopard the
safety and peace of the Southern States, and against which Congress
has no power to legislate.</p>

<p>"If the several States [adds the Committee], whether from motives
of policy or a desire to preserve the peace of the Union, if
not from fraternal feeling, do not hold it incumbent on them, after
the experience of the country, to guard in future by appropriate
legislation against occurrences similar to the one here inquired into,
the Committee can find no guarantee elsewhere for the security of
peace between the States of the Union."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42"></a>[pg 42]</span>

<p>On February 2, 1860, the author submitted, in the Senate
of the United States, a series of resolutions, afterward slightly
modified to read as follows</p>

<blockquote><p>
"1. <i>Resolved</i>, That, in the adoption of the Federal Constitution,
the States, adopting the same, acted severally as free and independent
sovereignties, delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised
by the Federal Government for the increased security of
each against dangers, <i>domestic</i> as well as foreign; and that any
intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a combination of
their citizens, with the domestic institutions of the others, on any
pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, with the view to
their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution,
insulting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic
peace and tranquillity&mdash;objects for which the Constitution was
formed&mdash;and, by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy
the Union itself.</p>

<p>"2. <i>Resolved</i>, That negro slavery, as it exists in fifteen States
of this Union, composes an important portion of their domestic
institutions, inherited from our ancestors, and existing at the adoption
of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as constituting
an important element in the apportionment of powers among the
States, and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of the
non-slaveholding States of the Union in relation to this institution
can justify them or their citizens in open or covert attacks thereon,
with a view to its overthrow; and that all such attacks are in
manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect and
defend each other, given by the States respectively, on entering
into the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and are
a manifest breach of faith and a violation of the most solemn obligations.</p>

<p>"3. <i>Resolved</i>, That the Union of these States rests on the
equality of rights and privileges among its members, and that it is
especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the States in
their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to discriminate
either in relation to persons or property in the Territories, which
are the common possessions of the United States, so as to give advantages
to the citizens of one State which are not equally assured
to those of every other State.</p>

<p>"4. <i>Resolved</i>, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span>
whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and
unfriendly character, possesses power to annul or impair the constitutional
right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave
property into the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy
the same while the territorial condition remains.</p>

<p>"5. <i>Resolved</i>, That if experience should at any time prove that
the judiciary and executive authority do not possess means to insure
adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory,
and if the Territorial government shall fail or refuse to provide
the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of
Congress to supply such deficiency.<a id="footnotetag14" name="footnotetag14"></a><a href="#footnote14"><sup>14</sup></a></p>

<p>"6. <i>Resolved</i>, That the inhabitants of a Territory of the United
States, when they rightfully form a Constitution to be admitted
as a State into the Union, may then, for the first time, like the
people of a State when forming a new Constitution, decide for
themselves whether slavery, as a domestic institution, shall be
maintained or prohibited within their jurisdiction; and they shall
be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitution
may prescribe at the time of their admission.</p>

<p>"7. <i>Resolved</i>, That the provision of the Constitution for the
rendition of fugitives from service or labor, 'without the adoption
of which the Union could not have been formed,' and that the
laws of 1793 and 1850, which were enacted to secure its execution,
and the main features of which, being similar, bear the impress
of nearly seventy years of sanction by the highest judicial authority,
should be honestly and faithfully observed and maintained by all
who enjoy the benefits of our compact of union; and that all acts
of individuals or of State Legislatures to defeat the purpose or
nullify the requirements of that provision, and the laws made in
pursuance of it, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution,
and revolutionary in their effect."<a id="footnotetag15" name="footnotetag15"></a><a href="#footnote15"><sup>15</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>After a protracted and earnest debate, these resolutions were
adopted <i>seriatim</i>, on the 24th and 25th of May, by a decided
majority of the Senate (varying from thirty-three to thirty-six
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span>
yeas against from two to twenty-one nays), the Democrats, both
Northern and Southern, sustaining them unitedly, with the exception
of one adverse vote (that of Mr. Pugh, of Ohio) on
the fourth and sixth resolutions. The Republicans all voted
against them or refrained from voting at all, except that Mr.
Teneyck, of New Jersey, voted for the fifth and seventh of
the series. Mr. Douglas, the leader if not the author of "popular
sovereignty," was absent on account of illness, and there
were a few other absentees.</p>

<p>The conclusion of a speech, in reply to Mr. Douglas, a few
days before the vote was taken on these resolutions, is introduced
here as the best evidence of the position of the author at
that period of excitement and agitation:</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Conclusion of Reply to Mr. Douglas</span>, <i>May 17, 1860</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Mr. President</span>: I briefly and reluctantly referred, because
the subject had been introduced, to the attitude of Mississippi on
a former occasion.  I will now as briefly say that in 1851, and
in 1860, Mississippi was, and is, ready to make every concession
which it becomes her to make to the welfare and the safety of the
Union.  If, on a former occasion, she hoped too much from fraternity,
the responsibility for her disappointment rests upon those
who failed to fulfill her expectations.  She still clings to the Government
as our fathers formed it. She is ready to-day and to-morrow,
as in her past and though brief yet brilliant history, to maintain
that Government in all its power, and to vindicate its honor with
all the means she possesses. I say brilliant history; for it was in
the very morning of her existence that her sons, on the plains of
New Orleans, were announced, in general orders, to have been the
admiration of one army and the wonder of the other. That we
had a division in relation to the measures enacted in 1850, is true;
that the Southern rights men became the minority in the election
which resulted, is true; but no figure of speech could warrant the
Senator in speaking of them as subdued&mdash;as coming to him or anybody
else for quarter. I deemed it offensive when it was uttered,
and the scorn with which I repelled it at the instant, time has only
softened to contempt. Our flag was never borne from the field.
We had carried it in the face of defeat, with a knowledge that defeat
awaited it; but scarcely had the smoke of the battle passed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span>
away which proclaimed another victor, before the general voice
admitted that the field again was ours. I have not seen a sagacious,
reflecting man, who was cognizant of the events as they transpired
at the time, who does not say that, within two weeks after the election,
our party was in a majority; and the next election which
occurred showed that we possessed the State beyond controversy.
How we have wielded that power it is not for me to say. I trust
others may see forbearance in our conduct&mdash;that, with a determination
to insist upon our constitutional rights, then and now,
there is an unwavering desire to maintain the Government, and to
uphold the Democratic party.</p>

<p>"We believe now, as we have asserted on former occasions,
that the best hope for the perpetuity of our institutions depends
upon the co&ouml;peration, the harmony, the zealous action, of the Democratic
party. We cling to that party from conviction that its
principles and its aims are those of truth and the country, as we
cling to the Union for the fulfillment of the purposes for which it
was formed. Whenever we shall be taught that the Democratic
party is recreant to its principles; whenever we shall learn that it
can not be relied upon to maintain the great measures which constitute
its vitality&mdash;I for one shall be ready to leave it.  And so,
when we declare our tenacious adherence to the Union, it is the
Union of the Constitution. If the compact between the States is
to be trampled into the dust; if anarchy is to be substituted for the
usurpation and consolidation which threatened the Government at
an earlier period; if the Union is to become powerless for the purposes
for which it was established, and we are vainly to appeal to
it for protection&mdash;then, sir, conscious of the rectitude of our course,
the justice of our cause, self-reliant, yet humbly, confidingly trusting
in the arm that guided and protected our fathers, we look beyond
the confines of the Union for the maintenance of our rights.
An habitual reverence and cherished affection for the Government
will bind us to it longer than our interests would suggest or require;
but he is a poor student of the world's history who does
not understand that communities at last must yield to the dictates
of their interests. That the affection, the mutual desire for the
mutual good, which existed among our fathers, may be weakened
in succeeding generations by the denial of right, and hostile demonstration,
until the equality guaranteed but not secured within the
Union may be sought for without it, must be evident to even a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" id="page46"></a>[pg 46]</span>
careless observer of our race. It is time to be up and doing.
There is yet time to remove the causes of dissension and alienation
which are now distracting, and have for years past divided, the
country.</p>

<p>"If the Senator correctly described me as having at a former
period, against my own preferences and opinions, acquiesced in the
decision of my party; if, when I had youth, when physical vigor
gave promise of many days, and the future was painted in the
colors of hope, I could thus surrender my own convictions, my own
prejudices, and co&ouml;perate with my political friends according to
their views of the best method of promoting the public good&mdash;now,
when the years of my future can not be many, and experience
has sobered the hopeful tints of youth's gilding; when, approaching
the evening of life, the shadows are reversed, and the
mind turns retrospectively, it is not to be supposed that I would
abandon lightly, or idly put on trial, the party to which I have
steadily adhered. It is rather to be assumed that conservatism,
which belongs to the timidity or caution of increasing years, would
lead me to cling to, to be supported by, rather than to cast off,
the organization with which I have been so long connected.  If I
am driven to consider the necessity of separating myself from those
old and dear relations, of discarding the accustomed support, under
circumstances such as I have described, might not my friends who
differ from me pause and inquire whether there is not something
involved in it which calls for their careful revision?</p>

<p>"I desire no divided flag for the Democratic party.</p>

<p>"Our principles are national; they belong to every State of
the Union; and, though elections may be lost by their assertion,
they constitute the only foundation on which we can maintain
power, on which we can again rise to the dignity the Democracy
once possessed. Does not the Senator from Illinois see in the sectional
character of the vote be received,<a id="footnotetag16" name="footnotetag16"></a><a href="#footnote16"><sup>16</sup></a> that his opinions are not
acceptable to every portion of the country? Is not the fact that
the resolutions adopted by seventeen States, on which the greatest
reliance must be placed for Democratic support, are in opposition
to the dogma to which he still clings, a warning that, if he persists
and succeeds in forcing his theory upon the Democratic party,
its days are numbered?  We ask only for the Constitution. We
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" id="page47"></a>[pg 47]</span>
ask of the Democracy only from time to time to declare, as current
exigencies may indicate, what the Constitution was intended
to secure and provide. Our flag bears no new device. Upon its
folds our principles are written in living light; all proclaiming
the constitutional Union, justice, equality, and fraternity of our
ocean-bound domain, for a limitless future."
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote14" name="footnote14"></a><b>Footnote 14:</b><a href="#footnotetag14"> (return) </a><p>
The words, "within the limits of its constitutional powers," were subsequently
added to this resolution, on the suggestion of Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, with the approval
of the mover.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote15" name="footnote15"></a><b>Footnote 15:</b><a href="#footnotetag15"> (return) </a><p>The speech of the author, delivered on the 7th of May ensuing, in exposition
of these resolutions, will be found in Appendix F.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote16" name="footnote16"></a><b>Footnote 16:</b><a href="#footnotetag16"> (return) </a><p>In the Democratic Convention, which had been recently held in Charleston.
(See the ensuing chapter.)</p></blockquote>





<h2><a name="chap-i-vii" id="chap-i-vii"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>

<blockquote><p>
A Retrospect.&mdash;Growth of Sectional Rivalry.&mdash;The Generosity of Virginia.&mdash;Unequal
Accessions of Territory.&mdash;The Tariff and its Effects.&mdash;The Republican
Convention of 1860, its Resolutions and its Nominations.&mdash;The Democratic
Convention at Charleston, its Divisions and Disruption.&mdash;The Nominations at
Baltimore.&mdash;The "Constitutional-Union" Party and its Nominees.&mdash;An Effort
in Behalf of Agreement declined by Mr. Douglas.&mdash;The Election of Lincoln and
Hamlin.&mdash;Proceedings in the South.&mdash;Evidences of Calmness and Deliberation.&mdash;Mr.
Buchanan's Conservatism and the weakness of his Position.&mdash;Republican
Taunts.&mdash;The "New York Tribune," etc.
</p></blockquote>


<p>When, at the close of the war of the Revolution, each of the
thirteen colonies that had been engaged in that contest was severally
acknowledged by the mother-country, Great Britain, to
be a free and independent State, the confederation of those
States embraced an area so extensive, with climate and products
so various, that rivalries and conflicts of interest soon began to
be manifested. It required all the power of wisdom and patriotism,
animated by the affection engendered by common sufferings
and dangers, to keep these rivalries under restraint, and to
effect those compromises which it was fondly hoped would insure
the harmony and mutual good offices of each for the benefit
of all. It was in this spirit of patriotism and confidence in
the continuance of such abiding good will as would for all time
preclude hostile aggression, that Virginia ceded, for the use of
the confederated States, all that vast extent of territory lying
north of the Ohio River, out of which have since been formed
five States and part of a sixth.  The addition of these States
has accrued entirely to the preponderance of the Northern section
over that from which the donation proceeded, and to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" id="page48"></a>[pg 48]</span>
disturbance of that equilibrium which existed at the close of the
war of the Revolution.</p>

<p>It may not be out of place here to refer to the fact that the
grievances which led to that war were directly inflicted upon
the Northern colonies. Those of the South had no material
cause of complaint; but, actuated by sympathy for their Northern
brethren, and a devotion to the principles of civil liberty
and community independence, which they had inherited from
their Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and which were set forth in the
Declaration of Independence, they made common cause with
their neighbors, and may, at least, claim to have done their full
share in the war that ensued.</p>

<p>By the exclusion of the South, in 1820, from all that part of
the Louisiana purchase lying north of the parallel of thirty-six
degrees thirty minutes, and not included in the State of Missouri,
by the extension of that line of exclusion to embrace the
territory acquired from Texas; and by the appropriation of <i>all</i>
the territory obtained from Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, both north and south of that line, it may be stated
with approximate accuracy that the North had monopolized to
herself more than three fourths of all that had been added to
the domain of the United States since the Declaration of Independence.
This inequality, which began, as has been shown,
in the more generous than wise confidence of the South, was
employed to obtain for the North the lion's share of what was
afterward added at the cost of the public treasure and the blood
of patriots. I do not care to estimate the relative proportion
contributed by each of the two sections.</p>

<p>Nor was this the only cause that operated to disappoint the
reasonable hopes and to blight the fair prospects under which
the original compact was formed. The effects of discriminating
duties upon imports have been referred to in a former chapter&mdash;favoring
the manufacturing region, which was the North; burdening
the exporting region, which was the South; and so imposing
upon the latter a double tax: one, by the increased price
of articles of consumption, which, so far as they were of home
production, went into the pockets of the manufacturer; the
other, by the diminished value of articles of export, which was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" id="page49"></a>[pg 49]</span>
so much withheld from the pockets of the agriculturist.  In
like manner the power of the majority section was employed to
appropriate to itself an unequal share of the public disbursements.
These combined causes&mdash;the possession of more territory,
more money, and a wider field for the employment of
special labor&mdash;all served to attract immigration; and, with increasing
population, the greed grew by what it fed on.</p>

<p>This became distinctly manifest when the so-called "Republican"
Convention assembled in Chicago, on May 16, 1860, to
nominate a candidate for the Presidency. It was a purely sectional
body. There were a few delegates present, representing
an insignificant minority in the "border States," Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri; but not one from
any State south of the celebrated political line of thirty-six degrees
thirty minutes. It had been the invariable usage with
nominating conventions of all parties to select candidates for the
Presidency and Vice-Presidency, one from the North and the
other from the South; but this assemblage nominated Mr. Lincoln,
of Illinois, for the first office, and for the second, Mr.
Hamlin, of Maine&mdash;both Northerners. Mr. Lincoln, its nominee
for the Presidency, had publicly announced that the Union
"could not permanently endure, half slave and half free." The
resolutions adopted contained some carefully worded declarations,
well adapted to deceive the credulous who were opposed
to hostile aggressions upon the rights of the States. In order
to accomplish this purpose, they were compelled to create a fictitious
issue, in denouncing what they described as "the new
dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery
into any or all of the Territories of the United States"&mdash;a "dogma"
which had never been held or declared by anybody, and
which had no existence outside of their own assertion. There
was enough in connection with the nomination to assure the
most fanatical foes of the Constitution that their ideas would be
the rule and guide of the party.</p>

<p>Meantime, the Democratic party had held a convention, composed
as usual of delegates from all the States. They met in
Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23d, but an unfortunate
disagreement with regard to the declaration of principles to be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50"></a>[pg 50]</span>
set forth rendered a nomination impracticable. Both divisions
of the Convention adjourned, and met again in Baltimore in
June. Then, having finally failed to come to an agreement,
they separated and made their respective nominations apart.
Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, was nominated by the friends of the
doctrine of "popular sovereignty," with Mr. Fitzpatrick, of
Alabama, for the Vice-Presidency. Both these gentlemen at
that time were Senators from their respective States. Mr. Fitzpatrick
promptly declined the nomination, and his place was
filled with the name of Mr. Herschel V. Johnson, a distinguished
citizen of Georgia.</p>

<p>The Convention representing the conservative, or State-Rights,
wing of the Democratic-party (the President of which
was the Hon. Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts), on the first
ballot, unanimously made choice of John C. Breckinridge, of
Kentucky, then Vice-President of the United States, for the
first office, and with like unanimity selected General Joseph
Lane, then a Senator from Oregon, for the second. The resolutions
of each of these two conventions denounced the action
and policy of the Abolition party, as subversive of the Constitution,
and revolutionary in their tendency.</p>

<p>Another convention was held in Baltimore about the same
period<a id="footnotetag17" name="footnotetag17"></a><a href="#footnote17"><sup>17</sup></a> by those who still adhered to the old Whig party, re&euml;nforced
by the remains of the "American" organization, and
perhaps some others. This Convention also consisted of delegates
from all the States, and, repudiating all geographical and
sectional issues, and declaring it to be "both the part of patriotism
and of duty to recognize no political principle other than
the Constitution of the country, the Union of the States, and
the enforcement of the laws," pledged itself and its supporters
"to maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, those
great principles of public liberty and national safety against all
enemies at home and abroad." Its nominees were Messrs. John
Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, both
of whom had long been distinguished members of the Whig
party.</p>

<p>The people of the United States now had four rival tickets
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51"></a>[pg 51]</span>
presented to them by as many contending parties, whose respective
position and principles on the great and absorbing question
at issue may be briefly recapitulated as follows:</p>

<p>1. The "Constitutional-Union" Party, as it was now termed,
led by Messrs. Bell and Everett, which ignored the territorial
controversy altogether, and contented itself, as above stated, with
a simple declaration of adherence to "the Constitution, the
Union, and the enforcement of the laws."</p>

<p>2. The party of "popular sovereignty," headed by Douglas
and Johnson, who affirmed the right of the people of the Territories,
in their territorial condition, to determine their own organic
institutions, independently of the control of Congress;
denying the power or duty of Congress to protect the persons or
property of individuals or minorities in such Territories against
the action of majorities.</p>

<p>3. The State-Rights party, supporting Breckinridge and
Lane, who held that the Territories were open to citizens of all
the States, with their property, without any inequality or discrimination,
and that it was the duty of the General Government
to protect both persons and property from aggression in
the Territories subject to its control. At the same time they admitted
and asserted the right of the people of a Territory, on
emerging from their territorial condition to that of a State,
to determine what should then be their domestic institutions,
as well as all other questions of personal or proprietary right,
without interference by Congress, and subject only to the limitations
and restrictions prescribed by the Constitution of the
United States.</p>

<p>4. The so-called "Republicans," presenting the names of
Lincoln and Hamlin, who held, in the language of one of their
leaders,<a id="footnotetag18" name="footnotetag18"></a><a href="#footnote18"><sup>18</sup></a> that "slavery can exist only by virtue of municipal
law"; that there was "no law for it in the Territories, and no
power to enact one"; and that Congress was "bound to prohibit
it in or exclude it from any and every Federal Territory."
In other words, they asserted the right and duty of Congress to
exclude the citizens of half the States of the Union from the
territory belonging in common to all, unless on condition of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" id="page52"></a>[pg 52]</span>
sacrifice or abandonment of their property recognized by the
Constitution&mdash;indeed, of the <i>only</i> species of their property distinctly
and specifically recognized as such by that instrument.</p>

<p>On the vital question underlying the whole controversy&mdash;that
is, whether the Federal Government should be a Government
of the whole for the benefit of all its equal members, or
(if it should continue to exist at all) a sectional Government for
the benefit of a part&mdash;the first three of the parties above described
were in substantial accord as against the fourth. If they
could or would have acted unitedly, they, could certainly have
carried the election, and averted the catastrophe which followed.
Nor were efforts wanting to effect such a union.</p>

<p>Mr. Bell, the Whig candidate, was a highly respectable and
experienced statesman, who had filled many important offices,
both State and Federal. He was not ambitious to the extent of
coveting the Presidency, and he was profoundly impressed by
the danger which threatened the country. Mr. Breckinridge
had not anticipated, and it may safely be said did not eagerly
desire, the nomination. He was young enough to wait, and patriotic
enough to be willing to do so, if the weal of the country
required it. Thus much I may confidently assert of both those
gentlemen; for each of them authorized me to say that he was
willing to withdraw, if an arrangement could be effected by
which the divided forces of the friends of the Constitution could
be concentrated upon some one more generally acceptable than
either of the three who had been presented to the country.
When I made this announcement to Mr. Douglas&mdash;with whom
my relations had always been such as to authorize the assurance
that he could not consider it as made in an unfriendly spirit&mdash;he
replied that the scheme proposed was impracticable, because
his friends, mainly Northern Democrats, if he were withdrawn,
would join in the support of Mr. Lincoln, rather than of any
one that should supplant <i>him</i> (Douglas); that he was in the
hands of his friends, and was sure they would not accept the
proposition.</p>

<p>It needed but little knowledge of the <i>status</i> of parties in the
several States to foresee a probable defeat if the conservatives
were to continue divided into three parts, and the aggressives
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id="page53"></a>[pg 53]</span>
were to be held in solid column.  But angry passions, which
are always bad counselors, had been aroused, and hopes were
still cherished, which proved to be illusory. The result was
the election, by a minority, of a President whose avowed principles
were necessarily fatal to the harmony of the Union.</p>

<p>Of 303 <i>electoral</i> votes, Mr. Lincoln received 180, but of the
<i>popular</i> suffrage of 4,676,853 votes, which the electors represented,
he obtained only 1,866,352&mdash;something over a third of
the votes. This discrepancy was owing to the system of voting
by "general ticket"&mdash;that is, casting the State votes as a unit,
whether unanimous or nearly equally divided. Thus, in New
York, the total popular vote was 675,156, of which 362,646 were
cast for the so-called Republican (or Lincoln) electors, and 312,510
against them.  Now York was entitled to 35 electoral votes.
Divided on the basis of the popular vote, 19 of these would have
been cast for Mr. Lincoln, and 16 against him. But under the
"general ticket" system the entire 35 votes were cast for the
Republican candidates, thus giving them not only the full
strength of the majority in their favor, but that of the great minority
against them superadded. So of other Northern States,
in which the small majorities on one side operated with the
weight of entire unanimity, while the virtual unanimity in the
Southern States, on the other side, counted nothing more than a
mere majority would have done.</p>

<p>The manifestations which followed this result, in the Southern
States, did not proceed, as has been unjustly charged, from
chagrin at their defeat in the election, or from any personal hostility
to the President-elect, but from the fact that they recognized
in him the representative of a party professing principles
destructive to "their peace, their prosperity, and their domestic
tranquillity." The long-suppressed fire burst into frequent flame,
but it was still controlled by that love of the Union which the
South had illustrated in every battle-field, from Boston to New
Orleans.  Still it was hoped, against hope, that some adjustment
might be made to avert the calamities of a practical application
of the theory of an "irrepressible conflict."  Few, if any, then
doubted the right of a State to withdraw its grants delegated to
the Federal Government, or, in other words, to secede from the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span>
Union; but in the South this was generally regarded as the
remedy of last resort, to be applied only when ruin or dishonor
was the alternative. No rash or revolutionary action was taken
by the Southern States, but the measures adopted were considerate,
and executed advisedly and deliberately.  The Presidential
election occurred (as far as the popular vote, which determined
the result, was concerned) in November, 1860. Most of
the State Legislatures convened soon afterward in regular session.
In some cases special sessions were convoked for the purpose
of calling State Conventions&mdash;the recognized representatives
of the sovereign will of the people&mdash;to be elected expressly for
the purpose of taking such action as should be considered needful
and proper under the existing circumstances.</p>

<p>These conventions, as it was always held and understood,
possessed all the power of the people assembled in mass; and
therefore it was conceded that they, and they only, could take
action for the withdrawal of a State from the Union. The consent
of the respective States to the formation of the Union had
been given through such conventions, and it was only by the
same authority that it could properly be revoked. The time
required for this deliberate and formal process precludes the
idea of hasty or passionate action, and none who admit the primary
power of the people to govern themselves can consistently
deny its validity and binding obligation upon every citizen of
the several States. Not only was there ample time for calm
consideration among the people of the South, but for due reflection
by the General Government and the people of the Northern
States.</p>

<p>President Buchanan was in the last year of his administration.
His freedom from sectional asperity, his long life in the
public service, and his peace-loving and conciliatory character,
were all guarantees against his precipitating a conflict between
the Federal Government and any of the States; but the feeble
power that he possessed in the closing months of his term
to mold the policy of the future was painfully evident. Like
all who had intelligently and impartially studied the history of
the formation of the Constitution, he held that the Federal Government
had no rightful power to coerce a State. Like the sages
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" id="page55"></a>[pg 55]</span>
and patriots who had preceded him in the high office that he
filled, he believed that "our Union rests upon public opinion,
and can never by cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in
civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it
must one day perish. Congress may possess many means of
preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in
their hand to preserve it by force."&mdash;(Message of December 3,
1860.)</p>

<p>Ten years before, Mr. Calhoun addressing the Senate with
all the earnestness of his nature and with that sincere desire to
avert the danger of disunion which those who knew him best
never doubted, had asked the emphatic question, "How can
the Union be saved?" He answered his question thus:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"There is but one way by which it can be [saved] with any
certainty; and that is by a full and final settlement, on the principles
of justice, of all the questions at issue between the sections.
The South asks for justice&mdash;simple justice&mdash;and less she ought not
to take. She has no compromise to offer but the Constitution, and
no concession or surrender to make....</p>

<p>"Can this be done?  Yes, easily! Not by the weaker party;
for it can of itself do nothing&mdash;not even protect itself&mdash;but by the
stronger.... But will the North agree to do this? It is for
her to answer this question. But, I will say, she can not refuse if
she has half the love of the Union which she professes to have,
nor without exposing herself to the charge that her love of power
and aggrandizement is far greater than her love of the Union."
</p></blockquote>

<p>During the ten years that intervened between the date of
this speech and the message of Mr. Buchanan cited above, the
progress of sectional discord and the tendency of the stronger
section to unconstitutional aggression had been fearfully rapid.
With very rare exceptions, there were none in 1850 who claimed
the right of the Federal Government to apply coercion to a State.
In 1860 men had grown to be familiar with threats of driving
the South into submission to any act that the Government, in
the hands of a Northern majority, might see fit to perform.
During the canvass of that year, demonstrations had been made
by <i>quasi</i>-military organizations in various parts of the North,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" id="page56"></a>[pg 56]</span>
which looked unmistakably to purposes widely different from
those enunciated in the preamble to the Constitution, and to
the employment of means not authorized by the powers which
the States had delegated to the Federal Government.</p>

<p>Well-informed men still remembered that, in the Convention
which framed the Constitution, a proposition was made to authorize
the employment of force against a delinquent State, on
which Mr. Madison remarked that "the use of force against a
State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction
of punishment, and would probably be considered by the
party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which
it might have been bound." The Convention expressly refused
to confer the power proposed, and the clause was lost. While,
therefore, in 1860, many violent men, appealing to passion and
the lust of power, were inciting the multitude, and preparing
Northern opinion to support a war waged against the Southern
States in the event of their secession, there were others who
took a different view of the case. Notable among such was the
"New York Tribune," which had been the organ of the abolitionists,
and which now declared that, "if the cotton States
wished to withdraw from the Union, they should be allowed to
do so"; that "any attempt to compel them to remain, by force,
would be contrary to the principles of the Declaration of Independence
and to the fundamental ideas upon which human liberty
is based"; and that, "if the Declaration of Independence
justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions
of subjects in 1776, it was not seen why it would not justify the
secession of five millions of Southerners from the Union in
1861." Again, it was said by the same journal that, "sooner
than compromise with the South and abandon the Chicago platform,"
they would "let the Union slide." Taunting expressions
were freely used&mdash;as, for example, "If the Southern people
wish to leave the Union, we will do our best to forward their
views."</p>

<p>All this, it must be admitted, was quite consistent with the oft-repeated
declaration that the Constitution was a "covenant with
hell," which stood as the caption of a leading abolitionist paper
of Boston. That signs of coming danger so visible, evidences
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" id="page57"></a>[pg 57]</span>
of hostility so unmistakable, disregard of constitutional obligations
so wanton, taunts and jeers so bitter and insulting, should
serve to increase excitement in the South, was a consequence
flowing as much from reason and patriotism as from sentiment.
He must have been ignorant of human nature who did not expect
such a tree to bear fruits of discord and division.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote17" name="footnote17"></a><b>Footnote 17:</b><a href="#footnotetag17"> (return) </a><p>May 19, 1860.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote18" name="footnote18"></a><b>Footnote 18:</b><a href="#footnotetag18"> (return) </a><p>Horace Greeley, "The American Conflict," vol. i, p. 322.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-i-viii" id="chap-i-viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Conference with the Governor of Mississippi.&mdash;The Author censured as "too slow."&mdash;Summons
to Washington.&mdash;Interview with the President.&mdash;His Message.&mdash;Movements
in Congress.&mdash;The Triumphant Majority.&mdash;The Crittenden Proposition.&mdash;Speech
of the Author on Mr. Green's Resolution.&mdash;The Committee of
Thirteen.&mdash;Failure to agree.&mdash;The "Republicans" responsible for the Failure.&mdash;Proceedings
in the House of Representatives.&mdash;Futility of Efforts for an Adjustment.&mdash;The
Old Year closes in Clouds.
</p></blockquote>


<p>In November, 1860, after the result of the Presidential election
was known, the Governor of Mississippi, having issued his
proclamation convoking a special session of the Legislature to
consider the propriety of calling a convention, invited the Senators
and Representatives of the State in Congress, to meet him
for consultation as to the character of the message he should
send to the Legislature when assembled.</p>

<p>While holding, in common with my political associates, that
the right of a State to secede was unquestionable, I differed from
most of them as to the probability of our being permitted peaceably
to exercise the right. The knowledge acquired by the administration
of the War Department for four years, and by the
chairmanship of the Military Committee of the Senate at two
different periods, still longer in combined duration, had shown
me the entire lack of preparation for war in the South. The
foundries and armories were in the Northern States, and there
were stored all the new and improved weapons of war. In the
arsenals of the Southern States were to be found only arms of
the old and rejected models. The South had no manufactories
of powder, and no navy to protect our harbors, no merchant-ships
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" id="page58"></a>[pg 58]</span>
for foreign commerce.  It was evident to me, therefore,
that, if we should be involved in war, the odds against us would
be far greater than what was due merely to our inferiority in
population.  Believing that secession would be the precursor of
war between the States, I was consequently slower and more
reluctant than others, who entertained a different opinion, to
resort to that remedy.</p>

<p>While engaged in the consultation with the Governor just
referred to, a telegraphic message was handed to me from two
members of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, urging me to proceed "immediately"
to Washington.  This dispatch was laid before the
Governor and the members of Congress from the State who
were in conference with him, and it was decided that I should
comply with the summons.  I was afterward informed that my
associates considered me "too slow," and they were probably
correct in the belief that I was behind the general opinion of
the people of the State as to the propriety of prompt secession.<a id="footnotetag19" name="footnotetag19"></a><a href="#footnote19"><sup>19</sup></a></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span>

<p>On arrival at Washington, I found, as had been anticipated,
that my presence there was desired on account of the influence
which it was supposed I might exercise with the President (Mr.
Buchanan) in relation to his forthcoming message to Congress.
On paying my respects to the President, he told me that he had
finished the rough draft of his message, but that it was still open
to revision and amendment, and that he would like to read it to
me. He did so, and very kindly accepted all the modifications
which I suggested. The message was, however, afterward somewhat
changed, and, with great deference to the wisdom and
statesmanship of its author, I must say that, in my judgment, the
last alterations were unfortunate&mdash;so much so that, when it was
read in the Senate, I was reluctantly constrained to criticise it.
Compared, however, with documents of the same class which
have since been addressed to the Congress of the United States,
the reader of Presidential messages must regret that it was not
accepted by Mr. Buchanan's successors as a model, and that his
views of the Constitution had not been adopted as a guide in
the subsequent action of the Federal Government.</p>

<p>The popular movement in the South was tending steadily
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60"></a>[pg 60]</span>
and rapidly toward the secession of those known as "planting
States"; yet, when Congress assembled on December 3, 1860
the representatives of the people of all those States took their
seats in the House, and they were all represented in the Senate,
except South Carolina, whose Senators had tendered their resignation
to the Governor immediately on the announcement of
the result of the Presidential election. Hopes were still cherished
that the Northern leaders would appreciate the impending
peril, would cease to treat the warnings, so often given, as idle
threats, would refrain from the bravado, so often and so unwisely
indulged, of ability "to whip the South" in thirty, sixty, or
ninety days, and would address themselves to the more manly
purpose of devising means to allay the indignation, and quiet
the apprehensions, whether well, founded or not, of their Southern
brethren. But the debates of that session manifest, on the
contrary, the arrogance of a triumphant party, and the determination
to reap to the uttermost the full harvest of a party
victory.</p>

<p>Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, the oldest and one of the most
honored members of the Senate,<a id="footnotetag20" name="footnotetag20"></a><a href="#footnote20"><sup>20</sup></a> introduced into that body a
joint resolution proposing certain amendments to the Constitution&mdash;among
them the restoration and incorporation into the
Constitution of the geographical line of the Missouri Compromise,
with other provisions, which it was hoped might be accepted
as the basis for an adjustment of the difficulties rapidly
hurrying the Union to disruption. But the earnest appeals of
that venerable statesman were unheeded by Senators of the so-called
Republican party. Action upon his proposition was postponed
from time to time, on one pretext or another, until the
last day of the session&mdash;when seven States had already withdrawn
from the Union and established a confederation of
their own&mdash;and it was then defeated by a majority of one
vote.<a id="footnotetag21" name="footnotetag21"></a><a href="#footnote21"><sup>21</sup></a></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span>

<p>Meantime, among other propositions made in the Senate
were two introduced early in the session, which it may be proper
specially to mention. One of these was a resolution offered by
Mr. Powell, of Kentucky, which, after some modification by
amendment, when finally acted upon, had taken the following
form:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>Resolved</i>, That so much of the President's message as relates
to the present agitated and distracted condition of the country,
and the grievances between the slaveholding and the non-slave
holding States, be referred to a special committee of thirteen members,
and that said committee be instructed to inquire into the
present condition of the country, and report by bill or otherwise."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The other was a resolution offered by Mr. Green, of Missouri,
to the following effect:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>Resolved</i>, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed
to inquire into the propriety of providing by law for establishing
an armed police force at all necessary points along the line separating
the slaveholding States from the non-slaveholding States,
for the purpose of maintaining the general peace between those
States, of preventing the invasion of one State by citizens of another,
and also for the efficient execution of the fugitive-slave laws."
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the discussion of these two resolutions I find, in the proceedings
of the Senate on December 10th, as reported in the
"Congressional Globe," some remarks of my own, the reproduction
of which will serve to exhibit my position at that period&mdash;a
position which has since been often misrepresented:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Mr. President, if the political firmament seemed to me dark
before, there has been little in the discussion this morning to cheer
or illumine it.  When the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky
was presented&mdash;not very hopeful of a good result&mdash;I was
yet willing to wait and see what developments it might produce.
This morning, for the first time, it has been considered; and what
of encouragement have we received? One Senator proposes, as a
cure for the public evil impending over us, to invest the Federal
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id="page62"></a>[pg 62]</span>
Government with such physical power as properly belongs to monarchy
alone; another announces that his constituents cling to the
Federal Government, if its legislative favors and its Treasury secure
the works of improvement and the facilities which they desire;
while another rises to point out that the evils of the land are of a
party character. Sir, we have fallen upon evil times indeed, if
the great convulsion which now shakes the body-politic to its center
is to be dealt with by such nostrums as these. Men must look
more deeply, must rise to a higher altitude; like patriots they
must confront the danger face to face, if they hope to relieve the
evils which now disturb the peace of the land, and threaten the
destruction of our political existence.</p>

<p>"First of all, we must inquire what is the cause of the evils
which beset us? The diagnosis of the disease must be stated before
we are prepared to prescribe. Is it the fault of our legislation
here? If so, then it devolves upon us to correct it, and we have
the power. Is it the defect of the Federal organization, of the
fundamental law of our Union? I hold that it is not. Our fathers,
learning wisdom from the experiments of Rome and of Greece&mdash;the
one a consolidated republic, and the other strictly a confederacy&mdash;and
taught by the lessons of our own experiment under the Confederation,
came together to form a Constitution for 'a more perfect
union,' and, in my judgment, made the best government which
has ever been instituted by man. It only requires that it should
be carried out in the spirit in which it was made, that the circumstances
under which it was made should continue, and no evil can
arise under this Government for which it has not an appropriate
remedy. Then it is outside of the Government&mdash;elsewhere than
to its Constitution or to its administration&mdash;that we are to look.
Men must not creep in the dust of partisan strife and seek to
make points against opponents as the means of evading or meeting
the issues before us. The fault is not in the form of the Government,
nor does the evil spring from the manner in which it has
been administered. Where, then, is it? It is that our fathers
formed a Government for a Union of friendly States; and though
under it the people have been prosperous beyond comparison with
any other whose career is recorded in the history of man, still that
Union of friendly States has changed its character, and sectional
hostility has been substituted for the fraternity in which the Government
was founded.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" id="page63"></a>[pg 63]</span>

<p>"I do not intend here to enter into a statement of grievances;
I do not intend here to renew that war of crimination which for
years past has disturbed the country, and in which I have taken a
part perhaps more zealous than useful; but I call upon all men
who have in their hearts a love of the Union, and whose service
is not merely that of the lip, to look the question calmly but fully
in the face, that they may see the true cause of our danger, which,
from my examination, I believe to be that a sectional hostility
has been substituted for a general fraternity, and thus the Government
rendered powerless for the ends for which it was instituted.
The hearts of a portion of the people have been perverted
by that hostility, so that the powers delegated by the compact
of union are regarded not as means to secure the welfare of
all, but as instruments for the destruction of a part&mdash;the minority
section. How, then, have we to provide a remedy? By strengthening
this Government? By instituting physical force to overawe
the States, to coerce the people living under them as members of
sovereign communities to pass under the yoke of the Federal Government?
No, sir; I would have this Union severed into thirty-three
fragments sooner than have that great evil befall constitutional
liberty and representative government. Our Government
is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders
did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they
wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual
good offices. They had broken the fetters of despotic power; they
had separated themselves from the mother-country upon the question
of community independence; and their sons will be degenerate
indeed if, clinging to the mere name and forms of free government,
they forge and rivet upon their posterity the fetters which
their ancestors broke....</p>

<p>"The remedy for these evils is to be found in the patriotism
and the affection of the people, if it exists; and, if it does not exist,
it is far better, instead of attempting to preserve a forced and
therefore fruitless Union, that we should peacefully part and each
pursue his separate course. It is not to this side of the Chamber
that we should look for propositions; it is not here that we can
ask for remedies. Complaints, with much amplitude of specification,
have gone forth from the members on this side of the Chamber
heretofore. It is not to be expected that they will be renewed,
for the people have taken the subject into their own hands. States,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" id="page64"></a>[pg 64]</span>
in their sovereign capacity, have now resolved to judge of the infractions
of the Federal compact, and of the mode and measure of
redress. All we can usefully or properly do is to send to the people,
thus preparing to act for themselves, evidence of error, if error
there be; to transmit to them the proofs of kind feeling, if it actuates
the Northern section, where they now believe there is only
hostility. If we are mistaken as to your feelings and purposes,
give a substantial proof, that here may begin that circle which
hence may spread out and cover the whole land with proofs of fraternity,
of a reaction in public sentiment, and the assurance of a
future career in conformity with the principles and purposes of
the Constitution. All else is idle. I would not give the parchment
on which the bill would be written that is to secure our constitutional
rights within the limits of a State, where the people are
all opposed to the execution of that law. It is a truism in free
governments that laws rest upon public opinion, and fall powerless
before its determined opposition.</p>

<p>"The time has passed, sir, when appeals might profitably be
made to sentiment. The time has come when men must of necessity
reason, assemble facts, and deal with current events. I may
be permitted in this to correct an error into which one of my
friends fell this morning, when he impressed on us the great value
of our Union as measured by the amount of time and money and
blood which were spent to form this Union. It cost very little
time, very little money, and no blood. It was one of the most
peaceful transactions that mark the pages of human history. Our
fathers fought the war of the Revolution to maintain the rights
asserted in their Declaration of Independence."</p>

<p><span class="sc">Mr. Powell</span>: "The Senator from Mississippi will allow me to
say that I spoke of the Government, not of the Union. I said
time and money and blood had been required to form the Government."</p>

<p><span class="sc">Mr. Davis</span>: "The Government is the machinery established
by the Constitution; it is the agency created by the States when
they formed the Union. Our fathers, I was proceeding to say,
having fought the war of the Revolution, and achieved their independence&mdash;each
State for itself, each State standing out an integral
part, each State separately recognized by the parent Government
of Great Britain&mdash;these States as independent sovereignties
entered into confederate alliance. After having tried the Confederation
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span>
and found it to be a failure, they, of their own accord,
came peacefully together, and in a brief period made a Constitution,
which was referred to each State and voluntarily ratified by
each State that entered the Union; little time, little money, and
no blood being expended to form this Government, the machine
for making the Union useful and beneficial. Blood, much and
precious, was expended to vindicate and to establish community
independence, and the great American idea that all governments
rest on the consent of the governed, and that the people may at
their will alter or abolish their government, however or by whomsoever
instituted.</p>

<p>"But our existing Government is not the less sacred to me because
it was not sealed with blood. I honor it the more because
it was the free-will offering of men who chose to live together. It
rooted in fraternity, and fraternity supported its trunk and all its
branches. Every bud and leaflet depends entirely on the nurture
it receives from fraternity as the root of the tree. When that is
destroyed, the trunk decays, and the branches wither, and the
leaves fall; and the shade it was designed to give has passed away
for ever. I cling not merely to the name and form, but to the
spirit and purpose of the Union which our fathers made. It was
for domestic tranquillity; not to organize within one State lawless
bands to commit raids upon another. It was to provide for the
common defense; not to disband armies and navies, lest they
should serve the protection of one section of the country better
than another. It was to bring the forces of all the States together
to achieve a common object, upholding each the other in amity,
and united to repel exterior force. All the custom-house obstructions
existing between the States were destroyed; the power to
regulate commerce transferred to the General Government. Every
barrier to the freest intercourse was swept away. Under the Confederation
it had been secured as a right to each citizen to have
free transit over all the other States; and under the Union it was
designed to make this more perfect. Is it enjoyed?  Is it not
denied? Do we not have mere speculative question of what is
property raised in defiance of the clear intent of the Constitution,
offending as well against its letter as against its whole spirit?
This must be reformed, or the Government our fathers instituted
is destroyed. I say, then, shall we cling to the mere forms or
idolize the name of Union, when its blessings are lost, after its
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id="page66"></a>[pg 66]</span>
spirit has fled? Who would keep a flower, which had lost its
beauty and its fragrance, and in their stead had formed a seed-vessel
containing the deadliest poison? Or, to drop the figure,
who would consent to remain in alliance with States which used
the power thus acquired to invade his tranquillity, to impair his defense,
to destroy his peace and security? Any community would
be stronger standing in an isolated position, and using its revenues
to maintain its own physical force, than if allied with those who
would thus war upon its prosperity and domestic peace; and reason,
pride, self-interest, and the apprehension of secret, constant
danger would impel to separation.</p>

<p>"I do not comprehend the policy of a Southern Senator who
would seek to change the whole form of our Government, and substitute
Federal force for State obligation and authority. Do we
want a new Government that is to overthrow the old? Do we
wish to erect a central Colossus, wielding at discretion the military
arm, and exercising military force over the people and the States?
This is not the Union to which we were invited; and so carefully
was this guarded that, when our fathers provided for using force
to put down insurrection, they required that the fact of the insurrection
should be communicated by the authorities of the State
before the President could interpose. When it was proposed to
give to Congress power to execute the laws against a delinquent
State, it was refused on the ground that that would be making
war on the States; and, though I know the good purpose of my
honorable friend from Missouri is only to give protection to constitutional
rights, I fear his proposition is to rear a monster, which
will break the feeble chain provided, and destroy rights it was intended
to guard. That military Government which he is about to
institute, by passing into hostile hands, becomes a weapon for his
destruction, not for his protection. All dangers which we may be
called upon to confront as independent communities are light, in
my estimation, compared with that which would hang over us if
this Federal Government had such physical force; if its character
was changed from a representative agent of States to a central
Government, with a military power to be used at discretion against
the States. To-day it may be the idea that it will be used against
some State which nullifies the Constitution and the laws; some
State which passes laws to obstruct or repeal the laws of the United
States; some State which, in derogation of our rights of transit
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" id="page67"></a>[pg 67]</span>
under the Constitution, passes laws to punish a citizen found there
with property recognized by the Constitution of the United States,
but prohibited by the laws of that State.</p>

<p>"But how long might it be before that same military force
would be turned against the minority section which had sought its
protection; and that minority thus become mere subjugated provinces
under the great military government that it had thus contributed
to establish? The minority, incapable of aggression, is,
of necessity, always on the defensive, and often the victim of
the desertion of its followers and the faithlessness of its allies. It
therefore must maintain, not destroy, barriers.</p>

<p>"I do not know that I fully appreciate the purpose of my friend
from Missouri; whether, when he spoke of establishing military
posts along the borders of the States, and arming the Federal Government
with adequate physical power to enforce constitutional
rights (I suppose he meant obligations), he meant to confer upon
this Federal Government a power which it does not now possess to
coerce a State. If he did, then, in the language of Mr. Madison,
he is providing, not for a union of States, but for the destruction
of States; he is providing, under the name of Union, to carry
on a war against States; and I care not whether it be against
Massachusetts or Missouri, it is equally objectionable to me;
and I will resist it alike in the one case and in the other, as
subversive of the great principle on which our Government rests;
as a heresy to be confronted at its first presentation, and put
down there, lest it grow into proportions which will render us
powerless before it.</p>

<p>"The theory of our Constitution, Mr. President, is one of peace,
of equality of sovereign States. It was made by States and made
for States; and for greater assurance they passed an amendment,
doing that which was necessarily implied by the nature of the instrument,
as it was a mere instrument of grants. But, in the
abundance of caution, they declared that everything which had
not been delegated was reserved to the States, or to the people&mdash;that
is, to the State governments as instituted by the people of
each State, or to the people in their sovereign capacity.</p>

<p>"I need not, then, go on to argue from the history and nature
of our Government that no power of coercion exists in it. It is
enough for me to demand the clause of the Constitution which
confers the power. If it is not there, the Government does not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>[pg 68]</span>
possess it.  That is the plain construction of the Constitution&mdash;made
plainer, if possible, by its amendment.</p>

<p>"This Union is dear to me as a Union of fraternal States. It
would lose its value if I had to regard it as a Union held together
by physical force. I would be happy to know that every State
now felt that fraternity which made this Union possible; and, if
that evidence could go out, if evidence satisfactory to the people
of the South could be given that that feeling existed in the hearts
of the Northern people, you might burn your statute-books and we
would cling to the Union still. But it is because of their conviction
that hostility, and not fraternity, now exists in the hearts of
the people, that they are looking to their reserved rights and to
their independent powers for their own protection. If there be any
good, then, which we can do, it is by sending evidence to them of
that which I fear does not exist&mdash;the purpose of your constituents
to fulfill in the spirit of justice and fraternity all their constitutional
obligations. If you can submit to them that evidence, I feel
confidence that, with the assurance that aggression is henceforth
to cease, will terminate all the measures for defense. Upon you
of the majority section it depends to restore peace and perpetuate
the Union of equal States; upon us of the minority section rests
the duty to maintain our equality and community rights; and the
means in one case or the other must be such as each can control."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The resolution of Mr. Powell was eventually adopted on the
18th of December, and on the 20th the Committee was appointed,
consisting of Messrs. Powell and Crittenden, of Kentucky;
Hunter, of Virginia; Toombs, of Georgia; Davis, of
Mississippi; Douglas, of Illinois; Bigler, of Pennsylvania;
Rice, of Minnesota; Collamer, of Vermont; Seward, of New
York; Wade, of Ohio; Doolittle, of Wisconsin; and Grimes,
of Iowa. The first five of the list, as here enumerated, were
Southern men; the next three were Northern Democrats, or
Conservatives; the last five, Northern "Republicans," so
called.</p>

<p>The supposition was that any measure agreed upon by the
representatives of the three principal divisions of public opinion
would be approved by the Senate and afterward ratified by the
House of Representatives.  The Committee therefore determined
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span>
that a majority of each of its three divisions should be
required in order to the adoption of any proposition presented.
The Southern members declared their readiness to accept any
terms that would secure the honor of the Southern States and
guarantee their future safety. The Northern Democrats and
Mr. Crittenden generally co&ouml;perated with the State-Rights
Democrats of the South; but the so-called "Republican" Senators
of the North rejected every proposition which it was hoped
might satisfy the Southern people, and check the progress of
the secession movement. After fruitless efforts, continued for
some ten days, the Committee determined to report the journal
of their proceedings, and announce their inability to attain any
satisfactory conclusion. This report was made on the 31st of
December&mdash;the last day of that memorable and fateful year,
1860.</p>

<p>Subsequently, on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Douglas, who
had been a member of the Committee, called upon the opposite
side to state what they were willing to do. He referred to the
fact that they had rejected every proposition that promised
pacification; stated that Toombs, of Georgia, and Davis, of
Mississippi, as members of the Committee, had been willing to
renew the Missouri Compromise, as a measure of conciliation,
but had met no responsive willingness on the part of their associates
of the opposition; and he pressed the point that, as they
had rejected every overture made by the friends of peace, it
was now incumbent upon <i>them</i> to make a positive and affirmative
declaration of their purposes.</p>

<p>Mr. Seward, of New York, as we have seen, was a member
of that Committee&mdash;the man who, in 1858, had announced the
"irrepressible conflict," and who, in the same year, speaking of
and for abolitionism, had said: "It has driven you back in California
and in Kansas; it will invade your soil." He was to be
the Secretary of State in the incoming Administration, and was
very generally regarded as the "power behind the throne,"
greater than the throne itself.  He was present in the Senate,
but made no response to Mr. Douglas's demand for a declaration
of policy.</p>

<p>Meantime the efforts for an adjustment made in the House
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" id="page70"></a>[pg 70]</span>
of Representatives had been equally fruitless. Conspicuous
among these efforts had been the appointment of a committee
of thirty-three members&mdash;one from each State of the Union&mdash;charged
with a duty similar to that imposed upon the Committee
of Thirteen in the Senate, but they had been alike unsuccessful
in coming to any agreement. It is true that, a few days
afterward, they submitted a majority and two minority reports,
and that the report of the majority was ultimately adopted by
the House; but, even if this action had been unanimous, and
had been taken in due time, it would have been practically
futile on account of its absolute failure to provide or suggest any
solution of the territorial question, which was the vital point in
controversy.</p>

<p>No wonder, then, that, under the shadow of the failure of
every effort in Congress to find any common ground on which
the sections could be restored to amity, the close of the year
should have been darkened by a cloud in the firmament, which
had lost even the silver lining so long seen, or thought to be
seen, by the hopeful.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote19" name="footnote19"></a><b>Footnote 19:</b><a href="#footnotetag19"> (return) </a><p>
The following extract from a letter of the Hon. O. R. Singleton, then a Representative
of Mississippi in the United States Congress, in regard to the subject
treated, is herewith annexed:</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Canton, Mississippi</span>, <i>July 14, 1877</i>.</p>

<p>"In 1860, about the time the ordinance of secession was passed by the South
Carolina Convention, and while Mississippi, Alabama, and other Southern States
were making active preparations to follow her example, a conference of the Mississippi
delegation in Congress, Senators and Representatives, was asked for by Governor
J. J. Pettus, for consultation as to the course Mississippi ought to take in the
premises.</p>

<p>"The meeting took place in the fall of 1860, at Jackson, the capital; the whole
delegation being present, with perhaps the exception of one Representative.</p>

<p>"The main question for consideration was: 'Shall Mississippi, as soon as her
Convention can meet, pass an ordinance of secession, thus placing herself by the
side of South Carolina, regardless of the action of other States; or shall she endeavor
to hold South Carolina in check, and delay action herself, until other States can get
ready, through their conventions, to unite with them, and then, on a given day and
at a given hour, by concert of action, all the States willing to do so, secede in a
body?'</p>

<p>"Upon the one side, it was argued that South Carolina could not be induced to
delay action a single moment beyond the meeting of her Convention, and that our
fate should be hers, and to delay action would be to have her crushed by the Federal
Government; whereas, by the earliest action possible, we might be able to avert this
calamity. On the other side, it was contended that delay might bring the Federal
Government to consider the emergency of the case, and perhaps a compromise could
be effected; but, if not, then the proposed concert of action would at least give
dignity to the movement, and present an undivided Southern front.</p>

<p>"The debate lasted many hours, and Mr. Davis, with perhaps one other gentleman
in that conference, opposed immediate and separate State action, declaring
himself opposed to secession as long as the hope of a peaceable remedy remained.
He did not believe we ought to precipitate the issue, as he felt certain from his
knowledge of the people, North and South, that, once there was a clash of arms, the
contest would be one of the most sanguinary the world had ever witnessed.</p>

<p>"A majority of the meeting decided that no delay should be interposed to separate
State action, Mr. Davis being on the other side; but, after the vote was taken
and the question decided, Mr. Davis declared he would stand by whatever action the
Convention representing the sovereignty of the State of Mississippi might think
proper to take.</p>

<p>"After the conference was ended, several of its members were dissatisfied with
the course of Mr. Davis, believing that he was entirely opposed to secession, and was
seeking to delay action upon the part of Mississippi, with the hope that it might be
entirely averted.</p>

<p>"In some unimportant respects my memory may be at fault, and possibly some
of the inferences drawn may be incorrect; but every material statement made, I am
sure, is true, and if need, can be, easily substantiated by other persons.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">O. R. Singleton</span>.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote20" name="footnote20"></a><b>Footnote 20:</b><a href="#footnotetag20"> (return) </a><p>
Mr. Crittenden had been a life-long Whig. His first entrance into the Senate
was in 1817, and he was a member of that body at various periods during the ensuing
forty-four years. He was Attorney-General in the Whig Cabinets of both General
Harrison and Mr. Fillmore, and supported the Bell and Everett ticket in 1860.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote21" name="footnote21"></a><b>Footnote 21:</b><a href="#footnotetag21"> (return) </a><p>
The vote was nineteen yeas to twenty nays; total, thirty-nine. As the consent
of two thirds of each House is necessary to propose an amendment for action by the
States, twenty-six of the votes cast in the Senate would have been necessary to sustain
the proposition. It actually failed, therefore, by <i>seven</i> votes, instead of
<i>one</i>.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-i-ix" id="chap-i-ix"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Preparations for withdrawal from the Union.&mdash;Northern Precedents.&mdash;New England
Secessionists.&mdash;Cabot, Pickering, Quincy, etc.&mdash;On the Acquisition of Louisiana.&mdash;The
Hartford Convention.&mdash;The Massachusetts Legislature on the Annexation
of Texas, etc., etc.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The Convention of South Carolina had already (on the 20th
of December, 1860) unanimously adopted an ordinance revoking
her delegated powers and withdrawing from the Union. Her
representatives, on the following day, retired from their seats in
Congress. The people of the other planting States had been
only waiting in the lingering hope that some action might be
taken by Congress to avert the necessity for action similar to
that of South Carolina. In view of the failure of all overtures
for conciliation during the first month of the session, they were
now making their final preparations for secession. This was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id="page71"></a>[pg 71]</span>
generally admitted to be an unquestionable right appertaining
to their sovereignty as States, and the only <i>peaceable</i> remedy
that remained for the evils already felt and the dangers apprehended.</p>

<p>In the prior history of the country, repeated instances are
found of the assertion of this right, and of a purpose entertained
at various times to put it in execution. Notably is this true of
Massachusetts and other New England States. The acquisition
of Louisiana, in 1803, had created much dissatisfaction in those
States, for the reason, expressed by an eminent citizen of Massachusetts,<a id="footnotetag22" name="footnotetag22"></a><a href="#footnote22"><sup>22</sup></a>
that "the influence of our [the Northeastern] part of
the Union must be diminished by the acquisition of more weight
at the other extremity." The project of a separation was freely
discussed, with no intimation, in the records of the period, of
any idea among its advocates that it could be regarded as treasonable
or revolutionary.</p>

<p>Colonel Timothy Pickering, who had been an officer of the
war of the Revolution, afterward successively Postmaster-General,
Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, in the Cabinet of
General Washington, and, still later, long a representative of
the State of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States,
was one of the leading secessionists of his day. Writing from
Washington to a friend, on the 24th of December, 1803, he
says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"I will not yet despair. I will rather anticipate a <i>new confederacy</i>,
exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and
oppression of the aristocratic democrats of the South. There will
be (and our children, at farthest, will see it) a separation. The
white and black population will mark the boundary."<a id="footnotetag23" name="footnotetag23"></a><a href="#footnote23"><sup>23</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>In another letter, written a few weeks afterward (January 29,
1804), speaking of what he regarded as wrongs and abuses perpetrated
by the then existing Administration, he thus expresses
his views of the remedy to be applied:</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72"></a>[pg 72]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy&mdash;<i>a
separation</i>. That this can be accomplished, and without spilling
one drop of blood, I have little doubt....</p>

<p>"I do not believe in the practicability of a long-continued
Union. A <i>Northern Confederacy</i> would unite congenial characters
and present a fairer prospect of public happiness; while the Southern
States, having a similarity of habits, might be left to 'manage
their own affairs in their own way.' If a separation were to take
place, our mutual wants would render a friendly and commercial
intercourse inevitable. The Southern States would require the
naval protection of the <i>Northern Union</i>, and the products of the
former would be important to the navigation and commerce of the
latter....</p>

<p>"It [the separation] must begin, in Massachusetts. The proposition
would be welcomed in Connecticut; and could we doubt of
New Hampshire? But New York must be associated; and how
is her concurrence to be obtained? She must be made the center
of the Confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey would follow of
course, and Rhode Island of necessity."<a id="footnotetag24" name="footnotetag24"></a><a href="#footnote24"><sup>24</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Substituting South Carolina for Massachusetts; Virginia for
New York; Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, for New Hampshire,
Vermont, and Rhode Island; Kentucky for New Jersey,
etc., etc., we find the suggestions of 1860-'61 only a reproduction
of those thus outlined nearly sixty years earlier.</p>

<p>Mr. Pickering seems to have had a correct and intelligent
perception of the altogether pacific character of the secession
which he proposed, and of the mutual advantages likely to
accrue to both sections from a peaceable separation. Writing
in February, 1804, he explicitly disavows the idea of hostile
feeling or action toward the South, expressing himself as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"While thus contemplating the only means of maintaining our
ancient institutions in morals and religion, and our equal rights,
we wish no ill to the Southern States and those naturally connected
with them. The public debts might be equitably apportioned
between the new confederacies, and a separation somewhere
about the line above suggested would divide the different characters
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" id="page73"></a>[pg 73]</span>
of the existing Union. The manners of the Eastern portion
of the States would be sufficiently congenial to form a Union, and
their interests are alike intimately connected with agriculture and
commerce. A friendly and commercial intercourse would be maintained
with the States in the Southern Confederacy as at present.
Thus all the advantages which have been for a few years depending
on the general Union would be continued to its respective portions,
without the jealousies and enmities which now afflict both,
and which peculiarly embitter the condition of that of the North.
It is not unusual for two friends, when disagreeing about the mode
of conducting a common concern, to separate and manage, each in
his own way, his separate interest, and thereby preserve a useful
friendship, which without such separation would infallibly be destroyed."<a id="footnotetag25" name="footnotetag25"></a><a href="#footnote25"><sup>25</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Such were the views of an undoubted patriot who had participated
in the formation of the Union, and who had long been
confidentially associated with Washington in the administration
of its Government, looking at the subject from a Northern
standpoint, within fifteen years after the organization of that
Government under the Constitution. Whether his reasons for
advocating a dissolution of the Union were valid and sufficient,
or not, is another question which it is not necessary to discuss.
His authority is cited only as showing the opinion prevailing in
the North at that day with regard to the <i>right</i> of secession from
the Union, if deemed advisable by the ultimate and irreversible
judgment of the people of a sovereign State.</p>

<p>In 1811, on the bill for the admission of Louisiana as a State
of the Union, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, a member of Congress
from Massachusetts, said</p>

<blockquote><p>
"If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually
a dissolution of this Union; that it will free the States from
their moral obligation; and as it will be the right of all, so it will
be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation&mdash;amicably
if they can, violently if they must."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Mr. Poindexter, delegate from what was then the Mississippi
Territory, took exception to these expressions of Mr. Quincy,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id="page74"></a>[pg 74]</span>
and called him to order.  The Speaker (Mr. Varnum, of Massachusetts)
sustained Mr. Poindexter, and decided that the suggestion
of a dissolution of the Union was out of order.  An
appeal was taken from this decision, <i>and it was reversed</i>.  Mr.
Quincy proceeded to vindicate the propriety of his position in a
speech of some length, in the course of which he said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Is there a principle of public law better settled or more conformable
to the plainest suggestions of reason than that the violation
of a contract by one of the parties may be considered as
exempting the other from its obligations? Suppose, in private
life, thirteen form a partnership, and ten of them undertake to
admit a new partner without the concurrence of the other three;
would it not be at their option to abandon the partnership after so
palpable an infringement of their rights?  How much more in the
political partnership, where the admission of new associates, without
previous authority, is so pregnant with obvious dangers and
evils!"
</p></blockquote>

<p>It is to be remembered that these men&mdash;Cabot, Pickering.
Quincy, and others&mdash;whose opinions and expressions have been
cited, were not Democrats, misled by extreme theories of State
rights, but leaders and expositors of the highest type of "Federalism,
and of a strong central Government." This fact gives
their support of the right of secession the greater significance.</p>

<p>The celebrated Hartford Convention assembled in December,
1814. It consisted of delegates chosen by the Legislatures of
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, with an irregular
or imperfect representation from the other two New England
States, New Hampshire and Vermont,<a id="footnotetag26" name="footnotetag26"></a><a href="#footnote26"><sup>26</sup></a> convened for the purpose
of considering the grievances complained of by those States
in connection with the war with Great Britain. They sat with
closed doors, and the character of their deliberations and discussions
has not been authentically disclosed.  It was generally
understood, however, that the chief subject of their considerations
was the question of the withdrawal of the States they represented
from the Union. The decision, as announced in their
published report, was adverse to the expediency of such a measure
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" id="page75"></a>[pg 75]</span>
at that time, and under the then existing conditions; but
they proceeded to indicate the circumstances in which a dissolution
of the Union might become expedient, and the mode in
which it should be effected; and their theoretical plan of separation
corresponds very nearly with that actually adopted by
the Southern States nearly fifty years afterward. They say:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"If the Union be destined to dissolution by reason of the multiplied
abuses of bad administration, it should, if possible, be the
work of peaceable times and deliberate consent. Some <i>new form
of confederacy</i> should be substituted among those States which
shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other.  Events
may prove that the causes of our calamities are deep and permanent.
They may be found to proceed, not merely from the blindness
of prejudice, pride of opinion, violence of party spirit, or the
confusion of the times; but they may be traced to implacable
combinations of individuals or of States to monopolize power and
office, and to trample without remorse upon the rights and interests
of commercial sections of the Union. Whenever it shall appear
that the causes are radical and permanent, a separation by
equitable arrangement will be preferable to an alliance by constraint
among nominal friends, but real enemies."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The omission of the single word "commercial," which does
not affect the principle involved, is the only modification necessary
to adapt this extract exactly to the condition of the Southern
States in 1860-'61.</p>

<p>The obloquy which has attached to the members of the
Hartford Convention has resulted partly from a want of exact
knowledge of their proceedings, partly from the secrecy by
which they were veiled, but mainly because it was a recognized
effort to paralyze the arm of the Federal Government while engaged
in a war arising from outrages committed upon American
seamen on the decks of American ships. The indignation felt
was no doubt aggravated by the fact that those ships belonged in
a great extent to the people who were now plotting against the
war-measures of the Government, and indirectly, if not directly,
giving aid and comfort to the public enemy.  Time, which has
mollified passion, and revealed many things not then known,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76"></a>[pg 76]</span>
has largely modified the first judgment passed on the proceedings
and purposes of the Hartford Convention; and, but for the
circumstances of existing war which surrounded it, they might
have been viewed as political opinions merely, and have received
justification instead of censure.</p>

<p>Again, in 1844-'45 the measures taken for the annexation of
Texas evoked remonstrances, accompanied by threats of a dissolution
of the Union from the Northeastern States.  The Legislature
of Massachusetts, in 1844, adopted a resolution, declaring,
in behalf of that State, that "the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
faithful to the compact between the people of the United
States, according to the plain meaning and intent in which it
was understood by them, is sincerely anxious for its preservation;
but that it is determined, as it doubts not the other States
are, <i>to submit to undelegated powers in no body of men on
earth</i>"; and that "the project of the annexation of Texas,
unless arrested on the threshold, <i>may tend to drive these States
into a dissolution of the Union</i>."</p>

<p>Early in the next year (February 11, 1845), the same Legislature
adopted and communicated to Congress a series of resolutions
on the same subject, in one of which it was declared that,
"as the powers of legislation granted in the Constitution of the
United States to Congress do not embrace a case of the admission
of a foreign state or foreign territory, by legislation, into
the Union, such an act of admission would have <i>no binding
force whatever on the people of Massachusetts</i>"&mdash;language
which must have meant that the admission of Texas would be
a justifiable ground for secession, unless it was intended to announce
the purpose of nullification.</p>

<p>It is evident, therefore, that the people of the South, in the
crisis which confronted them in 1860, had no lack either of precept
or of precedent for their instruction and guidance in the
teaching and the example of our brethren of the North and
East. The only practical difference was, that the North threatened
and the South acted.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote22" name="footnote22"></a><b>Footnote 22:</b><a href="#footnotetag22"> (return) </a><p>George Cabot, who had been United States Senator from Massachusetts for
several years during the Administration of Washington.&mdash;(See "Life of Cabot," by
Lodge, p. 334.)</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote23" name="footnote23"></a><b>Footnote 23:</b><a href="#footnotetag23"> (return) </a><p>See "Life of Cabot," p. 491; letter of Pickering to Higginson.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote24" name="footnote24"></a><b>Footnote 24:</b><a href="#footnotetag24"> (return) </a><p>Pickering to Cabot, "Life of Cabot," pp. 338-340.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote25" name="footnote25"></a><b>Footnote 25:</b><a href="#footnotetag25"> (return) </a><p>Letter to Theodore Lyman, "Life of Cabot," pp. 445, 446.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote26" name="footnote26"></a><b>Footnote 26:</b><a href="#footnotetag26"> (return) </a><p>Maine was not then a State.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" id="page77"></a>[pg 77]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-i-x" id="chap-i-x"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
False Statements of the Grounds for Separation.&mdash;Slavery not the Cause, but an
Incident.&mdash;The Southern People not "Propagandists" of Slavery.&mdash;Early Accord
among the States with regard to African Servitude.&mdash;Statement of the
Supreme Court.&mdash;Guarantees of the Constitution.&mdash;Disregard of Oaths.&mdash;Fugitives
from Service and the "Personal Liberty Laws."&mdash;Equality in the Territories
the Paramount Question.&mdash;The Dred Scott Case.&mdash;Disregard of the
Decision of the Supreme Court.&mdash;Culmination of Wrongs.&mdash;Despair of their
Redress.&mdash;Triumph of Sectionalism.
</p></blockquote>


<p>At the period to which this review of events has advanced,
one State had already withdrawn from the Union. Seven or
eight others were preparing to follow her example, and others
yet were anxiously and doubtfully contemplating the probably
impending necessity of taking the same action. The efforts of
Southern men in Congress, aided by the co&ouml;peration of the
Northern friends of the Constitution, had failed, by the stubborn
refusal of a haughty majority, controlled by "radical"
purposes, to yield anything to the spirit of peace and conciliation.
This period, coinciding, as it happens, with the close of
a calendar year, affords a convenient point to pause for a brief
recapitulation of the causes which had led the Southern States
into the attitude they then held, and for a more full exposition
of the constitutional questions involved.</p>

<p>The reader of many of the treatises on these events, which
have been put forth as historical, if dependent upon such alone
for information, might naturally enough be led to the conclusion
that the controversies which arose between the States, and the
war in which they culminated, were caused by efforts on the one
side to extend and perpetuate human slavery, and on the other
to resist it and establish human liberty. The Southern States
and Southern people have been sedulously represented as "propagandists"
of slavery, and the Northern as the defenders and
champions of universal freedom, and this view has been so arrogantly
assumed, so dogmatically asserted, and so persistently
reiterated, that its authors have, in many cases, perhaps, succeeded
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78"></a>[pg 78]</span>
in bringing themselves to believe it, as well as in impressing
it widely upon the world.</p>

<p>The attentive reader of the preceding chapters&mdash;especially if
he has compared their statements with contemporaneous records
and other original sources of information&mdash;will already have
found evidence enough to enable him to discern the falsehood
of these representations, and to perceive that, to whatever extent
the question of slavery may have served as an <i>occasion</i>, it was
far from being the <i>cause</i> of the conflict.</p>

<p>I have not attempted, and shall not permit myself to be
drawn into any discussion of the merits or demerits of slavery
as an ethical or even as a political question. It would be foreign
to my purpose, irrelevant to my subject, and would only
serve&mdash;as it has invariably served, in the hands of its agitators&mdash;to
"darken counsel" and divert attention from the genuine
issues involved.</p>

<p>As a mere historical fact, we have seen that African servitude
among us&mdash;confessedly the mildest and most humane of all institutions
to which the name "slavery" has ever been applied&mdash;existed
in all the original States, and that it was recognized
and protected in the fourth article of the Constitution. Subsequently,
for climatic, industrial, and economical&mdash;not moral or
sentimental&mdash;reasons, it was abolished in the Northern, while it
continued to exist in the Southern States. Men differed in their
views as to the abstract question of its right or wrong, but for
two generations after the Revolution there was no geographical
line of demarkation for such differences. The African slave-trade
was carried on almost exclusively by New England merchants
and Northern ships. Mr. Jefferson&mdash;a Southern man,
the founder of the Democratic party, and the vindicator of
State rights&mdash;was in theory a consistent enemy to every form
of slavery.  The Southern States took the lead in prohibiting
the slave-trade, and, as we have seen, one of them (Georgia) was
the first State to incorporate such a prohibition in her organic
Constitution.  Eleven years after the agitation on the Missouri
question, when the subject first took a sectional shape, the abolition
of slavery was proposed and earnestly debated in the Virginia
Legislature, and its advocates were so near the accomplishment
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" id="page79"></a>[pg 79]</span>
of their purpose, that a declaration in its favor was defeated
only by a small majority, and that on the ground of expediency.
At a still later period, abolitionist lecturers and teachers were
mobbed, assaulted, and threatened with tar and feathers in New
York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut,
and other States. One of them (Lovejoy) was actually
killed by a mob in Illinois as late as 1837.</p>

<p>These facts prove incontestably that the sectional hostility
which exhibited itself in 1820, on the application of Missouri
for admission into the Union, which again broke out on the
proposition for the annexation of Texas in 1844, and which
reappeared after the Mexican war, never again to be suppressed
until its fell results had been fully accomplished, was not the
consequence of any difference on the abstract question of slavery.
It was the offspring of sectional rivalry and political ambition.
It would have manifested itself just as certainly if slavery had
existed in all the States, or if there had not been a negro in
America. No such pretension was made in 1803 or 1811, when
the Louisiana purchase, and afterward the admission into the
Union of the State of that name, elicited threats of disunion
from the representatives of New England.  The complaint was
not of slavery, but of "the acquisition of more weight at the
other extremity" of the Union.  It was not slavery that threatened
a rupture in 1832, but the unjust and unequal operation of
a protective tariff.</p>

<p>It happened, however, on all these occasions, that the line
of demarkation of sectional interests coincided exactly or very
nearly with that dividing the States in which negro servitude
existed from those in which it had been abolished. It corresponded
with the prediction of Mr. Pickering, in 1803, that, in
the separation certainly to come, "the white and black population
would mark the boundary"&mdash;a prediction made without
any reference to slavery as a source of dissension.</p>

<p>Of course, the diversity of institutions contributed, in some
minor degree, to the conflict of interests. There is an action
and reaction of cause and consequence, which limits and modifies
any general statement of a political truth. I am stating general
principles&mdash;not defining modifications and exceptions with the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" id="page80"></a>[pg 80]</span>
precision of a mathematical proposition or a bill in chancery.
The truth remains intact and incontrovertible, that the existence
of African servitude was in no wise the cause of the conflict,
but only an incident. In the later controversies that arose,
however, its effect in operating as a lever upon the passions,
prejudices, or sympathies of mankind, was so potent that it has
been spread, like a thick cloud, over the whole horizon of historic
truth.</p>

<p>As for the institution of negro servitude, it was a matter
entirely subject to the control of the States. No power was
ever given to the General Government to interfere with it, but
an obligation was imposed to protect it.  Its existence and validity
were distinctly recognized by the Constitution in at least
three places:</p>

<p>First, in that part of the second section of the first article
which prescribes that "representatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several States which may be included
within this Union, according to their respective members, which
shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons,
including those bound to service for a term of years, and,
excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons."
"<i>Other</i> persons" than "<i>free</i> persons" and those "bound to
service for a term of years" must, of course, have meant those
permanently bound to service.</p>

<p>Secondly, it was recognized by the ninth section of the same
article, which provided that "the migration or importation of
such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper
to admit shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year
one thousand eight hundred and eight." This was a provision
inserted for the protection of the interests of the slave-trading
New England States, forbidding any prohibition of the trade by
Congress for twenty years, and thus virtually giving sanction to
the legitimacy of the demand which that trade was prosecuted
to supply, and which was its only object.</p>

<p>Again, and in the third place, it was specially recognized,
and an obligation imposed upon every State, not only to refrain
from interfering with it in any other State, but in certain
cases to aid in its enforcement, by that clause, or paragraph,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81"></a>[pg 81]</span>
of the second section of the fourth article which provides as
follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service
or labor may be due."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The President and Vice-President of the United States, every
Senator and Representative in Congress, the members of every
State Legislature, and "all executive and judicial officers, both
of the United States and of the several States," were required
to take an oath (or affirmation) to support the Constitution containing
these provisions. It is easy to understand how those
who considered them in conflict with the "higher law" of religion
or morality might refuse to take such an oath or hold
such an office&mdash;as the members of some religious sects refuse to
take any oath at all or to bear arms in the service of their country&mdash;but
it is impossible to reconcile with the obligations of
honor or honesty the conduct of those who, having taken such
an oath, made use of the powers and opportunities of the offices
held under its sanctions to nullify its obligations and neutralize
its guarantees.  The halls of Congress afforded the vantage-ground
from which assaults were made upon these guarantees.
The Legislatures of various Northern States enacted laws to
hinder the execution of the provisions made for the rendition
of fugitives from service; State officials lent their aid to the
work of thwarting them; and city mobs assailed the officers
engaged in the duty of enforcing them.</p>

<p>With regard to the provision of the Constitution above
quoted, for the restoration of fugitives from service or labor,
my own view was, and is, that it was not a proper subject for
legislation by the Federal Congress, but that its enforcement
should have been left to the respective States, which, as parties
to the compact of union, should have been held accountable
for its fulfillment. Such was actually the case in the earlier and
better days of the republic. No fugitive slave-law existed, or
was required, for two years after the organization of the Federal
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>[pg 82]</span>
Government, and, when one was then passed, it was merely as an
incidental appendage to an act regulating the mode of rendition
of fugitives from <i>justice</i>&mdash;not from service or labor.<a id="footnotetag27" name="footnotetag27"></a><a href="#footnote27"><sup>27</sup></a></p>

<p>In 1850 a more elaborate law was enacted as part of the celebrated
compromise of that year. But the very fact that the
Federal Government had taken the matter into its own hands,
and provided for its execution by its own officers, afforded a
sort of pretext to those States which had now become hostile to
this provision of the Constitution, not only to stand aloof, but
in some cases to adopt measures (generally known as "personal
liberty laws") directly in conflict with the execution of the provisions
of the Constitution.</p>

<p>The preamble to the Constitution declared the object of its
founders to be, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity." Now, however (in 1860), the
people of a portion of the States had assumed an attitude of
avowed hostility, not only to the provisions of the Constitution
itself, but to the "domestic tranquillity" of the people of other
States. Long before the formation of the Constitution, one of
the charges preferred in the Declaration of Independence against
the Government of Great Britain, as justifying the separation
of the colonies from that country, was that of having "excited
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83"></a>[pg 83]</span>
domestic insurrections among us." Now, the mails were burdened
with incendiary publications, secret emissaries had been
sent, and in one case an armed invasion of one of the States had
taken place for the very purpose of exciting "domestic insurrection."</p>

<p>It was not the passage of the "personal liberty laws," it
was not the circulation of incendiary documents, it was not the
raid of John Brown, it was not the operation of unjust and unequal
tariff laws, nor all combined, that constituted the intolerable
grievance, but it was the systematic and persistent struggle
to deprive the Southern States of equality in the Union&mdash;generally
to discriminate in legislation against the interests of their
people; culminating in their exclusion from the Territories, the
common property of the States, as well as by the infraction of
their compact to promote domestic tranquillity.</p>

<p>The question with regard to the Territories has been discussed
in the foregoing chapters, and the argument need not be
repeated.  There was, however, one feature of it which has not
been specially noticed, although it occupied a large share of public
attention at the time, and constituted an important element
in the case. This was the action of the Federal judiciary thereon,
and the manner in which it was received.</p>

<p>In 1854 a case (the well-known "Dred Scott case") came
before the Supreme Court of the United States, involving the
whole question of the <i>status</i> of the African race and the rights
of citizens of the Southern States to migrate to the Territories,
temporarily or permanently, with their slave property, on a footing
of equality with the citizens of other States with <i>their</i> property
of any sort. This question, as we have seen, had already
been the subject of long and energetic discussion, without any
satisfactory conclusion.  All parties, however, had united in
declaring, that a decision by the Supreme Court of the United
States&mdash;the highest judicial tribunal in the land&mdash;would be
accepted as final.  After long and patient consideration of the
case, in 1857, the decision of the Court was pronounced in an
elaborate and exhaustive opinion, delivered by Chief-Justice
Taney&mdash;a man eminent as a lawyer, great as a statesman, and
stainless in his moral reputation&mdash;seven of the nine judges who
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84"></a>[pg 84]</span>
composed the Court, concurring in it.  The salient points established
by this decision were:</p>

<blockquote><p>
1. That persons of the African race were not, and could not
be, acknowledged as "part of the people," or citizens, under the
Constitution of the United States;</p>

<p>2. That Congress had no right to exclude citizens of the
South from taking their negro servants, as any other property,
into any part of the common territory, and that they were entitled
to claim its protection therein;</p>

<p>3. And, finally, as a consequence of the principle just above
stated, that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in so far as it
prohibited the existence of African servitude north of a designated
line, was unconstitutional and void.<a id="footnotetag28" name="footnotetag28"></a><a href="#footnote28"><sup>28</sup></a>  (It will be remembered
that it had already been declared "inoperative and void"
by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.)
</p></blockquote>

<p>Instead of accepting the decision of this then august tribunal&mdash;the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" id="page85"></a>[pg 85]</span>
ultimate authority in the interpretation of constitutional
questions&mdash;as conclusive of a controversy that had so long disturbed
the peace and was threatening the perpetuity of the
Union, it was flouted, denounced, and utterly disregarded by
the Northern agitators, and served only to stimulate the intensity
of their sectional hostility.</p>

<p>What resource for justice&mdash;what assurance of tranquillity&mdash;what
guarantee of safety&mdash;now remained for the South? Still
forbearing, still hoping, still striving for peace and union, we
waited until a sectional President, nominated by a sectional
convention, elected by a sectional vote&mdash;and that the vote of a
minority of the people&mdash;was about to be inducted into office,
under the warning of his own distinct announcement that the
Union could not permanently endure "half slave and half
free"; meaning thereby that it could not continue to exist in
the condition in which it was formed and its Constitution
adopted. The leader of his party, who was to be the chief
of his Cabinet, was the man who had first proclaimed an "irrepressible
conflict" between the North and the South, and who
had declared that abolitionism, having triumphed in the Territories,
would proceed to the invasion of the States.  Even then
the Southern people did not finally despair until the temper of
the triumphant party had been tested in Congress and found
adverse to any terms of reconciliation consistent with the honor
and safety of all parties.</p>

<p>No alternative remained except to seek the security out of
the Union which they had vainly tried to obtain within it.  The
hope of our people may be stated in a sentence.  It was to escape
from injury and strife in the Union, to find prosperity and
peace out of it.  The mode and principles of their action will
next be presented.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote27" name="footnote27"></a><b>Footnote 27:</b><a href="#footnotetag27"> (return) </a><p>
"There was but little necessity in those times, nor long after, for an act of
Congress to authorize the recovery of fugitive slaves.  The laws of the free States
and, still more, the force of public opinion were the owners' best safeguards.  Public
opinion was against the abduction of slaves; and, if any one was seduced from his
owner, it was done furtively and secretly, without show or force, and as any other
moral offense would be committed. State laws favored the owner, and to a greater
extent than the act of Congress did or could. In Pennsylvania there was an act (it
was passed in 1780, and only repealed in 1847) discriminating between the traveler
and sojourner and the permanent resident, allowing the former to remain six months
in the State before his slaves would become subject to the emancipation laws; and,
in the case of a Federal officer, allowing as much more time as his duties required
him to remain. New York had the same act, only varying in time, which was nine
months. While these two acts were in force, and supported by public opinion, the
traveler and sojourner was safe with his slaves in those States, and the same in the
other free States. There was no trouble about fugitive slaves in those times."&mdash;(Note
to Benton's "Abridgment of Debates," vol. i, p. 417.)</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote28" name="footnote28"></a><b>Footnote 28:</b><a href="#footnotetag28"> (return) </a><p>
The Supreme Court of the United States in stating (through Chief-Justice
Taney) their decision in the "Dred Scott case," in 1857, say: "In that portion of
the United States where the labor of the negro race was found to be unsuited to the
climate and unprofitable to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the
Declaration of Independence; and, when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely
worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual abolition in
several others.  But this change had not been produced by any change of opinion
in relation to this race, but because it was discovered from experience that slave-labor
was unsuited to the climate and productions of these States; for some of these
States, when it had ceased, or nearly ceased, to exist, were actively engaged in the
slave-trade; procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting them for
sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to be profitable and
suited to the climate and productions.  And this traffic was openly carried on, and
fortunes accumulated by it, without reproach from the people of the States where
they resided."</p>

<p>This statement, it must be remembered, does not proceed from any
partisan source, but is extracted from a judicial opinion pronounced by
the highest court in the country. In illustration of the truthfulness of
the latter part of it, may be mentioned the fact that a citizen of Rhode
Island (James D'Wolf), long and largely concerned in the slave-trade,
was sent from that State to the Senate of the United States as late as
the year 1821. In 1825 he resigned his seat in the Senate and removed to
Havana, where he lived for many years, actively engaged in the same
pursuit, as president of a slave-trading company. The story is told of
him that, on being informed that the "trade" was to be declared piracy,
he smiled and said, "So much the better for us&mdash;the Yankees will be the
only people not scared off by such a declaration."</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86"></a>[pg 86]</span>




<h2><a name="part-ii" id="part-ii"></a>PART II.</h2>

<h2>THE CONSTITUTION.</h2>

<h2><a name="chap-ii-i" id="chap-ii-i"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Original Confederation.&mdash;"Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union."&mdash;Their
Inadequacy ascertained.&mdash;Commercial Difficulties.&mdash;The Conference at
Annapolis.&mdash;Recommendation of a General Convention.&mdash;Resolution of Congress.&mdash;Action
of the Several States.&mdash;Conclusions drawn therefrom.
</p></blockquote>


<p>When certain American colonies of Great Britain, each acting
for itself, although in concert with the others, determined
to dissolve their political connection with the mother-country,
they sent their representatives to a general Congress of those
colonies, and through them made a declaration that the Colonies
were, and of right ought to be, "free and independent
States." As such they contracted an alliance for their "common
defense," successfully resisted the effort to reduce them
to submission, and secured the recognition by Great Britain of
their separate independence; each State being distinctly recognized
under its own name&mdash;not as one of a group or nation.
That this was not merely a foreign view is evident from the
second of the "Articles of Confederation" between the States,
adopted subsequently to the Declaration of Independence, which
is in these words: "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom,
and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right,
which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the
United States in Congress assembled."</p>

<p>These "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union
between the States," as they were styled in their title, were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87"></a>[pg 87]</span>
adopted by eleven of the original States in 1778, and by the
other two in the course of the three years next ensuing, and
continued in force until 1789. During this period the General
Government was vested in the Congress alone, in which each
State, through its representatives, had an equal vote in the determination
of all questions whatever.  The Congress exercised
all the executive as well as legislative powers delegated by the
States.  When not in session the general management of affairs
was intrusted to a "Committee of the States," consisting of one
delegate from each State.  Provision was made for the creation,
by the Congress, of courts having a certain specified jurisdiction
in admiralty and maritime cases, and for the settlement of controversies
between two or more States in a mode specifically
prescribed.</p>

<p>The Government thus constituted was found inadequate for
some necessary purposes, and it became requisite to reorganize
it.  The first idea of such reorganization arose from the necessity
of regulating the commercial intercourse of the States with
one another and with foreign countries, and also of making some
provision for payment of the debt contracted during the war
for independence. These exigencies led to a proposition for
a meeting of commissioners from the various States to consider
the subject. Such a meeting was held at Annapolis in September,
1786; but, as only five States (New York, New Jersey,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) were represented, the
Commissioners declined to take any action further than to recommend
another Convention, with a wider scope for consideration.
As they expressed it, it was their "unanimous conviction
that it may essentially tend to advance the interests of the Union,
if the States, by whom they have been respectively delegated,
would themselves concur, and use their endeavors to procure
the concurrence of the other States, in the appointment of commissioners,
to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in
May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United
States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them
necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Government
adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and to report
such an act for that purpose to the United States in Congress
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88"></a>[pg 88]</span>
assembled, as, when agreed to by them, and afterward confirmed
by the Legislatures of every State, will effectually provide
for the same."</p>

<p>It is scarcely necessary to remind the well-informed reader
that the terms, "Constitution of the Federal Government," employed
above, and "Federal Constitution," as used in other
proceedings of that period, do not mean the instrument to
which we now apply them; and which was not then in existence.
They were applied to the system of government formulated
in the Articles of Confederation.  This is in strict accord
with the definition of the word constitution, given by an eminent
lexicographer:<a id="footnotetag29" name="footnotetag29"></a><a href="#footnote29"><sup>29</sup></a> "The body of fundamental laws, as contained
in written documents or prescriptive usage, which constitute
the form of government for a nation, state, community,
association, or society."<a id="footnotetag30" name="footnotetag30"></a><a href="#footnote30"><sup>30</sup></a>  Thus we speak of the British Constitution,
which is an unwritten system of "prescriptive usage"; of
the Constitution of Massachusetts or of Mississippi, which is the
fundamental or organic law of a particular State embodied in a
written instrument; and of the Federal Constitution of the United
States, which is the fundamental law of an association of States,
at first as embraced in the Articles of Confederation, and afterward
as revised, amended, enlarged, and embodied in the instrument
framed in 1787, and subsequently adopted by the various
States.  The manner in which this revision was effected was as
follows.  Acting on the suggestion of the Annapolis Convention,
the Congress, on the 21st of the ensuing February (1787),
adopted the following resolution:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>Resolved</i>, That, in the opinion of Congress, it is expedient that,
on the second Monday in May next, a convention of delegates, who
shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia,
for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles
of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id="page89"></a>[pg 89]</span>
such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed
to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal
Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the
preservation of the Union."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The language of this resolution, substantially according with
that of the recommendation made by the commissioners at Annapolis
a few months before, very clearly defines the objects of
the proposed Convention and the powers which it was thought
advisable that the States should confer upon their delegates.
These were, "solely and expressly," as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
1. "To revise the Articles of Confederation with reference to
the 'situation of the United States';</p>

<p>2. "To devise such alterations and provisions therein as should
seem to them requisite in order to render 'the Federal Constitution,'
or 'Constitution of the Federal Government,' adequate to
'the exigencies of the Union,' or 'the exigencies of the Government
and the preservation of the Union';</p>

<p>3. "To report the result of their deliberations&mdash;that is, the
'alterations and provisions' which they should agree to recommend&mdash;to
Congress and the Legislatures of the several States."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Of course, their action could be only advisory until ratified
by the States. The "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual
Union," under which the States were already united, provided
that no alteration should be made in any of them, "unless such
alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and
afterward confirmed by the Legislatures of every State."</p>

<p>The Legislatures of the various States, with the exception of
Rhode Island, adopted and proceeded to act upon these suggestions
by the appointment of delegates&mdash;some of them immediately
upon the recommendation of the Annapolis Commissioners
in advance of that of the Congress, and the others in the course
of a few months after the resolution adopted by Congress. The
instructions given to these delegates in all cases conformed to
the recommendations which have been quoted, and in one case
imposed an additional restriction or limitation. As this is a
matter of much importance, in order to a right understanding of
what follows, it may be advisable to cite in detail the action of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90"></a>[pg 90]</span>
the several States, italicizing such passages as are specially significant
of the duties and powers of the delegates to the Convention.</p>

<p>The General Assembly of Virginia, after reciting the recommendation
made at Annapolis, enacted: "That seven commissioners
be appointed by joint ballot of both Houses of Assembly,
who, or any three of them, are hereby authorized, as deputies
from this Commonwealth, to meet such deputies as may be
appointed and authorized by other States, to assemble in convention
at Philadelphia, as above recommended, and to join
with them in devising and discussing <i>all such alterations and
further provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal
Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and in
reporting such an act for that purpose to the United States in
Congress, as, when agreed to by them, and duly confirmed by
the several States</i>, will effectually provide for the same."</p>

<p>The Council and Assembly of New Jersey issued commissions
to their delegates to meet such commissioners as have
been, or may be, appointed by <i>the other States of the Union</i>, at
the city of Philadelphia, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
on the second Monday in May next, "<i>for the purpose of taking
into consideration the state of the Union as to trade and other
important objects, and of devising such other provisions as shall
appear to be necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal
Government adequate to the exigencies thereof</i>."</p>

<p>The act of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania constituted
and appointed certain deputies, designated by name,
"with powers to meet such deputies as may be <i>appointed and
authorized by the other States</i> ... and to join with them in
devising, deliberating on, and discussing <i>all such alterations
and further provisions</i> as may be necessary <i>to render the Federal
Constitution fully adequate to the exigencies of the Union</i>,
and in reporting such act or acts for that purpose, to the United
States in Congress assembled, as, <i>when agreed to by them and
duly confirmed by the several States</i>, will effectually provide for
the same."</p>

<p>The General Assembly of North Carolina enacted that commissioners
should be appointed by joint ballot of both Houses,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>[pg 91]</span>
"to meet and confer with such deputies as may be <i>appointed
by the other States</i> for similar purposes, and with them to discuss
and decide upon <i>the most effectual means to remove the
defects of our Federal Union, and to procure the enlarged purposes
which it was intended to effect; and that they report such
an act to the General Assembly of this State, as, when agreed to
by them</i>, will effectually provide for the same." (In the case
of this State alone nothing is said of a report to Congress.
Neither North Carolina nor any other State, however, fails to
make mention of the necessity of a submission of any action
taken to the several States for ratification.)</p>

<p>The commissions issued to the representatives of South Carolina,
by the Governor, refer to an act of the Legislature of that
State authorizing their appointment "to meet such deputies or
commissioners as may be <i>appointed and authorized by other of
the United States</i>," at the time and place designated, and to
join with them "in devising and discussing all <i>such alterations,
clauses, articles, and provisions</i>, as may be thought necessary <i>to
render the Federal Constitution entirely adequate</i> to the actual
situation and future good government of the <i>Confederate States</i>,"
and to "join in reporting such an act to the United States in
Congress assembled, as, <i>when approved and agreed to by them,
and duly ratified and confirmed by the several States</i>, will effectually
provide for the exigencies of the Union." In these commissions
the expression, "alterations, clauses, articles, and provisions,"
clearly indicates the character of the duties which the
deputies were expected to discharge.</p>

<p>The General Assembly of Georgia "ordained" the appointment
of certain commissioners, specified by name, who were
"authorized, as deputies from this State, to meet such deputies
as may be <i>appointed and authorized by other States</i>, to assemble
in convention at Philadelphia, and to join with them in devising
and discussing <i>all such alterations and further provisions</i> as
may be necessary <i>to render the Federal Constitution adequate
to the exigencies of the Union</i>, and in reporting such an act for
that purpose to the United States in Congress assembled, as,
<i>when agreed to by them, and duly confirmed by the several
States</i>, will effectually provide for the same."</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id="page92"></a>[pg 92]</span>

<p>The authority conferred upon their delegates by the Assembly
of New York and the General Court of Massachusetts was
in each case expressed in the exact words of the advisory resolution
of Congress: they were instructed to meet the delegates
of the other States "for the sole and express purpose of <i>revising
the Articles of Confederation</i>, and reporting to Congress and to
the several Legislatures <i>such alterations and provisions therein</i>
as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the several
States, <i>render the Federal Constitution adequate to the
exigencies of the Union</i>."</p>

<p>The General Assembly of Connecticut designated the delegates
of that State by name, and empowered them, in conference
with the delegates of other States, "to discuss upon such alterations
and provisions, agreeable to the general principles of republican
government, as they shall think proper to render the
Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Government
and the preservation of the Union," and "<i>to report such
alterations and provisions as may be agreed to by a majority of
the United States in convention</i>, to the Congress of the United
States and to the General Assembly of this State."</p>

<p>The General Court of New Hampshire authorized and empowered
the deputies of that State, <i>in conference with those of
other States</i>, "to discuss and decide upon the most effectual
means <i>to remedy the defects of our Federal Union, and to procure
and secure the enlarged purposes which it was intended to
effect</i>"&mdash;language almost identical with that of North Carolina,
but, like the other States in general, instructed them to report
the result of their deliberations to Congress for the action of
that body, and subsequent confirmation "by the several States."</p>

<p>The delegates from Maryland were appointed by the General
Assembly of that State, and instructed "to meet such
deputies as may be appointed and authorized <i>by any other of
the United States</i>, to assemble in convention at Philadelphia,
<i>for the purpose of revising the Federal system</i>, and to join
with them in considering such alterations and further provisions,"
etc.&mdash;the remainder of their instructions being in the
same words as those given to the Georgia delegates.</p>

<p>The instructions given to the deputies of Delaware were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93"></a>[pg 93]</span>
substantially in accord with the others&mdash;being almost literally
identical with those of Pennsylvania&mdash;but the following proviso
was added: "So, always, and provided, that such alterations or
further provisions, or any of them, do not extend to that part of
the fifth article of the Confederation of the said States, finally
ratified on the first day of March, in the year 1781, which declares
that, '<i>in determining questions in the United States in
Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote</i>.'"</p>

<p>Rhode Island, as has already been mentioned, sent no delegates.</p>

<p>From an examination and comparison of the enactments and
instructions above quoted, we may derive certain conclusions, so
obvious that they need only to be stated:</p>

<p>1. In the first place, it is clear that the delegates to the Convention
of 1787 represented, not <i>the people of the United States</i>
in mass, as has been most absurdly contended by some political
writers, but <i>the people</i> of the several States, <i>as States</i>&mdash;just as
in the Congress of that period&mdash;Delaware, with her sixty thousand
inhabitants, having entire equality with Pennsylvania,
which had more than four hundred thousand, or Virginia, with
her seven hundred and fifty thousand.</p>

<p>2. The object for which they were appointed was not to
organize a <i>new</i> Government, but "solely and expressly" to
amend the "Federal Constitution" already existing; in other
words, "to revise the Articles of Confederation," and to suggest
such "alterations" or additional "provisions" as should
be deemed necessary to render them "adequate to the exigencies
of the Union."</p>

<p>3. It is evident that the term "Federal Constitution," or its
equivalent, "Constitution of the Federal Government," was as
freely and familiarly applied to the system of government established
by the Articles of Confederation&mdash;undeniably a league or
compact between States expressly retaining their sovereignty
and independence&mdash;as to that amended system which was substituted
for it by the Constitution that superseded those articles.</p>

<p>4. The functions of the delegates to the Convention were,
of course, only to devise, deliberate, and discuss. No validity
could attach to any action taken, unless and until it should be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>[pg 94]</span>
afterward ratified by the several States. It is evident, also, that
what was contemplated was the process provided in the Articles
of Confederation for their own amendment&mdash;first, a recommendation
by the Congress; and, afterward, ratification "by
the Legislatures of every State," before the amendment should
be obligatory upon any. The departure from this condition,
which actually occurred, will presently be noticed.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote29" name="footnote29"></a><b>Footnote 29:</b><a href="#footnotetag29"> (return) </a><p>Dr. Worcester.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote30" name="footnote30"></a><b>Footnote 30:</b><a href="#footnotetag30"> (return) </a><p>
This definition is very good as far as it goes, but "the form of government" is
a phrase which falls short of expressing all that should be comprehended. Perhaps
it would be more accurate to say, "which constitute the form, <i>define the powers,
and prescribe the functions</i> of government," etc.  The words in italics would make
the definition more complete.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-ii" id="chap-ii-ii"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Convention of 1787.&mdash;Diversity of Opinion.&mdash;Luther Martin's Account of the
Three Parties.&mdash;The Question of Representation.&mdash;Compromise effected.&mdash;Mr.
Randolph's Resolutions.&mdash;The Word "National" condemned.&mdash;Plan of Government
framed.&mdash;Difficulty with Regard to Ratification, and its Solution.&mdash;Provision
for Secession from the Union.&mdash;Views of Mr. Gerry and Mr. Madison.&mdash;False
Interpretations.&mdash;Close of the Convention.
</p></blockquote>


<p>When the Convention met in Philadelphia, in May, 1787,
it soon became evident that the work before it would take a
wider range and involve more radical changes in the "Federal
Constitution" than had at first been contemplated. Under the
Articles of Confederation the General Government was obliged
to rely upon the governments of the several States for the execution
of its enactments. Except its own officers and employees,
and in time of war the Federal army and navy, it could exercise
no control upon individual citizens. With regard to the States,
no compulsory or coercive measures could be employed to enforce
its authority, in case of opposition or indifference to its
exercise. This last was a feature of the Confederation which
it was not desirable nor possible to change, and no objection
was made to it; but it was generally admitted that some machinery
should be devised to enable the General Government
to exercise its legitimate functions by means of a mandatory
authority operating directly upon the individual citizens within
the limits of its constitutional powers. The necessity for such
provision was undisputed.</p>

<p>Beyond the common ground of a recognition of this necessity
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>[pg 95]</span>
there was a wide diversity of opinion among the members
of the Convention. Luther Martin, a delegate from Maryland,
in an account of its proceedings, afterward given to the Legislature
of that State, classifies these differences as constituting
three parties in the Convention, which he describes as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"One party, whose object and wish it was to abolish and annihilate
all State governments, and to bring forward one General
Government over this extensive continent of a monarchical nature,
under certain restrictions and limitations. Those who openly
avowed this sentiment were, it is true, but few; yet it is equally
true that there was a considerable number, who did not openly
avow it, who were, by myself and many others of the Convention,
considered as being in reality favorers of that sentiment....</p>

<p>"The second party was not for the abolition of the State governments
nor for the introduction of a monarchical government
under any form; but they wished to establish such a system as
could give their own States undue power and influence in the government
over the other States.</p>

<p>"A third party was what I considered truly federal and republican.
This party was nearly equal in number with the other
two, and was composed of the delegates from Connecticut, New
York, New Jersey, Delaware, and in part from Maryland; also of
some individuals from other representations. This party were for
proceeding upon terms of federal equality: they were for taking
our present federal system as the basis of their proceedings, and,
as far as experience had shown that other powers were necessary
to the Federal Government, to give those powers. They considered
this the object for which they were sent by their States, and
what their States expected from them."
</p></blockquote>

<p>In his account of the second party above described, Mr. Martin
refers to those representatives of the larger States who wished
to establish a numerical basis of representation in the Congress,
instead of the equal representation of the States (whether large
or small) which existed under the Articles of Confederation.
There was naturally much dissatisfaction on the part of the
greater States&mdash;Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and
Massachusetts&mdash;whose population at that period exceeded that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id="page96"></a>[pg 96]</span>
of all the others combined, but which, in the Congress, constituted
less than one third of the voting strength. On the
other hand, the smaller States were tenacious of their equality
in the Union. Of the very smallest, one, as we have seen, had
sent no representatives to the Convention, and the other had
instructed her delegates, unconditionally, to insist upon the
maintenance of absolute equality in the Congress. This difference
gave more trouble than any other question that came
before the Convention, and for some time threatened to prove
irreconcilable and to hinder any final agreement. It was ultimately
settled by a compromise. Provision was made for the
representation of the people of the States in one branch of the
Federal Legislature (the House of Representatives) in proportion
to their numbers; in the other branch (the Senate), for the
equal representation of the States as such. The perpetuity of
this equality was furthermore guaranteed by a stipulation that
no State should ever be deprived of its equal suffrage in the
Senate without its own consent.<a id="footnotetag31" name="footnotetag31"></a><a href="#footnote31"><sup>31</sup></a> This compromise required
no sacrifice of principle on either side, and no provision of the
Constitution has in practice proved more entirely satisfactory.</p>

<p>It is not necessary, and would be beyond the scope of this
work, to undertake to give a history of the proceedings of the
Convention of 1787. That may be obtained from other sources.
All that is requisite for the present purpose is to notice a few
particulars of special significance or relevancy to the subject of
inquiry.</p>

<p>Early in the session of the Convention a series of resolutions
was introduced by Mr. Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, embodying
a proposed plan of government, which were considered in
committee of the whole House, and formed the basis of a protracted
discussion. The first of these resolutions, as amended
before a vote was taken, was in these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>Resolved</i>, That it is the opinion of this committee that a
national Government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme
legislative, executive, and judiciary."
</p></blockquote>

<p>This was followed by other resolutions&mdash;twenty-three in all,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id="page97"></a>[pg 97]</span>
as adopted and reported by the committee&mdash;in which the word
"national" occurred twenty-six times.</p>

<p>The day after the report of the committee was made, Mr.
Ellsworth, of Connecticut, moved to strike out the words "national
Government" in the resolution above quoted, and to insert
the words "Government of the United States," which he
said was the proper title.  "He wished also the plan to go forth
as an amendment of the Articles of Confederation."<a id="footnotetag32" name="footnotetag32"></a><a href="#footnote32"><sup>32</sup></a>  That is
to say, he wished to avoid even the appearance of undertaking
to form a <i>new</i> government, instead of reforming the old one,
which was the proper object of the Convention. This motion
was agreed to without opposition, and, as a consequence, the
word "national" was stricken out wherever it occurred, and nowhere
makes its appearance in the Constitution finally adopted.
The prompt rejection, after introduction, of this word "national,"
is obviously much more expressive of the intent and purpose of
the authors of the Constitution than its mere absence from the
Constitution would have been. It is a clear indication that
they did not mean to give any countenance to the idea which,
"scotched, not killed," has again reared its mischievous crest in
these latter days&mdash;that the government which they organized
was a consolidated <i>nationality</i>, instead of a confederacy of sovereign
members.</p>

<p>Continuing their great work of revision and reorganization,
the Convention proceeded to construct the framework of a government
for the Confederacy, strictly confined to certain specified
and limited powers, but complete in all its parts, legislative,
executive, and judicial, and provided with the means
for discharging all its functions without interfering with the
"sovereignty, freedom, and independence" of the constituent
States.</p>

<p>All this might have been done without going beyond the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id="page98"></a>[pg 98]</span>
limits of their commission "to revise the Articles of Confederation,"
and to consider and report such "alterations and provisions"
as might seem necessary to "render the Federal Constitution
adequate to the exigencies of government and the
preservation of the Union." A serious difficulty, however, was
foreseen. The thirteenth and last of the aforesaid articles had
this provision, which has already been referred to: "The Articles
of this Confederation <i>shall be inviolably observed by every
State, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration,
at any time hereafter, be made in any of them</i>, unless
such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United
States, and be afterward confirmed by the Legislatures of <i>every
State</i>."</p>

<p>It is obvious, from an examination of the records, as has
already been shown, that the original idea in calling a Convention
was, that their recommendations should take the course prescribed
by this article&mdash;first, a report to the Congress, and then,
if approved by that body, a submission to the various Legislatures
for final action. There was no reason to apprehend the
non-concurrence of Congress, in which a mere majority would
determine the question; but the consent of the Legislatures of
"<i>every State</i>" was requisite in order to final ratification, and
there was serious reason to fear that this consent could not be
obtained. Rhode Island, as we have seen, had declined to send
any representatives to the Convention; of the three delegates
from New York, two had withdrawn; and other indications of
dissatisfaction had appeared. In case of the failure of a single
Legislature to ratify, the labors of the Convention would go for
naught, under a strict adherence to the letter of the article above
cited. The danger of a total frustration of their efforts was imminent.</p>

<p>In this emergency the Convention took the responsibility of
transcending the limits of their instructions, and recommending
a procedure which was in direct contravention of the letter of
the Articles of Confederation. This was the introduction of a
provision into the new Constitution, that the ratification of <i>nine</i>
States should be sufficient for its establishment among themselves.
In order to validate this provision, it was necessary to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99"></a>[pg 99]</span>
refer it to authority higher than that of Congress and the State
Legislatures&mdash;that is, to the <span class="sc">People</span> of the States, assembled, by
their representatives, in convention. Hence it was provided, by
the seventh and last article of the new Constitution, that "the
ratification of the <i>Conventions</i> of nine States" should suffice
for its establishment "between the States so ratifying the
same."</p>

<p>There was another reason, of a more general and perhaps
more controlling character, for this reference to conventions for
ratification, even if entire unanimity of the State Legislatures
could have been expected. Under the American theory of republican
government, conventions of the people, duly elected
and accredited as such, are invested with the plenary power inherent
in the people of an organized and independent community,
assembled in mass. In other words, they represent and
exercise what is properly the <i>sovereignty</i> of the people. State
Legislatures, with restricted powers, do not possess or represent
sovereignty. Still less does the Congress of a union or
confederacy of States, which is by two degrees removed from
the seat of sovereignty. We sometimes read or hear of "delegated
sovereignty," "divided sovereignty," with other loose
expressions of the same sort; but no such thing as a division or
delegation of sovereignty is possible.</p>

<p>In order, therefore, to supersede the restraining article
above cited and to give the highest validity to the compact
for the delegation of important powers and functions of government
to a common agent, an authority above that of the
State Legislatures was necessary. Mr. Madison, in the "Federalist,"<a id="footnotetag33" name="footnotetag33"></a><a href="#footnote33"><sup>33</sup></a>
says: "It has been heretofore noted among the defects
of the Confederation, that in many of the States it had received
no higher sanction than a mere legislative ratification." This
objection would of course have applied with greater force to the
proposed Constitution, which provided for additional grants of
power from the States, and the conferring of larger and more
varied powers upon a General Government, which was to act
upon individuals instead of States, if the question of its confirmation
had been submitted merely to the several State Legislatures.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" id="page100"></a>[pg 100]</span>
Hence the obvious propriety of referring it to the
respective <i>people</i> of the States in their sovereign capacity, as
provided in the final article of the Constitution.</p>

<p>In this article provision was deliberately made for the <i>secession</i>
(if necessary) of a part of the States from a union which,
when formed, had been declared "perpetual," and its terms and
articles to be "inviolably observed by every State."</p>

<p>Opposition was made to the provision on this very ground&mdash;that
it was virtually a dissolution of the Union, and that it would
furnish a precedent for future secessions. Mr. Gerry, a distinguished
member from Massachusetts&mdash;afterward Vice-President
of the United States&mdash;said, "If nine out of thirteen (States) can
dissolve the compact, six out of nine will be just as able to dissolve
the future one hereafter."</p>

<p>Mr. Madison, who was one of the leading members of the
Convention, advocating afterward, in the "Federalist," the adoption
of the new Constitution, asks the question, "On what principle
the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a
compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous
consent of the parties to it?" He answers this question
"by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great
principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature
and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness
of society are the objects at which all political institutions
aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed."  He
proceeds, however, to give other grounds of justification:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties, that
all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a
breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and
that a breach committed by either of the parties absolves the
others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact
violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to
appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing
with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the Federal
pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to
answer the multiplied and important infractions with which they
may be confronted? <i>The time has been when it was incumbent
on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits.</i>  The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" id="page101"></a>[pg 101]</span>
scene is now changed, and with it the part which the same motives
dictate."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Mr. Madison's idea of the propriety of <i>veiling</i> any statement
of the right of secession until the occasion arises for its exercise,
whether right or wrong in itself, is eminently suggestive as explanatory
of the caution exhibited by other statesmen of that
period, as well as himself, with regard to that "delicate truth."</p>

<p>The only possible alternative to the view here taken of the
seventh article of the Constitution, as a provision for the secession
of any nine States, which might think proper to avail themselves
of it, from union with such as should refuse to do so, and
the formation of an amended or "more perfect union" with
one another, is to regard it as a provision for the continuance of
the old Union, or Confederation, under altered conditions, by
the majority which should accede to them, with a recognition
of the right of the recusant minority to withdraw, secede, or
stand aloof. The idea of compelling any State or States to
enter into or to continue in union with the others by <i>coercion</i>,
is as absolutely excluded under the one supposition as under the
other&mdash;with reference to one State or a minority of States, as
well as with regard to a majority. The article declares that
"the ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient
for the establishment of this Constitution"&mdash;not between
all, but&mdash;"<i>between the States so ratifying the same</i>." It is submitted
whether a fuller justification of this right of the nine
States to form a new Government is not found in the fact of
the sovereignty in each of them, making them "a law unto
themselves," and therefore the final judge of what the necessities
of each community demand.</p>

<p>Here&mdash;although, perhaps, in advance of its proper place in
the argument&mdash;the attention of the reader may be directed to
the refutation, afforded by this article of the Constitution, of
that astonishing fiction, which has been put forward by some
distinguished writers of later date, that the Constitution was
established by the people of the United States "in the aggregate."
If such had been the case, the will of a majority, duly
ascertained and expressed, would have been binding upon the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" id="page102"></a>[pg 102]</span>
minority.  No such idea existed in its formation. It was not
even established by the <i>States in the aggregate</i>, nor was it proposed
that it should be. It was submitted for the acceptance of
each separately, the time and place at their own option, so that
the dates of ratification did extend from December 7, 1787, to
May 29, 1790. The long period required for these ratifications
makes manifest the absurdity of the assertion, that it was a decision
by the votes of one people, or one community, in which
a majority of the votes cast determined the result.</p>

<p>We have seen that the delegates to the Convention of 1787
were chosen by the several States, <i>as States</i>&mdash;it is hardly necessary
to add that they voted in the Convention, as in the Federal
Congress, by States&mdash;each State casting one vote. We have seen,
also, that they were sent for the "sole and express purpose" of
revising the Articles of Confederation and devising means for
rendering the Federal Constitution, "adequate to the exigencies
of government and the preservation of the Union"; that the
terms "Union," "United States," "Federal Constitution;" and
"Constitution of the Federal Government," were applied to the
old Confederation in precisely the same sense in which they are
used under the new; that the proposition to constitute a "national"
Government was distinctly rejected by the Convention;
that the right of any State, or States, to withdraw from union
with the others was practically exemplified, and that the idea of
coercion of a State, or compulsory measures, was distinctly excluded
under any construction that can be put upon the action
of the Convention.</p>

<p>To the original copy of the Constitution, as set forth by its
framers for the consideration and final action of the people of
the States, was attached the following words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States
present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord
one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence
of the United States of America, the twelfth. In witness
whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names."
</p></blockquote>

<p>[Followed by the signatures of "George Washington, President,
and deputy from Virginia," and the other delegates who
signed it.]</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id="page103"></a>[pg 103]</span>

<p>This attachment to the instrument&mdash;a mere attestation of its
authenticity, and of the fact that it had the unanimous consent
<i>of all the States</i> then present by their deputies&mdash;not <i>of all the
deputies</i>, for some of them refused to sign it&mdash;has been strangely
construed by some commentators as if it were a part of the Constitution,
and implied that it was "done," in the sense of completion
of the work.<a id="footnotetag34" name="footnotetag34"></a><a href="#footnote34"><sup>34</sup></a></p>

<p>But the work was not <i>done</i> when the Convention closed its
labors and adjourned. It was scarcely begun. There was no
validity or binding force whatever in what had been already
"done."  It was still to be submitted to the States for approval
or rejection. Even if a majority of eight out of thirteen States
had ratified it, the refusal of the ninth would have rendered it
null and void. Mr. Madison, who was one of the most distinguished
of its authors and signers, writing after it was completed
and signed, but before it was ratified, said: "It is time now to
recollect that the powers [of the Convention] were merely advisory
and recommendatory; that they were so meant by the
States, and so understood by the Convention; and that the latter
have accordingly planned and proposed a Constitution, which is
to be of no more consequence than the paper on which it is
written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to
whom it is addressed."&mdash;("Federalist," No. XL.)</p>

<p>The mode and terms in which this approval was expressed
will be considered in the next chapter.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote31" name="footnote31"></a><b>Footnote 31:</b><a href="#footnotetag31"> (return) </a><p>Constitution, Article V.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote32" name="footnote32"></a><b>Footnote 32:</b><a href="#footnotetag32"> (return) </a><p>See Elliott's "Debates," vol. v, p. 214. This reference is taken from "The
Republic of Republics," Part III, chapter vii, p. 217. This learned, exhaustive, and
admirable work, which contains a wealth of historical and political learning, will be
freely used, by kind consent of the author, without the obligation of a repetition of
special acknowledgment in every case. A like liberty will be taken with the late Dr.
Bledsoe's masterly treatise on the right of secession, published in 1866, under the
title, "Is Davis a Traitor? or, Was Secession a Constitutional Right?"</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote33" name="footnote33"></a><b>Footnote 33:</b><a href="#footnotetag33"> (return) </a><p>No. xliii.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote34" name="footnote34"></a><b>Footnote 34:</b><a href="#footnotetag34"> (return) </a><p>See "Republic of Republics," Part II, chapters xiii and xiv.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-iii" id="chap-ii-iii"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Ratification of the Constitution by the States.&mdash;Organization of the New
Government.&mdash;Accession
of North Carolina and Rhode Island.&mdash;Correspondence between
General Washington and the Governor of Rhode Island.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The amended system of union, or confederation (the terms
are employed indiscriminately and interchangeably by the statesmen
of that period), devised by the Convention of 1787, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" id="page104"></a>[pg 104]</span>
embodied, as we have seen, in the Constitution which they
framed and have set forth, was now to be considered and
acted on by the people of the several States. This they did
in the highest and most majestic form in which the sanction
of organized communities could be given or withheld&mdash;not
through ambassadors, or Legislatures, or deputies with limited
powers, but through conventions of delegates chosen expressly
for the purpose and clothed with the plenary authority of sovereign
people. The action of these conventions was deliberate,
cautious, and careful. There was much debate, and no little
opposition to be conciliated. Eleven States, however, ratified
and adopted the new Constitution within the twelve months
immediately following its submission to them. Two of them
positively rejected it, and, although they afterward acceded to
it, remained outside of the Union in the exercise of their sovereign
right, which nobody then denied&mdash;North Carolina for
nine months, Rhode Island for nearly fifteen, after the new
Government was organized and went into operation. In several
of the other States the ratification was effected only by
small majorities.</p>

<p>The terms in which this action was expressed by the several
States and the declarations with which it was accompanied by
some of them are worthy of attention.</p>

<p>Delaware was the first to act. Her Convention met on December
3, 1787, and ratified the Constitution on the 7th. The
readiness of this least in population, and next to the least in territorial
extent, of all the States, to accept that instrument, is a
very significant fact when we remember the jealous care with
which she had guarded against any infringement of her sovereign
Statehood. Delaware alone had given special instructions
to her deputies in the Convention not to consent to any sacrifice
of the principle of equal representation in Congress. The
promptness and unanimity of her people in adopting the new
Constitution prove very clearly, not only that they were satisfied
with the preservation of that principle in the Federal
Senate, but that they did not understand the Constitution,
in any of its features, as compromising the "sovereignty, freedom,
and independence" which she had so especially cherished.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" id="page105"></a>[pg 105]</span>
The ratification of their Convention is expressed in
these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We, the deputies of <i>the people of the Delaware State</i>, in
convention met, having taken into our serious consideration the
Federal Constitution proposed and agreed upon by the deputies
of the United States at a General Convention held at the city of
Philadelphia on the 17th day of September, <span class="sc">A. D.</span> 1787, have <i>approved
of, assented to, and ratified and confirmed</i>, and by these
presents do, in virtue of the powers and authority to us given for
that purpose, for and in behalf of ourselves and our constituents,
fully, freely, and entirely, <i>approve of, assent to, ratify, and confirm</i>
the said Constitution.</p>

<p>"Done in convention at Dover, December 7, 1787."
</p></blockquote>

<p>This, and twelve other like acts, gave to the Constitution
"all the life and validity it ever had, or could have, as to the
thirteen united or associated States."</p>

<p>Pennsylvania acted next (December 12, 1787), the ratification
not being finally accomplished without strong opposition,
on grounds which will be referred to hereafter. In announcing
its decision, the Convention of this State began as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"In the name of <i>the people of Pennsylvania</i>.  Be it known
unto all men that we, <i>the delegates of the people of the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania</i>, in General Convention assembled," etc.,
etc., concluding with these words: "By these presents, do, <i>in the
name and by the authority of the same people</i>, and for ourselves,
assent to and ratify the foregoing Constitution for the United
States of America."
</p></blockquote>

<p>In New Jersey the ratification, which took place on the 18th
of December, was unanimous. This is no less significant and
instructive than the unanimity of Delaware, from the fact that
the New Jersey delegation, in the Convention that framed the
Constitution, had taken the lead in behalf of the federal, or
State-rights, idea, in opposition to that of nationalism, or consolidation.
William Patterson, a distinguished citizen (afterward
Governor) of New Jersey, had introduced into that Convention
what was known as "the Jersey plan," embodying these
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106"></a>[pg 106]</span>
State-rights principles, as distinguished from the various "national"
plans presented. In defending them, he had said, after
calling for the reading of the credentials of delegates:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Can we, on this ground, form a national Government? I
fancy not. Our commissions give a complexion to the business;
and can we suppose that, when we exceed the bounds of our duty,
the people will approve our proceedings?</p>

<p>"We are met here as the deputies of <i>thirteen independent,
sovereign States, for federal purposes. Can we consolidate their
sovereignty and form one nation</i>, and annihilate the sovereignties
of our States, who have sent us here for other purposes?"
</p></blockquote>

<p>Again, on a subsequent day, after stating that he was not
there to pursue his own sentiments of government, but of those
who had sent him, he had asked:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Can we, <i>as representatives of independent States</i>, annihilate
the essential powers of independency? Are not the votes of this
Convention taken on every question under the idea of independency?"
</p></blockquote>

<p>The fact that this State, which, through her representatives,
had taken so conspicuous a part in the maintenance of the principle
of State sovereignty, ratified the Constitution with such
readiness and unanimity, is conclusive proof that, in her opinion,
that principle was not compromised thereby. The conclusion
of her ordinance of ratification is in these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Now be it known that we, the delegates of <i>the State of New
Jersey</i>, chosen by the people thereof for the purpose aforesaid,
having maturely deliberated on and considered the aforesaid proposed
Constitution, do hereby, for and on behalf of the <i>people of
the said State of New Jersey</i>, agree to, ratify, and confirm the
same, and every part thereof.</p>

<p>"Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the members
present, this 18th day of December, <span class="sc">A. D.</span> 1787."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Georgia next, and also unanimously, on January 2, 1788,
declared, through "<i>the delegates of the State of Georgia</i>, in convention
met, pursuant to the provisions of the [act of the] Legislature
aforesaid ... in virtue of the powers and authority given
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id="page107"></a>[pg 107]</span>
us [them] by <i>the people of the said State</i>, for that purpose," that
they did "fully and entirely assent to, ratify, and adopt the said
Constitution."</p>

<p>Connecticut (on the 9th of January) declares her assent with
equal distinctness of assertion as to the source of the authority:
"In the name of <i>the people of the State of Connecticut</i>, we, the
delegates of <i>the people of the said State</i>, in General Convention
assembled, pursuant to an act of the Legislature in October
last ... do assent to, ratify, and adopt the Constitution reported
by the Convention of delegates in Philadelphia."</p>

<p>In Massachusetts there was a sharp contest. The people of
that State were then&mdash;as for a long time afterward&mdash;exceedingly
tenacious of their State independence and sovereignty. The proposed
Constitution was subjected to a close, critical, and rigorous
examination with reference to its bearing upon this very point.
The Convention was a large one, and some of its leading members
were very distrustful of the instrument under their consideration.
It was ultimately adopted by a very close vote (187
to 168), and then only as accompanied by certain proposed
amendments, the object of which was to guard more expressly
against any sacrifice or compromise of State sovereignty, and
under an assurance, given by the advocates of the Constitution,
of the certainty that those amendments would be adopted. The
most strenuously urged of these was that ultimately adopted (in
substance) as the tenth amendment to the Constitution, which
was intended to take the place of the second Article of Confederation,
as an emphatic assertion of the continued freedom,
sovereignty, and independence of the States. This will be considered
more particularly hereafter.</p>

<p>In terms substantially identical with those employed by the
other States, Massachusetts thus announced her ratification:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"In convention of the delegates of <i>the people of the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts</i>, 1788. The Convention having impartially
discussed and fully considered the Constitution for the
United States of America, reported [etc.] ... do, in the name
and in behalf of <i>the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts</i>,
assent to and ratify the said Constitution for the United States of
America."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" id="page108"></a>[pg 108]</span>

<p>This was accomplished on February 7, 1788.</p>

<p>Maryland followed on the 28th of April, and South Carolina
on the 23d of May, in equivalent expressions, the ratification of
the former being made by "the delegates of <i>the people of Maryland</i>,"
speaking, as they declared, for ourselves, and in the name
and on the behalf of <i>the people of this State</i>; that of the latter,
"in convention of <i>the people of the State of South Carolina</i>, by
their representatives, ... in the name and behalf of <i>the people
of this State</i>."</p>

<p>But South Carolina, like Massachusetts, demanded certain
amendments, and for greater assurance accompanied her ordinance
of ratification with the following distinct assertion of the
principle afterward embodied in the tenth amendment:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"This Convention doth also declare that <i>no section or paragraph</i>
of the said Constitution warrants a construction that <i>the
States do not retain every power not expressly relinquished by
them</i> and vested in the General Government of the Union."
</p></blockquote>

<p>"The delegates of <i>the people of the State of New Hampshire</i>,"
in convention, on the 21st of June, "in the name and
behalf of <i>the people of the State of New Hampshire</i>," declared
their approval and adoption of the Constitution.  In this State,
also, the opposition was formidable (the final vote being 57 to
46), and, as in South Carolina, it was "explicitly declared that
all powers not expressly and particularly delegated by the aforesaid
Constitution are reserved to the several States, to be by
them exercised."</p>

<p>The debates in the Virginia Convention were long and
animated. Some of the most eminent and most gifted men
of that period took part in them, and they have ever since been
referred to for the exposition which they afford of the interpretation
of the Constitution by its authors and their contemporaries.
Among the members were Madison, Mason, and Randolph,
who had also been members of the Convention at Philadelphia.
Mr. Madison was one of the most earnest advocates of
the new Constitution, while Mr. Mason was as warmly opposed
to its adoption; so also was Patrick Henry, the celebrated orator.
It was assailed with great vehemence at every vulnerable
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109"></a>[pg 109]</span>
or doubtful point, and was finally ratified June 26, 1788, by a
vote of 89 to 79&mdash;a majority of only ten.</p>

<p>This ratification was expressed in the same terms employed
by other States, by "the delegates of <i>the people of Virginia</i> ... in
the name and in behalf of <i>the people of Virginia</i>."  In
so doing, however, like Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
South Carolina, Virginia demanded certain amendments as a
more explicit guarantee against consolidation, and accompanied
the demand with the following declaration:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived
from the people of the United States, may be resumed by
them, whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or
oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains
with them and at their will," etc., etc.
</p></blockquote>

<p>Whether, in speaking of a possible <i>resumption</i> of powers by
"the people of the United States," the Convention had in mind
the action of such a people <i>in the aggregate</i>&mdash;political community
which did not exist, and of which they, could hardly have
entertained even an ideal conception&mdash;or of the people of Virginia,
for whom they were speaking, and of the other United
States then taking similar action&mdash;is a question which scarcely
admits of argument, but which will be more fully considered in
the proper place.</p>

<p>New York, the eleventh State to signify her assent, did so
on July 26, 1788, after an arduous and protracted discussion,
and then by a majority of but three votes&mdash;30 to 27.  Even
this small majority was secured only by the recommendation
of certain material amendments, the adoption of which by the
other States it was at first proposed to make a condition precedent
to the validity of the ratification. This idea was abandoned
after a correspondence between Mr. Hamilton and Mr.
Madison, and, instead of conditional ratification, New York provided
for the resumption of her grants; but the amendments
were put forth with a circular letter to the other States, in which
it was declared that "nothing but the fullest confidence of obtaining
a revision" of the objectionable features of the Constitution,
"and an invincible reluctance to separating from our
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110"></a>[pg 110]</span>
sister States, could have prevailed upon a sufficient number to
ratify it without stipulating for previous amendments."</p>

<p>The ratification was expressed in the usual terms, as made
"<i>by the delegates of the people of the State of New York</i> ...
in the name and in behalf of the people" of the said State. Accompanying
it was a declaration of the principles in which the
assent of New York was conceded, one paragraph of which runs
as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That the powers of government may be <i>reassumed</i> by the
people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness;
that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not, by the
said Constitution, clearly delegated to the Congress of the United
States, or the departments of the Government thereof, remains to
the people of the several <i>States</i>, or to their respective State governments,
to whom they may have granted the same; and that
those clauses in the said Constitution which declare that Congress
shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress
is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution,
but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain
specified powers or as inserted for greater caution."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The acceptance of these eleven States having been signified
to the Congress, provision was made for putting the new Constitution
in operation. This was effected on March 4, 1789,
when the Government was organized, with George Washington
as President, and John Adams, Vice-President; the Senators
and Representatives elected by the States which had acceded
to the Constitution, organizing themselves as a Congress.</p>

<p>Meantime, two States were standing, as we have seen, unquestioned
and unmolested, in an attitude of absolute independence.
The Convention of North Carolina, on August 2, 1788, had rejected
the proposed Constitution, or, more properly speaking,
had withheld her ratification until action could be taken upon
the subject-matter of the following resolution adopted by her
Convention:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>Resolved</i>, That a declaration of rights, asserting and securing
from encroachment the great principles of civil and religious liberty,
and the unalienable rights of the people, together with amendments
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111"></a>[pg 111]</span>
to the most ambiguous and exceptionable parts of the said
Constitution of government, ought to be laid before Congress and
the Convention of the States that shall or may be called for the
purpose of amending the said Constitution, for their consideration,
previous to the ratification of the Constitution aforesaid on the
part of the State of North Carolina."
</p></blockquote>

<p>More than a year afterward, when the newly organized Government
had been in operation for nearly nine months, and
when&mdash;although no convention of the States had been called
to revise the Constitution&mdash;North Carolina had good reason to
feel assured that the most important provisions of her proposed
amendments and "declaration of rights" would be adopted, she
acceded to the amended compact. On November 21, 1789, her
Convention agreed, "in behalf of the freemen, citizens, and inhabitants
of <i>the State of North Carolina</i>," to "adopt and ratify"
the Constitution.</p>

<p>In Rhode Island the proposed Constitution was at first submitted
to a direct vote of the people, who rejected it by an overwhelming
majority. Subsequently&mdash;that is, on May 29, 1790,
when the reorganized Government had been in operation for
nearly fifteen months, and when it had become reasonably certain
that the amendments thought necessary would be adopted&mdash;a
convention of the people of Rhode Island acceded to the new
Union, and ratified the Constitution, though even then by a majority
of only two votes in sixty-six&mdash;34 to 32. The ratification
was expressed in substantially the same language as that which
has now been so repeatedly cited:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We, the delegates of the people of the State of Rhode Island
and Providence Plantations, duly elected and met in convention, ...
in the name and behalf of <i>the people of Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations</i>, do, by these presents, assent to and ratify
the said Constitution."
</p></blockquote>

<p>It is particularly to be noted that, during the intervals between
the organization of the Federal Government under the
new Constitution and the ratification of that Constitution by,
North Carolina and Rhode Island, respectively, those States
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" id="page112"></a>[pg 112]</span>
were absolutely independent and unconnected with any other
political community, unless they be considered as still representing
the "United States of America," which by the Articles
of Confederation had been declared a "perpetual union."
The other States had seceded from the former union&mdash;not in a
body, but separately, each for itself&mdash;and had formed a new
association, leaving these two States in the attitude of foreign
though friendly powers. There was no claim of any right to
control their action, as if they had been mere geographical
or political divisions of one great consolidated community or
"nation."  Their accession to the Union was desired, but their
freedom of choice in the matter was never questioned. And
then it is to be noted, on <i>their</i> part, that, like the house of
Judah, they refrained from any attempt to force the seceding
sisters to return.</p>

<p>As illustrative of the relations existing during this period
between the United States and Rhode Island, it may not be
uninstructive to refer to a letter sent by the government of
the latter to the President and Congress, and transmitted by
the President to the Senate, with the following note:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>"<span class="sc">United States</span>, <i>September 26, 1789</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Gentlemen of the Senate</span>: Having yesterday received a
letter written in this month by the Governor of Rhode Island, at
the request and in behalf of the General Assembly of that State,
addressed to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives
of the eleven United States of America in Congress
assembled, I take the earliest opportunity of laying a copy of it
before you.</p>

<p>(Signed)      "<span class="sc">GEORGE WASHINGTON.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>Some extracts from the communication referred to are annexed:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations</span>,
<i>In General Assembly, September Session, 1789</i>.</p>

<p>"<i>To the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the
eleven United States of America in Congress assembled:</i></p>

<p>"The critical situation in which the people of this State are
placed engages us to make these assurances, on their behalf, of
their attachment and friendship to their sister States, and of their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" id="page113"></a>[pg 113]</span>
disposition to cultivate mutual harmony and friendly intercourse.
They know themselves to be a handful, comparatively viewed,
and, although they now stand as it were alone, they have not separated
themselves or departed from the principles of that Confederation,
which was formed by the sister States in their struggle
for freedom and in the hour of danger....</p>

<p>"Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of government
formed and adopted by most of our sister States, we doubt
not, has given uneasiness to them. That we have not seen our way
clear to it, consistently with our idea of the principles upon which
we all embarked together, has also given pain to us. We have not
doubted that we might thereby avoid present difficulties, but we
have apprehended future mischief....</p>

<p>"Can it be thought strange that, with these impressions, they
[the people of this State] should wait to see the proposed system
organized and in operation?&mdash;to see what further checks and securities
would be agreed to and established by way of amendments,
before they could adopt it as a Constitution of government for
themselves and their posterity?...</p>

<p>"We are induced to hope that we shall not be altogether considered
as foreigners having no particular affinity or connection
with the United States; but that trade and commerce, upon which
the prosperity of this State much depends, will be preserved as
free and open between this State and the United States, as our
different situations at present can possibly admit....</p>

<p>"We feel ourselves attached by the strongest ties of friendship,
kindred, and interest, to our sister States; and we can not,
without the greatest reluctance, look to any other quarter for those
advantages of commercial intercourse which we conceive to be
more natural and reciprocal between them and us.</p>

<p>"I am, at the request and in behalf of the General Assembly,
your most obedient, humble servant.</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">John Collins</span>, <i>Governor</i>.</p>

<p>"<i>His Excellency, the President of the United States.</i>"</p>

<p>[<span class="sc">American State Papers</span>, <i>Vol. I</i>, <span class="sc">Miscellaneous</span>.]
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id="page114"></a>[pg 114]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-iv" id="chap-ii-iv"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Constitution not adopted by one People "in the Aggregate."&mdash;A Great Fallacy
exposed.&mdash;Mistake of Judge Story.&mdash;Colonial Relations.&mdash;The United Colonies
of New England.&mdash;Other Associations.&mdash;Independence of Communities traced
from Germany to Great Britain, and from Great Britain to America.&mdash;Mr.
Everett's "Provincial People."&mdash;Origin and Continuance of the Title "United
States."&mdash;No such Political Community as the "People of the United States."
</p></blockquote>


<p>The historical retrospect of the last three chapters and the
extracts from the records of a generation now departed have
been presented as necessary to a right understanding of the
nature and principles of the compact of 1787, on which depended
the questions at issue in the secession of 1861 and the
contest that ensued between the States.</p>

<p>We have seen that the united colonies, when they declared
their independence, formed a league or alliance with one another
as "United States." This title antedated the adoption of the
Articles of Confederation. It was assumed immediately after
the Declaration of Independence, and was continued under the
Articles of Confederation; the first of which declared that
"the style of this confederacy shall be 'The United States
of America'"; and this style was retained&mdash;without question&mdash;in
the formation of the present Constitution. The name was
not adopted as antithetical to, or distinctive from, "confederate,"
as some seem to have imagined. If it has any significance
now, it must have had the same under the Articles of
Confederation, or even before they were adopted.</p>

<p>It has been fully shown that the States which thus became
and continued to be "united," whatever form their union assumed,
acted and continued to act as distinct and sovereign
political communities. The monstrous fiction that they acted
as <i>one people "in their aggregate capacity"</i> has not an atom of
fact to serve as a basis.</p>

<p>To go back to the very beginning, the British colonies never
constituted one people. Judge Story, in his "Commentaries" on
the Constitution, seems to imply the contrary, though he shrinks
from a direct assertion of it, and clouds the subject by a confusion
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" id="page115"></a>[pg 115]</span>
of terms. He says: "Now, it is apparent that none of
the colonies before the Revolution were, in the most large and
general sense, independent or sovereign communities. They
were all originally settled under and subjected to the British
Crown." And then he proceeds to show that they were, in
their colonial condition, not <i>sovereign</i>&mdash;a proposition which nobody
disputed. As colonies, they had no claim, and made no
pretension, to sovereignty. They were subject to the British
Crown, unless, like the Plymouth colony, "a law unto themselves,"
but they were <i>independent of each other</i>&mdash;the only
point which has any bearing upon their subsequent relations.
There was no other bond between them than that of their common
allegiance to the Government of the mother-country.  As
an illustration of this may be cited the historical fact that, when
John Stark, of Bennington memory, was before the Revolution
engaged in a hunting expedition in the Indian country, he was
captured by the savages and brought to Albany, in the colony
of New York, for a ransom; but, inasmuch as he belonged to
New Hampshire, the government of New York took no action
for his release. There was not even enough community of
feeling to induce individual citizens to provide money for the
purpose.</p>

<p>There were, however, local and partial confederacies among
the New England colonies, long before the Declaration of Independence.
As early as the year 1643 a Congress had been
organized of delegates from Massachusetts, Plymouth, New
Haven, and Connecticut, under the style of "The United Colonies
of New England." The objects of this confederacy, according
to Mr. Bancroft, were "protection against the encroachments
of the Dutch and French, security against the tribes of
savages, the liberties of the gospel in purity and in peace."<a id="footnotetag35" name="footnotetag35"></a><a href="#footnote35"><sup>35</sup></a>
The general affairs of the company were intrusted to commissions,
two from each colony; but the same historian tells us that
"to each its respective local jurisdiction was carefully reserved,"
and he refers to this as evidence that the germ-principle of State-rights
was even then in existence.  "Thus remarkable for unmixed
simplicity" (he proceeds) "was the form of the first confederated
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" id="page116"></a>[pg 116]</span>
government in America.... There was no president,
except as a moderator of its meetings, and the larger State [<i>sic</i>],
Massachusetts, superior to all the rest in territory, wealth, and
population, had no greater number of votes than New Haven.
But the commissioners were in reality little more than a deliberative
body; they possessed no executive power, and, while
they could decree a war and a levy of troops, it remained for
the States to carry their votes into effect."<a id="footnotetag36" name="footnotetag36"></a><a href="#footnote36"><sup>36</sup></a></p>

<p>This confederacy continued in existence for nearly fifty years.
Between that period and the year 1774, when the first Continental
Congress met in Philadelphia, several other temporary
and provisional associations of colonies had been formed, and
the people had been taught the advantages of union for a common
purpose; but they had never abandoned or compromised
the great principle of community independence. That form of
self-government, generated in the German forests before the
days of the C&aelig;sars, had given to that rude people a self-reliance
and patriotism which first checked the flight of the Roman
eagles, which elsewhere had been the emblem of their dominion
over the known world. This principle&mdash;the great preserver
of all communal freedom and of mutual harmony&mdash;was transplanted
by the Saxons into England, and there sustained those
personal rights which, after the fall of the Heptarchy, were
almost obliterated by the encroachments of Norman despotism;
but, having the strength and perpetuity of truth and right, were
reasserted by the mailed hands of the barons at Runnymede for
their own benefit and that of their posterity. Englishmen, the
early settlers, brought this idea to the wilds of America, and it
found expression in many forms among the infant colonies.</p>

<p>Mr. Edward Everett, in his Fourth-of-July address, delivered
in New York in 1861, following the lead of Judge Story, and
with even less caution, boldly declares that, "before their independence
of England was asserted, they [the colonies] constituted
<i>a provincial people</i>." To sustain this position&mdash;utterly
contrary to all history as it is&mdash;he is unable to adduce any valid
American authority, but relies almost exclusively upon loose expressions
employed in debate in the British Parliament about
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" id="page117"></a>[pg 117]</span>
the period of the American Revolution&mdash;such as "that people,"
"that loyal and respectable people," "this enlightened and spirited
people," etc., etc. The speakers who made use of this colloquial
phraseology concerning the inhabitants of a distant
continent, in the freedom of extemporaneous debate, were not
framing their ideas with the exactitude of a didactic treatise,
and could little have foreseen the extraordinary use to be made
of their expressions nearly a century afterward, in sustaining a
theory contradictory to history as well as to common sense. It
is as if the familiar expressions often employed in our own time,
such as "the people of Africa," or "the people of South America,"
should be cited, by some ingenious theorist of a future generation,
as evidence that the subjects of the Khedive and those
of the King of Dahomey were but "one people," or that the
Peruvians and the Patagonians belonged to the same political
community.</p>

<p>Mr. Everett, it is true, quotes two expressions of the Continental
Congress to sustain his remarkable proposition that the
colonies were "a people." One of these is found in a letter
addressed by the Congress to General Gage in October, 1774,
remonstrating against the erection of fortifications in Boston, in
which they say, "We entreat your Excellency to consider what
a tendency this conduct must have to irritate and force <i>a free
people</i>, hitherto well disposed to peaceable measures, into hostilities."
From this expression Mr. Everett argues that the Congress
considered themselves the representatives of "a people."
But, by reference to the proceedings of the Congress, he might
readily have ascertained that the letter to General Gage was
written in behalf of "<i>the town of Boston and Province of Massachusetts
Bay</i>," the people of which were "considered by all
America as suffering in the common cause for their noble and
spirited opposition to oppressive acts of Parliament." The
avowed object was "to entreat his Excellency, from the assurance
we have of the peaceable disposition of <i>the inhabitants of
the town of Boston and of the Province of Massachusetts Bay</i>,
to discontinue his fortifications."<a id="footnotetag37" name="footnotetag37"></a><a href="#footnote37"><sup>37</sup></a> These were the "people"
referred to by the Congress; and the children of the Pilgrims,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118"></a>[pg 118]</span>
who occupied at that period the town of Boston and Province
of Massachusetts Bay, would have been not a little astonished
to be reckoned as "one people," in any other respect than that
of the "common cause," with the Roman Catholics of Maryland,
the Episcopalians of Virginia, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, or
the Baptists of Rhode Island.</p>

<p>The other citation of Mr. Everett is from the first sentence
of the Declaration of Independence: "When in the course of
human events it becomes necessary for <i>one people</i> to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another," etc.,
etc. This, he says, characterizes "the good people" of the colonies
as "one people."</p>

<p>Plainly, it does no such thing. The misconception is so
palpable as scarcely to admit of serious answer. The Declaration
of Independence opens with a general proposition.  "One
people" is equivalent to saying "<i>any</i> people."  The use of the
correlatives "one" and "another" was the simple and natural
way of stating this general proposition. "One people" applies,
and was obviously intended to apply, to all cases of the same
category&mdash;to that of New Hampshire, or Delaware, or South
Carolina, or of any other people existing or to exist, and whether
acting separately or in concert. It applies to any case, and all
cases, of dissolution of political bands, as well as to the case of
the British colonies. It does not, either directly or by implication,
assert their unification, and has no bearing whatever upon
the question.</p>

<p>When the colonies united in sending representatives to a
Congress in Philadelphia, there was no purpose&mdash;no suggestion
of a purpose&mdash;to merge their separate individuality in one
consolidated mass. No such idea existed, or with their known
opinions could have existed. They did not assume to become a
united colony or province, but styled themselves "united colonies"&mdash;colonies
united for purposes of mutual counsel and defense,
as the New England colonies had been united more than
a hundred years before. It was as "<i>United States</i>"&mdash;not as a
state, or united people&mdash;that these colonies&mdash;still distinct and
politically independent of each other&mdash;asserted and achieved
their independence of the mother-country. As "United States"
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" id="page119"></a>[pg 119]</span>
they adopted the Articles of Confederation, in which the separate
sovereignty, freedom, and independence of each was distinctly
asserted. They were "united States" when Great Britain acknowledged
the absolute freedom and independence of each,
distinctly and separately recognized by name. France and
Spain were parties to the same treaty, and the French and
Spanish idioms still express and perpetuate, more exactly than
the English, the true idea intended to be embodied in the
title&mdash;<i>les &Eacute;tats Unis</i>, or <i>los Estados Unidos</i>&mdash;the <span class="sc">States
united</span>.</p>

<p>It was without any change of title&mdash;still as "United States"&mdash;without
any sacrifice of individuality&mdash;without any compromise
of sovereignty&mdash;that the same parties entered into a new
and amended compact with one another under the present Constitution.
Larger and more varied powers were conferred upon
the common Government for the purpose of insuring "a more
perfect union"&mdash;not for that of destroying or impairing the integrity
of the contracting members.</p>

<p>The point which now specially concerns the argument is the
historical fact that, in all these changes of circumstances and of
government, there has never been one single instance of action
by the "people of the United States in the aggregate," or as one
body. Before the era of independence, whatever was done by
the people of the colonies was done by the people of each colony
separately and independently of each other, although in union by
their delegates for certain specified purposes.  Since the assertion
of their independence, the people of the United States have
never acted otherwise than as the people of each State, severally
and separately. The Articles of Confederation were established
and ratified by the several States, either through conventions of
their people or through the State Legislatures. The Constitution
which superseded those articles was framed, as we have seen,
by delegates chosen and empowered by the several States, and
was ratified by conventions of the people of the same States&mdash;all
acting in entire independence of one another. This ratification
alone gave it force and validity. Without the approval and
ratification of the people of the States, it would have been, as
Mr. Madison expressed it, "of no more consequence than the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120"></a>[pg 120]</span>
paper on which it was written." It was never submitted to
"the people of the United States in the aggregate," or <i>as a people</i>.
Indeed, no such political community as the people of the
United States in the aggregate exists at this day or ever did
exist. Senators in Congress confessedly represent the States as
equal units. The House of Representatives is not a body of
representatives of "the people of the United States," as often
erroneously asserted; but the Constitution, in the second section
of its first article, expressly declares that it "shall be
composed of members chosen by <i>the people of the several
States</i>."</p>

<p>Nor is it true that the President and Vice-President are
elected, as it is sometimes vaguely stated, by vote of the "whole
people" of the Union.  Their election is even more unlike what
such a vote would be than that of the representatives, who in
numbers at least represent the strength of their respective States.
In the election of President and Vice-President the Constitution
(Article II) prescribes that "<i>each State</i> shall appoint, in such
manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors"
for the purpose of choosing a President and Vice-President.
The number of these electors is based partly upon the equal sovereignty,
partly upon the unequal population of the respective
States.</p>

<p>It is, then, absolutely true that there has never been any
such thing as a vote of "the people of the United States in the
aggregate"; no such people is recognized by the Constitution;
and no such political community has ever existed. It is equally
true that no officer or department of the General Government
formed by the Constitution derives authority from a majority of
the whole people of the United States, or has ever been chosen
by such majority. As little as any other is the United States
Government a government of a majority of the mass.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote35" name="footnote35"></a><b>Footnote 35:</b><a href="#footnotetag35"> (return) </a><p>Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. i, chap. ix.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote36" name="footnote36"></a><b>Footnote 36:</b><a href="#footnotetag36"> (return) </a><p>Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. i, chap. ix.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote37" name="footnote37"></a><b>Footnote 37:</b><a href="#footnotetag37"> (return) </a><p>"American Archives," fourth series, vol. i, p. 908.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" id="page121"></a>[pg 121]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-v" id="chap-ii-v"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Preamble to the Constitution.&mdash;"We, the People."
</p></blockquote>


<p>The preamble to the Constitution proposed by the Convention
of 1787 is in these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The phraseology of this preamble has been generally regarded
as the stronghold of the advocates of consolidation. It
has been interpreted as meaning that "we, the people of the
United States," as a collective body, or as a "nation," in our
aggregate capacity, had "ordained and established" the Constitution
<i>over</i> the States.</p>

<p>This interpretation constituted, in the beginning, the most
serious difficulty in the way of the ratification of the Constitution.
It was probably this to which that sturdy patriot, Samuel
Adams, of Massachusetts, alluded, when he wrote to Richard
Henry Lee, "I stumble at the threshold." Patrick Henry,
in the Virginia Convention, on the third day of the session,
and in the very opening of the debate, attacked it vehemently.
He said, speaking of the system of government set forth in the
proposed Constitution:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably
clear; and the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very
striking. I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen [its
authors]; but, sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they
to say, <i>We, the people</i>?  My political curiosity, exclusive of my
anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, Who
authorized them to speak the language of '<i>We, the people</i>,' instead
of <i>We, the States</i>? States are the characteristics and the
soul of a confederation. If the States be not the agents of this
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" id="page122"></a>[pg 122]</span>
compact, it must be one great consolidated national government
of the people of all the States."<a id="footnotetag38" name="footnotetag38"></a><a href="#footnote38"><sup>38</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Again, on the next day, with reference to the same subject,
he said: "When I asked that question, I thought the meaning
of my interrogation was obvious. The fate of this question
and of America may depend on this. Have they said, We, the
States? Have they made a proposal of a compact between
States? If they had, this would be a confederation: it is otherwise
most clearly a consolidated government. The question
turns, sir, on that poor little thing&mdash;the expression, 'We, the
people,' instead of the States of America."<a id="footnotetag39" name="footnotetag39"></a><a href="#footnote39"><sup>39</sup></a></p>

<p>The same difficulty arose in other minds and in other conventions.</p>

<p>The scruples of Mr. Adams were removed by the explanations
of others, and by the assurance of the adoption of the
amendments thought necessary&mdash;especially of that declaratory
safeguard afterward embodied in the tenth amendment&mdash;to be
referred to hereafter.</p>

<p>Mr. Henry's objection was thus answered by Mr. Madison:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Who are parties to it [the Constitution]?  The people&mdash;but
<i>not the people as composing one great body</i>; but the people as
composing <i>thirteen sovereignties</i>: were it, as the gentleman [Mr.
Henry] asserts, a consolidated government, the assent of a majority
of the people would be sufficient for its establishment, and
as a majority have adopted it already, the remaining States would
be bound by the act of the majority, even if they unanimously
reprobated it: were it such a government as is suggested, it
would be now binding on the people of this State, without having
had the privilege of deliberating upon it; but, sir, no State is
bound by it, as it is, without its own consent. Should all the
States adopt it, it will be then a government established by the
thirteen States of America, not through the intervention of the
Legislatures, but by the people at large.  In this particular respect
the distinction between the existing and proposed governments
is very material.  The existing system has been derived from
the dependent, derivative authority of the Legislatures of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" id="page123"></a>[pg 123]</span>
States, whereas this is derived from the superior power of the
people."<a id="footnotetag40" name="footnotetag40"></a><a href="#footnote40"><sup>40</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>It must be remembered that this was spoken by one of the
leading members of the Convention which formed the Constitution,
within a few months after that instrument was drawn
up. Mr. Madison's hearers could readily appreciate his clear
answer to the objection made. The "people" intended were
those of the respective States&mdash;the only organized communities
of people exercising sovereign powers of government; and the
idea intended was the ratification and "establishment" of the
Constitution by direct act of the people in their conventions,
instead of by act of their Legislatures, as in the adoption of the
Articles of Confederation. The explanation seems to have
been as satisfactory as it was simple and intelligible. Mr. Henry,
although he fought to the last against the ratification of the
Constitution, did not again bring forward this objection, for the
reason, no doubt, that it had been fully answered. Indeed, we
hear no more of the interpretation which suggested it, from that
period, for nearly half a century, when it was revived, and has
since been employed, to sustain that theory of a "great consolidated
national government" which Mr. Madison so distinctly
repudiated.</p>

<p>But <i>we</i> have access to sources of information, not then available,
which make the intent and meaning of the Constitution
still plainer. When Mr. Henry made his objection, and Mr.
Madison answered it, the journal of the Philadelphia Convention
had not been published. That body had sat with closed
doors, and among its rules had been the following:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That no copy be taken of any entry on the journal during the
sitting of the House, without the leave of the House.</p>

<p>"That members only be permitted to inspect the journal.</p>

<p>"That nothing spoken in the House be printed, or otherwise
published or communicated, without leave."<a id="footnotetag41" name="footnotetag41"></a><a href="#footnote41"><sup>41</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>We can understand, by reference to these rules, how Mr.
Madison should have felt precluded from making allusion to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" id="page124"></a>[pg 124]</span>
anything that had occurred during the proceedings of the Convention.
But the secrecy then covering those proceedings has
long since been removed. The manuscript journal, which was
intrusted to the keeping of General Washington, President of
the Convention, was deposited by him, nine years afterward,
among the archives of the State Department. It has since been
published, and we can trace for ourselves the origin, and ascertain
the exact significance, of that expression, "We, the people,"
on which Patrick Henry thought the fate of America might
depend, and which has been so grossly perverted in later years
from its true intent.</p>

<p>The original language of the preamble, reported to the Convention
by a committee of five appointed to prepare the Constitution,
as we find it in the proceedings of August 6, 1787,
was as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We, the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare,
and establish, the following Constitution for the government of
ourselves and our posterity."
</p></blockquote>

<p>There can be no question here what was meant: it was "<i>the
people of the States</i>," designated by name, that were to "ordain,
declare, and establish" the compact of union for themselves and
their posterity. There is no ambiguity nor uncertainty in the
language; nor was there any difference in the Convention as to
the use of it. The preamble, as perfected, was submitted to
vote on the next day, and, as the journal informs us, "it passed
<i>unanimously</i> in the affirmative."</p>

<p>There was no subsequent change of opinion on the subject.
The reason for the modification afterward made in the language
is obvious. It was found that unanimous ratification of all the
States could not be expected, and it was determined, as we have
already seen, that the consent of <i>nine</i> States should suffice for
the establishment of the new compact "between the States so
ratifying the same." <i>Any</i> nine would be sufficient to put the
proposed government in operation as to them, thus leaving the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id="page125"></a>[pg 125]</span>
remainder of the thirteen to pursue such course as might be to
each preferable. When this conclusion was reached, it became
manifestly impracticable to designate beforehand the consenting
States by name. Hence, in the final revision, the specific enumeration
of the thirteen States was omitted, and the equivalent
phrase "people of the United States" inserted in its place&mdash;plainly
meaning the people of such States as should agree to
unite on the terms proposed. The imposing fabric of political
delusion, which has been erected on the basis of this simple
transaction, disappears before the light of historical record.</p>

<p>Could the authors of the Constitution have foreseen the perversion
to be made of their obvious meaning, it might have
been prevented by an easy periphrasis&mdash;such as, "We, the people
of the States hereby united," or something to the same effect.
The word "people" in 1787, as in 1880, was, as it is, a collective
noun, employed indiscriminately, either as a unit in such expressions
as "this people," "a free people," etc., or in a distributive
sense, as applied to the citizens or inhabitants of one
state or country or a number of states or countries. When the
Convention of the colony of Virginia, in 1774, instructed their
delegates to the Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia, "to
obtain a redress of those grievances, without which <i>the people
of America</i> can neither be safe, free, nor happy," it was certainly
not intended to convey the idea that the people of the
American Continent, or even of the British colonies in America,
constituted one political community. Nor did Edmund Burke
have any such meaning when he said, in his celebrated speech
in Parliament, in 1775, "The people of the colonies are descendants
of Englishmen."</p>

<p>We need go no further than to the familiar language of
King James's translation of the Bible for multiplied illustrations
of this indiscriminate use of the term, both in its collective and
distributive senses. For example, King Solomon prays at the
dedication of the temple:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That thine eyes may be open unto the supplication ...
of <i>thy people</i> Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call
for unto thee. For thou didst separate them from among <i>all the
people</i> of the earth, to be thine inheritance." (1 Kings viii, 52, 53.)
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" id="page126"></a>[pg 126]</span>

<p>Here we have both the singular and plural senses of the
same word&mdash;<i>one people</i>, Israel, and <i>all the people of the earth</i>&mdash;in
two consecutive sentences.  In "the people of the earth,"
the word <i>people</i> is used precisely as it is in the expression "the
people of the United States" in the preamble to the Constitution,
and has exactly the same force and effect. If in the latter
case it implies that the people of Massachusetts and those of
Virginia were mere fractional parts of one political community,
it must in the former imply a like unity among the Philistines,
the Egyptians, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, and
all other "people of the earth," except the Israelites.  Scores
of examples of the same sort might be cited if it were necessary.<a id="footnotetag42" name="footnotetag42"></a><a href="#footnote42"><sup>42</sup></a></p>

<p>In the Declaration of Independence we find precisely analogous
instances of the employment of the singular form for both
singular and plural senses&mdash;"one people," "a free people," in
the former, and "the good people of these colonies" in the
latter. Judge Story, in the excess of his zeal in behalf of a theory
of consolidation, bases upon this last expression the conclusion
that the assertion of independence was the act of "<i>the
whole people</i> of the united colonies" as a unit; overlooking or
suppressing the fact that, in the very same sentence, the colonies
declare themselves "free and independent <i>States</i>"&mdash;not a
free and independent <i>state</i>&mdash;repeating the words "independent
States" three times.</p>

<p>If, however, the Declaration of Independence constituted
one "<i>whole people</i>" of the colonies, then that geographical
section of it, formerly known as the colony of Maryland, was in
a state of revolt or "rebellion" against the others, as well as
against Great Britain, from 1778 to 1781, during which period
Maryland refused to ratify or be bound by the Articles of Confederation,
which, according to this theory, was binding upon
her, as a majority of the "whole people" had adopted it. <i>A
fortiori</i>, North Carolina and Rhode Island were in a state of
rebellion in 1789-'90, while they declined to ratify and recognize
the Constitution adopted by the other eleven fractions of
this united people. Yet no hint of any such pretension&mdash;of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id="page127"></a>[pg 127]</span>
any claim of authority over them by the majority&mdash;of any assertion
of "the supremacy of the Union"&mdash;is to be found in any
of the records of that period.</p>

<p>It might have been unnecessary to bestow so much time and
attention in exposing the absurdity of the deductions from a
theory so false, but for the fact that it has been specious enough
to secure the countenance of men of such distinction as Webster,
Story, and Everett; and that it has been made the plea to
justify a bloody war against that principle of State sovereignty
and independence, which was regarded by the fathers of the
Union as the corner-stone of the structure and the basis of the
hope for its perpetuity.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote38" name="footnote38"></a><b>Footnote 38:</b><a href="#footnotetag38"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates" (Washington edition, 1836), vol. iii, p. 54.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote39" name="footnote39"></a><b>Footnote 39:</b><a href="#footnotetag39"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 72.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote40" name="footnote40"></a><b>Footnote 40:</b><a href="#footnotetag40"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates" (Washington edition, 1836), vol. iii, pp. 114, 115.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote41" name="footnote41"></a><b>Footnote 41:</b><a href="#footnotetag41"> (return) </a><p>Journal of the Federal Convention, May 29, 1787, 1 Elliott's "Debates."</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote42" name="footnote42"></a><b>Footnote 42:</b><a href="#footnotetag42"> (return) </a><p>For a very striking illustration, see Deuteronomy vii, 6, 7.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-vi" id="chap-ii-vi"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Preamble to the Constitution&mdash;subject continued.&mdash;Growth of the Federal
Government and Accretions of Power.&mdash;Revival of Old Errors.&mdash;Mistakes and
Misstatements.&mdash;Webster, Story, and Everett.&mdash;Who "ordained and established"
the Constitution?
</p></blockquote>


<p>In the progressive growth of the Government of the United
States in power, splendor, patronage, and consideration abroad,
men have been led to exalt the place of the <i>Government</i> above
that of the <i>States</i> which <i>created</i> it.  Those who would understand
the true principles of the Constitution can not afford to
lose sight of the essential <i>plurality</i> of idea invariably implied
in the term "United States," wherever it is used in that instrument.
No such unit as the United States is ever mentioned
therein. We read that "no title of nobility shall be granted
by the United States, and no person holding any office of profit
or trust under <i>them</i> shall, without the consent of Congress, accept,"
etc.<a id="footnotetag43" name="footnotetag43"></a><a href="#footnote43"><sup>43</sup></a> "The President ... shall not receive, within that
period, any other emolument from the United States, or any of
<i>them</i>."<a id="footnotetag44" name="footnotetag44"></a><a href="#footnote44"><sup>44</sup></a> "The laws of the United States, and treaties made or
which shall be made under <i>their</i> authority," etc.<a id="footnotetag45" name="footnotetag45"></a><a href="#footnote45"><sup>45</sup></a>  "Treason
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id="page128"></a>[pg 128]</span>
against the United States shall consist only in levying war
against <i>them</i>, or in adhering to <i>their</i> enemies."<a id="footnotetag46" name="footnotetag46"></a><a href="#footnote46"><sup>46</sup></a> The Federal
character of the Union is expressed by this very phraseology,
which recognizes the distinct integrity of its members, not as fractional
parts of one great unit, but as component units of an association.
So clear was this to contemporaries, that it needed only
to be pointed out to satisfy their scruples. We have seen how
effectual was the answer of Mr. Madison to the objections
raised by Patrick Henry. Mr. Tench Coxe, of Pennsylvania,
one of the ablest political writers of his generation, in answering
a similar objection, said: "If the Federal Convention had
meant to exclude the idea of 'union'&mdash;that is, of several and
separate sovereignties joining in a confederacy&mdash;they would
have said, 'We, the people of America'; for union necessarily
involves the idea of competent States, which complete consolidation
excludes."<a id="footnotetag47" name="footnotetag47"></a><a href="#footnote47"><sup>47</sup></a></p>

<p>More than forty years afterward, when the gradual accretions
to the power, <i>prestige</i>, and influence of the central Government
had grown to such extent as to begin to hide from view the
purposes for which it was founded, those very objections, which
in the beginning had been answered, abandoned, and thrown
aside, were brought to light again, and presented to the country
as expositions of the true meaning of the Constitution. Mr.
Webster, one of the first to revive some of those early misconceptions
so long ago refuted as to be almost forgotten, and to
breathe into them such renewed vitality as his commanding
genius could impart, in the course of his well-known debate in
the Senate with Mr. Hayne, in 1830, said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It can not be shown that the Constitution is a compact between
State governments. The Constitution itself, in its very
front, refutes that proposition: it declares that it is ordained and
established by the people of the United States. So far from saying
that it is established by the governments of the several States,
it does not even say that it is established by the people of the
several States; but it pronounces that it is established by the people
of the United States in the aggregate."<a id="footnotetag48" name="footnotetag48"></a><a href="#footnote48"><sup>48</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id="page129"></a>[pg 129]</span>

<p>Judge Story about the same time began to advance the same
theory, but more guardedly and with less rashness of statement.
It was not until thirty years after that it attained its full development
in the annunciations of sectionists rather than statesmen.
Two such may suffice as specimens:</p>

<p>Mr. Edward Everett, in his address delivered on the 4th of
July, 1861, and already referred to, says of the Constitution:
"That instrument does not purport to be a 'compact,' but a
constitution of government. It appears, in its first sentence, not
to have been entered into by the States, but to have been ordained
and established by the people of the United States for
themselves and their 'posterity.' The States are not named in it;
nearly all the characteristic powers of sovereignty are expressly
granted to the General Government and expressly prohibited to
the States."<a id="footnotetag49" name="footnotetag49"></a><a href="#footnote49"><sup>49</sup></a> Mr. Everett afterward repeats the assertion that
"the States are not named in it."<a id="footnotetag50" name="footnotetag50"></a><a href="#footnote50"><sup>50</sup></a></p>

<p>But a yet more extraordinary statement of the "one people"
theory is found in a letter addressed to the London "Times," in
the same year, 1861, on the "Causes of the Civil War," by Mr.
John Lothrop Motley, afterward Minister to the Court of St.
James. In this letter Mr. Motley says of the Constitution of
the United States:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It was not a compact. Who ever heard of a compact to
which there were no parties? or who ever heard of a compact
made by a single party with himself?  Yet the name of no State
is mentioned in the whole document; the States themselves are
only mentioned to receive commands or prohibitions; and the
'people of the United States' is the single party by whom alone
the instrument is executed.</p>

<p>"The Constitution was not drawn up by the States, it was not
promulgated in the name of the States, it was not ratified by the
States. The States never acceded to it, and possess no power to
secede from it. It was 'ordained and established' over the States
by a power superior to the States; by the people of the whole
land in their aggregate capacity," etc.
</p></blockquote>

<p>It would be very hard to condense a more amazing amount
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130"></a>[pg 130]</span>
of audacious and reckless falsehood in the same space. In all
Mr. Motley's array of bold assertions, there is not one single
truth&mdash;unless it be, perhaps, that "the Constitution was not
drawn up by the States." Yet it was drawn up by their delegates,
and it is of such material as this, derived from writers
whose reputation gives a semblance of authenticity to their statements,
that history is constructed and transmitted.</p>

<p>One of the most remarkable&mdash;though, perhaps, the least
important&mdash;of these misstatements is that which is also twice
repeated by Mr. Everett&mdash;that the name of no State is mentioned
in the whole document, or, as he puts it, "the States are
not named in it." Very little careful examination would have
sufficed to find, in the second section of the very first article
of the Constitution, the names of every one of the thirteen
then existent States distinctly mentioned, with the number of
representatives to which each would be entitled, in case of
acceding to the Constitution, until a census of their population
could be taken. The mention there made of the States by
name is of no special significance; it has no bearing upon any
question of principle; and the denial of it is a purely gratuitous
illustration of the recklessness of those from whom it
proceeds, and the low estimate put on the intelligence of those
addressed. It serves, however, to show how much credence is
to be given to their authority as interpreters and expounders.</p>

<p>The reason why the names of the ratifying States were not
mentioned has already been given: it was simply because it
was not known which States would ratify. But, as regards
mention of "the several States," "each State," "any State,"
"particular States," and the like, the Constitution is full of it.
I am informed, by one who has taken the pains to examine carefully
that document with reference to this very point, that&mdash;without
including any mention of "the United States" or of
"foreign states," and excluding also the amendments&mdash;the
Constitution, in its original draft, makes mention of the States,
<i>as</i> States, no less than <i>seventy</i> times; and of these seventy times,
only <i>three</i> times in the way of prohibition of the exercise of a
power. In fact, it is full of statehood. Leave out all mention
of the States&mdash;I make no mere verbal point or quibble, but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" id="page131"></a>[pg 131]</span>
mean the States in their separate, several, distinct capacity&mdash;and
what would remain would be of less account than the play
of the Prince of Denmark with the part of <i>Hamlet</i> omitted.</p>

<p>But, leaving out of consideration for the moment all minor
questions, the vital and essential point of inquiry now is, by
what authority the Constitution was "ordained and established."
Mr. Webster says it was done "by the people of the United
States in the aggregate;" Mr. Everett repeats substantially the
same thing; and Mr. Motley, taking a step further, says that
"it was 'ordained and established' by a <i>power superior to the
States</i>&mdash;by the people of the whole land in their aggregate capacity."</p>

<p>The advocates of this mischievous dogma assume the existence
of an unauthorized, undefined power of a "whole people,"
or "people of the whole land," operating through the agency
of the Philadelphia Convention, to impose its decrees upon the
States. They forget, in the first place, that this Convention
was composed of delegates, not of any one people, but of distinct
States; and, in the second place, that their action had no
force or validity whatever&mdash;in the words of Mr. Madison, that
it was of no more consequence than the paper on which it was
written&mdash;until approved and ratified by a sufficient number
of States. The meaning of the preamble, "We, the people
of the United States ... do ordain and establish this Constitution,"
is ascertained, fixed, and defined by the final article:
"The ratification of the conventions of <i>nine States</i> shall be sufficient
for the <i>establishment</i> of this Constitution between <i>the
States so ratifying</i> the same."  If it was already established,
what need was there of further establishment? It was not ordained
or established at all, until ratified by the requisite number
of States. The announcement in the preamble of course
had reference to that expected ratification, without which the
preamble would have been as void as the body of the instrument.
The assertion that "it was not ratified by the States"
is so plainly and positively contrary, to well-known fact&mdash;so inconsistent
with the language of the Constitution itself&mdash;that it
is hard to imagine what was intended by it, unless it was to
take advantage of the presumed ignorance of the subject among
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132"></a>[pg 132]</span>
the readers of an English journal, to impose upon them, a preposterous
fiction. It was State ratification alone&mdash;the ratification
of the <i>people</i> of each State, independently of all other people&mdash;that
gave force, vitality, and validity to the Constitution.</p>

<p>Judge Story, referring to the fact that the voters assembled
in the several States, asks where else they could have assembled&mdash;a
pertinent question on our theory, but the idea he evidently
intended to convey was that the voting of "the people" by
States was a mere matter of geographical necessity, or local convenience;
just as the people of a State vote by counties; the
people of a county by towns, "beats," or "precincts"; and the
people of a city by wards. It is hardly necessary to say that,
in all organized republican communities, majorities govern.
When we speak of the will of the people of a community, we
mean the will of a majority, which, when constitutionally expressed,
is binding on any minority of the same community.</p>

<p>If, then, we can conceive, and admit for a moment, the possibility
that, when the Constitution was under consideration,
the people of the United States were politically "one people"&mdash;a
collective unit&mdash;two deductions are clearly inevitable: In the
first place, each geographical division of this great community
would have been entitled to vote according to its relative population;
and, in the second, the expressed will of the legal majority
would have been binding upon the whole. A denial of
the first proposition would be a denial of common justice and
equal rights; a denial of the second would be to destroy all
government and establish mere anarchy.</p>

<p>Now, <i>neither</i> of these principles was practiced or proposed
or even imagined in the case of the action of the people of the
United States (if they were one political community) upon the
proposed Constitution. On the contrary, seventy thousand
people in the State of Delaware had precisely the same weight&mdash;one
vote&mdash;in its ratification, as seven hundred thousand (and
more) in Virginia, or four hundred thousand in Pennsylvania.
Would not this have been an intolerable grievance and wrong&mdash;would
no protest have been uttered against it&mdash;if these had
been fractional parts of one community of people?</p>

<p>Again, while the will of the consenting majority <i>within</i> any
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" id="page133"></a>[pg 133]</span>
State was binding on the opposing minority in the same, no
majority, or majorities, of States or people had any control
whatever upon the people of <i>another</i> State. The Constitution
was established, not "<i>over</i> the States," as asserted by Motley,
but "<i>between</i> the States," and only "between <i>the States so ratifying</i>
the same." Little Rhode Island, with her seventy thousand
inhabitants, was not a mere fractional part of "the people
of the whole land," during the period for which she held aloof,
but was as free, independent, and unmolested, as any other sovereign
power, notwithstanding the majority of more than three
millions of "the whole people" on the other side of the question.</p>

<p>Before the ratification of the Constitution&mdash;when there was
some excuse for an imperfect understanding or misconception
of the terms proposed&mdash;Mr. Madison thus answered, in advance,
the objections made on the ground of this misconception, and
demonstrated its fallacy. He wrote:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these
terms are understood by objectors&mdash;the act of the people, as forming
so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation&mdash;is
obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result
neither from the decision of a <i>majority</i> of the people of the Union
nor from that of a <i>majority</i> of <i>the States</i>. It must result from the
<i>unanimous</i> assent of the several <i>States that are parties to it</i>, differing
no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed,
not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people
themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming
one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the
United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as
the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will
of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the
individual votes or by considering the will of the majority of the
States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the
United States.  Neither of these has been adopted.  Each State,
in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body,
independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary
act."<a id="footnotetag51" name="footnotetag51"></a><a href="#footnote51"><sup>51</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>It is a tedious task to have to expose the misstatements, both
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" id="page134"></a>[pg 134]</span>
of fact and of principle, which have occupied so much attention,
but it is rendered necessary by the extent to which they
have been imposed upon the acceptance of the public, through
reckless assertion and confident and incessant repetition.</p>

<blockquote><p>
"'I remember,' says Mr. Webster, 'to have heard Chief-Justice
Marshall ask counsel, who was insisting upon the authority of
an act of legislation, <i>if he thought an act of legislation could create
or destroy a fact, or change the truth of history</i>? "Would it
alter the fact," said he, "if a Legislature should solemnly enact that
Mr. Hume never wrote the History of England?" A Legislature
may alter the law,' continues Mr. Webster, 'but no power can reverse
a fact.' Hence, if the Convention of 1787 had expressly declared
that the Constitution was [to be] ordained by 'the people
of the United States <i>in the aggregate</i>,' or by the people of America
as one nation, this would not have destroyed the fact that it was
ratified by each State for itself, and that each State was bound only
by 'its own voluntary act.'" (Bledsoe.)
</p></blockquote>

<p>But the Convention, as we have seen, said no such thing.
No such community as "the people of the United States in the
aggregate" is known to it, or ever acted on it. It was ordained,
established, and ratified by the people of the several States; and
no theories or assertions of a later generation can change or conceal
this fixed fact, as it stands revealed in the light of contemporaneous
records.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote43" name="footnote43"></a><b>Footnote 43:</b><a href="#footnotetag43"> (return) </a><p>Article I, section 9, clause 8.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote44" name="footnote44"></a><b>Footnote 44:</b><a href="#footnotetag44"> (return) </a><p>Article II, section 1, clause 6.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote45" name="footnote45"></a><b>Footnote 45:</b><a href="#footnotetag45"> (return) </a><p>Article III, section 2.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote46" name="footnote46"></a><b>Footnote 46:</b><a href="#footnotetag46"> (return) </a><p>Article III, section 3.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote47" name="footnote47"></a><b>Footnote 47:</b><a href="#footnotetag47"> (return) </a><p>"American Museum," February, 1788.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote48" name="footnote48"></a><b>Footnote 48:</b><a href="#footnotetag48"> (return) </a><p>Benton's "Abridgment," vol. x, p. 448.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote49" name="footnote49"></a><b>Footnote 49:</b><a href="#footnotetag49"> (return) </a><p>See address by Edward Everett at the Academy of Music, New York, July 4,
1861.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote50" name="footnote50"></a><b>Footnote 50:</b><a href="#footnotetag50"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote51" name="footnote51"></a><b>Footnote 51:</b><a href="#footnotetag51"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. xxxix.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-vii" id="chap-ii-vii"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Verbal Cavils and Criticisms.&mdash;"Compact," "Confederacy," "Accession," etc.&mdash;The
"New Vocabulary."&mdash;The Federal Constitution a Compact, and the States
acceded to it.&mdash;Evidence of the Constitution itself and of Contemporary Records.
</p></blockquote>


<p>I have habitually spoken of the Federal Constitution as a
compact, and of the parties to it as sovereign States. These
terms should not, and in earlier times would not, have required
explanation or vindication. But they have been called in question
by the modern school of consolidation. These gentlemen
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" id="page135"></a>[pg 135]</span>
admit that the Government under the Articles of Confederation
was a compact. Mr. Webster, in his rejoinder to Mr. Hayne,
on the 27th of January, 1830, said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"When the gentleman says the Constitution is a compact between
the States, he uses language exactly applicable to the old
Confederation. He speaks as if he were in Congress before 1789.
He describes fully that old state of things then existing. The
Confederation was, in strictness, a compact; the States, as States,
were parties to it. We had no other General Government. But
that was found insufficient and inadequate to the public exigencies.
The people were not satisfied with it, and undertook to establish
a better. They undertook to form a General Government,
which should stand on a new basis&mdash;not a confederacy, not a league,
not a compact between States, but a Constitution."<a id="footnotetag52" name="footnotetag52"></a><a href="#footnote52"><sup>52</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Again, in his discussion with Mr. Calhoun, three years afterward,
he vehemently reiterates the same denial. Of the Constitution,
he says: "Does it call itself a compact? Certainly
not. It uses the word 'compact' but once, and that when it
declares that the States shall enter into no compact.<a id="footnotetag53" name="footnotetag53"></a><a href="#footnote53"><sup>53</sup></a> Does it
call itself a league, a confederacy, a subsisting treaty between
the States? Certainly not. There is not a particle of such language
in all its pages."<a id="footnotetag54" name="footnotetag54"></a><a href="#footnote54"><sup>54</sup></a></p>

<p>The artist, who wrote under his picture the legend "This
is a horse," made effectual provision against any such cavil as
that preferred by Mr. Webster and his followers, that the Constitution
is not a compact, because it is not "so nominated in the
bond." As well as I can recollect, there is no passage in the
"Iliad" or the "&AElig;neid" in which either of those great works
"calls itself," or is called by its author, an epic poem, yet this
would scarcely be accepted as evidence that they are not epic
poems.  In an examination of Mr. Webster's remarks, I do not
find that he announces them to be either a speech or an argument;
yet their claim to both these titles will hardly be disputed&mdash;notwithstanding
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" id="page136"></a>[pg 136]</span>
the verbal criticism on the Constitution just
quoted.</p>

<p>The distinction attempted to be drawn between the language
proper to a confederation and that belonging to a constitution,
as indicating two different ideas, will not bear the test of examination
and application to the case of the United States. It
has been fully shown, in previous chapters, that the terms
"Union," "Federal Union," "Federal Constitution," "Constitution
of the Federal Government," and the like, were used&mdash;not
merely in colloquial, informal speech, but in public proceedings
and official documents&mdash;with reference to the Articles of
Confederation, as freely as they have since been employed under
the present Constitution.  The former Union was&mdash;as Mr. Webster
expressly admits&mdash;as nobody denies&mdash;a compact between
States, yet it nowhere "calls itself" "a compact"; the word does
not occur in it even the one time that it occurs in the present
Constitution, although the contracting States are in both prohibited
from entering into any "treaty, confederation, or alliance"
with one another, or with any foreign power, without the consent
of Congress; and the contracting or constituent parties are
termed "United States" in the one just as in the other.</p>

<p>Mr. Webster is particularly unfortunate in his criticisms
upon what he terms the "new vocabulary," in which the Constitution
is styled a compact, and the States which ratified it are
spoken of as having "acceded" to it.  In the same speech, last
quoted, he says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"This word 'accede,' not found either in the Constitution itself
or in the ratification of it by any one of the States, has been
chosen for use here, doubtless not without a well-considered purpose.
The natural converse of accession is secession; and therefore,
when it is stated that the people of the States acceded to the Union,
it may be more plausibly argued that they may secede from it. If,
in adopting the Constitution, nothing was done but acceding to a
compact, nothing would seem necessary, in order to break it up,
but to secede from the same compact.  But the term is wholly out
of place.  Accession, as a word applied to political associations,
implies coming into a league, treaty, or confederacy, by one hitherto
a stranger to it; and secession implies departing from such
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137" id="page137"></a>[pg 137]</span>
league or confederacy. The people of the United States have used
no such form of expression in establishing the present Government."<a id="footnotetag55" name="footnotetag55"></a><a href="#footnote55"><sup>55</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Repeating and reiterating in many forms what is substantially
the same idea, and attributing the use of the terms which
he attacks to an ulterior purpose, Mr. Webster says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"This is the reason, sir, which makes it necessary to abandon
the use of constitutional language for a new vocabulary, and to
substitute, in the place of plain, historical facts, a series of assumptions.
This is the reason why it is necessary to give new
names to things; to speak of the Constitution, not as a constitution,
but as a compact; and of the ratifications by the people, not
as ratifications, but as acts of accession."<a id="footnotetag56" name="footnotetag56"></a><a href="#footnote56"><sup>56</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>In these and similar passages, Mr. Webster virtually concedes
that, if the Constitution <i>were</i> a compact; if the Union
<i>were</i> a confederacy; if the States <i>had</i>, as States, severally acceded
to it&mdash;all which propositions he denies&mdash;then the sovereignty
of the States and their right to secede from the Union
would be deducible.</p>

<p>Now, it happens that these very terms&mdash;"compact," "confederacy,"
"accede," and the like&mdash;were the terms in familiar use
by the authors of the Constitution and their associates with reference
to that instrument and its ratification.  Other writers,
who have examined the subject since the late war gave it an interest
which it had never commanded before, have collected
such an array of evidence in this behalf that it is necessary only
to cite a few examples.</p>

<p>The following language of Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, in
the Convention of 1787, has already been referred to: "If nine
out of thirteen States can dissolve <i>the compact</i>, six out of nine
will be just as able to dissolve <i>the new one</i> hereafter."</p>

<p>Mr. Gouverneur Morris, one of the most pronounced advocates
of a strong central government, in the Convention, said: "He
came here to form <i>a compact</i> for the good of Americans.  He
was ready to do so with all the States.  He hoped and believed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138" id="page138"></a>[pg 138]</span>
they all would enter into such a <i>compact</i>.  If they would not, he
would be ready to join with any States that would. But, as the
<i>compact</i> was to be voluntary, it is in vain for the Eastern States
to insist on what the Southern States will never agree to."<a id="footnotetag57" name="footnotetag57"></a><a href="#footnote57"><sup>57</sup></a></p>

<p>Mr. Madison, while inclining to a strong government, said:
"In the case of a union of people under one Constitution, the
nature of <i>the pact</i> has always been understood," etc.<a id="footnotetag58" name="footnotetag58"></a><a href="#footnote58"><sup>58</sup></a></p>

<p>Mr. Hamilton, in the "Federalist," repeatedly speaks of the
new government as a "<i>confederate republic</i>" and a "<i>confederacy</i>,"
and calls the Constitution a "compact." (See especially
Nos. IX. and LXXXV.)</p>

<p>General Washington&mdash;who was not only the first President
under the new Constitution, but who had presided over the Convention
that drew it up&mdash;in letters written soon after the adjournment
of that body to friends in various States, referred to
the Constitution as a <i>compact</i> or treaty, and repeatedly uses the
terms "accede" and "accession," and once the term "secession."</p>

<p>He asks what the opponents of the Constitution in Virginia
would do, "if nine other States should <i>accede</i> to the Constitution."</p>

<p>Luther Martin, of Maryland, informs us that, in a committee
of the General Convention of 1787, protesting against the proposed
violation of the principles of the "perpetual union" already
formed under the Articles of Confederation, he made use
of such language as this:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Will you tell us we ought to trust you because you now enter
into a solemn <i>compact</i> with us?  This you have done before, and
now treat with the utmost contempt. Will you now make an appeal
to the Supreme Being, and call on Him to guarantee your observance
of this <i>compact</i>? The same you have formerly done for
your observance of the Articles of Confederation, which you are
now violating in the most wanton manner."<a id="footnotetag59" name="footnotetag59"></a><a href="#footnote59"><sup>59</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>It is needless to multiply the proofs that abound in the
writings of the "fathers" to show that Mr. Webster's "new vocabulary"
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139" id="page139"></a>[pg 139]</span>
was the very language they familiarly used. Let
two more examples suffice, from authority higher than that of
any individual speaker or writer, however eminent&mdash;from authority
second only, if at all inferior, to that of the text of the
Constitution itself&mdash;that is, from the acts or ordinances of ratification
by the States. They certainly ought to have been conclusive,
and should not have been unknown to Mr. Webster, for
they are the language of Massachusetts, the State which he represented
in the Senate, and of New Hampshire, the State of his
nativity.</p>

<p>The ratification of Massachusetts is expressed in the following
terms:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS</span>.</p>

<p>"The Convention, having impartially discussed and fully considered
a Constitution for the United States of America, reported
to Congress by the convention of delegates from the United States
of America, and submitted to us by a resolution of the General
Court of the said Commonwealth, passed the 25th day of October
last past, and acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of
the Supreme Ruler of the universe, in affording the people of the
United States, in the course of his Providence, an opportunity,
deliberately and peaceably, without fraud or surprise, of entering
into an explicit and solemn COMPACT with each other, by assenting
to and ratifying a new Constitution, in order to form a more
perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide
for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure
the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity&mdash;do,
in the name and in behalf of the people of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, assent to and ratify the said Constitution for the
United States of America."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The ratification of New Hampshire is expressed in precisely
the same words, save only the difference of date of the resolution
of the Legislature (or "General Court") referred to, and
also the use of the word "State" instead of "Commonwealth."
Both distinctly accept it as a <i>compact</i> of the States "with each
other"&mdash;which Mr. Webster, a son of New Hampshire and a
Senator from Massachusetts, declared it was not; and not only
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140"></a>[pg 140]</span>
so, but he repudiated the very "vocabulary" from which the
words expressing the doctrine were taken.</p>

<p>It would not need, however, this abounding wealth of contemporaneous
exposition&mdash;it does not require the employment
of any particular words in the Constitution&mdash;to prove that it
was drawn up as a compact between sovereign States entering
into a confederacy with each other, and that they ratified and
acceded to it separately, severally, and independently. The
very structure of the whole instrument and the facts attending
its preparation and ratification would suffice. The language of
the final article would have been quite enough: "The ratification
of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the
establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying
the same." This is not the "language" of a superior imposing
a mandate upon subordinates. The consent of the contracting
parties is necessary to its validity, and then it becomes
not the acceptance and recognition of an authority "<i>over</i>" them&mdash;as
Mr. Motley represents&mdash;but of a compact <i>between</i> them.
The simple word "between" is incompatible with any other
idea than that of a compact by independent parties.</p>

<p>If it were possible that any doubt could still exist, there is
one provision in the Constitution which stamps its character as
a compact too plainly for cavil or question. The Constitution,
which had already provided for the representation of the States
in both Houses of Congress, thereby bringing the matter of
representation within the power of amendment, in its fifth article
contains a stipulation that "no State, without its [own]
consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
If this is not a compact between the States, the smaller States
have no guarantee for the preservation of their equality of representation
in the United States Senate. If the obligation of a
contract does not secure it, the guarantee itself is liable to
amendment, and may be swept away at the will of three fourths
of the States, without wrong to any party&mdash;for, according to this
theory, there is no party of the second part.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote52" name="footnote52"></a><b>Footnote 52:</b><a href="#footnotetag52"> (return) </a><p>
Gales and Seaton's "Register of Congressional Debates," vol. vi, Part I, p. 93.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote53" name="footnote53"></a><b>Footnote 53:</b><a href="#footnotetag53"> (return) </a><p>The words "with another State or with a foreign power" should have been
added to make this statement accurate.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote54" name="footnote54"></a><b>Footnote 54:</b><a href="#footnotetag54"> (return) </a><p>"Congressional Debates," vol. ix, Part I, p. 563.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote55" name="footnote55"></a><b>Footnote 55:</b><a href="#footnotetag55"> (return) </a><p>"Congressional Debates," vol. ix, Part I, p. 566.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote56" name="footnote56"></a><b>Footnote 56:</b><a href="#footnotetag56"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., pp. 557, 558.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote57" name="footnote57"></a><b>Footnote 57:</b><a href="#footnotetag57"> (return) </a><p>"Madison Papers," pp. 1081, 1082.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote58" name="footnote58"></a><b>Footnote 58:</b><a href="#footnotetag58"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 1184.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote59" name="footnote59"></a><b>Footnote 59:</b><a href="#footnotetag59"> (return) </a><p>Luther Martin's "Genuine Information," in Wilbur Curtiss's
"Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention," p. 29.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id="page141"></a>[pg 141]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-viii" id="chap-ii-viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Sovereignty.
</p></blockquote>


<p>"The term 'sovereign' or 'sovereignty,'" says Judge Story,
"is used in different senses, which often leads to a confusion of
ideas, and sometimes to very mischievous and unfounded conclusions."
Without any disrespect for Judge Story, or any disparagement
of his great learning and ability, it may safely be
added that he and his disciples have contributed not a little to
the increase of this confusion of ideas and the spread of these
mischievous and unfounded conclusions. There is no good reason
whatever why it should be used in different senses, or why
there should be any confusion of ideas as to its meaning. Of all
the terms employed in political science, it is one of the most
definite and intelligible. The definition of it given by that
accurate and lucid publicist, Burlamaqui, is simple and satisfactory&mdash;that
"sovereignty is a right of commanding in the last
resort in civil society."<a id="footnotetag60" name="footnotetag60"></a><a href="#footnote60"><sup>60</sup></a> The original seat of this sovereignty
he also declares to be in the people. "But," he adds, "when
once the people have transferred their right to a sovereign [i.e.,
a monarch], they can not, without contradiction, be supposed to
continue still masters of it."<a id="footnotetag61" name="footnotetag61"></a><a href="#footnote61"><sup>61</sup></a> This is in strict accord with the
theory of American republicanism, the peculiarity of which is
that the people <i>never do</i> transfer their right of sovereignty,
either in whole or in part. They only delegate to their governments
the exercise of such of its functions as may be necessary,
subject always to their own control, and to reassumption whenever
such government fails to fulfill the purposes for which it
was instituted.</p>

<p>I think it has already been demonstrated that, in this country,
the only political community&mdash;the only independent corporate
unit through which the people can exercise their sovereignty,
is the State. Minor communities&mdash;as those of counties,
cities, and towns&mdash;are merely fractional subdivisions of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id="page142"></a>[pg 142]</span>
State; and these do not affect the evidence that there was
not such a political community as the "people of the United
States in the aggregate."</p>

<p>That the States were severally sovereign and independent
when they were united under the Articles of Confederation, is
distinctly asserted in those articles, and is admitted even by
the extreme partisans of consolidation. Of right, they are still
sovereign, unless they have surrendered or been divested of
their sovereignty; and those who deny the proposition have
been vainly called upon to point out the process by which they
have divested themselves, or have been divested of it, otherwise
than by usurpation.</p>

<p>Since Webster spoke and Story wrote upon the subject,
however, the sovereignty of the States has been vehemently
denied, or explained away as only a partial, imperfect, mutilated
sovereignty. Paradoxical theories of "divided sovereignty"
and "delegated sovereignty" have arisen, to create that
"confusion of ideas" and engender those "mischievous and
unfounded conclusions," of which Judge Story speaks. Confounding
the sovereign authority of the <i>people</i> with the delegated
powers conferred by them upon their <i>governments</i>, we
hear of a Government of the United States "sovereign within
its sphere," and of State governments "sovereign in <i>their</i>
sphere"; of the surrender by the States of <i>part</i> of their sovereignty
to the United States, and the like. Now, if there be
any one great principle pervading the Federal Constitution, the
State Constitutions, the writings of the fathers, the whole
American system, as clearly as the sunlight pervades the solar
system, it is that <i>no</i> government is sovereign&mdash;that all governments
derive their powers from the people, and exercise them
in subjection to the will of the people&mdash;not a will expressed in
any irregular, lawless, tumultuary manner, but the will of the
organized political community, expressed through authorized
and legitimate channels. The founders of the American republics
never conferred, nor intended to confer, sovereignty upon
either their State or Federal Governments.</p>

<p>If, then, the people of the States, in forming a Federal
Union, surrendered&mdash;or, to use Burlamaqui's term, transferred&mdash;or
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143" id="page143"></a>[pg 143]</span>
if they meant to surrender or transfer&mdash;<i>part</i> of their sovereignty,
to whom was the transfer made? Not to "the people
of the United States in the aggregate"; for there was no
such people in existence, and they did not create or constitute
such a people by merger of themselves. Not to the Federal
Government; for they disclaimed, as a fundamental principle,
the sovereignty of any government. There was no such surrender,
no such transfer, in whole or in part, expressed or implied.
They retained, and intended to retain, their sovereignty
in its integrity&mdash;undivided and indivisible.</p>

<p>"But, indeed," says Mr. Motley, "the words 'sovereign'
and 'sovereignty' are purely inapplicable to the American system.
In the Declaration of Independence the provinces declare
themselves 'free and independent States,' but the men of those
days knew that the word 'sovereign' was a term of feudal origin.
When their connection with a time-honored feudal monarchy
was abruptly severed, the word 'sovereign' had no meaning
for us."<a id="footnotetag62" name="footnotetag62"></a><a href="#footnote62"><sup>62</sup></a></p>

<p>If this be true, "the men of those days" had a very extraordinary
way of expressing their conviction that the word "had
no meaning for us." We have seen that, in the very front of
their Articles of Confederation, they set forth the conspicuous
declaration that each State retained "its <i>sovereignty</i>, freedom,
and independence."</p>

<p>Massachusetts&mdash;the State, I believe, of Mr. Motley's nativity
and citizenship&mdash;in her original Constitution, drawn up by "men
of those days," made this declaration:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The people inhabiting the territory formerly called the Province
of Massachusetts Bay do hereby solemnly and mutually agree
with each other to form themselves into a free, <i>sovereign</i>, and
independent body politic, or State, by the name of <i>The Commonwealth
of Massachusetts</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>New Hampshire, in her Constitution, as revised in 1792, had
identically the same declaration, except as regards the name of
the State and the word "State" instead of "Commonwealth."</p>

<p>Mr. Madison, one of the most distinguished of the men of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144" id="page144"></a>[pg 144]</span>
that day and of the advocates of the Constitution, in a speech
already once referred to, in the Virginia Convention of 1788,
explained that "We, the people," who were to establish the
Constitution, were the people of "thirteen <span class="sc">SOVEREIGNTIES</span>."<a id="footnotetag63" name="footnotetag63"></a><a href="#footnote63"><sup>63</sup></a></p>

<p>In the "Federalist," he repeatedly employs the term&mdash;as, for
example, when he says: "Do they [the fundamental principles
of the Confederation] require that, in the establishment of the
Constitution, the States should be regarded as distinct and independent
<span class="sc">SOVEREIGNS</span>? They <i>are</i> so regarded by the Constitution
proposed."<a id="footnotetag64" name="footnotetag64"></a><a href="#footnote64"><sup>64</sup></a></p>

<p>Alexander Hamilton&mdash;another contemporary authority, no
less illustrious&mdash;says, in the "Federalist":</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It is inherent in the nature of <i>sovereignty</i>, not to be amenable
to the suit of an individual without its consent. This is the
general sense and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption,
as one of the attributes of <i>sovereignty</i>, is now enjoyed
by the government of <i>every State</i> in the Union."<a id="footnotetag65" name="footnotetag65"></a><a href="#footnote65"><sup>65</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the same paragraph he uses these terms, "sovereign" and
"sovereignty," repeatedly&mdash;always with reference to the States,
respectively and severally.</p>

<p>Benjamin Franklin advocated equality of suffrage in the
Senate as a means of securing "the <i>sovereignties</i> of the individual
States."<a id="footnotetag66" name="footnotetag66"></a><a href="#footnote66"><sup>66</sup></a> James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, said sovereignty
"is in the people before they make a Constitution, and remains
in them," and described the people as being "thirteen
independent sovereignties."<a id="footnotetag67" name="footnotetag67"></a><a href="#footnote67"><sup>67</sup></a> Gouverneur Morris, who was, as
well as Wilson, one of the warmest advocates in the Convention
of a strong central government, spoke of the Constitution as "a
<i>compact</i>," and of the parties to it as "each enjoying <i>sovereign</i>
power."<a id="footnotetag68" name="footnotetag68"></a><a href="#footnote68"><sup>68</sup></a> Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, declared that the
Government "was instituted by a number of <i>sovereign States</i>."<a id="footnotetag69" name="footnotetag69"></a><a href="#footnote69"><sup>69</sup></a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145" id="page145"></a>[pg 145]</span>
Oliver Ellsworth, of the same State, spoke of the States as "sovereign
bodies."<a id="footnotetag70" name="footnotetag70"></a><a href="#footnote70"><sup>70</sup></a> These were all eminent members of the Convention
which formed the Constitution.</p>

<p>There was scarcely a statesman of that period who did not
leave on record expressions of the same sort.  But why multiply
citations? It is very evident that the "men of those days"
entertained very different views of sovereignty from those set
forth by the "new lights" of our day.  Far from considering
it a term of feudal origin, "purely inapplicable to the American
system," they seem to have regarded it as a very vital principle
in that system, and of necessity belonging to the several States&mdash;and
I do not find a single instance in which they applied it to
any political organization, except the States.</p>

<p>Their ideas were in entire accord with those of Vattel, who,
in his chapter "Of Nations or Sovereign States," writes, "Every
<i>nation</i> that governs itself, under what form soever, without
any dependence on foreign power, is a <i>sovereign state</i>."<a id="footnotetag71" name="footnotetag71"></a><a href="#footnote71"><sup>71</sup></a></p>

<p>In another part of the same chapter he gives a lucid statement
of the nature of a confederate republic, such as ours was
designed to be.  He says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves
together by a perpetual confederacy, without each in particular
ceasing to be <i>a perfect state</i>. They will form together a
federal republic: the deliberations in common will offer no violence
to <i>the sovereignty of each member</i>, though they may, in certain
respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of
voluntary engagements.  A person does not cease to be free and
independent, when he is obliged to fulfill the engagements into
which he has very willingly entered."<a id="footnotetag72" name="footnotetag72"></a><a href="#footnote72"><sup>72</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>What this celebrated author means here by a person, is explained
by a subsequent passage: "The law of nations is the
law of sovereigns; states free and independent are moral persons."<a id="footnotetag73" name="footnotetag73"></a><a href="#footnote73"><sup>73</sup></a></p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote60" name="footnote60"></a><b>Footnote 60:</b><a href="#footnotetag60"> (return) </a><p>
"Principes du Droit Politique," chap. v, section I; also, chap. vii, section 1.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote61" name="footnote61"></a><b>Footnote 61:</b><a href="#footnotetag61"> (return) </a><p> Ibid., chap. vii, section 12.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote62" name="footnote62"></a><b>Footnote 62:</b><a href="#footnotetag62"> (return) </a><p>"Rebellion Record," vol. i, Documents, p. 211.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote63" name="footnote63"></a><b>Footnote 63:</b><a href="#footnotetag63"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. iii, p. 114, edition of 1836.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote64" name="footnote64"></a><b>Footnote 64:</b><a href="#footnotetag64"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. xl.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote65" name="footnote65"></a><b>Footnote 65:</b><a href="#footnotetag65"> (return) </a><p>Ibid, No. lxxxi.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote66" name="footnote66"></a><b>Footnote 66:</b><a href="#footnotetag66"> (return) </a><p>See Elliott's "Debates," vol. v, p. 266.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote67" name="footnote67"></a><b>Footnote 67:</b><a href="#footnotetag67"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., vol. ii, p. 443.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote68" name="footnote68"></a><b>Footnote 68:</b><a href="#footnotetag68"> (return) </a><p>See "Life of Gouverneur Morris," vol. iii, p. 193.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote69" name="footnote69"></a><b>Footnote 69:</b><a href="#footnotetag69"> (return) </a><p>See "Writings of John Adams," vol. vii, letter of Roger Sherman.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote70" name="footnote70"></a><b>Footnote 70:</b><a href="#footnotetag70"> (return) </a><p>See Eliott's "Debates," vol. ii, p. 197.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote71" name="footnote71"></a><b>Footnote 71:</b><a href="#footnotetag71"> (return) </a><p>"Law of Nations," Book I, chap. i, section 4.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote72" name="footnote72"></a><b>Footnote 72:</b><a href="#footnotetag72"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 10.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote73" name="footnote73"></a><b>Footnote 73:</b><a href="#footnotetag73"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 12.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>[pg 146]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-ix" id="chap-ii-ix"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The same Subject continued.&mdash;The Tenth Amendment.&mdash;Fallacies exposed.&mdash;"Constitution,"
"Government," and "People" distinguished from each other.&mdash;Theories
refuted by Facts.&mdash;Characteristics of Sovereignty.&mdash;Sovereignty identified.&mdash;Never
thrown away.
</p></blockquote>


<p>If any lingering doubt could have existed as to the reservation
of their entire sovereignty by the people of the respective
States, when they organized the Federal Union, it would have
been removed by the adoption of the tenth amendment to the
Constitution, which was not only one of the amendments proposed
by various States when ratifying that instrument, but the
particular one in which they substantially agreed, and upon which
they most urgently insisted. Indeed, it is quite certain that the
Constitution would never have received the assent and ratification
of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina,
and perhaps other States, but for a well-grounded assurance
that the substance of this amendment would be adopted
as soon as the requisite formalities could be complied with.
That amendment is in these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution
nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The full meaning of this article may not be as clear to us as
it was to the men of that period, on account of the confusion
of ideas by which the term "people"&mdash;plain enough to them&mdash;has
since been obscured, and also the ambiguity attendant upon
the use of the little conjunction <i>or</i>, which has been said to be
the most equivocal word in our language, and for that reason
has been excluded from indictments in the English courts. The
true intent and meaning of the provision, however, may be ascertained
from an examination and comparison of the terms in
which it was expressed by the various States which proposed it,
and whose ideas it was intended to embody.</p>

<p>Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in their ordinances of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147" id="page147"></a>[pg 147]</span>
ratification, expressing the opinion "that certain amendments
and alterations in the said Constitution would remove the fears
and quiet the apprehensions of many of the good people of
this Commonwealth [State (New Hampshire)], and more effectually
guard against an undue administration of the Federal
Government," each recommended several such amendments,
putting this at the head in the following form:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That it be explicitly declared that all powers not expressly
delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are <i>reserved to the several
States</i>, to be by them exercised."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Of course, those stanch republican communities meant <i>the
people of the States</i>&mdash;not their <i>governments</i>, as something distinct
from their people.</p>

<p>New York expressed herself as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That the powers of government may be reassumed by the
people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness;
that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said
Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United
States, or the departments of the Government thereof, remains to
<i>the people of the several States, or to their respective State governments,
to whom they may have granted the same</i>; and that those
clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall
not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is
entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but
such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain
specified powers or as inserted merely for greater caution."
</p></blockquote>

<p>South Carolina expressed the idea thus:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"This Convention doth also declare that no section or paragraph
of the said Constitution warrants a construction that <i>the
States do not retain</i> every power not expressly relinquished by
them and vested in the General Government of the Union."
</p></blockquote>

<p>North Carolina proposed it in these terms:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Each State in the Union shall respectively retain every power,
jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Constitution delegated
to the Congress of the United States or to the departments of the
General Government."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148" id="page148"></a>[pg 148]</span>

<p>Rhode Island gave in her long-withheld assent to the Constitution,
"in full confidence" that certain proposed amendments
would be adopted, the first of which was expressed in
these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That Congress shall guarantee <i>to each State</i> its <span class="sc">SOVEREIGNTY</span>,
<i>freedom, and independence</i>, and every power, jurisdiction, and
right, which is not by this Constitution expressly delegated to the
United States."
</p></blockquote>

<p>This was in May, 1790, when nearly three years had been
given to discussion and explanation of the new Government by
its founders and others, when it had been in actual operation
for more than a year, and when there was every advantage for
a clear understanding of its nature and principles. Under such
circumstances, and in the "full confidence" that this language
expressed its meaning and intent, the people of Rhode Island
signified their "accession" to the "Confederate Republic" of
the States already united.</p>

<p>No objection was made from any quarter to the principle
asserted in these various forms; or to the amendment in which
it was finally expressed, although many thought it unnecessary,
as being merely declaratory of what would have been sufficiently
obvious without it&mdash;that the functions of the Government of
the United States were strictly limited to the exercise of such
powers as were expressly delegated, and that the people of the
several States retained all others.</p>

<p>Is it compatible with reason to suppose that people so chary
of the delegation of specific powers or functions could have
meant to surrender or transfer the very basis and origin of all
power&mdash;their inherent sovereignty&mdash;and this, not by express
grant, but by implication?</p>

<p>Mr. Everett, following, whether consciously or not, in the
line of Mr. Webster's ill-considered objection to the term "compact,"
takes exception to the sovereignty of the States on
the ground that "the <i>word</i> 'sovereignty' does not occur" in
the Constitution.  He admits that the States were sovereign
under the Articles of Confederation.  How could they relinquish
or be deprived of their sovereignty without even a mention
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149" id="page149"></a>[pg 149]</span>
of it&mdash;when the tenth amendment confronts us with the
declaration that <i>nothing</i> was surrendered by implication&mdash;that
everything was reserved unless expressly delegated to the United
States or prohibited to the States? Here is an attribute which
they certainly possessed&mdash;which nobody denies, or can deny,
that they <i>did</i> possess&mdash;and of which Mr. Everett says no mention
is made in the Constitution. In what conceivable way,
then, was it lost or alienated?</p>

<p>Much has been said of the "prohibition" of the exercise by
the States of certain functions of sovereignty; such as, making
treaties, declaring war, coining money, etc. This is only a part
of the general compact, by which the contracting parties covenant,
one with another, to abstain from the separate exercise
of certain powers, which they agree to intrust to the management
and control of the union or general agency of the parties
associated. It is not a prohibition imposed upon them from
without, or from above, by any external or superior power, but
is self-imposed by their free consent. The case is strictly analogous
to that of individuals forming a mercantile or manufacturing
copartnership, who voluntarily agree to refrain, as individuals,
from engaging in other pursuits or speculations, from
lending their individual credit, or from the exercise of any
other right of a citizen, which they may think proper to subject
to the consent, or intrust to the management of the firm.</p>

<p>The prohibitory clauses of the Constitution referred to are not
at all a denial of the full sovereignty of the States, but are merely
an agreement among them to exercise certain powers of sovereignty
in concert, and not separately and apart.</p>

<p>There is one other provision of the Constitution, which is
generally adduced by the friends of centralism as antagonistic
to State sovereignty. This is found in the second clause of
the sixth article, as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which
shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States,
shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every
State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or
laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150"></a>[pg 150]</span>

<p>This enunciation of a principle, which, even if it had not
been expressly declared, would have been a necessary deduction
from the acceptance of the Constitution itself, has been magnified
and perverted into a meaning and purpose entirely foreign to
that which plain interpretation is sufficient to discern. Mr.
Motley thus dilates on the subject:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Could language be more imperial? Could the claim to State
'sovereignty' be more completely disposed of at a word? How
can that be sovereign, acknowledging no superior, supreme, which
has voluntarily accepted a supreme law from something which it
acknowledges as superior?"<a id="footnotetag74" name="footnotetag74"></a><a href="#footnote74"><sup>74</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>The mistake which Mr. Motley&mdash;like other writers of the
same school&mdash;makes is one which is disposed of by a very simple
correction. The States, which ordained and established the
Constitution, <i>accepted</i> nothing besides what they themselves
<i>prescribed</i>. They acknowledged no superior. The supremacy
was both in degree and extent only that which was delegated
by the States to their common agent.</p>

<p>There are some other considerations which may conduce to
a clearer understanding of this supremacy of the Constitution
and the laws made in pursuance thereof:</p>

<p>1. In the first place, it must be remembered that, when the
Federal Constitution was formed, each then existing State already
had its own Constitution and code of statute laws. It
was, no doubt, primarily with reference to these that the provision
was inserted, and not in the expectation of future conflicts
or discrepancies. It is in this light alone that Mr. Madison
considers it in explaining and vindicating it in the "Federalist."<a id="footnotetag75" name="footnotetag75"></a><a href="#footnote75"><sup>75</sup></a></p>

<p>2. Again, it is to be observed that the supremacy accorded
to the general laws of the United States is expressly limited to
those enacted in conformity with the Constitution, or, to use the
exact language, "made in pursuance thereof."  Mr. Hamilton,
in another chapter of the "Federalist," calls particular attention
to this, saying (and the italics are all his own) "that the laws
of the Confederacy, as to the <i>enumerated</i> and <i>legitimate</i> objects
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151" id="page151"></a>[pg 151]</span>
of its jurisdiction, will become the supreme law of the land,"
and that the State functionaries will co&ouml;perate in their observance
and enforcement with the General Government, "<i>as
far as its just and constitutional authority extends</i>."<a id="footnotetag76" name="footnotetag76"></a><a href="#footnote76"><sup>76</sup></a></p>

<p>3. In the third place, it is not the <i>Government</i> of the
United States that is declared to be supreme, but the <i>Constitution</i>
and the laws and treaties made in accordance with it. The
proposition was made in the Convention to organize a government
consisting of "supreme legislative, executive, and judicial
powers," but it was not adopted. Its deliberate rejection is much
more significant and conclusive than if it had never been proposed.
Correction of so gross an error as that of confounding
the Government with the Constitution ought to be superfluous,
but so crude and confused are the ideas which have been propagated
on the subject, that no misconception seems to be too absurd
to be possible. Thus, it has not been uncommon, of late
years, to hear, even in the highest places, the oath to support the
Constitution, which is taken by both State and Federal officers,
spoken of as an oath "to support <i>the Government</i>"&mdash;an obligation
never imposed upon any one in this country, and which
the men who made the Constitution, with their recent reminiscences
of the Revolution, the battles of which they had fought
with halters around their necks, would have been the last to
prescribe. Could any assertion be less credible than that they
proceeded to institute another supreme government which it
would be treason to resist?</p>

<p>This confusion of ideas pervades the treatment of the whole
subject of sovereignty. Mr. Webster has said, and very justly
so far as these United States are concerned: "The sovereignty
of government is an idea belonging to the other side of the
Atlantic. No such thing is known in North America. Our
governments are all limited. In Europe sovereignty is of feudal
origin, and imports no more than the state of the sovereign.
It comprises his rights, duties, exemptions, prerogatives, and
powers. But with us all power is with the people. They alone
are sovereign, and they erect what governments they please,
and confer on them such powers as they please. None of these
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page152" id="page152"></a>[pg 152]</span>
governments are sovereign, in the European sense of the word,
all being restrained by written constitutions."<a id="footnotetag77" name="footnotetag77"></a><a href="#footnote77"><sup>77</sup></a></p>

<p>But the same intellect, which can so clearly discern and so
lucidly define the general proposition, seems to be covered by
a cloud of thick darkness when it comes to apply it to the particular
case in issue.  Thus, a little afterward, we have the following:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"There is no language in the whole Constitution applicable to
a confederation of States. If the States be parties, as States,
what are their rights, and what their respective covenants and
stipulations? and where are their rights, covenants, and stipulations
expressed? In the Articles of Confederation they did make
promises, and did enter into engagements, and did plight the faith
of each State for their fulfillment; but in the Constitution there is
nothing of that kind.  The reason is that, in the Constitution, it is
the people who speak and not the States.  The people ordain the
Constitution, and therein address themselves to the States and to
the Legislatures of the States in the language of injunction and
prohibition."<a id="footnotetag78" name="footnotetag78"></a><a href="#footnote78"><sup>78</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>It is surprising that such inconsistent ideas should proceed
from a source so eminent. Its author falls into the very error
which he had just before so distinctly pointed out, in confounding
the people of the States with their governments.  In the
vehemence of his hostility to State sovereignty, he seems&mdash;as all
of his disciples seem&mdash;unable even to comprehend that it means
the sovereignty, not of State governments, but of people who
make them.  With minds preoccupied by the unreal idea of
one great people of a consolidated nation, these gentlemen are
blinded to the plain and primary truth that the only way in
which the people ordained the Constitution was as the people
of <span class="sc">States</span>.  When Mr. Webster says that "in the Constitution
it is the people who speak, and not the States," he says what is
untenable. The States <i>are</i> the people. The people do not
speak, never have spoken, and never can speak, in their sovereign
capacity (without a subversion of our whole system), otherwise
than as the people of States.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153" id="page153"></a>[pg 153]</span>

<p>There are but two modes of expressing their sovereign will
known to the people of this country. One is by direct vote&mdash;the
mode adopted by Rhode Island in 1788, when she rejected
the Constitution. The other is the method, more generally pursued,
of acting by means of conventions of delegates elected
expressly as representatives of the sovereignty of the people.
Now, it is not a matter of opinion or theory or speculation, but
a plain, undeniable, historical <i>fact</i>, that there never has been
any act or expression of sovereignty in either of these modes
by that imaginary community, "the people of the United States
in the aggregate." <i>Usurpations of power</i> by the <i>Government</i>
of the United States, there may have been, and may be again,
but there has never been either a sovereign convention or a
direct vote of the "whole people" of the United States to demonstrate
its existence as a corporate unit. Every exercise of
sovereignty by any of the people of this country that has actually
taken place has been by the people of States <i>as</i> States.
In the face of this fact, is it not the merest self-stultification to
admit the sovereignty of the people and deny it to the States, in
which alone they have community existence?</p>

<p>This subject is one of such vital importance to a right understanding
of the events which this work is designed to record
and explain, that it can not be dismissed without an effort in
the way of recapitulation and conclusion, to make it clear beyond
the possibility of misconception.</p>

<p>According to the American theory, every individual is endowed
with certain unalienable rights, among which are "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He is entitled to all
the freedom, in these and in other respects, that is consistent
with the safety and the rights of others and the weal of the
community, but political sovereignty, which is the source and
origin of all the powers of <i>government</i>&mdash;legislative, executive,
and judicial&mdash;belongs to, and inheres in, the people of an
organized political community. It is an attribute of the <i>whole
people</i> of such a community.  It includes the power and necessarily
the duty of protecting the rights and redressing the wrongs
of individuals, of punishing crimes, enforcing contracts, prescribing
rules for the transfer of property and the succession
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154"></a>[pg 154]</span>
of estates, making treaties with foreign powers, levying taxes,
etc. The enumeration of particulars might be extended, but
these will suffice as illustrations.</p>

<p>These powers are of course exercised through the agency of
governments, but the governments are <i>only</i> agents of the sovereign&mdash;responsible
to it, and subject to its control. This sovereign&mdash;the
people, in the aggregate, of each political community&mdash;delegates
to the government the exercise of such powers,
or functions, as it thinks proper, but in an American republic
never transfers or surrenders sovereignty.  <i>That</i> remains, unalienated
and unimpaired.  It is by virtue of this sovereignty
alone that the Government, its authorized agent, commands
the obedience of the individual citizen, to the extent of its derivative,
dependent, and delegated authority. The <span class="sc">ALLEGIANCE</span>
of the citizen is due to the sovereign alone.</p>

<p>Thus far, I think, all will agree.  No American statesman
or publicist would venture to dispute it. Notwithstanding
the inconsiderate or ill-considered expressions thrown out by
some persons about the unity of the American people from the
beginning, no respectable authority has ever had the hardihood
to deny that, before the adoption of the Federal Constitution,
the only sovereign political community was the people of the
State&mdash;the people of <i>each State</i>. The ordinary exercise of
what are generally termed the powers of sovereignty was by and
through their respective governments; and, when they formed
a confederation, a portion of those powers was intrusted to the
General Government, or agency. Under the Confederation, the
Congress of the United States represented the collective power
of the States; but the people of each State alone possessed sovereignty,
and consequently were entitled to the allegiance of the
citizen.</p>

<p>When the Articles of Confederation were amended, when
the new Constitution was substituted in their place and the
General Government reorganized, its structure was changed,
additional powers were conferred upon it, and thereby subtracted
from the powers theretofore exercised by the State governments;
but the seat of sovereignty&mdash;the source of all those delegated
and dependent powers&mdash;was not disturbed. There was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155" id="page155"></a>[pg 155]</span>
a new Government or an amended Government&mdash;it is entirely
immaterial in which of these lights we consider it&mdash;but no new
<span class="sc">PEOPLE</span> was created or constituted. The people, in whom
alone sovereignty inheres, remained just as they had been before.
The only change was in the form, structure, and relations
of their governmental agencies.</p>

<p>No doubt, the States&mdash;the people of the States&mdash;if they had
been so disposed, might have merged themselves into one great
consolidated State, retaining their geographical boundaries
merely as matters of convenience.  But such a merger must
have been distinctly and formally stated, not left to deduction
or implication.</p>

<p>Men do not alienate even an estate, without positive and
express terms and stipulations. But in this case not only was
there no express transfer&mdash;no formal surrender&mdash;of the pre&euml;xisting
sovereignty, but it was expressly provided that nothing
should be <i>understood</i> as even <i>delegated</i>&mdash;that everything was
reserved, unless granted in express terms. The monstrous conception
of the creation of a new people, invested with the whole
or a great part of the sovereignty which had previously belonged
to the people of each State, has not a syllable to sustain it in the
Constitution, but is built up entirely upon the palpable misconstruction
of a single expression in the preamble.</p>

<p>In denying that there is any such collective unit as the people
of the United States in the aggregate, of course I am not to
be understood as denying that there is such a political organization
as the United States, or that there exists, with large and
distinct powers, a <i>Government</i> of the United States; but it is
claimed that the Union, as its name implies, is constituted of
States. As a British author,<a id="footnotetag79" name="footnotetag79"></a><a href="#footnote79"><sup>79</sup></a> referring to the old Teutonic system,
has expressed the same idea, the States are the integers,
the United States the multiple which results from them.  The
Government of the United States derives its existence from the
same source, and exercises its functions by the will of the same
sovereignty that creates and confers authority upon the State
governments.  The people of each State are, in either case, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id="page156"></a>[pg 156]</span>
source. The only difference is that, in the creation of the State
governments, each sovereign acted alone; in that of the Federal
Government, they acted in co&ouml;peration with the others.
Neither the whole nor any part of their sovereignty has been
surrendered to either Government.</p>

<p>To whom, in fine, <i>could</i> the States have surrendered their
sovereignty? Not to the mass of the people inhabiting the
territory possessed by all the States, for there was no such
community in existence, and they took no measures for the
organization of such a community. If they had intended to
do so, the very style, "United States," would have been a palpable
misnomer, nor would treason have been defined as levying
war against <i>them</i>. Could it have been transferred to the Government
of the Union? Clearly not, in accordance with the
ideas and principles of those who made the Declaration of Independence,
adopted the Articles of Confederation, and established
the Constitution of the United States; for in each and all of
these the corner-stone is the inherent and inalienable sovereignty
of the people. To have transferred sovereignty from the people
to a Government would have been to have fought the battles
of the Revolution in vain&mdash;not for the freedom and independence
of the States, but for a mere change of masters. Such
a thought or purpose could not have been in the heads or hearts
of those who molded the Union, and could have found lodgment
only when the ebbing tide of patriotism and fraternity had swept
away the landmarks which they erected who sought by the
compact of union to secure and perpetuate the liberties then
possessed. The men who had won at great cost the independence
of their respective States were deeply impressed with
the value of union, but they could never have consented, like
"the base Judean," to fling away the priceless pearl of State
sovereignty for any possible alliance.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote74" name="footnote74"></a><b>Footnote 74:</b><a href="#footnotetag74"> (return) </a><p>"Rebellion Record," vol. i, Documents, p. 213.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote75" name="footnote75"></a><b>Footnote 75:</b><a href="#footnotetag75"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. xliv.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote76" name="footnote76"></a><b>Footnote 76:</b><a href="#footnotetag76"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. xxvii.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote77" name="footnote77"></a><b>Footnote 77:</b><a href="#footnotetag77"> (return) </a><p>"Congressional Debates," vol. ix, Part I, p. 565.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote78" name="footnote78"></a><b>Footnote 78:</b><a href="#footnotetag78"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 566.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote79" name="footnote79"></a><b>Footnote 79:</b><a href="#footnotetag79"> (return) </a><p>
Sir Francis Palgrave, quoted by Mr. Calhoun, "Congressional Debates," vol. ix,
Part I, p. 541.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157"></a>[pg 157]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-x" id="chap-ii-x"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
A Recapitulation.&mdash;Remarkable Propositions of Mr. Gouverneur Morris in the Convention
of 1787, and their Fate.&mdash;Further Testimony.&mdash;Hamilton, Madison,
Washington, Marshall, etc.&mdash;Later Theories.&mdash;Mr. Webster: his Views at
Various Periods.&mdash;Speech at Capon Springs.&mdash;State Rights not a Sectional
Theory.
</p></blockquote>


<p>Looking back for a moment at the ground over which we
have gone, I think it may be fairly asserted that the following
propositions have been clearly and fully established:</p>

<p>1. That the States of which the American Union was formed,
from the moment when they emerged from their colonial or provincial
condition, became severally sovereign, free, and independent
States&mdash;not one State, or nation.</p>

<p>2. That the union formed under the Articles of Confederation
was a compact between the States, in which these attributes
of "sovereignty, freedom, and independence," were expressly
asserted and guaranteed.</p>

<p>3. That, in forming the "more perfect union" of the Constitution,
afterward adopted, the same contracting powers formed
an <i>amended compact</i>, without any surrender of these attributes
of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, either expressed or
implied: on the contrary, that, by the tenth amendment to the
Constitution, limiting the power of the Government to its express
grants, they distinctly guarded against the presumption of
a surrender of anything by implication.</p>

<p>4. That political sovereignty resides, neither in individual
citizens, nor in unorganized masses, nor in fractional subdivisions
of a community, but in the people of an organized political body.</p>

<p>5. That no "republican form of government," in the sense
in which that expression is used in the Constitution, and was
generally understood by the founders of the Union&mdash;whether it
be the government of a State or of a confederation of States&mdash;is
possessed of any sovereignty whatever, but merely exercises
certain powers delegated by the sovereign authority of the people,
and subject to recall and reassumption by the same authority
that conferred them.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158" id="page158"></a>[pg 158]</span>

<p>6. That the "people" who organized the first confederation,
the people who dissolved it, the people who ordained and established
the Constitution which succeeded it, the only people,
in fine, known or referred to in the phraseology of that period&mdash;whether
the term was used collectively or distributively&mdash;were
the people of the respective States, each acting separately
and with absolute independence of the others.</p>

<p>7. That, in forming and adopting the Constitution, the States,
or the people of the States&mdash;terms which, when used with reference
to acts performed in a sovereign capacity, are precisely
equivalent to each other&mdash;formed a new <i>Government</i>, but no
new <i>people</i>; and that, consequently, no new sovereignty was
created&mdash;for sovereignty in an American republic can belong
only to a people, never to a government&mdash;and that the Federal
Government is entitled to exercise only the powers delegated to
it by the people of the respective States.</p>

<p>8. That the term "people," in the preamble to the Constitution
and in the tenth amendment, is used distributively;
that the only "people of the United States" known to the Constitution
are the people of each State in the Union; that no
such political community or corporate unit as one people of
the United States then existed, has ever been organized, or yet
exists; and that no political action by the people of the United
States in the aggregate has ever taken place, or ever can take
place, under the Constitution.</p>

<p>The fictitious idea of <i>one</i> people of the United States, contradicted
in the last paragraph, has been so impressed upon the
popular mind by false teaching, by careless and vicious phraseology,
and by the ever-present spectacle of a great Government,
with its army and navy, its custom-houses and post-offices, its
multitude of office-holders, and the splendid prizes which it
offers to political ambition, that the tearing away of these illusions
and presentation of the original fabric, which they have
overgrown and hidden from view, have no doubt been unwelcome,
distasteful, and even repellent to some of my readers.
The artificial splendor which makes the deception attractive is
even employed as an argument to prove its reality.</p>

<p>The glitter of the powers delegated to the agent serves to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159"></a>[pg 159]</span>
obscure the perception of the sovereign power of the principal
by whom they are conferred, as, by the unpracticed eye, the
showy costume and conspicuous functions of the drum-major
are mistaken for emblems of chieftaincy&mdash;while the misuse or
ambiguous use of the term "Union" and its congeners contributes
to increase the confusion.</p>

<p>So much the more need for insisting upon the elementary
truths which have been obscured by these specious sophistries.
The reader really desirous of ascertaining truth is, therefore,
again cautioned against confounding two ideas so essentially
distinct as that of <i>government</i>, which is derivative, dependent,
and subordinate, with that of the <i>people</i>, as an organized political
community, which is sovereign, without any other than self-imposed
limitations, and such as proceed from the general principles
of the personal rights of man.</p>

<p>It has been said, in a foregoing chapter, that the authors
of the Constitution could scarcely have anticipated the idea of
such a community as the people of the United States in one
mass.  Perhaps this expression needs some little qualification,
for there is rarely a fallacy, however stupendous, that is wholly
original.  A careful examination of the records of the Convention
of 1787 exhibits one or perhaps two instances of such a
suggestion&mdash;both by the same person&mdash;and the result in each
case is strikingly significant.</p>

<p>The original proposition made concerning the office of President
of the United States contemplated his election by the Congress,
or, as it was termed by the proposer, "the national Legislature."
On the 17th of July, this proposition being under
consideration, Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved that the words
"national Legislature" be stricken out, and "citizens of the
United States" inserted. The proposition was supported by
Mr. James Wilson&mdash;both of these gentlemen being delegates
from Pennsylvania, and both among the most earnest advocates
of centralism in the Convention.</p>

<p>Now, it is not at all certain that Mr. Morris had in view an
election by the citizens of the United States "in the aggregate,"
voting as <i>one people</i>.  The language of his proposition is entirely
consistent with the idea of as election by the citizens of each
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id="page160"></a>[pg 160]</span>
State, voting separately and independently, though it is ambiguous,
and may admit of the other construction.  But this is immaterial.
The proposition was submitted to a vote, and received
the approval of only <i>one State</i>&mdash;Pennsylvania, of which Mr.
Morris and Mr. Wilson were both representatives. <i>Nine</i> States
voted against it.<a id="footnotetag80" name="footnotetag80"></a><a href="#footnote80"><sup>80</sup></a></p>

<p>Six days afterward (July 23d), in a discussion of the proposed
ratification of the Constitution by Conventions of the
people of each State, Mr. Gouverneur Morris&mdash;as we learn from
Mr. Madison&mdash;"moved that the reference of the plan [i.e., of
the proposed Constitution] be made to one General Convention,
chosen and authorized by the people, to consider, amend, and
establish the same."<a id="footnotetag81" name="footnotetag81"></a><a href="#footnote81"><sup>81</sup></a></p>

<p>Here the issue seems to have been more distinctly made between
the two ideas of people of the States and one people in
the aggregate. The fate of the latter is briefly recorded in the
two words, "not seconded." Mr. Morris was a man of distinguished
ability, great personal influence, and undoubted patriotism,
but, out of all that assemblage&mdash;comprising, as it did, such
admitted friends of centralism as Hamilton, King, Wilson, Randolph,
Pinckney, and others&mdash;there was not one to sustain him
in the proposition to incorporate into the Constitution that
theory which now predominates, the theory on which was
waged the late bloody war, which was called a "war for the
Union." It failed for want of a second, and does not even appear
in the official journal of the Convention. The very fact
that such a suggestion was made would be unknown to us but
for the record kept by Mr. Madison.</p>

<p>The extracts which have been given, in treating of special
branches of the subject, from the writings and speeches of the
framers of the Constitution and other statesmen of that period,
afford ample proof of their entire and almost unanimous accord
with the principles which have been established on the authority
of the Constitution itself, the acts of ratification by the several
States, and other attestations of the highest authority and
validity. I am well aware that isolated expressions may be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161"></a>[pg 161]</span>
found in the reports of debates on the General and State Conventions
and other public bodies, indicating the existence of
individual opinions seemingly inconsistent with these principles;
that loose and confused ideas were sometimes expressed with
regard to sovereignty, the relations between governments and
people, and kindred subjects; and that, while the plan of the
Constitution was under discussion, and before it was definitely
reduced to its present shape, there were earnest advocates in the
Convention of a more consolidated system, with a stronger central
government. But these expressions of individual opinion
only prove the existence of a small minority of dissentients from
the principles generally entertained, and which finally prevailed
in the formation of the Constitution. None of these ever
avowed such extravagances of doctrine as are promulgated in
this generation. No statesman of that day would have ventured
to risk his reputation by construing an obligation to support
the Constitution as an obligation to adhere to the Federal
Government&mdash;a construction which would have insured the
sweeping away of any plan of union embodying it, by a tempest
of popular indignation from every quarter of the country.
None of them suggested such an idea as that of the amalgamation
of the people of the States into one consolidated mass&mdash;unless
it was suggested by Mr. Gouverneur Morris in the proposition
above referred to, in which he stood alone among the
delegates of twelve sovereign States assembled in convention.</p>

<p>As to the features of centralism, or nationalism, which they
did advocate, all the ability of this little minority of really gifted
men failed to secure the incorporation of any one of them into
the Constitution, or to obtain their recognition by any of the
ratifying States. On the contrary, the very men who had been
the leading advocates of such theories, on failing to secure their
adoption, loyally accepted the result, and became the ablest and
most efficient supporters of the principles which had prevailed.
Thus, Mr. Hamilton, who had favored the plan of a President
and Senate, both elected to hold office for life (or during
good behavior), with a veto power in Congress on the action of
the State Legislatures, became, through the "Federalist," in conjunction
with his associates, Mr. Madison and Mr. Jay, the most
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162" id="page162"></a>[pg 162]</span>
distinguished expounder and advocate of the Constitution, as
then proposed and afterward ratified, with all its Federal and
State-rights features. In the ninth number of that remarkable
series of political essays, he quotes, adopts, and applies to the
then proposed Constitution, Montesquieu's description of a
"<span class="sc">CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC</span>," a term which he (Hamilton) repeatedly
employs.</p>

<p>In the eighty-first number of the same series, replying to
apprehensions expressed by some that a State might be brought
before the Federal courts to answer as defendant in suits instituted
against her, he repels the idea in these plain and conclusive
terms. The italics are my own:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It is inherent in the nature of <i>sovereignty</i> not to be amenable
to the suit of any individual without its consent. This is the
general sense and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption,
as one of the <i>attributes of sovereignty</i>, is now enjoyed by
the government of <i>every State in the Union</i>. Unless, therefore,
there is <i>a surrender of this immunity</i> in the plan of the Convention,
<i>it will remain with the States</i>, and the danger intimated
must be merely ideal.... The contracts between <i>a nation</i> and
individuals are only binding on the conscience of <i>the sovereign</i>,
and have no pretensions to a compulsive force. They confer no
right of action, independent of <i>the sovereign will</i>. To what purpose
would it be to authorize suits against States for the debts
they owe? How could recoveries be enforced? It is evident that
it could not be done without <i>waging war</i> against the contracting
State; and to ascribe to the Federal courts, by mere implication,
and in destruction of a pre&euml;xisting right of the State governments,
a power which would involve such a consequence, would be altogether
forced and unwarranted."<a id="footnotetag82" name="footnotetag82"></a><a href="#footnote82"><sup>82</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>This extract is very significant, clearly showing that Mr.
Hamilton assumed as undisputed propositions, in the first place,
that the State was <i>the</i> "<span class="sc">SOVEREIGN</span>"; secondly, that this sovereignty
could not be alienated, unless by express surrender;
thirdly, that no such surrender had been made; and, fourthly,
that the idea of applying coercion to a State, even to enforce
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page163" id="page163"></a>[pg 163]</span>
the fulfillment of a duty, would be equivalent to waging war
against a State&mdash;it was "altogether forced and unwarrantable."</p>

<p>In a subsequent number, Mr. Hamilton, replying to the
objection that the Constitution contains no bill or declaration of
rights, argues that it was entirely unnecessary, because in reality
the people&mdash;that is, of course, the people, respectively, of the
several States, who were the only people known to the Constitution
or to the country&mdash;had surrendered nothing of their inherent
sovereignty, but retained it unimpaired. He says: "Here,
in strictness, the people <i>surrender nothing</i>; and, as they <i>retain
everything</i>, they have no need of particular reservations." And
again: "I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense
and to the extent they are contended for, are not only unnecessary
in the proposed Constitution, but would be absolutely dangerous.
They would contain various exceptions to <i>powers not
granted</i>, and on this very account would afford a colorable pretext
to claim more than were granted. For why declare that
things shall not be done, which there is no power to do?"<a id="footnotetag83" name="footnotetag83"></a><a href="#footnote83"><sup>83</sup></a>
Could language be more clear or more complete in vindication
of the principles laid down in this work? Mr. Hamilton declares,
in effect, that the grants to the Federal Government
in the Constitution are not surrenders, but delegations of power
by the people of the States; that sovereignty remains intact
where it was before; and that the delegations of power were
strictly limited to those expressly granted&mdash;in this, merely anticipating
the tenth amendment, afterward adopted.</p>

<p>Finally, in the concluding article of the "Federalist," he bears
emphatic testimony to the same principles, in the remark that
"every Constitution for the United States must inevitably consist
of a great variety of particulars, in which <i>thirteen independent
States</i> are to be accommodated in their interests or opinions
of interest.... Hence the necessity of molding and
arranging all the particulars, which are to compose the whole,
in such a manner as to satisfy <i>all the parties</i> to the compact."<a id="footnotetag84" name="footnotetag84"></a><a href="#footnote84"><sup>84</sup></a>
There is no intimation here, or anywhere else, of the existence
of any such idea as that of the aggregated people of one great
consolidated state. It is an incidental enunciation of the same
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164" id="page164"></a>[pg 164]</span>
truth soon afterward asserted by Madison in the Virginia Convention&mdash;that
the people who ordained and established the Constitution
were "not the people as composing one great body,
but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties".</p>

<p>Mr. Madison, in the Philadelphia Convention, had at first
held views of the sort of government which it was desirable to
organize, similar to those of Mr. Hamilton, though more moderate
in extent. He, too, however, cordially conformed to the
modifications in them made by his colleagues, and was no less
zealous and eminent in defending and expounding the Constitution
as finally adopted.  His interpretation of its fundamental
principles is so fully shown in the extracts which have already
been given from his contributions to the "Federalist" and
speeches in the Virginia Convention, that it would be superfluous
to make any additional citation from them.</p>

<p>The evidence of Hamilton and Madison&mdash;two of the most
eminent of the authors of the Constitution, and the two preeminent
contemporary expounders of its meaning&mdash;is the most
valuable that could be offered for its interpretation. That of
all the other statesmen of the period only tends to confirm the
same conclusions. The illustrious <span class="sc">Washington</span>, who presided
over the Philadelphia Convention, in his correspondence, repeatedly
refers to the proposed Union as a "Confederacy" of
States, or a "confederated Government," and to the several
States as "acceding," or signifying their "accession," to it, in
ratifying the Constitution. He refers to the Constitution itself
as "a compact or treaty," and classifies it among compacts or
treaties between "men, bodies of men, or countries." Writing
to Count Rochambeau, on January 8, 1788, he says that the
proposed Constitution "is to be submitted to conventions chosen
by <i>the people in the several States</i>, and by them approved or
rejected"&mdash;showing what <i>he</i> understood by "the people of the
United States," who were to ordain and establish it. These
same people&mdash;that is, "the people of the several States"&mdash;he
says, in a letter to Lafayette, April 28, 1788, "retain everything
they do not, by express terms, give up." In a letter written
to Benjamin Lincoln, October 26, 1788, he refers to the
expectation that North Carolina will accede to the Union, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165" id="page165"></a>[pg 165]</span>
adds, "Whoever shall be found to enjoy the confidence of <i>the
States</i> so far as to be elected Vice-President," etc.&mdash;showing
that in the "confederated Government," as he termed it, the
States were still to act independently, even in the selection of
officers of the General Government. He wrote to General
Knox, June 17, 1788, "I can not but hope that the States which
may be disposed to make a secession will think often and seriously
on the consequences." June 28, 1788, he wrote to General
Pinckney that New Hampshire "had acceded to the new
Confederacy," and, in reference to North Carolina, "I should be
astonished if that State should withdraw from the Union."</p>

<p>I shall add but two other citations. They are from speeches
of John Marshall, afterward the most distinguished Chief Justice
of the United States&mdash;who has certainly never been regarded
as holding high views of State rights&mdash;in the Virginia Convention
of 1788. In the first case, he was speaking of the power
of the States over the militia, and is thus reported:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The State governments did not derive their powers from the
General Government; but each government derived its powers
from the people, and each was to act according to the powers given
it. Would any gentleman deny this?... Could any man say
that this power was not retained by the States, as they had not
given it away? For (says he) does not a power remain till it is
given away? The State Legislatures had power to command and
govern their militia before, and have it still, undeniably, unless
there be something in this Constitution that takes it away....</p>

<p>"He concluded by observing that the power of governing the
militia was not vested in the States by implication, because, being
possessed of it antecedently to the adoption of the Government,
and not being divested of it by any grant or restriction in the Constitution,
they must necessarily be as fully possessed of it as ever
they had been, and it could not be said that the States derived
any powers from that system, but retained them, though not acknowledged
in any part of it."<a id="footnotetag85" name="footnotetag85"></a><a href="#footnote85"><sup>85</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the other case, the special subject was the power of the
Federal judiciary. Mr. Marshall said, with regard to this: "I
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166"></a>[pg 166]</span>
hope that no gentleman will think that a State can be called at
the bar of the Federal court. Is there no such case at present?
Are there not many cases, in which the Legislature of Virginia
is a party, and yet the State is not sued? Is it rational to
suppose that the <span class="sc">sovereign power</span> shall be dragged before a
court?"<a id="footnotetag86" name="footnotetag86"></a><a href="#footnote86"><sup>86</sup></a></p>

<p>Authorities to the same effect might be multiplied indefinitely
by quotation from nearly all the most eminent statesmen
and patriots of that brilliant period. My limits, however, permit
me only to refer those in quest of more exhaustive information
to the original records, or to the "Republic of Republics," in
which will be found a most valuable collection and condensation
of the teaching of the fathers on the subject. There was no dissent,
at that period, from the interpretation of the Constitution
which I have set forth, as given by its authors, except in the
objections made by its adversaries. Those objections were refuted
and silenced, until revived, long afterward, and presented
as the true interpretation, by the school of which Judge Story
was the most effective founder.</p>

<p>At an earlier period&mdash;but when he had already served for
several years in Congress, and had attained the full maturity of
his powers&mdash;Mr. Webster held the views which were presented
in a memorial to Congress of citizens of Boston, December 15,
1819, relative to the admission of Missouri, drawn up and
signed by a committee of which he was chairman, and which
also included among its members Mr. Josiah Quincy. He
speaks of the States as enjoying "<i>the exclusive possession of
sovereignty</i>" over their own territory, calls the United States
"the American Confederacy," and says, "The only <i>parties to
the Constitution</i>, contemplated by it originally, were the <i>thirteen
confederated States</i>." And again: "As between the original
States, the representation rests on <i>compact and plighted
faith</i>; and your memorialists have no wish that that compact
should be disturbed, or that plighted faith in the slightest degree
violated."</p>

<p>It is satisfactory to know that in the closing year of his life,
when looking retrospectively, with judgment undisturbed by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167" id="page167"></a>[pg 167]</span>
any extraneous influence, he uttered views of the Government
which must stand the test of severest scrutiny and defy the
storms of agitation, for they are founded on the rock of truth.
In letters written and addresses delivered during the Administration
of Mr. Fillmore, he repeatedly applies to the Constitution
the term "compact," which, in 1833, he had so vehemently
repudiated. In his speech at Capon Springs, Virginia, in 1851,
he says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally
and systematically, and persist in so doing year after
year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer
bound by the rest of it?  And if the North were, deliberately,
habitually, and of fixed purpose, to disregard one part of it,
would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?...</p>

<p>"How absurd it is to suppose that, when different parties enter
into a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard any
one provision, and expect, nevertheless, the other to observe the
rest!...</p>

<p>"I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that, if the Northern
States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect
that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of
fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would
no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain can not
be broken on one side, and still bind the other side."<a id="footnotetag87" name="footnotetag87"></a><a href="#footnote87"><sup>87</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>The principles which have been set forth in the foregoing
chapters, although they had come to be considered as peculiarly
Southern, were not sectional in their origin. In the beginning
and earlier years of our history they were cherished as faithfully
and guarded as jealously in Massachusetts and New Hampshire
as in Virginia or South Carolina. It was in these principles
that I was nurtured. I have frankly proclaimed them during
my whole life, always contending in the Senate of the United
States against what I believed to be the mistaken construction
of the Constitution taught by Mr. Webster and his adherents.
While I honored the genius of that great man, and held friendly
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page168" id="page168"></a>[pg 168]</span>
personal relations with him, I considered his doctrines on these
points&mdash;or rather the doctrines advocated by him during the
most conspicuous and influential portions of his public career&mdash;to
be mischievous, and the more dangerous to the welfare of the
country and the liberties of mankind on account of the signal
ability and magnificent eloquence with which they were argued.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote80" name="footnote80"></a><b>Footnote 80:</b><a href="#footnotetag80"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. i, p. 239; "Madison Papers," pp. 1119-1124.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote81" name="footnote81"></a><b>Footnote 81:</b><a href="#footnotetag81"> (return) </a><p>"Madison Papers," p. 1184.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote82" name="footnote82"></a><b>Footnote 82:</b><a href="#footnotetag82"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. lxxxi.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote83" name="footnote83"></a><b>Footnote 83:</b><a href="#footnotetag83"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. lxxxiv.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote84" name="footnote84"></a><b>Footnote 84:</b><a href="#footnotetag84"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., No. lxxxv.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote85" name="footnote85"></a><b>Footnote 85:</b><a href="#footnotetag85"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. iii, pp. 389-391.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote86" name="footnote86"></a><b>Footnote 86:</b><a href="#footnotetag86"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. iii, p. 503.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote87" name="footnote87"></a><b>Footnote 87:</b><a href="#footnotetag87"> (return) </a><p>Curtis's "Life of Webster," chap. xxxvii, vol. ii, pp. 518, 519.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-xi" id="chap-ii-xi"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Right of Secession.&mdash;The Law of Unlimited Partnerships.&mdash;The "Perpetual
Union" of the Articles of Confederation and the "More Perfect Union" of
the Constitution.&mdash;The Important Powers conferred upon the Federal Government
and the Fundamental Principles of the Compact the same in both Systems.&mdash;The
Right to resume Grants, when failing to fulfill their Purposes, expressly
and distinctly asserted in the Adoption of the Constitution.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The Right of Secession&mdash;that subject which, beyond all
others, ignorance, prejudice, and political rancor have combined
to cloud with misstatements and misapprehensions&mdash;is a question
easily to be determined in the light of what has already
been established with regard to the history and principles of the
Constitution. It is not something standing apart by itself&mdash;a
factious creation, outside of and antagonistic to the Constitution&mdash;as
might be imagined by one deriving his ideas from the political
literature most current of late years. So far from being
against the Constitution or incompatible with it, we contend
that, if the right to secede is not prohibited to the States, and no
power to prevent it expressly delegated to the United States,
it remains as reserved to the States or the people, from whom
all the powers of the General Government were derived.</p>

<p>The compact between the States which formed the Union
was in the nature of a partnership between individuals without
limitation of time, and the recognized law of such partnerships
is thus stated by an eminent lawyer of Massachusetts in a work
intended for popular use:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"If the articles between the partners do not contain an agreement
that the partnership shall continue for a specified time, it
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169" id="page169"></a>[pg 169]</span>
may be dissolved at the pleasure of either partner. But no partner
can exercise this power wantonly and injuriously to the other partners,
without making himself responsible for the damage he thus
causes. If there be a provision that the partnership shall continue
a certain time, this is binding."<a id="footnotetag88" name="footnotetag88"></a><a href="#footnote88"><sup>88</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>We have seen that a number of "sovereign, free, and independent"
States, during the war of the Revolution, entered into
a partnership with one another, which was not only unlimited
in duration, but expressly declared to be a "perpetual union."
Yet, when that Union failed to accomplish the purposes for
which it was formed, the parties withdrew, separately and independently,
one after another, without any question made of
their right to do so, and formed a new association. One of the
declared objects of this new partnership was to form "a more
perfect union."  This certainly did not mean more perfect in
respect of duration; for the former union had been declared
perpetual, and perpetuity admits of no addition. It did not
mean that it was to be more indissoluble; for the delegates of
the States, in ratifying the former compact of union, had expressed
themselves in terms that could scarcely be made more
stringent. They then said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"And we do further <i>solemnly plight and engage the faith of
our respective constituents</i>, that they shall abide by the determinations
of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions
which, by the said confederation, are submitted to them; and
that the articles thereof shall be <i>inviolably observed</i> by the States
we respectively represent; and that <i>the Union shall be perpetual</i>."<a id="footnotetag89" name="footnotetag89"></a><a href="#footnote89"><sup>89</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>The formation of a "more perfect union" was accomplished
by the organization of a government more complete in its various
branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, and by the
delegation to this Government of certain additional powers or
functions which had previously been exercised by the Governments
of the respective States&mdash;especially in providing the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id="page170"></a>[pg 170]</span>
means of operating directly upon individuals for the enforcement
of its legitimately delegated authority. There was no
abandonment nor modification of the essential principle of a
<i>compact</i> between sovereigns, which applied to the one case as
fully as to the other.  There was not the slightest intimation
of so radical a revolution as the surrender of the sovereignty
of the contracting parties would have been. The additional
powers conferred upon the Federal Government by the Constitution
were merely transfers of some of those possessed by the
State governments&mdash;not subtractions from the reserved and
inalienable sovereignty of the political communities which conferred
them. It was merely the institution of a new agent
who, however enlarged his powers might be, would still remain
subordinate and responsible to the source from which they were
derived&mdash;that of the sovereign people of each State. It was an
amended Union, not a consolidation.</p>

<p>It is a remarkable fact that the very powers of the Federal
Government and prohibitions to the States, which are most relied
upon by the advocates of centralism as incompatible with
State sovereignty, were in force under the old Confederation
when the sovereignty of the States was expressly recognized.
The General Government had then, as now, the exclusive right
and power of determining on peace and war, making treaties
and alliances, maintaining an army and navy, granting letters
of marque and reprisal, regulating coinage, establishing and controlling
the postal service&mdash;indeed, nearly all the so-called "characteristic
powers of sovereignty" exercised by the Federal Government
under the existing Constitution, except the regulation
of commerce, and of levying and collecting its revenues directly,
instead of through the interposition of the State authorities. The
exercise of these first-named powers was prohibited to the
States under the old compact, "without the consent of the
United States in Congress assembled," but no one has claimed
that the Confederation had thereby acquired sovereignty.</p>

<p>Entirely in accord with these truths are the arguments of
Mr. Madison in the "Federalist," to show that the great principles
of the Constitution are substantially the same as those of
the Articles of Confederation. He says:</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171" id="page171"></a>[pg 171]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"I ask, What are these principles? Do they require that, in
the establishment of the Constitution, the States should be regarded
as distinct and independent sovereigns? They <i>are</i> so
regarded by the Constitution proposed.... Do these principles,
in fine, require that the powers of the General Government should
be limited, and that, beyond this limit, the States should be left
in possession of their sovereignty and independence?  We have
seen that, in the new Government as in the old, the general powers
are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated cases,
are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and independent jurisdiction."
</p></blockquote>

<p>"The truth is," he adds, "that the great principles of the
Constitution proposed by the Convention may be considered
<i>less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which
are found in the Articles of Confederation</i>."<a id="footnotetag90" name="footnotetag90"></a><a href="#footnote90"><sup>90</sup></a></p>

<p>In the papers immediately following, he establishes this position
in detail by an analysis of the principal powers delegated
to the Federal Government, showing that the spirit of the original
instructions to the Convention had been followed in revising
"the Federal Constitution" and rendering it "adequate to the
exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union."<a id="footnotetag91" name="footnotetag91"></a><a href="#footnote91"><sup>91</sup></a></p>

<p>The present Union owes its very existence to the dissolution,
by separate secession of its members, of the former Union, which,
as we have thus seen, as to its <i>organic principles</i>, rested upon
precisely the same foundation. The right to withdraw from
the association results, in either case, from the same principles&mdash;principles
which, I think, have been established on an impregnable
basis of history, reason, law, and precedent.</p>

<p>It is not contended that this right should be resorted to for
insufficient cause, or, as the writer already quoted on the law of
partnership says, "wantonly and injuriously to the other partners,"
without responsibility of the seceding party for any damage
thus done. No association can be dissolved without a likelihood
of the occurrence of incidental questions concerning
common property and mutual obligations&mdash;questions sometimes
of a complex and intricate sort. If a wrong be perpetrated, in
such case, it is a matter for determination by the means usually
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172" id="page172"></a>[pg 172]</span>
employed among independent and sovereign powers&mdash;negotiation,
arbitration, or, in the failure of these, by war, with which,
unfortunately, Christianity and civilization have not yet been
able entirely to dispense. But the suggestion of possible evils
does not at all affect the question of right. There is no great
principle in the affairs either of individuals or of nations that is
not liable to such difficulties in its practical application.</p>

<p>But, we are told, there is no mention made of secession in
the Constitution. Mr. Everett says: "The States are not named
in it; the word sovereignty does not occur in it; the right of
secession is as much ignored in it as the procession of the equinoxes."
We have seen how very untenable is the assertion
that the States are not named in it, and how much pertinency
or significance in the omission of the <i>word</i> "sovereignty."
The pertinent question that occurs is, Why was so
obvious an attribute of sovereignty not expressly renounced if
it was intended to surrender it? It certainly existed; it was not
surrendered; therefore it still exists. This would be a more
natural and rational conclusion than that it has ceased to exist
because it is not mentioned.</p>

<p>The simple truth is, that it would have been a very extraordinary
thing to incorporate into the Constitution any express
provision for the secession of the States and dissolution of the
Union. Its founders undoubtedly desired and hoped that it
would be perpetual; against the proposition for power to coerce
a State, the argument was that it would be a means, not of preserving,
but of destroying, the Union. It was not for them to
make arrangements for its termination&mdash;a calamity which there
was no occasion to provide for in advance. Sufficient for their
day was the evil thereof. It is not usual, either in partnerships
between men or in treaties between governments, to make provision
for a dissolution of the partnership or a termination of
the treaty, unless there be some special reason for a limitation of
time. Indeed, in treaties, the usual formula includes a declaration
of their <i>perpetuity</i>; but in either case the power of the
contracting parties, or of any of them, to dissolve the compact,
on terms not damaging to the rights of the other parties, is not
the less clearly understood. It was not necessary in the Constitution
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173" id="page173"></a>[pg 173]</span>
to affirm the right of secession, because it was an attribute
of sovereignty, and the States had reserved all which they had
not delegated.</p>

<p>The right of the people of the several States to resume the
powers delegated by them to the common agency, was not left
without positive and ample assertion, even at a period when it
had never been denied. The ratification of the Constitution by
Virginia has already been quoted, in which the people of that
State, through their Convention, did expressly "declare and
make known that the powers granted under the Constitution,
being derived from the people of the United States, <i>may be resumed
by them</i>, whensoever the same shall be perverted to their
injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby
remains with them and at their will."<a id="footnotetag92" name="footnotetag92"></a><a href="#footnote92"><sup>92</sup></a></p>

<p>New York and Rhode Island were no less explicit, both declaring
that "the powers of government <i>may be reassumed by
the people</i> whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness."<a id="footnotetag93" name="footnotetag93"></a><a href="#footnote93"><sup>93</sup></a></p>

<p>These expressions are not mere <i>obiter dicta</i>, thrown out incidentally,
and entitled only to be regarded as an expression of
opinion by their authors. Even if only such, they would carry
great weight as the deliberately expressed judgment of enlightened
contemporaries, but they are more: they are parts of the
very acts or ordinances by which these States ratified the Constitution
and acceded to the Union, and can not be detached
from them. If they are invalid, the ratification itself was invalid,
for they are inseparable. By inserting these declarations
in their ordinances, Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island, formally,
officially, and permanently, declared their interpretation
of the Constitution as recognizing the right of secession by the
resumption of their grants. By accepting the ratifications with
this declaration incorporated, the other States as formally accepted
the principle which it asserted.</p>

<p>I am well aware that it has been attempted to construe these
declarations concerning the right of <i>the people</i> to reassume their
delegations of power&mdash;especially in the terms employed by Virginia,
"people of the United States"&mdash;as having reference to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174" id="page174"></a>[pg 174]</span>
the idea of <i>one people</i>, in mass, or "in the aggregate." But it
can scarcely be possible that any candid and intelligent reader,
who has carefully considered the evidence already brought to
bear on the subject, can need further argument to disabuse his
mind of that political fiction.  The "people of the United
States," from whom the powers of the Federal Government
were "derived," <i>could have been</i> no other than the people who
ordained and ratified the Constitution; and this, it has been
shown beyond the power of denial, was done by the people of
<i>each State</i>, severally and independently.  No other <i>people</i> were
known to the authors of the declarations above quoted.  Mr.
Madison was a leading member of the Virginia Convention,
which made that declaration, as well as of the general Convention
that drew up the Constitution.  We have seen what <i>his</i>
idea of "the people of the United States" was&mdash;"not the people
as composing one great body, but the people as composing
thirteen sovereignties."<a id="footnotetag94" name="footnotetag94"></a><a href="#footnote94"><sup>94</sup></a>  Mr. Lee, of Westmoreland ("Light-Horse
Harry"), in the same Convention, answering Mr. Henry's
objection to the expression, "We, the people," said: "It [the
Constitution] is now submitted to <i>the people of Virginia</i>.  If
we do not adopt it, it will be always null and void as to us.
Suppose it was found proper for our adoption, and becoming
the government of <i>the people of Virginia</i>, by what style should
it be done?  Ought we not to make use of the name of the people?
No other style would be proper."<a id="footnotetag95" name="footnotetag95"></a><a href="#footnote95"><sup>95</sup></a>  It would certainly
be superfluous, after all that has been presented heretofore, to
add any further evidence of the meaning that was attached to
these expressions by their authors.  "The people of the United
States" were in their minds the people of Virginia, the people
of Massachusetts, and the people of every other State that
should agree to unite.  They <i>could</i> have meant only that the
people of their respective States who had delegated certain
powers to the Federal Government, in ratifying the Constitution
and <i>acceding</i> to the Union, reserved to themselves the
right, in event of the failure of their purposes, to "resume"
(or "reassume") those powers by <i>seceding</i> from the same
Union.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175"></a>[pg 175]</span>

<p>Finally, the absurdity of the construction attempted to be
put upon these expressions will be evident from a very brief
analysis. If the assertion of the right of reassumption of their
powers was meant for the protection of <i>the whole people</i>&mdash;the
people in mass&mdash;the people "in the aggregate"&mdash;of a consolidated
republic&mdash;against whom or what was it to protect them?
By whom were the powers granted to be perverted to the injury
or oppression of the whole people? By themselves or by some
of the States, all of whom, according to this hypothesis, had
been consolidated into one? As no danger could have been
apprehended from either of these, it must have been against the
<i>Government</i> of the United States that the provision was made;
that is to say, the whole people of a republic make this declaration
against a Government established by themselves and entirely
subject to their own control, under a Constitution which contains
provision for its own amendment by this very same "whole
people," whenever they may think proper! Is it not a libel
upon the statesmen of that generation to attribute to their
grave and solemn declarations a meaning so vapid and absurd?</p>

<p>To those who argue that the grants of the Constitution are
fatal to the reservation of sovereignty by the States, the Constitution
furnishes a conclusive answer in the amendment which
was coeval with the adoption of the instrument, and which declares
that all powers not delegated to the Government of the
Union were reserved to the States or to the people. As sovereignty
was not delegated by the States, it was necessarily reserved.
It would be superfluous to answer arguments against
implied powers of the States; none are claimed by implication,
because all not delegated by the States remained with them,
and it was only in an abundance of caution that they expressed
the right to resume such parts of their unlimited power as was
delegated for the purposes enumerated. As there be those who
see danger to the perpetuity of the Union in the possession of
such power by the States, and insist that our fathers did not
intend to bind the States together by a compact no better than
"a rope of sand," it may be well to examine their position.
From what have dangers to the Union arisen? Have they
sprang from too great restriction on the exercise of the granted
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176"></a>[pg 176]</span>
powers, or from the assumption by the General Government
of power claimed by implication? The whole record of our
Union answers, from the latter only.</p>

<p>Was this tendency to usurpation caused by the presumption
of paramount authority in the General Government, or by the
assertion of the right of a State to resume the powers it had delegated?
Reasonably and honestly it can not be assigned to the
latter. Let it be supposed that the "whole people" had recognized
the right of a State of the Union, peaceably and independently,
to resume the powers which, peaceably and independently, she
had delegated to the Federal Government, would not this have
been potent to restrain the General Government from exercising
its functions to the injury and oppression of such State? To
deny that effect would be to suppose that a dominant majority
would be willing to drive a State from the Union. Would the
admission of the right of a State to resume the grants it had
made, have led to the exercise of that right for light and trivial
causes? Surely the evidence furnished by the nations, both
ancient and modern, refutes the supposition. In the language
of the Declaration of Independence, "All experience hath
shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to
which they are accustomed." Would not real grievances be
rendered more tolerable by the consciousness of power to remove
them; and would not even imaginary wrongs be embittered
by the manifestation of a purpose to make them perpetual?
To ask these questions is to answer them.</p>

<p>The wise and brave men who had, at much peril and great
sacrifice, secured the independence of the States, were as little
disposed to surrender the sovereignty of the States as they were
anxious to organize a General Government with adequate powers
to remedy the defects of the Confederation. The Union
they formed was not to destroy the States, but to "secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote88" name="footnote88"></a><b>Footnote 88:</b><a href="#footnotetag88"> (return) </a><p>Parsons, "Rights of a Citizen," chap. xx, section 3.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote89" name="footnote89"></a><b>Footnote 89:</b><a href="#footnotetag89"> (return) </a><p>
Ratification appended to Articles of Confederation. (See Elliott's "Debates,"
vol. i, p. 113.)</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote90" name="footnote90"></a><b>Footnote 90:</b><a href="#footnotetag90"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. xl.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote91" name="footnote91"></a><b>Footnote 91:</b><a href="#footnotetag91"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., Nos. xli-xliv.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote92" name="footnote92"></a><b>Footnote 92:</b><a href="#footnotetag92"> (return) </a><p>See Elliott's "Debates," vol. i, p. 360.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote93" name="footnote93"></a><b>Footnote 93:</b><a href="#footnotetag93"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., pp. 361, 369.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote94" name="footnote94"></a><b>Footnote 94:</b><a href="#footnotetag94"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. iii, p. 114.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote95" name="footnote95"></a><b>Footnote 95:</b><a href="#footnotetag95"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 71.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>[pg 177]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-xii" id="chap-ii-xii"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Coercion the Alternative to Secession.&mdash;Repudiation of it by the Constitution and
the Fathers of the Constitutional Era.&mdash;Difference between Mr. Webster and Mr.
Hamilton.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The alternative to secession is coercion.  That is to say, if
no such right as that of secession exists&mdash;if it is forbidden or precluded
by the Constitution&mdash;then it is a wrong; and, by a well
settled principle of public law, for every wrong there must be
a remedy, which in this case must be the application of force
to the State attempting to withdraw from the Union.</p>

<p>Early in the session of the Convention which formed the
Constitution, it was proposed to confer upon Congress the power
"to call forth the force of the Union against any member of
the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof."
When this proposition came to be considered, Mr. Madison observed
that "a union of the States containing such an ingredient
seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force
against a State would look more like a declaration of war than
an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered
by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts
by which it might be bound. He hoped that such a system
would be framed as might render this recourse unnecessary,
and moved that the clause be postponed." This motion was
adopted <i>nem. con.</i>, and the proposition was never again revived.<a id="footnotetag96" name="footnotetag96"></a><a href="#footnote96"><sup>96</sup></a>
Again, on a subsequent occasion, speaking of an appeal
to force, Mr. Madison said: "Was such a remedy eligible?
Was it practicable?... Any government for the United
States, formed on the supposed practicability of using force
against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would
prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress."<a id="footnotetag97" name="footnotetag97"></a><a href="#footnote97"><sup>97</sup></a>
Every proposition looking in any way to the same
or a similar object was promptly rejected by the convention.
George Mason, of Virginia, said of such a proposition: "Will
not the citizens of the invaded State assist one another, until
they rise as one man and shake off the Union altogether?"<a id="footnotetag98" name="footnotetag98"></a><a href="#footnote98"><sup>98</sup></a></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>[pg 178]</span>

<p>Oliver Ellsworth, in the ratifying Convention of Connecticut,
said: "This Constitution does not attempt to coerce <i>sovereign
bodies, States</i>, in their political capacity.  No coercion is
applicable to such bodies but that of an armed force.  If we
should attempt to execute the laws of the Union by sending an
armed force against a delinquent State, it would involve the
good and bad, the innocent and guilty, in the same calamity."<a id="footnotetag99" name="footnotetag99"></a><a href="#footnote99"><sup>99</sup></a></p>

<p>Mr. Hamilton, in the Convention of New York, said: "To
coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever
devised.... What picture does this idea present to our view?
A complying State at war with a non-complying State: Congress
marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another ...
Here is a nation at war with itself. Can any reasonable
man be well disposed toward a government which makes
war and carnage the only means of supporting itself&mdash;a government
that can exist only by the sword?... But can we believe
that one State will ever suffer itself to be used as an instrument
of coercion? The thing is a dream&mdash;it is impossible."<a id="footnotetag100" name="footnotetag100"></a><a href="#footnote100"><sup>100</sup></a></p>

<p>Unhappily, our generation has seen that, in the decay of the
principles and feelings which animated the hearts of all patriots
in that day, this thing, like many others then regarded as impossible
dreams, has been only too feasible, and that States have
permitted themselves to be used as instruments, not merely for
the coercion, but for the destruction of the freedom and independence
of their sister States.</p>

<p>Edmund Randolph, Governor of Virginia, although the
mover of the original proposition to authorize the employment
of the forces of the Union against a delinquent member, which
had been so signally defeated in the Federal Convention, afterward,
in the Virginia Convention, made an eloquent protest
against the idea of the employment of force against a State.
"What species of military coercion," said he, "could the General
Government adopt for the enforcement of obedience to
its demands? Either an army sent into the heart of a delinquent
State, or blocking up its ports.  Have we lived to this,
then, that, in order to suppress and exclude tyranny, it is necessary
to render the most affectionate friends the most bitter
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179"></a>[pg 179]</span>
enemies, set the father against the son, and make the brother
slay the brother? Is this the happy expedient that is to preserve
liberty? Will it not destroy it? If an army be once
introduced to force us, if once marched into Virginia, figure
to yourselves what the dreadful consequence will be: the most
lamentable civil war must ensue."<a id="footnotetag101" name="footnotetag101"></a><a href="#footnote101"><sup>101</sup></a></p>

<p>We have seen already how vehemently the idea of even
<i>judicial</i> coercion was repudiated by Hamilton, Marshall, and
others. The suggestion of <i>military</i> coercion was uniformly
treated, as in the above extracts, with still more abhorrence.
No principle was more fully and firmly settled on the highest
authority than that, under our system, there could be no coercion
of a State.</p>

<p>Mr. Webster, in his elaborate speech of February 16, 1833,
arguing throughout against the sovereignty of the States, and
in the course of his argument sadly confounding the ideas of the
Federal Constitution and the Federal Government, as he confounds
the sovereign people of the States with the State governments,
says: "The States <i>can not</i> omit to appoint Senators
and electors. It is not a matter resting in State discretion or
State pleasure.... No member of a State Legislature can
refuse to proceed, at the proper time, to elect Senators to Congress,
or to provide for the choice of electors of President and
Vice-President, any more than the members can refuse, when
the appointed day arrives, to meet the members of the other
House, to count the votes for those officers and ascertain who
are chosen."<a id="footnotetag102" name="footnotetag102"></a><a href="#footnote102"><sup>102</sup></a> This was before the invention in 1877 of an electoral
commission to relieve Congress of its constitutional duty to
count the vote.  Mr. Hamilton, on the contrary, fresh from the
work of forming the Constitution, and familiar with its principles
and purposes, said: "It is certainly true that the State
Legislatures, by forbearing the appointment of Senators, may
destroy the national Government."<a id="footnotetag103" name="footnotetag103"></a><a href="#footnote103"><sup>103</sup></a></p>

<p>It is unnecessary to discuss the particular question on which
these two great authorities are thus directly at issue. I do not
contend that the State Legislatures, of their own will, have a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180"></a>[pg 180]</span>
right to forego the performance of any Federal duty imposed
upon them by the Constitution. But there is a power beyond
and above that of either the Federal or State governments&mdash;the
power of the people of the State, who ordained and established
the Constitution, as far as it applies to themselves, reserving, as
I think has been demonstrated, the right to reassume the grants
of power therein made, when they deem it necessary for their
safety or welfare to do so.  At the behest of this power, it certainly
becomes not only the right, but the duty, of their State
Legislature to refrain from any action implying adherence to
the Union, or partnership, from which the sovereign has withdrawn.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote96" name="footnote96"></a><b>Footnote 96:</b><a href="#footnotetag96"> (return) </a><p>"Madison Papers," pp. 732, 761.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote97" name="footnote97"></a><b>Footnote 97:</b><a href="#footnotetag97"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 822.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote98" name="footnote98"></a><b>Footnote 98:</b><a href="#footnotetag98"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 914.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote99" name="footnote99"></a><b>Footnote 99:</b><a href="#footnotetag99"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. ii, p. 199.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote100" name="footnote100"></a><b>Footnote 100:</b><a href="#footnotetag100"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., pp. 232, 233.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote101" name="footnote101"></a><b>Footnote 101:</b><a href="#footnotetag101"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. iii, p. 117.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote102" name="footnote102"></a><b>Footnote 102:</b><a href="#footnotetag102"> (return) </a><p>"Congressional Debates," vol. ix, Part I, p. 566.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote103" name="footnote103"></a><b>Footnote 103:</b><a href="#footnotetag103"> (return) </a><p>"Federalist," No. lix.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-xiii" id="chap-ii-xiii"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Some Objections considered.&mdash;The New States.&mdash;Acquired Territory.&mdash;Allegiance,
false and true.&mdash;Difference between Nullification and Secession.&mdash;Secession a
Peaceable Remedy.&mdash;No Appeal to Arms.&mdash;Two Conditions noted.
</p></blockquote>


<p>It would be only adding to a superabundance of testimony
to quote further from the authors of the Constitution in support
of the principle, unquestioned in that generation, that the
people who granted&mdash;that is to say, of course, the people of the
several States&mdash;might resume their grants. It will require but
few words to dispose of some superficial objections that have
been made to the application of this doctrine in a special case.</p>

<p>It is sometimes said that, whatever weight may attach to
principles founded on the sovereignty and independence of the
original thirteen States, they can not apply to the States of more
recent origin&mdash;constituting now a majority of the members of
the Union&mdash;because these are but the offspring or creatures of
the Union, and must of course be subordinate and dependent.</p>

<p>This objection would scarcely occur to any instructed mind,
though it may possess a certain degree of specious plausibility
for the untaught. It is enough to answer that the entire
equality of the States, in every particular, is a vital condition of
their union.  Every new member that has been admitted into
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>[pg 181]</span>
the partnership of States came in, as is expressly declared in the
acts for their admission, on a footing of perfect equality in every
respect with the original members. This equality is as complete
as the equality, before the laws, of the son with the father,
immediately on the attainment by the former of his legal majority,
without regard to the prior condition of dependence and
tutelage. The relations of the original States to one another
and to the Union can not be affected by any subsequent accessions
of new members, as the Constitution fixes those relations
permanently, and furnishes the normal standard which is applicable
to all. The Boston memorial to Congress, referred to
in a foregoing chapter, as prepared by a committee with Mr.
Webster at its head, says that the new States "are universally
considered as admitted into the Union upon the same footing as
the original States, and as possessing, in respect to the Union,
the same rights of <i>sovereignty, freedom, and independence</i>, as
the other States."</p>

<p>But, with regard to States formed of territory acquired by
purchase from France, Spain, and Mexico, it is claimed that, as
they were bought by the United States, they belong to the same,
and have no right to withdraw at will from an association the
property which had been purchased by the other parties.</p>

<p>Happy would it have been if the equal rights of the people
of <i>all</i> the States to the enjoyment of territory acquired by the
common treasure could have been recognized at the proper
time! There would then have been no secession and no war.</p>

<p>As for the sordid claim of ownership of States, on account
of the money spent for the land which they contain&mdash;I can understand
the ground of a claim to some interest in the soil, so
long as it continues to be public property, but have yet to learn
in what way the United States ever became purchaser of the
<i>inhabitants</i> or of their political rights.</p>

<p>Any question in regard to property has always been admitted
to be matter for fair and equitable settlement, in case of the
withdrawal of a State.</p>

<p>The treaty by which the Louisiana territory was ceded to
the United States expressly provided that the inhabitants thereof
should be "admitted, as soon as possible, according to the principles
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182"></a>[pg 182]</span>
of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the
rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United
States."<a id="footnotetag104" name="footnotetag104"></a><a href="#footnote104"><sup>104</sup></a> In all other acquisitions of territory the same stipulation
is either expressed or implied. Indeed, the denial of the
right would be inconsistent with the character of American
political institutions.</p>

<p>Another objection made to the right of secession is based
upon obscure, indefinite, and inconsistent ideas with regard to
<i>allegiance</i>. It assumes various shapes, and is therefore somewhat
difficult to meet, but, as most frequently presented, may be
stated thus: that the citizen owes a double allegiance, or a divided
allegiance&mdash;partly to his State, partly to the United
States: that it is not possible for either of these powers to
release him from the allegiance due to the other: that the
State can no more release him from his obligations to the Union
than the United States can absolve him from his duties to his
State. This is the most moderate way in which the objection is
put. The extreme centralizers go further, and claim that allegiance
to the Union, or, as they generally express it, to <i>the Government</i>&mdash;meaning
thereby the Federal Government&mdash;is paramount,
and the obligation to the State only subsidiary&mdash;if, indeed,
it exists at all.</p>

<p>This latter view, if the more monstrous, is at least the more
consistent of the two, for it does not involve the difficulty of a
divided allegiance, nor the paradoxical position in which the
other places the citizen, in case of a conflict between his State
and the other members of the Union, of being necessarily a
rebel against the General Government or a traitor to the State
of which he is a citizen.</p>

<p>As to <i>true</i> allegiance, in the light of the principles which
have been established, there can be no doubt with regard to it.
The primary, paramount allegiance of the citizen is due to the
sovereign only.  That sovereign, under our system, is the people&mdash;the
people of the State to which he belongs&mdash;the people
who constituted the State government which he obeys, and
which protects him in the enjoyment of his personal rights&mdash;the
people who alone (as far as he is concerned) ordained and established
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>[pg 183]</span>
the Federal Constitution and Federal Government&mdash;the
people who have reserved to themselves sovereignty, which involves
the power to revoke all agencies created by them. The
obligation to support the State or Federal Constitution and
the obedience due to either State or Federal Government are
alike derived from and dependent on the allegiance due to
this sovereign. If the sovereign abolishes the State government
and ordains and establishes a new one, the obligation of
allegiance requires him to transfer his obedience accordingly.
If the sovereign withdraws from association with its confederates
in the Union, the allegiance of the citizen requires him to
follow the sovereign. Any other course is rebellion or treason&mdash;words
which, in the cant of the day, have been so grossly misapplied
and perverted as to be made worse than unmeaning.
His relation to the Union arose from the membership of the
State of which he was a citizen, and ceased whenever his State
withdrew from it. He can not owe obedience&mdash;much less allegiance&mdash;to
an association from which his sovereign has separated,
and thereby withdrawn him.</p>

<p>Every officer of both Federal and State governments is required
to take an oath to support the Constitution, a compact
the binding force of which is based upon the sovereignty of the
States&mdash;a sovereignty necessarily carrying with it the principles
just stated with regard to allegiance. Every such officer is,
therefore, virtually sworn to maintain and support the sovereignty
of all the States.</p>

<p>Military and naval officers take, in addition, an oath to obey
the lawful orders of their superiors. Such an oath has never
been understood to be eternal in its obligations. It is dissolved
by the death, dismissal, or resignation of the officer who takes
it; and such resignation is not a mere optional right, but becomes
an imperative duty when continuance in the service
comes to be in conflict with the ultimate allegiance due to the
sovereignty of the State to which he belongs.</p>

<p>A little consideration of these plain and irrefutable truths
would show how utterly unworthy and false are the vulgar
taunts which attribute "treason" to those who, in the late
secession of the Southern States, were loyal to the only sovereign
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184"></a>[pg 184]</span>
entitled to their allegiance, and which still more absurdly
prate of the violation of oaths to support "<i>the Government</i>,"
an oath which nobody ever could have been legally required to
take, and which must have been ignorantly confounded with
the prescribed oath to support the Constitution.</p>

<p>Nullification and secession are often erroneously treated as
if they were one and the same thing. It is true that both ideas
spring from the sovereign right of a State to interpose for the
protection of its own people, but they are altogether unlike as
to both their extent and the character of the means to be
employed. The first was a temporary expedient, intended to
restrain action until the question at issue could be submitted to
a convention of the States. It was a remedy which its supporters
sought to apply within the Union; a means to avoid
the last resort&mdash;separation. If the application for a convention
should fail, or if the State making it should suffer an adverse
decision, the advocates of that remedy have not revealed what
they proposed as the next step&mdash;supposing the infraction of the
compact to have been of that character which, according to Mr.
Webster, dissolved it.</p>

<p>Secession, on the other hand, was the assertion of the inalienable
right of a people to change their government, whenever
it ceased to fulfill the purposes for which it was ordained
and established. Under our form of government, and the cardinal
principles upon which it was founded, it should have been
a peaceful remedy. The withdrawal of a State from a league
has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The
government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal
affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are
altered. To term this action of a sovereign a "rebellion," is
a gross abuse of language. So is the flippant phrase which
speaks of it as an appeal to the "arbitrament of the sword."
In the late contest, in particular, there was no appeal by the
seceding States to the arbitrament of arms. There was on their
part no invitation nor provocation to war. They stood in an
attitude of self-defense, and were attacked for merely exercising
a right guaranteed by the original terms of the compact. They
neither tendered nor accepted any challenge to the wager of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>[pg 185]</span>
battle. The man who defends his house against attack can not
with any propriety be said to have submitted the question of
his right to it to the arbitrament of arms.</p>

<p>Two moral obligations or restrictions upon a seceding State
certainly exist: in the first place, not to break up the partnership
without good and sufficient cause; and, in the second, to
make an equitable settlement with former associates, and, as far
as may be, to avoid the infliction of loss or damage upon any of
them. Neither of these obligations was violated or neglected
by the Southern States in their secession.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote104" name="footnote104"></a><b>Footnote 104:</b><a href="#footnotetag104"> (return) </a><p>Ray's "Louisiana Digest," vol. i, p. 24.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-xiv" id="chap-ii-xiv"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Early Foreshadowings.&mdash;Opinions of Mr. Madison and Mr. Rufus King.&mdash;Safeguards
provided.&mdash;Their Failure.&mdash;State Interposition.&mdash;The Kentucky and Virginia
Resolutions.&mdash;Their Endorsement by the People in the Presidential Elections of
1800 and Ensuing Terms.&mdash;South Carolina and Mr. Calhoun.&mdash;The Compromise
of 1833.&mdash;Action of Massachusetts in 1843-'45.&mdash;Opinions of John Quincy
Adams.&mdash;Necessity for Secession.
</p></blockquote>


<p>From the earliest period, it was foreseen by the wisest of our
statesmen that a danger to the perpetuity of the Union would
arise from the conflicting interests of different sections, and
every effort was made to secure each of these classes of interests
against aggression by the other. As a proof of this, may be
cited the following extract from Mr. Madison's report of a speech
made by himself in the Philadelphia Convention on the 30th of
June, 1787:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"He admitted that every peculiar interest, whether in any
class of citizens or any description of States, ought to be secured
as far as possible. Wherever there is danger of attack, there
ought to be given a constitutional power of defense. But he
contended that the States were divided into different interests,
not by their difference of size, but by other circumstances; the
most material of which resulted from climate, but principally
from the effects of their having or not having slaves. These two
causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186"></a>[pg 186]</span>
United States. It did not lie between the large and small States;
it lay between the Northern and Southern; and, if any defensive
power were necessary, it ought to be mutually given to these two
interests."<a id="footnotetag105" name="footnotetag105"></a><a href="#footnote105"><sup>105</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Mr. Rufus King, a distinguished member of the Convention
from Massachusetts, a few days afterward, said, to the same
effect: "He was fully convinced that the question concerning a
difference of interests did not lie where it had hitherto been
discussed, between the great and small States, but between the
Southern and Eastern. For this reason he had been ready to
yield something, in the proportion of representatives, for the
security of the Southern.... He was not averse to giving
them a still greater security, but did not see how it could be
done."<a id="footnotetag106" name="footnotetag106"></a><a href="#footnote106"><sup>106</sup></a></p>

<p>The wise men who formed the Constitution were not seeking
to bind the States together by the material power of a majority;
nor were they so blind to the influences of passion and interest
as to believe that paper barriers would suffice to restrain a
majority actuated by either or both of these motives. They endeavored,
therefore, to prevent the conflicts inevitable from the
ascendancy of a sectional or party majority, by so distributing
the powers of government that each interest might hold a check
upon the other. It was believed that the compromises made
with regard to representation&mdash;securing to each State an equal
vote in the Senate, and in the House of Representatives giving
the States a weight in proportion to their respective population,
estimating the negroes as equivalent to three fifths of the same
number of free whites&mdash;would have the effect of giving at an
early period a majority in the House of Representatives to the
South, while the North would retain the ascendancy in the Senate.
Thus it was supposed that the two great sectional interests
would be enabled to restrain each other within the limits
of purposes and action beneficial to both.</p>

<p>The failure of these expectations need not affect our reverence
for the intentions of the fathers, or our respect for the means
which they devised to carry them into effect.  That they were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187"></a>[pg 187]</span>
mistaken, both as to the maintenance of the balance of sectional
power and as to the fidelity and integrity with which the Congress
was expected to conform to the letter and spirit of its
delegated authority, is perhaps to be ascribed less to lack of prophetic
foresight, than to that over-sanguine confidence which is
the weakness of honest minds, and which was naturally strengthened
by the patriotic and fraternal feelings resulting from the
great struggle through which they had then but recently passed.
They saw, in the sufficiency of the authority delegated to the
Federal Government and in the fullness of the sovereignty retained
by the States, a system the strict construction of which
was so eminently adapted to indefinite expansion of the confederacy
as to embrace every variety of production and consequent
diversity of pursuit. Carried out in the spirit in which it was
devised, there was in this system no element of disintegration, but
every facility for an enlargement of the circle of the family of
States (or nations), so that it scarcely seemed unreasonable to
look forward to a fulfillment of the aspiration of Mr. Hamilton,
that it might extend over North America, perhaps over the
whole continent.</p>

<p>Not at all incompatible with these views and purposes was
the recognition of the right of the States to reassume, if occasion
should require it, the powers which they had delegated.
On the contrary, the maintenance of this right was the surest
guarantee of the perpetuity of the Union, and the denial of it
sounded the first serious note of its dissolution. The conservative
efficiency of "<i>State interposition</i>," for maintenance of the
essential principles of the Union against aggression or decadence,
is one of the most conspicuous features in the debates of the
various State Conventions by which the Constitution was ratified.
Perhaps their ideas of the particular form in which this
interposition was to be made may have been somewhat indefinite;
and left to be reduced to shape by the circumstances when
they should arise, but the principle itself was assumed and asserted
as fundamental. But for a firm reliance upon it, as a
sure resort in case of need, it may safely be said that the Union
would never have been formed. It would be unjust to the wisdom
and sagacity of the framers of the Constitution to suppose
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>[pg 188]</span>
that they entirely relied on paper barriers for the protection of
the rights of minorities. Fresh from the defense of violated
charters and faithless aggression on inalienable rights, it might,
<i>a priori</i>, be assumed that they would require something more
potential than mere promises to protect them from human depravity
and human ambition. That they did so is to be found
in the debates both of the General and the State Conventions,
where State interposition was often declared to be the bulwark
against usurpation.</p>

<p>At an early period in the history of the Federal Government,
the States of Kentucky and Virginia found reason to reassert
this right of State interposition. In the first of the famous
resolutions drawn by Mr. Jefferson in 1798, and with
some modification adopted by the Legislature of Kentucky in
November of that year, it is declared that, "whensoever the
General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are
<i>unauthoritative, void, and of no force</i>; that to this compact
each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party; that this
Government, created by this compact, was not made the exclusive
or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to
itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the
Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all
other cases of compact among parties having no common
judge, <i>each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as
well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress</i>."</p>

<p>In the Virginia resolutions, drawn by Mr. Madison, adopted
on the 24th of December, 1798, and reaffirmed in 1799, the
General Assembly of that State declares that "it views the
powers of the Federal Government as resulting from the compact,
to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain
sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact,
as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants
enumerated in that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate,
palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted
by the said compact, the States, who are parties thereto, have
the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the
progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective
limits the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189"></a>[pg 189]</span>
them." Another of the same series of resolutions denounces
the indications of a design "to consolidate the States by degrees
into one sovereignty."</p>

<p>These, it is true, were only the resolves of two States, and
they were dissented from by several other State Legislatures&mdash;not
so much on the ground of opposition to the general principles
asserted as on that of their being unnecessary in their
application to the alien and sedition laws, which were the immediate
occasion of their utterance. Nevertheless, they were the
basis of the contest for the Presidency in 1800, which resulted
in their approval by the people in the triumphant election of
Mr. Jefferson. They became part of the accepted creed of the
Republican, Democratic, State-Rights, or Conservative party, as
it has been variously termed at different periods, and as such
they were ratified by the people in every Presidential election
that took place for sixty years, with two exceptions. The last
victory obtained under them, and when they were emphasized
by adding the construction of them contained in the report of
Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799, was at the
election of Mr. Buchanan&mdash;the last President chosen by vote of
a party that could with any propriety be styled "national," in
contradistinction to sectional.</p>

<p>At a critical and memorable period, that pure spirit, luminous
intellect, and devoted adherent of the Constitution, the
great statesman of South Carolina, invoked this remedy of State
interposition against the Tariff Act of 1828, which was deemed
injurious and oppressive to his State. No purpose was then
declared to coerce the State, as such, but measures were taken
to break the protective shield of her authority and enforce the
laws of Congress upon her citizens, by compelling them to pay
outside of her ports the duties on imports, which the State had
declared unconstitutional, and had forbidden to be collected in
her ports.</p>

<p>There remained at that day enough of the spirit in which
the Union had been founded&mdash;enough of respect for the sovereignty
of States and of regard for the limitations of the
Constitution&mdash;to prevent a conflict of arms. The compromise
of 1833 was adopted, which South Carolina agreed to accept,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>[pg 190]</span>
the principle for which she contended being virtually conceded.</p>

<p>Meantime there had been no lack, as we have already seen,
of assertions of the sovereign rights of the States from other
quarters. The declaration of these rights by the New England
States and their representatives, on the acquisition of Louisiana
in 1803, on the admission of the State of that name in
1811-'12, and on the question of the annexation of Texas in
1843-'45, have been referred to in another place. Among the
resolutions of the Massachusetts Legislature, in relation to the
proposed annexation of Texas, adopted in February, 1845, were
the following:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"2. <i>Resolved</i>, That there has hitherto been no precedent of
the admission of a foreign state or foreign territory into the
Union by legislation. And as the powers of legislation, granted
in the Constitution of the United States to Congress, do not
embrace a case of the admission of a foreign state or foreign territory,
by legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission
<i>would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts</i>.</p>

<p>"3. <i>Resolved</i>, That the power, <i>never having been granted by
the people of Massachusetts</i>, to admit into the Union States and
Territories not within the same when the Constitution was adopted,
<i>remains with the people, and can only be exercised in such way
and manner as the people shall hereafter designate and appoint</i>."<a id="footnotetag107" name="footnotetag107"></a><a href="#footnote107"><sup>107</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>To these stanch declarations of principles&mdash;with regard to
which (leaving out of consideration the particular occasion that
called them forth) my only doubt would be whether they do
not express too decided a doctrine of nullification&mdash;may be
added the avowal of one of the most distinguished sons of Massachusetts,
John Quincy Adams, in his discourse before the
New York Historical Society, in 1839:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Nations" (says Mr. Adams) "acknowledge no judge between
them upon earth; and their governments, from necessity, must,
in their intercourse with each other, decide when the failure of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>[pg 191]</span>
one party to a contract to perform its obligations absolves the
other from the reciprocal fulfillment of its own. But this last of
earthly powers is not necessary to the freedom or independence
of States connected together by the immediate action of the people
of whom they consist. To the people alone is there reserved
as well the dissolving as the constituent power, and that power
can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience, binding
them to the retributive justice of Heaven.</p>

<p>"With these qualifications, we may admit the same right as
vested in the <i>people of every State</i> in the Union, with reference to
the General Government, which was exercised by the people of
the united colonies with reference to the supreme head of the
British Empire, of which they formed a part; and under these
limitations have the people of each State in the Union a right to
secede from the confederated Union itself.</p>

<p>"Thus stands the <span class="sc">RIGHT</span>. But the indissoluble link of union
between the people of the several States of this confederated nation
is, after all, not in the <span class="sc">RIGHT</span>, but in the <span class="sc">HEART</span>. If the day
should ever come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections of
the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, when
the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision
of interests shall fester into hatred, the bonds of political association
will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the
magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and
<i>far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part
in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint</i>.
Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents
which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution,
to form again a <i>more perfect Union, by dissolving that which
could no longer bind</i>, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited
by the law of political gravitation to the center."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Perhaps it is unfortunate that, in earlier and better times,
when the prospect of serious difficulties first arose, a convention
of the States was not assembled to consider the relations of the
various States and the Government of the Union. As time
rolled on, the General Government, gathering with both hands
a mass of undelegated powers, reached that position which Mr.
Jefferson had pointed out as an intolerable evil&mdash;the claim of
a right to judge of the extent of its own authority. Of those
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192"></a>[pg 192]</span>
then participating in public affairs, it was apparently useless to
ask that the question should be submitted for decision to the
parties to the compact, under the same conditions as those which
controlled the formation and adoption of the Constitution;
otherwise, a convention would have been utterly fruitless, for
at that period, when aggression for sectional aggrandizement
had made such rapid advances, it can scarcely be doubted that
more than a fourth, if not a majority of States, would have
adhered to that policy which had been manifested for years in
the legislation of many States, as well as in that of the Federal
Government. What course would then have remained to the
Southern States?  Nothing, except either to submit to a continuation
of what they believed and felt to be violations of the
compact of union, breaches of faith, injurious and oppressive
usurpation, or else to assert the sovereign right to reassume the
grants they had made, since those grants had been perverted
from their original and proper purposes.</p>

<p>Surely the right to resume the powers delegated and to
judge of the propriety and sufficiency of the causes for doing
so are alike inseparable from the possession of sovereignty.
Over sovereigns there is no common judge, and between them
can be no umpire, except by their own agreement and consent.
The necessity or propriety of exercising the right to withdraw
from a confederacy or union must be determined by each member
for itself. Once determined in favor of withdrawal, all that
remains for consideration is the obligation to see that no wanton
damage is done to former associates, and to make such fair settlement
of common interests as the equity of the case may
require.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote105" name="footnote105"></a><b>Footnote 105:</b><a href="#footnotetag105"> (return) </a><p>"Madison Papers," p. 1006.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote106" name="footnote106"></a><b>Footnote 106:</b><a href="#footnotetag106"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., pp. 1057, 1058.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote107" name="footnote107"></a><b>Footnote 107:</b><a href="#footnotetag107"> (return) </a><p>"Congressional Globe," vol. xiv, p. 299.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193"></a>[pg 193]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-ii-xv" id="chap-ii-xv"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
A Bond of Union necessary after the Declaration of Independence.&mdash;Articles
of Confederation.&mdash;The
Constitution of the United States.&mdash;The Same Principle for obtaining
Grants of Power in both.&mdash;The Constitution an Instrument enumerating
the Powers delegated.&mdash;The Power of Amendment merely a Power to amend
the Delegated Grants.&mdash;A Smaller Power was required for Amendment than
for a Grant.&mdash;The Power of Amendment is confined to Grants of the
Constitution.&mdash;Limitations
on the Power of Amendment.
</p></blockquote>


<p>In July, 1776, the Congress of the thirteen united colonies
declared that "these united colonies are, and of right ought to
be, free and independent States." The denial of this asserted
right and the attempted coercion made it manifest that a bond
of union was necessary, for the common defense.</p>

<p>In November of the next year, viz., 1777, articles of confederation
and perpetual union were entered into by the thirteen
States under the style of "The United States of America."
The government instituted was to be administered by a congress
of delegates from the several States, and each State to have an
equal voice in legislation. The Government so formed was to
act through and by the States, and, having no power to enforce
its requisitions upon the States, embarrassment was early realized
in its efforts to provide for the exigencies of war. After the
treaty of peace and recognition of the independence of the States,
the difficulty of raising revenue and regulating commerce was
so great as to lead to repeated efforts to obtain from the States
additional grants of power. Under the Articles of Confederation
no amendment of them could be made except by the unanimous
consent of the States, and this it had not been found possible
to obtain for the powers requisite to the efficient discharge of
the functions intrusted to the Congress. Hence arose the proceedings
for a convention to amend the articles of confederation.
The result was the formation of a new plan of government,
entitled "The Constitution of the United States of
America."</p>

<p>This was submitted to the Congress, in order that, if approved
by them, it might be referred to the States for adoption
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194"></a>[pg 194]</span>
or rejection by the several conventions thereof, and, if adopted
by nine of the States, it was to be the compact of union between
the States so ratifying the same.</p>

<p>The new form of government differed in many essential
particulars from the old one. The delegates, intent on the
purpose to give greater efficiency to the government of the
Union, proposed greatly to enlarge its powers, so much so that
it was not deemed safe to confide them to a single body, and
they were consequently distributed between three independent
departments of government, which might be a check upon one
another. The Constitution did not, like the Articles of Confederation,
declare that the States had agreed to a perpetual union,
but distinctly indicated the hope of its perpetuity by the expression
in the preamble of the purpose to "secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The circumstances
under which the Union of the Constitution was formed justified
the hope of its perpetuity, but the brief existence of the
Confederation may have been a warning against the renewal of
the assertion that the compact should be perpetual.</p>

<p>A remedy for the embarrassment which had been realized,
under the Articles of Confederation, in obtaining amendments
to correct any defects in grants of power, so as to render them
effective for the purpose for which they were given, was provided
by its fifth article. It is here to be specially noted that
new grants of power, as asked for by the Convention, were under
the Articles of Confederation only to be obtained from the
unanimous assent of the States. Therefore it followed that two
of the States which did not ratify the Constitution were, so long
as they retained that attitude, free from its obligations. Thus
it is seen that the same principle in regard to obtaining grants
of additional power for the Federal Government formed the
rule for the Union as it had done for the Confederation; that
is, that the consent of each and every State was a prerequisite.
The apprehension which justly existed that several of the States
might reject the Constitution, and under the rule of unanimity
defeat it, led to the seventh article of the Constitution, which,
provided that the ratification by the conventions of nine States
should be sufficient for the establishment of the Constitution
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195" id="page195"></a>[pg 195]</span>
between the States ratifying it, which of course contemplated
leaving the others, more or less in number, separate and distinct
from the nine States forming a new government. Thus
was the Union to be a voluntary compact, and all the powers of
its government to be derived from the assent of each of its
members.</p>

<p>These powers as proposed by the Constitution were so extensive
as to create alarm and opposition by some of the most
influential men in many of the States.  It is known that the
objection of the patriot Samuel Adams was only overcome by
an assurance that such an amendment as the tenth would be
adopted.  Like opposition was by like assurance elsewhere overcome.
That article is in these words: "The powers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to
the people."</p>

<p>Amendment, however, of the delegated powers was made
more easy than it had been under the Confederation. Ratification
by three fourths of the States was sufficient under the
Constitution for the adoption of an amendment to it.  As this
power of amendment threatens to be the Aaron's rod which
will swallow up the rest, I propose to give it special examination.
What is the Constitution of the United States? The
whole body of the instrument, the history of its formation and
adoption, as well as the tenth amendment, added in an abundance
of caution, clearly show it to be an instrument enumerating
the powers delegated by the States to the Federal Government,
their common agent.  It is specifically declared that all
which was not so delegated was reserved.  On this mass of reserved
powers, those which the States declined to grant, the
Federal Government was expressly forbidden to intrude.  Of
what value would this prohibition have been, if three fourths
of the States could, without the assent of a particular State,
invade the domain which that State had reserved for its own
exclusive use and control?</p>

<p>It has heretofore, I hope, been satisfactorily demonstrated
that the States were sovereigns before they formed the Union,
and that they have never surrendered their sovereignty, but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>[pg 196]</span>
have only intrusted by their common agent certain functions of
sovereignty to be used for their common welfare.</p>

<p>Among the powers delegated was one to amend the Constitution,
which, it is submitted, was merely the power to amend
the delegated grants, and these were obtained by the separate
and independent action of each State acceding to the Union.
When we consider how carefully each clause was discussed in
the General Convention, and how closely each was scrutinized
in the conventions of the several States, the conclusion can not
be avoided that all was specified which it was intended to bestow,
and not a few of the wisest in that day held that too much
power had been conferred.</p>

<p>Aware of the imperfection of everything devised by man,
it was foreseen that, in the exercise of the functions intrusted
to the General Government, experience might reveal the necessity
of modification&mdash;i.e., amendment&mdash;and power was therefore
given to amend, in a certain manner, the delegated trusts so as
to make them efficient for the purposes designed, or to prevent
their misconstruction or abuse to the injury or oppression of any
of the people. In support of this view I refer to the historical
fact that the first ten amendments of the Constitution, nearly
coeval with it, all refer either to the powers delegated, or are
directed to the greater security of the rights which were guarded
by express limitations.</p>

<p>The distinction in the mind of the framers of the Constitution
between amendment and delegation of power seems to me
clearly drawn by the fact that the Constitution itself, which
was a proposition to the States to grant enumerated powers,
was only to have effect between the ratifying States; but the
fifth article provided that amendments to the Constitution
might be adopted by three fourths of the States, and thereby
be valid as part of the Constitution. It thus appears that a
smaller power was required for an amendment than for a grant,
and the natural if not necessary conclusion is, that it was because
an amendment must belong to, and grow out of, a grant
previously made. If a so-called amendment could have been
the means of obtaining a new power, is it to be supposed that
those watchful guardians of community independence, for which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197"></a>[pg 197]</span>
the war of the Revolution had been fought, would have been
reconciled to the adoption of the Constitution, by the declaration
that the powers not delegated are reserved to the States?
Unless the power of amendment be confined to the grants of
the Constitution, there can be no security to the reserved rights
of a minority less than a fourth of the States. I submit that
the word "amendment" necessarily implies an improvement
upon something which is possessed, and can have no proper
application to that which did not previously exist.</p>

<p>The apprehension that was felt of this power of amendment
by the framers of the Constitution is shown by the restrictions
placed upon the exercise of several of the delegated powers.
For example: power was given to admit new States, but no
new State should be erected within the jurisdiction of any other
State, nor be formed by the junction of two or more States, or
parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of those
States; and the power to regulate commerce was limited by
the prohibition of an amendment affecting, for a certain time,
the migration or importation of persons whom any of the existing
States should think proper to admit; and by the very important
provision for the protection of the smaller States and
the preservation of their equality in the Union, that the compact
in regard to the membership of the two Houses of Congress
should not be so amended that any "State, without its
consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
These limitations and prohibitions on the power of amendment
all refer to clauses of the Constitution, to things which existed
as part of the General Government; they were not needed, and
therefore not to be found in relation to the reserved powers of
the States, on which the General Government was forbidden to
intrude by the ninth article of the amendments.</p>

<p>In view of the small territory of the New England States,
comparatively to that of the Middle and Southern States, and
the probability of the creation of new States in the large Territory
of some of these latter, it might well have been anticipated
that in the course of time the New England States would become
less than one fourth of the members of the Union. Nothing
is less likely than that the watchful patriots of that region
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198"></a>[pg 198]</span>
would have consented to a form of government which should
give to a majority of three fourths of the States the power to
deprive them of their dearest rights and privileges. Yet to
this extremity the new-born theory of the power of amendment
would go. Against this insidious assault, this wooden horse
which it is threatened to introduce into the citadel of our liberties,
I have sought to warn the inheritors of our free institutions,
and earnestly do invoke the resistance of all true patriots.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199"></a>[pg 199]</span>




<h2><a name="part-iii" id="part-iii"></a>PART III.</h2>

<h2>SECESSION AND CONFEDERATION.</h2>

<h2><a name="chap-iii-i" id="chap-iii-i"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Opening of the New Year.&mdash;The People in Advance of their Representatives.&mdash;Conciliatory
Conduct of Southern Members of Congress.&mdash;Sensational Fictions.&mdash;Misstatements
of the Count of Paris.&mdash;Obligations of a Senator.&mdash;The Southern
Forts and Arsenals.&mdash;Pensacola Bay and Fort Pickens.&mdash;The Alleged "Caucus"
and its Resolutions.&mdash;Personal Motives and Feelings.&mdash;The Presidency
not a Desirable Office.&mdash;Letter from the Hon. C. C. Clay.
</p></blockquote>


<p>With the failure of the Senate Committee of Thirteen to
come to any agreement, the last reasonable hope of a pacific
settlement of difficulties within the Union was extinguished in
the minds of those most reluctant to abandon the effort.  The
year 1861 opened, as we have seen, upon the spectacle of a
general belief, among the people of the planting States, in the
necessity of an early secession, as the only possible alternative
left them.</p>

<p>It has already been shown that the calmness and deliberation,
with which the measures requisite for withdrawal were adopted
and executed, afford the best refutation of the charge that they
were the result of haste, passion, or precipitation. Still more
contrary to truth is the assertion, so often recklessly made and
reiterated, that the people of the South were led into secession,
against their will and their better judgment, by a few ambitious
and discontented politicians.</p>

<p>The truth is, that the Southern people were in advance of
their representatives throughout, and that these latter were not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200"></a>[pg 200]</span>
agitators or leaders in the popular movement. They were in
harmony with its great principles, but their influence, with very
few exceptions, was exerted to restrain rather than to accelerate
their application, and to allay rather than to stimulate excitement.
As sentinels on the outer wall, the people had a right to
look to them for warning of approaching danger; but, as we
have seen, in that last session of the last Congress that preceded
the disruption, Southern Senators, of the class generally considered
extremists, served on a committee of pacification, and strove
earnestly to promote its objects. Failing in this, they still exerted
themselves to prevent the commission of any act that might
result in bloodshed.</p>

<p>Invention has busied itself, to the exhaustion of its resources,
in the creation of imaginary "cabals," "conspiracies,"
and "intrigues," among the Senators and Representatives of the
South on duty in Washington at that time. The idle gossip
of the public hotels, the sensational rumors of the streets, the
<i>canards</i> of newspaper correspondents&mdash;whatever was floating
through the atmosphere of that anxious period&mdash;however lightly
regarded at the moment by the more intelligent, has since been
drawn upon for materials to be used in the construction of
what has been widely accepted as authentic history. Nothing
would seem to be too absurd for such uses. Thus, it has been
gravely stated that a caucus of Southern Senators, held in the
early part of January, "resolved to assume to themselves the
political power of the South"; that they took entire control of
all political and military operations; that they issued instructions
for the passage of ordinances of secession, and for the seizure
of forts, arsenals, and custom-houses; with much more of
the like groundless fiction. A foreign prince, who served for
a time in the Federal Army, and has since undertaken to write
a history of "The Civil War in America"&mdash;a history the incomparable
blunders of which are redeemed from suspicion of
willful misstatement only by the writer's ignorance of the subject&mdash;speaks
of the Southern representatives as having "kept their
seats in Congress in order to be able to paralyze its action, forming,
at the same time, a center whence they issued directions
to their friends in the South to complete the dismemberment of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page201" id="page201"></a>[pg 201]</span>
the republic."<a id="footnotetag108" name="footnotetag108"></a><a href="#footnote108"><sup>108</sup></a>  And again, with reference to the secession of
several States, he says that "the word of command issued by
<i>the committee at Washington was</i> promptly obeyed."<a id="footnotetag109" name="footnotetag109"></a><a href="#footnote109"><sup>109</sup></a></p>

<p>Statements such as these are a travesty upon history.  That
the representatives of the South held conference with one another
and took counsel together, as men having common interests and
threatened by common dangers, is true, and is the full extent
of the truth. That they communicated to friends at home information
of what was passing is to be presumed, and would
have been most obligatory if it had not been that the published
proceedings rendered such communication needless.  But that
any such man, or committee of men, should have undertaken to
direct the mighty movement then progressing throughout the
South, or to control, through the telegraph and the mails, the
will and the judgment of conventions of the people, assembled
under the full consciousness of the dignity of that sovereignty
which they represented, would have been an extraordinary
degree of folly and presumption.</p>

<p>The absurdity of the statement is further evident from a
consideration of the fact that the movements which culminated
in the secession of the several States began before the meeting
of Congress.  They were not inaugurated, prosecuted, or controlled
by the Senators and Representatives in Congress, but by
the Governors, Legislatures, and finally by the delegates of the
people in conventions of the respective States. I believe I
may fairly claim to have possessed a full share of the confidence
of the people of the State which I in part represented; and
proof has already been furnished to show how little effect my
own influence could have upon their action, even in the negative
capacity of a brake upon the wheels, by means of which it
was hurried on to consummation.</p>

<p>As for the imputation of holding our seats as a vantage-ground
in plotting for the dismemberment of the Union&mdash;in
connection with which the Count of Paris does me the honor to
single out my name for special mention&mdash;it is a charge so dishonorable,
if true, to its object&mdash;so disgraceful, if false, to its
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202" id="page202"></a>[pg 202]</span>
author&mdash;as to be outside of the proper limit of discussion.  It
is a charge which no accuser ever made in my presence, though
I had in public debate more than once challenged its assertion
and denounced its falsehood.  It is enough to say that I always
held, and repeatedly avowed, the principle that a Senator in
Congress occupied the position of an ambassador from the State
which he represented to the Government of the United States,
as well as in some sense a member of the Government; and
that, in either capacity, it would be dishonorable to use his powers
and privileges for the destruction or for the detriment of
the Government to which he was accredited.  Acting on this
principle, as long as I held a seat in the Senate, my best efforts
were directed to the maintenance of the Constitution, the Union
resulting from it, and to make the General Government an effective
agent of the States for its prescribed purpose.  As soon as
the paramount allegiance due to Mississippi forbade a continuance
of these efforts, I withdrew from the position.  To say
that during this period I did nothing secretly, in conflict with
what was done or professed openly, would be merely to assert
my own integrity, which would be worthless to those who may
doubt it, and superfluous to those who believe in it.  What has
been said on the subject for myself, I believe to be also true of
my Southern associates in Congress.</p>

<p>With regard to the forts, arsenals, etc., something more remains
to be said. The authorities of the Southern States immediately
after, and in some cases a few days before, their actual
secession, took possession (in every instance without resistance
or bloodshed) of forts, arsenals, custom-houses, and other
public property within their respective limits. I do not propose
at this time to consider the question of their right to do
so; that may be more properly done hereafter. But it may not
be out of place briefly to refer to the statement, often made,
that the absence of troops from the military posts in the South,
which enabled the States so quietly to take such possession,
was the result of collusion and prearrangement between the
Southern leaders and the Federal Secretary of War, John B.
Floyd, of Virginia.  It is a sufficient answer to this allegation
to state the fact that the absence of troops from these posts, instead
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id="page203"></a>[pg 203]</span>
of being exceptional, was, and still is, their ordinary condition
in time of peace. At the very moment when these sentences
are being written (in 1880), although the army of the
United States is twice as large as in 1860; although four years
of internal war and a yet longer period of subsequent military
occupation of the South have habituated the public to the presence
of troops in their midst, to an extent that would formerly
have been startling if not offensive; although allegations of
continued disaffection on the part of the Southern people have
been persistently reiterated, for party purposes&mdash;yet it is believed
that the forts and arsenals in the States of the Gulf are
in as defenseless a condition, and as liable to quiet seizure (if
any such purpose existed), as in the beginning of the year 1861.
Certainly, those within the range of my personal information
are occupied, as they were at that time, only by ordnance-sergeants
or fort-keepers.</p>

<p>There were, however, some exceptions to this general rule&mdash;especially
in the defensive works of the harbor of Charleston,
the forts at Key West and the Dry Tortugas, and those protecting
the entrance of Pensacola Bay. The events which occurred
in Charleston Harbor will be more conveniently noticed hereafter.
The island forts near the extreme southern point of
Florida were too isolated and too remote from population to be
disturbed at that time; but the situation long maintained at the
mouth of Pensacola Bay affords a signal illustration of the forbearance
and conciliatory spirit that animated Southern counsels.
For a long time, Fort Pickens, on the island of Santa Rosa, at
the entrance to the harbor, was occupied only by a small body
of Federal soldiers and marines&mdash;less than one hundred, all told.
Immediately opposite, and in possession of the other two forts
and the adjacent navy-yard, was a strong force of volunteer
troops of Florida and Alabama (which might, on short notice,
have been largely increased), ready and anxious to attack and
take possession of Fort Pickens.  That they could have done so
is unquestionable, and, if mere considerations of military advantage
had been consulted, it would surely have been done.  But
the love of peace and the purpose to preserve it, together with a
revulsion from the thought of engaging in fraternal strife, were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204" id="page204"></a>[pg 204]</span>
more potent than considerations of probable interest.  During
the anxious period of uncertainty and apprehension which ensued,
the efforts of the Southern Senators in Washington were
employed to dissuade (they could not <i>command</i>) from any aggressive
movement, however justifiable, that might lead to
collision.  These efforts were exerted through written and telegraphic
communications to the Governors of Alabama and
Florida, the Commander of the Southern troops, and other influential
persons near the scene of operations.  The records of
the telegraph-office, if preserved, will no doubt show this to be
a very moderate statement of those efforts.  It is believed that
by such influence alone a collision was averted; and it is certain
that its exercise gave great dissatisfaction at the time to some of
the ardent advocates of more active measures.  It may be that
<i>they</i> were right, and that we, who counseled delay and forbearance,
were wrong.  Certainly, if we could have foreseen the ultimate
failure of all efforts for a peaceful settlement, and the perfidy
that was afterward to be practiced in connection with them,
our advice would have been different.</p>

<p>Certain resolutions, said to have been adopted in a meeting of
Senators held on the evening of the 5th of January,<a id="footnotetag110" name="footnotetag110"></a><a href="#footnote110"><sup>110</sup></a> have been
magnified, by the representations of artful commentators on the
events of the period, into something vastly momentous.</p>

<p>The significance of these resolutions was the admission that
we could not longer advise delay, and even that was unimportant
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205" id="page205"></a>[pg 205]</span>
under the circumstances, for three of the States concerned
had taken final action on the subject before the resolutions
could have been communicated to them. As an expression of
opinion, they merely stated that of which we had all become
convinced by the experience of the previous month&mdash;that our
long-cherished hopes had proved illusory&mdash;that further efforts
in Congress would be unavailing, and that nothing remained,
except that the States should take the matter into their own
hands, as final judges of their wrongs and of the measure of
redress. They recommended the formation of a confederacy
among the seceding States as early as possible after their secession&mdash;advice
the expediency of which could hardly be questioned,
either by friend or foe.  As to the "instructions" asked
for with regard to the propriety of continuing to hold their
seats, I suppose it must have been caused by some diversity of
opinion which then and long afterward continued to exist; and
the practical value of which must have been confined to Senators
of States which did not actually secede.  For myself, I can
only say that no advice could have prevailed on me to hold a
seat in the Senate after receiving notice that Mississippi had
withdrawn from the Union.  The best evidence that my associates
thought likewise is the fact that, although no instructions
were given them, they promptly withdrew on the receipt of official
information of the withdrawal of the States which they represented.</p>

<p>It will not be amiss here briefly to state what were my position
and feelings at the period now under consideration, as they
have been the subject of gross and widespread misrepresentation.
It is not only untrue, but absurd, to attribute to me motives
of personal ambition to be gratified by a dismemberment
of the Union.  Much of my life had been spent in the military
and civil service of the United States.  Whatever reputation I
had acquired was identified with their history; and, if future
preferment had been the object, it would have led me to cling
to the Union as long as a shred of it should remain.  If any,
judging after the event, should assume that I was allured by
the high office subsequently conferred upon me by the people
of the Confederate States, the answer to any such conclusion
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206"></a>[pg 206]</span>
has been made by others, to whom it was well known, before
the Confederacy was formed, that I had no desire to be its
President. When the suggestion was made to me, I expressed
a decided objection, and gave reasons of a public and permanent
character against being placed in that position.</p>

<p>Furthermore, I then held the office of United States Senator
from Mississippi&mdash;one which I preferred to all others. The
kindness of the people had three times conferred it upon me,
and I had no reason to fear that it would not be given again, as
often as desired. So far from wishing to change this position
for any other, I had specially requested my friends (some of
whom had thought of putting me in nomination for the Presidency
of the United States in 1860) not to permit "my name
to be used before the Convention for any nomination whatever."</p>

<p>I had been so near the office for four years, while in the
Cabinet of Mr. Pierce, that I saw it from behind the scenes, and
it was to me an office in no wise desirable. The responsibilities
were great; the labor, the vexations, the disappointments, were
greater. Those who have intimately known the official and
personal life of our Presidents can not fail to remember how
few have left the office as happy men as when they entered it,
how darkly the shadows gathered around the setting sun, and
how eagerly the multitude would turn to gaze upon another orb
just rising to take its place in the political firmament.</p>

<p>Worn by incessant fatigue, broken in fortune, debarred by
public opinion, prejudice, or tradition, from future employment,
the wisest and best who have filled that office have retired to
private life, to remember rather the failure of their hopes than
the success of their efforts. He must, indeed, be a self-confident
man who could hope to fill the chair of <span class="sc">Washington</span> with
satisfaction to himself, with the assurance of receiving on his
retirement the meed awarded by the people to that great man,
that he had "lived enough for life and for glory," or even of
feeling that the sacrifice of self had been compensated by the
service rendered to his country.</p>

<p>The following facts were presented in a letter written several
years ago by the Hon. C. C. Clay, of Alabama, who was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id="page207"></a>[pg 207]</span>
one of my most intimate associates in the Senate, with reference
to certain misstatements to which his attention had been
called by one of my friends:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The import is, that Mr. Davis, disappointed and chagrined at
not receiving the nomination of the Democratic party for President
of the United States in 1860, took the lead on the assembling
of Congress in December, 1860, in a 'conspiracy' of Southern Senators
'which planned the secession of the Southern States from the
Union,' and 'on the night of January 5, 1861,... framed the
scheme of revolution which was implicitly and promptly followed
at the South.' In other words, that Southern Senators (and, chief
among them, Jefferson Davis), then and there, instigated and induced
the Southern States to secede.</p>

<p>"I am quite sure that Mr. Davis neither expected nor desired
the nomination for the Presidency of the United States in 1860.
He never evinced any such aspiration, by word or sign, to me&mdash;with
whom he was, I believe, as intimate and confidential as with
any person outside of his own family.  On the contrary, he requested
the delegation from Mississippi not to permit the use of
his name before the Convention.  And, after the nomination of
both Douglas and Breckinridge, he conferred with them, at the
instance of leading Democrats, to persuade them to withdraw,
that their friends might unite on some second choice&mdash;an office he
would never have undertaken, had he sought the nomination or
believed he was regarded as an aspirant.</p>

<p>"Mr. Davis did not take an active part in planning or hastening
secession. I think he only <i>regretfully</i> consented to it, as a
political necessity for the preservation of popular and State rights,
which were seriously threatened by the triumph of a sectional
party who were pledged to make war on them.  I know that some
leading men, and even Mississippians, thought him too moderate
and backward, and found fault with him for not taking a leading
part in secession.</p>

<p>"No 'plan of secession' or 'scheme of revolution' was, to my
knowledge, discussed&mdash;certainly none matured&mdash;at the caucus, 5th
of January, 1861, unless, forsooth, the resolutions appended hereto
be so held.  They comprise the sum and substance of what was
said and done.  I never heard that the caucus advised the South
'to accumulate munitions of war,' or 'to organize and equip an
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208" id="page208"></a>[pg 208]</span>
army of one hundred thousand men,' or determined 'to hold on as
long as possible to the Southern seats.' So far from it, a majority
of Southern Senators seemed to think there would be no war;
that the dominant party in the North desired separation from the
South, and would gladly let their 'erring sisters go in peace.'  I
could multiply proofs of such a disposition. As to holding on
to their seats, no Southern Legislature advised it, no Southern Senator
who favored secession did so but one, and none others wished
to do so, I believe.</p>

<p>"The 'plan of secession,' if any, and the purpose of secession,
unquestionably, originated, not in Washington City, or with the
Senators or Representatives of the South, but among the people
of the several States, many months before it was attempted. They
followed no leaders at Washington or elsewhere, but acted for
themselves, with an independence and unanimity unprecedented in
any movement of such magnitude. Before the meeting of the
caucus of January 5, 1861, South Carolina had seceded, and Alabama,
Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas had taken the
initial step of secession, by calling conventions for its accomplishment.
Before the election of Lincoln, all the Southern States,
excepting one or two, had pledged themselves to separate from
the Union upon the triumph of a sectional party in the Presidential
election, by acts or resolutions of their Legislatures, resolves of
both Democratic and Whig State Conventions, and of primary assemblies
of the people&mdash;in every way in which they could commit
themselves to any future act.  Their purpose was proclaimed to
the world through the press and telegraph, and criticised in Congress,
in the Northern Legislatures, in press and pulpit, and on the
hustings, during many months before Congress met in December,
1860.</p>

<p>"Over and above all these facts, the reports of the United
States Senate show that, prior to the 5th of January, 1861, Southern
Senators united with Northern Democratic Senators in an
effort to effect pacification and prevent secession, and that Jefferson
Davis was one of a committee appointed by the Senate to consider
and report such a measure; that it failed because the Northern
Republicans opposed everything that looked to peace; that
Senator Douglas arraigned them as trying to precipitate secession,
referred to Jefferson Davis as one who sought conciliation, and
called upon the Republican Senators to tell what they would do,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209"></a>[pg 209]</span>
if anything, to restore harmony and prevent disunion.  They did
not even deign a response.  Thus, by their sullen silence, they
made confession (without avoidance) of their stubborn purpose to
hold up no hand raised to maintain the Union...."
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote108" name="footnote108"></a><b>Footnote 108:</b><a href="#footnotetag108"> (return) </a><p> "History of the Civil war," by the Count of Paris; American translation,
vol. i, p. 122.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote109" name="footnote109"></a><b>Footnote 109:</b><a href="#footnotetag109"> (return) </a><p>Ibid, p. 125.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote110" name="footnote110"></a><b>Footnote 110:</b><a href="#footnotetag110"> (return) </a><p>
Subjoined are the resolutions referred to, adopted by the Senators from Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Messrs. Toombs,
of Georgia, and Sebastian, of Arkansas, are said to have been absent from the meeting:</p>

<p>
"<i>Resolved</i>, That, in our opinion, each of the States should, as soon as may be,
secede from the Union.</p>

<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That provision should be made for a convention to organize a confederacy
of the seceding States: the Convention to meet not later than the 15th of
February, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama.</p>

<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That, in view of the hostile legislation that is threatened against the
seceding States, and which may be consummated before the 4th of March, we ask
instructions whether the delegations are to remain in Congress until that date, for the
purpose of defeating such legislation.</p>

<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That a committee be and are hereby appointed, consisting of Messrs.
Davis, Slidell, and Mallory, to carry out the objects of this meeting."
</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-ii" id="chap-iii-ii"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Tenure of Public Property ceded by the States.&mdash;Sovereignty and Eminent
Domain.&mdash;Principles
asserted by Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and other States.&mdash;The
Charleston Forts.&mdash;South Carolina sends Commissioners to Washington.&mdash;Sudden
Movement of Major Anderson.&mdash;Correspondence of the Commissioners
with the President.&mdash;Interviews of the Author with Mr. Buchanan.&mdash;Major Anderson.&mdash;The
Star of the West.&mdash;The President's Special Message.&mdash;Speech of
the Author in the Senate.&mdash;Further Proceedings and Correspondence relative to
Fort Sumter.&mdash;Mr. Buchanan's Rectitude in Purpose and Vacillation in Action.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The sites of forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and other public
property of the Federal Government were ceded by the States,
within whose limits they were, subject to the condition, either
expressed or implied, that they should be used solely and exclusively
for the purposes for which they were granted. The ultimate
ownership of the soil, or eminent domain, remains with
the people of the State in which it lies, by virtue of their sovereignty.
Thus, the State of Massachusetts has declared that&mdash;</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Commonwealth extend
to all places within the boundaries thereof, subject only to
such rights of <i>concurrent jurisdiction</i> as have been or may be
granted over any places ceded by the Commonwealth to the United
States."<a id="footnotetag111" name="footnotetag111"></a><a href="#footnote111"><sup>111</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the acts of cession of the respective States, the terms and
conditions on which the grant is made are expressed in various
forms and with differing degrees of precision.  The act of New
York, granting the use of a site for the Brooklyn Navy-Yard,
may serve as a specimen.  It contains this express condition:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The United States are to retain such use and jurisdiction, <i>so
long as said tract shall be applied to the defense and safety of the
city and port of New York, and no longer</i>.... But the jurisdiction
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id="page210"></a>[pg 210]</span>
hereby ceded, and the exemption from taxation herein granted,
shall continue in respect to said property, and to each portion
thereof, <i>so long as the same shall remain the property of the
United States</i>, and be used for the purposes aforesaid, <i>and no
longer</i>." The cession of the site of the Watervliet Arsenal is made
in the same or equivalent terms, except that, instead of "defense
and safety of the city and port of New York," etc., the language
is, "defense and safety <i>of the said State</i>, and no longer."
</p></blockquote>

<p>South Carolina in 1805, by legislative enactment, ceded to
the United States, in Charleston Harbor and on Beaufort River,
various forts and fortifications, and sites for the erection of
forts, on the following conditions, viz.:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That, if the United States shall not, within three years from
the passing of this act, and notification thereof by the Governor
of this State to the Executive of the United States, repair the
fortifications now existing thereon or build such other forts or
fortifications as may be deemed most expedient by the Executive
of the United States on the same, and keep a garrison or garrisons
therein; in such case this grant or cession shall be void and of no
effect."&mdash;("Statutes at Large of South Carolina," vol. v, p. 501.)
</p></blockquote>

<p>It will hardly be contended that the conditions of this grant
were fulfilled, and, if it be answered that the State did not
demand the restoration of the forts or sites, the answer certainly
fails after 1860, when the controversy arose, and the unfounded
assertion was made that those forts and sites had been
purchased with the money, and were therefore the property, of
the United States. The terms of the cession sufficiently manifest
that they were free-will offerings of such forts and sites as
belonged to the State; and public functionaries were bound to
know that, by the United States law of March 20, 1794, it was
provided "that no purchase shall be made where such lands
are the property of a State."&mdash;(Act to provide for the defense
of certain ports and harbors of the United States.)</p>

<p>The stipulations made by Virginia, in ceding the ground
for Fortress Monroe and the Rip Raps, on the 1st of March,
1821, are as follows:</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211"></a>[pg 211]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>An Act ceding to the United States the lands on Old Point Comfort, and
the shoal called the Rip Raps.</i></p>

<p>"<i>Whereas</i>, It is shown to the present General Assembly that
the Government of the United States is solicitous that certain
lands at Old Point Comfort, and at the shoal called the Rip Raps,
should be, with the right of property and entire jurisdiction thereon,
vested in the said United States for the purpose of fortification
and other objects of national defense:</p>

<p>"1. <i>Be it enacted by the General Assembly</i>, That it shall be
lawful and proper for the Governor of this Commonwealth, by
conveyance or deeds in writing under his hand and the seal of the
State, to transfer, assign, and make over unto the said United
States the right of property and title, as well as all the jurisdiction
which this Commonwealth possesses over the lands and shoal
at Old Point Comfort and the Rip Raps:...</p>

<p>"2. <i>And be it further enacted</i>, That, <i>should the said United
States at any time abandon the said lands and shoal, or appropriate
them to any other purposes than those indicated in the preamble
to this act, that then, and in that case, the same shall revert
to and revest in this Commonwealth</i>."<a id="footnotetag112" name="footnotetag112"></a><a href="#footnote112"><sup>112</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>By accepting such grants, under such conditions, the Government
of the United States assented to their propriety, and
the principle that holds good in any one case is of course applicable
to all others of the same sort, whether expressly asserted
in the act of cession or not. Indeed, no express declaration
would be necessary to establish a conclusion resulting so directly
from the nature of the case, and the settled principles of sovereignty
and eminent domain.</p>

<p>A State withdrawing from the Union would necessarily assume
the control theretofore exercised by the General Government
over all public defenses and other public property within
her limits. It would, however, be but fair and proper that adequate
compensation should be made to the other members of
the partnership, or their common agent, for the value of the
works and for any other advantage obtained by the one party,
or loss incurred by the other.  Such equitable settlement, the
seceding States of the South, without exception, as I believe,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212"></a>[pg 212]</span>
were desirous to make, and prompt to propose to the Federal
authorities.</p>

<p>On the secession of South Carolina, the condition of the defenses
of Charleston Harbor became a subject of anxiety with
all parties. Of the three forts in or at the entrance of the harbor,
two were unoccupied, but the third (Fort Moultrie) was held
by a garrison of but little more than one hundred men&mdash;of
whom only sixty-three were said to be effectives&mdash;under command
of Major Robert Anderson, of the First Artillery.</p>

<p>About twelve days before the secession of South Carolina,
the representatives in Congress from that State had called on the
President to assure him, in anticipation of the secession of the
State, that no purpose was entertained by South Carolina to
attack, or in any way molest, the forts held by the United States
in the harbor of Charleston&mdash;at least until opportunity could be
had for an amicable settlement of all questions that might arise
with regard to these forts and other public property&mdash;provided
that no re&euml;nforcements should be sent, and the military <i>status</i>
should be permitted to remain unchanged. The South Carolinians
understood Mr. Buchanan as approving of this suggestion,
although declining to make any formal pledge.</p>

<p>It appears, nevertheless, from subsequent developments, that
both before and after the secession of South Carolina preparations
were secretly made for re&euml;nforcing Major Anderson, in
case it should be deemed necessary by the Government at
Washington.<a id="footnotetag113" name="footnotetag113"></a><a href="#footnote113"><sup>113</sup></a> On the 11th of December instructions were
communicated to him, from the War Department, of which the
following is the essential part:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly
tend to provoke aggression; and for that reason you are not, without
evident and imminent necessity, to take up any position which
could be construed into the assumption of a hostile attitude, but
you are to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and, if attacked,
you are to defend yourself to the last extremity.  The
smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy
more than one of the three forts, but an attack on, or attempt to
take possession of either of them, will be regarded as an act of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213"></a>[pg 213]</span>
hostility, and you may then put your command into either of
them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of
resistance. You are also authorized to take similar defensive
steps, whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed
to a hostile act."<a id="footnotetag114" name="footnotetag114"></a><a href="#footnote114"><sup>114</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>These instructions were afterward modified&mdash;as we are informed
by Mr. Buchanan&mdash;so as, instead of requiring him to
defend himself "to the last extremity," to direct him to do so
as long as any reasonable hope remained of saving the fort.<a id="footnotetag115" name="footnotetag115"></a><a href="#footnote115"><sup>115</sup></a></p>

<p>Immediately after the secession of the State, the Convention
of South Carolina deputed three distinguished citizens of that
State&mdash;Messrs. Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, and
James L. Orr&mdash;to proceed to Washington, "to treat with the
Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts,
magazines, lighthouses, and other real estate, with their appurtenances,
within the limits of South Carolina, and also for an
apportionment of the public debt, and for a division of all other
property held by the Government of the United States, as agent
of the confederated States, of which South Carolina was recently
a member; and generally to negotiate as to all other measures
and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing
relation of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and
amity between this Commonwealth and the Government at
Washington."</p>

<p>The Commissioners, in the discharge of the duty intrusted
to them, arrived in Washington on the 26th of December.
Before they could communicate with the President, however&mdash;indeed,
on the morning after their arrival&mdash;they were startled,
and the whole country electrified, by the news that, during the
previous night, Major Anderson had "secretly dismantled Fort
Moultrie,"<a id="footnotetag116" name="footnotetag116"></a><a href="#footnote116"><sup>116</sup></a> spiked his guns, burned his gun-carriages, and removed
his command to Fort Sumter, which occupied a more
commanding position in the harbor.  This movement changed
the whole aspect of affairs.  It was considered by the Government
and people of South Carolina as a violation of the implied
pledge of a maintenance of the <i>status quo</i>; the remaining forts
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214" id="page214"></a>[pg 214]</span>
and other public property were at once taken possession of by
the State; and the condition of public feeling became greatly exacerbated.
An interview between the President and the Commissioners
was followed by a sharp correspondence, which was terminated
on the 1st of January, 1861, by the return to the Commissioners
of their final communication, with an endorsement
stating that it was of such a character that the President declined
to receive it.  The negotiations were thus abruptly broken off.
This correspondence may be found in the Appendix.<a id="footnotetag117" name="footnotetag117"></a><a href="#footnote117"><sup>117</sup></a></p>

<p>In the mean time, Mr. Cass, Secretary of State, had resigned
his position early in December, on the ground of the refusal of
the President to send re&euml;nforcements to Charleston. On the occupation
of Fort Sumter by Major Anderson, Mr. Floyd, Secretary
of War, taking the ground that it was virtually a violation of
a pledge given or implied by the Government, had asked that
the garrison should be entirely withdrawn from the harbor of
Charleston, and, on the refusal of the President to consent to this,
had tendered his resignation, which was promptly accepted.<a id="footnotetag118" name="footnotetag118"></a><a href="#footnote118"><sup>118</sup></a></p>

<p>This is believed to be a correct outline of the earlier facts
with regard to the Charleston forts, and in giving it I have done
so, as far as possible, without prejudice, or any expression of
opinion upon the motives of the actors.</p>

<p>The kind relations, both personal and political, which had
long existed between Mr. Buchanan and myself, had led him,
occasionally, during his presidency, to send for me to confer
with him on subjects that caused him anxiety, and warranted
me in sometimes calling upon him to offer my opinion on matters
of special interest or importance. Thus it was that I had
communicated with him freely in regard to the threatening
aspect of events in the earlier part of the winter of 1860-'61.
When he told me of the work that had been done, or was doing,
at Fort Moultrie&mdash;that is, the elevation of its parapet by crowning
it with barrels of sand&mdash;I pointed out to him the impolicy
as well as inefficiency of the measure.  It seemed to me impolitic
to make ostensible preparations for defense, when no
attack was threatened; and the means adopted were inefficient,
because any ordinary field-piece would knock the barrels off the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215"></a>[pg 215]</span>
parapet, and thus to render them only hurtful to the defenders.
He inquired whether the expedient had not been successful at
Fort Brown, on the Rio Grande, in the beginning of the Mexican
war, and was answered that the attack on Fort Brown had
been made with small-arms, or at great distance.</p>

<p>After the removal of the garrison to the stronger and safer
position of Fort Sumter, I called upon him again to represent,
from my knowledge of the people and the circumstances of the
case, how productive the movement would be of discontent, and
how likely to lead to collision. One of the vexed questions of
the day was, by what authority the collector of the port should
be appointed, and the rumor was, that instructions had been
given to the commanding officer at Fort Sumter not to allow
vessels to pass, unless under clearance from the United States
collector.  It was easy to understand that, if a vessel were fired
upon under such circumstances, it would be accepted as the
beginning of hostilities&mdash;a result which both he and I desired
to avert, as the greatest calamity that could be foreseen
or imagined.  My opinion was, that the wisest and best course
would be to withdraw the garrison altogether from the harbor
of Charleston.</p>

<p>The President's objection to this was, that it was his bounden
duty to preserve and protect the property of the United
States. To this I replied, with all the earnestness the occasion
demanded, that I would pledge my life that, if an inventory
were taken of all the stores and munitions in the fort, and an
ordnance-sergeant with a few men left in charge of them, they
would not be disturbed.  As a further guarantee, I offered to
obtain from the Governor of South Carolina full assurance that,
in case any marauders or lawless combination of persons should
attempt to seize or disturb the property, he would send from
the citadel of Charleston an adequate guard to protect it and to
secure its keepers against molestation.</p>

<p>The President promised me to reflect upon this proposition,
and to confer with his Cabinet upon the propriety of adopting
it. All Cabinet consultations are secret; which is equivalent to
saying that I never knew what occurred in that meeting to
which my proposition was submitted.  The result was not communicated
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216"></a>[pg 216]</span>
to me, but the events which followed proved that the
suggestion was not accepted.</p>

<p>Major Anderson, who commanded the garrison, had many
ties and associations that bound him to the South. He performed
his part like the true soldier and man of the finest sense
of honor that he was; but that it was most painful to him to be
charged with the duty of holding the fort as a threat to the
people of Charleston is a fact known to many others as well as
to myself. We had been cadets together. He was my first
acquaintance in that corps, and the friendship then formed was
never interrupted. We had served together in the summer and
autumn of 1860, in a commission of inquiry into the discipline,
course of studies, and general condition of the United States
Military Academy. At the close of our labors the commission
had adjourned, to meet again in Washington about the end of
the ensuing November, to examine the report and revise it for
transmission to Congress.  Major Anderson's duties in Charleston
Harbor hindered him from attending this adjourned meeting
of the commission, and he wrote to me, its chairman, to explain
the cause of his absence. That letter was lost when my library
and private papers were "captured" from my home in Mississippi.
If any one has preserved it as a trophy of war, its publication
would show how bright was the honor, how broad the patriotism
of Major Anderson, and how fully he sympathized with
me as to the evils which then lowered over the country.</p>

<p>In comparing the past and the present among the mighty
changes which passion and sectional hostility have wrought, one
is profoundly and painfully impressed by the extent to which
public opinion has drifted from the landmarks set up by the
sages and patriots who formed the constitutional Union, and
observed by those who administered its government down to the
time when war between the States was inaugurated. Mr. Buchanan,
the last President of the old school, would as soon have
thought of aiding in the establishment of a monarchy among us
as of accepting the doctrine of coercing the States into submission
to the will of a majority, in mass, of the people of the United
States. When discussing the question of withdrawing the
troops from the port of Charleston, he yielded a ready assent to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217"></a>[pg 217]</span>
the proposition that the cession of a site for a fort, for purposes
of public defense, lapses, whenever that fort should be employed
by the grantee against the State by which the cession was made,
on the familiar principle that any grant for a specific purpose
expires when it ceases to be used for that purpose. Whether
on this or any other ground, if the garrison of Fort Sumter had
been withdrawn in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution
of the United States, from which the power to apply coercion
to a State was deliberately and designedly excluded, and
if this had been distinctly assigned as a reason for its withdrawal,
the honor of the United States Government would have
been maintained intact, and nothing could have operated more
powerfully to quiet the apprehensions and allay the resentment
of the people of South Carolina. The influence which such a
measure would have exerted upon the States which had not yet
seceded, but were then contemplating the adoption of that extreme
remedy, would probably have induced further delay; and
the mellowing effect of time, with a realization of the dangers
to be incurred, might have wrought mutual forbearance&mdash;if,
indeed, anything could have checked the madness then prevailing
among the people of the Northern States in their thirst for
power and forgetfulness of the duties of federation.</p>

<p>It would have been easy to concede this point. The little
garrison of Fort Sumter served only as a menace; for it was
utterly incapable of holding the fort if attacked, and the poor
attempt soon afterward made to re&euml;nforce and provision it, by
such a vessel as the Star of the West, might by the uncharitable
be readily construed as a scheme to provoke hostilities.
Yet, from my knowledge of Mr. Buchanan, I do not hesitate to
say that he had no such wish or purpose. His abiding hope was
to avert a collision, or at least to postpone it to a period beyond
the close of his official term. The management of the whole
affair was what Talleyrand describes as something worse than a
crime&mdash;a blunder. Whatever treatment the case demanded,
should have been prompt; to wait was fatuity.</p>

<p>The ill-advised attempt secretly to throw re&euml;nforcements and
provisions into Fort Sumter, by means of the steamer Star of
the West, resulted in the repulsion of that vessel at the mouth
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id="page218"></a>[pg 218]</span>
of the harbor, by the authorities of South Carolina, on the
morning of the 9th of January. On her refusal to heave-to,
she was fired upon, and put back to sea, with her recruits and
supplies. A telegraphic account of this event was handed me,
a few hours afterward, when stepping into my carriage to go to
the Senate-chamber. Although I had then, for some time,
ceased to visit the President, yet, under the impulse of this
renewed note of danger to the country, I drove immediately to
the Executive mansion, and for the last time appealed to him
to take such prompt measures as were evidently necessary to
avert the impending calamity. The result was even more unsatisfactory
than that of former efforts had been.</p>

<p>On the same day the special message of the President on
the state of the Union, dated the day previous (8th of January),
was submitted to Congress. This message was accompanied
by the <i>first</i> letter of the South Carolina Commissioners
to the President, with his answer, but of course <i>not</i> by their
rejoinder, which he had declined to receive. Mr. Buchanan, in
his memoirs, complains that, immediately after the reading of his
message, this rejoinder (which he terms an "insulting letter")
was presented by me to the Senate, and by that body received
and entered upon its journal.<a id="footnotetag119" name="footnotetag119"></a><a href="#footnote119"><sup>119</sup></a> The simple truth is, that, regarding
it as essential to a complete understanding of the transaction,
and its publication as a mere act of justice to the Commissioners,
I presented and had it read in the Senate. But its
appearance upon the journal as part of the proceedings, instead
of being merely a document introduced as part of my remarks,
was the result of a discourteous objection, made by a so-called
"Republican" Senator, to the reading of the document by the
Clerk of the Senate at my request.  This will be made manifest
by an examination of the debate and proceedings which
ensued.<a id="footnotetag120" name="footnotetag120"></a><a href="#footnote120"><sup>120</sup></a> The discourtesy recoiled upon its author and supporters,
and gave the letter a vantage-ground in respect of prominence
which I could not have foreseen or expected.</p>

<p>The next day (January 10th) the speech was delivered, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219"></a>[pg 219]</span>
greater part of which may be found in the Appendix<a id="footnotetag121" name="footnotetag121"></a><a href="#footnote121"><sup>121</sup></a>&mdash;the
last that I ever made in the Senate of the United States, except
in taking leave, and by the sentiments of which I am content
that my career, both before and since, should be judged.</p>

<p>The history of Fort Sumter during the remaining period,
until the organization of the Confederate Government, may be
found in the correspondence given in the Appendix.<a id="footnotetag122" name="footnotetag122"></a><a href="#footnote122"><sup>122</sup></a> From
this it will be seen that the authorities of South Carolina still
continued to refrain from any act of aggression or retaliation,
under the provocation of the secret attempt to re&euml;nforce the
garrison, as they had previously under that of its nocturnal
transfer from one fort to another.</p>

<p>Another Commissioner (the Hon. I. W. Hayne) was sent to
Washington by the Governor of South Carolina, to effect, if
possible, an amicable and peaceful transfer of the fort, and settlement
of all questions relating to property. This Commissioner
remained for nearly a month, endeavoring to accomplish
the objects of his mission, but was met only by evasive and unsatisfactory
answers, and eventually returned without having
effected anything.</p>

<p>There is one passage in the last letter of Colonel Hayne to
the President which presents the case of the occupancy of Fort
Sumter by the United States troops so clearly and forcibly that
it may be proper to quote it.  He writes as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"You say that the fort was garrisoned for our protection, and
is held for the same purposes for which it has been ever held since
its construction. Are you not aware, that to hold, in the territory
of a foreign power, a fortress against her will, avowedly for the
purpose of protecting her citizens, is perhaps the highest insult
which one government can offer to another? But Fort Sumter was
never garrisoned at all until South Carolina had dissolved her connection
with your Government. This garrison entered it in the
night, with every circumstance of secrecy, after spiking the guns
and burning the gun-carriages and cutting down the flag-staff of
an adjacent fort, which was then abandoned. South Carolina had
not taken Fort Sumter into her own possession, only because of
her misplaced confidence in a Government which deceived her."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>[pg 220]</span>

<p>Thus, during the remainder of Mr. Buchanan's Administration,
matters went rapidly from bad to worse. The old statesman,
who, with all his defects, had long possessed, and was
entitled still to retain, the confidence due to extensive political
knowledge and love of his country in all its parts&mdash;who had, in
his earlier career, looked steadily to the Constitution, as the
mariner looks to the compass, for guidance&mdash;retired to private
life at the expiration of his term of office, having effected nothing
to allay the storm which had been steadily gathering during
his administration.</p>

<p>Timid vacillation was then succeeded by unscrupulous cunning;
and, for futile efforts, without hostile collision, to impose
a claim of authority upon people who repudiated it, were substituted
measures which could be sustained only by force.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote111" name="footnote111"></a><b>Footnote 111:</b><a href="#footnotetag111"> (return) </a><p>"Revised Statutes of Massachusetts," 1836, p. 56.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote112" name="footnote112"></a><b>Footnote 112:</b><a href="#footnotetag112"> (return) </a><p>See "Revised Statutes of Virginia."</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote113" name="footnote113"></a><b>Footnote 113:</b><a href="#footnotetag113"> (return) </a><p> "Buchanan's Administration," chap. ix, p. 165, and chap.
xi, pp. 212-214.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote114" name="footnote114"></a><b>Footnote 114:</b><a href="#footnotetag114"> (return) </a><p>"Buchanan's Administration," chap. ix, p. 166.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote115" name="footnote115"></a><b>Footnote 115:</b><a href="#footnotetag115"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote116" name="footnote116"></a><b>Footnote 116:</b><a href="#footnotetag116"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., chap. x, p. 180.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote117" name="footnote117"></a><b>Footnote 117:</b><a href="#footnotetag117"> (return) </a><p>See Appendix G.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote118" name="footnote118"></a><b>Footnote 118:</b><a href="#footnotetag118"> (return) </a><p>"Buchanan's Administration," chap. x, pp. 187, 188.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote119" name="footnote119"></a><b>Footnote 119:</b><a href="#footnotetag119"> (return) </a><p>"Buchanan's Administration," chap. x, p. 184.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote120" name="footnote120"></a><b>Footnote 120:</b><a href="#footnotetag120"> (return) </a><p>
See "Congressional Globe," second session, Thirty-fifth Congress, Part I, p.
284, <i>et seq.</i></p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote121" name="footnote121"></a><b>Footnote 121:</b><a href="#footnotetag121"> (return) </a><p>See Appendix I.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote122" name="footnote122"></a><b>Footnote 122:</b><a href="#footnotetag122"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-iii" id="chap-iii-iii"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Secession of Mississippi and Other States.&mdash;Withdrawal of Senators.&mdash;Address of
the Author on taking Leave of the Senate.&mdash;Answer to Certain Objections.
</p></blockquote>


<p>Mississippi was the second State to withdraw from the
Union, her ordinance of secession being adopted on the 9th of
January, 1861. She was quickly followed by Florida on the
10th, Alabama on the 11th, and, in the course of the same
month, by Georgia on the 18th, and Louisiana on the 26th.
The Conventions of these States (together with that of South
Carolina) agreed in designating Montgomery, Alabama, as the
place, and the 4th of February as the day, for the assembling of
a congress of the seceding States, to which each State Convention,
acting as the direct representative of the sovereignty of the
people thereof, appointed delegates.</p>

<p>Telegraphic intelligence of the secession of Mississippi had
reached Washington some considerable time before the fact was
officially communicated to me. This official knowledge I considered
it proper to await before taking formal leave of the
Senate. My associates from Alabama and Florida concurred
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>[pg 221]</span>
in this view.  Accordingly, having received notification of the
secession of these three States about the same time, on the 21st
of January Messrs. Yulee and Mallory, of Florida, Fitzpatrick
and Clay, of Alabama, and myself, announced the withdrawal
of the States from which we were respectively accredited, and
took leave of the Senate at the same time.</p>

<p>In the action which she then took, Mississippi certainly had
no purpose to levy war against the United States, or any of
them. As her Senator, I endeavored plainly to state her position
in the annexed remarks addressed to the Senate in taking
leave of the body:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the
Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi,
by a solemn ordinance of her people, in convention assembled,
has declared her separation from the United States.  Under
these circumstances, of course, my functions are terminated here.
It has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the
Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but
very little more.  The occasion does not invite me to go into argument;
and my physical condition would not permit me to do so, if
it were otherwise; and yet it seems to become me to say something
on the part of the State I here represent on an occasion so solemn
as this.</p>

<p>"It is known to Senators who have served with me here that I
have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of State
sovereignty, the right of a State to secede from the Union.  Therefore,
if I had not believed there was justifiable cause, if I had
thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation,
or without an existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of
the Government, because of my allegiance to the State of which I
am a citizen, have been bound by her action. I, however, may be
permitted to say that I do think she has justifiable cause, and I
approve of her act.  I conferred with her people before that act
was taken, counseled them then that, if the state of things which
they apprehended should exist when their Convention met, they
should take the action which they have now adopted.</p>

<p>"I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine
with the advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union, and
to disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id="page222"></a>[pg 222]</span>
law.  Such is not my theory.  Nullification and secession, so often
confounded, are, indeed, antagonistic principles.  Nullification is
a remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and
against the agent of the States.  It is only to be justified when
the agent has violated his constitutional obligations, and a State,
assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to
act, and appeals to the other States of the Union for a decision;
but, when the States themselves and when the people of the States
have so acted as to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional
rights, then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine
of secession in its practical application.</p>

<p>"A great man who now reposes with his fathers, and who has
often been arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, advocated
the doctrine of nullification because it preserved the Union. It
was because of his deep-seated attachment to the Union&mdash;his determination
to find some remedy for existing ills short of a severance
of the ties which bound South Carolina to the other States&mdash;that
Mr. Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nullification, which he
proclaimed to be peaceful, to be within the limits of State power,
not to disturb the Union, but only to be a means of bringing the
agent before the tribunal of the States for their judgment.</p>

<p>"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies.  It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign.  There was
a time when none denied it.  I hope the time may come again
when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government,
and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent
any one from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus
may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.</p>

<p>"I, therefore, say I concur in the action of the people of Mississippi,
believing it to be necessary and proper, and should have
been bound by their action if my belief had been otherwise; and
this brings me to the important point which I wish, on this last
occasion, to present to the Senate. It is by this confounding of
nullification and secession that the name of a great man whose
ashes now mingle with his mother earth has been evoked to justify
coercion against a seceded State. The phrase, 'to execute the
laws,' was an expression which General Jackson applied to the
case of a State refusing to obey the laws while yet a member of
the Union.  That is not the case which is now presented.  The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223"></a>[pg 223]</span>
laws are to be executed over the United States, and upon the people
of the United States. They have no relation to any foreign
country. It is a perversion of terms&mdash;at least, it is a great misapprehension
of the case&mdash;which cites that expression for application
to a State which has withdrawn from the Union. You may make
war on a foreign state. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, they
may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the
Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed
within the limits of a seceded State. A State, finding herself in
the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is&mdash;in which her
safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her
rights out of the Union&mdash;surrenders all the benefits (and they are
known to be many), deprives herself of the advantages (and they
are known to be great), severs all the ties of affection (and they
are close and enduring), which have bound her to the Union; and
thus divesting herself of every benefit&mdash;taking upon herself every
burden&mdash;she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the
laws of the United States within her limits.</p>

<p>"I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned
before the bar of the Senate, and when the doctrine of
coercion was rife, and to be applied against her, because of the
rescue of a fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was the
same that it is now. Not in a spirit of egotism, but to show that
I am not influenced in my opinions because the case is my own, I
refer to that time and that occasion as containing the opinion
which I then entertained, and on which my present conduct is
based. I then said that if Massachusetts&mdash;following her purpose
through a stated line of conduct&mdash;chose to take the last step, which
separates her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will
neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but I
will say to her, Godspeed, in memory of the kind associations
which once existed between her and the other States.</p>

<p>"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity&mdash;it has been a
belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights
which our fathers bequeathed to us&mdash;which has brought Mississippi
to her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory
that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of
an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration
of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the
equality of the races. That Declaration of Independence is to be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224"></a>[pg 224]</span>
construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was
made. The communities were declaring their independence; the
people of those communities were asserting that no man was born&mdash;to
use the language of Mr. Jefferson&mdash;booted and spurred, to
ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal&mdash;meaning
the men of the political community; that there was no
divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to govern;
that there were no classes by which power and place descended to
families; but that all stations were equally within the grasp of
each member of the body politic. These were the great principles
they announced; these were the purposes for which they made
their declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation
was directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how
happened it that among the items of arraignment against George
III was that he endeavored to do just what the North has been
endeavoring of late to do, to stir up insurrection among our slaves?
Had the Declaration announced that the negroes were free and
equal, how was the prince to be arraigned for raising up insurrection
among them? And how was this to be enumerated among
the high crimes which caused the colonies to sever their connection
with the mother-country? When our Constitution was formed,
the same idea was rendered more palpable; for there we find provision
made for that very class of persons as property; they were
not put upon the footing of equality with white men&mdash;not even
upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation
was concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only
to be represented in the numerical proportion of three fifths. So
stands the compact which binds us together.</p>

<p>"Then, Senators, we recur to the principles upon which our
Government was founded; and when you deny them, and when
you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which,
thus perverted, threatens to be destructive of our rights, we but
tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence
and take the hazard. This is done, not in hostility to others,
not to injure any section of the country, not even for our own
pecuniary benefit, but from the high and solemn motive of defending
and protecting the rights we inherited, and which it is our
duty to transmit unshorn to our children.</p>

<p>"I find in myself perhaps a type of the general feeling of my
constituents toward yours. I am sure I feel no hostility toward
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page225" id="page225"></a>[pg 225]</span>
you, Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you,
whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to
whom I can not now say, in the presence of my God, I wish you
well; and such, I am sure, is the feeling of the people whom I
represent toward those whom you represent. I, therefore, feel
that I but express their desire when I say I hope, and they hope,
for peaceable relations with you, though we must part. They
may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as they have been
in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on
every portion of the country, and, if you will have it thus, we will
invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power
of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus,
putting our trust in God and in our firm hearts and strong arms,
we will vindicate the right as best we may.</p>

<p>"In the course of my service here, associated at different
times with a great variety of Senators, I see now around me some
with whom I have served long; there have been points of collision,
but, whatever of offense there has been to me, I leave here.
I carry with me no hostile remembrance. Whatever offense I
have given which has not been redressed, or for which satisfaction
has not been demanded, I have, Senators, in this hour of our parting,
to offer you my apology for any pain which, in the heat of
discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence unencumbered by the
remembrance of any injury received, and having discharged the
duty of making the only reparation in my power for any injury
offered.</p>

<p>"Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement
which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for
me to bid you a final adieu."
</p></blockquote>

<p>There are some who contend that we should have retained
our seats and "fought for our rights in the Union." Could
anything be less rational or less consistent than that a Senator,
an ambassador from his State, should insist upon representing
it in a confederacy from which the State has withdrawn?
What was meant by "fighting in the Union" I have never
quite understood. If it be to retain a seat in Congress for the
purpose of crippling the Government and rendering it unable to
perform its functions, I can certainly not appreciate the idea of
honor that sanctions the suggestion. Among the advantages
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id="page226"></a>[pg 226]</span>
claimed for this proposition by its supporters was that of thwarting
the President in the appointment of his Cabinet and
other officers necessary for the administration of public affairs.
Would this have been to maintain the Union formed by the
States? Would such have been the Government which Washington
recommended as a remedy for the defects of the original
Confederation, the greatest of which was the paralysis of the
action of the general agent by the opposition or indifference of
the States? Sad as have been the consequences of the war
which followed secession&mdash;disastrous in its moral, material, and
political relations&mdash;still we have good cause to feel proud that
the course of the Southern States has left no blot nor stain upon
the honor and chivalry of their people.</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>"And if our children must obey,</p>
<p>They must, but&mdash;thinking on our day&mdash;</p>
<p>'Twill less debase them to submit."</p>
  </div>  </div>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-iv" id="chap-iii-iv"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Threats of Arrest.&mdash;Departure from Washington.&mdash;Indications of Public Anxiety.&mdash;"Will
there be war?"&mdash;Organization of the "Army of Mississippi."&mdash;Lack
of Preparations for Defense in the South.&mdash;Evidences of the Good Faith and
Peaceable Purposes of the Southern People.
</p></blockquote>


<p>During the interval between the announcement by telegraph
of the secession of Mississippi and the receipt of the official
notification which enabled me to withdraw from the Senate,
rumors were in circulation of a purpose, on the part of the
United States Government, to arrest members of Congress
preparing to leave Washington on account of the secession of
the States which they represented. This threat received little
attention from those most concerned. Indeed, it was thought
that it might not be an undesirable mode of testing the question
of the right of a State to withdraw from the Union.</p>

<p>No attempt, however, was made to arrest any of the retiring
members; and, after a delay of a few days in necessary preparations,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227" id="page227"></a>[pg 227]</span>
I left Washington for Mississippi, passing through
southwestern Virginia, East Tennessee, a small part of Georgia,
and north Alabama. A deep interest in the events which had
recently occurred was exhibited by the people of these States,
and much anxiety was indicated as to the future. Many years
of agitation had made them familiar with the idea of separation.
Nearly two generations had risen to manhood since it
had begun to be discussed as a possible alternative. Few, very
few, of the Southern people had ever regarded it as a desirable
event, or otherwise than as a last resort for escape from evils
more intolerable. It was a calamity, which, however threatened,
they had still hoped might be averted, or indefinitely
postponed, and they had regarded with contempt, rather than
anger, the ravings of a party in the North, which denounced
the Constitution and the Union, and persistently defamed their
brethren of the South.</p>

<p>Now, however, as well in Virginia and Tennessee, neither
of which had yet seceded, as in the more Southern States, which
had already taken that step, the danger so often prophesied was
perceived to be at the door, and eager inquiries were made as
to what would happen next&mdash;especially as to the probability of
war between the States.</p>

<p>The course which events were likely to take was shrouded
in the greatest uncertainty. In the minds of many there was
the not unreasonable hope (which had been expressed by the
Commissioner sent from Mississippi to Maryland) that the secession
of six Southern States&mdash;certainly soon to be followed by
that of others&mdash;would so arouse the sober thought and better
feeling of the Northern people as to compel their representatives
to agree to a Convention of the States, and that such
guarantees would be given as would secure to the South the
domestic tranquillity and equality in the Union which were
rights assured under the Federal compact. There were others,
and they the most numerous class, who considered that the
separation would be final, but peaceful. For my own part,
while believing that secession was a right, and properly a peaceable
remedy, I had never believed that it would be permitted
to be peaceably exercised. Very few in the South at that time
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228" id="page228"></a>[pg 228]</span>
agreed with me, and my answers to queries on the subject were,
therefore, as unexpected as they were unwelcome.</p>

<p>On my arrival at Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, I found
that the Convention of the State had made provision for a
State army, and had appointed me to the command, with the
rank of major-general. Four brigadier-generals, appointed in
like manner by the Convention, were awaiting my arrival for
assignment to duty. After the preparation of the necessary
rules and regulations, the division of the State into districts,
the apportionment among them of the troops to be raised, and
the appointment of officers of the general staff, as authorized
by the ordinance of the Convention, such measures as were
practicable were taken to obtain the necessary arms. The State
had few serviceable weapons, and no establishment for their
manufacture or repair. This fact (which is true of other Southern
States as of Mississippi) is a clear proof of the absence
of any desire or expectation of war. If the purpose of the
Northern States to make war upon us because of secession had
been foreseen, preparation to meet the consequences would
have been contemporaneous with the adoption of a resort to
that remedy&mdash;a remedy the possibility of which had for many
years been contemplated. Had the Southern States possessed
arsenals, and collected in them the requisite supplies of arms
and munitions, such preparation would not only have placed
them more nearly on an equality with the North in the beginning
of the war, but might, perhaps, have been the best conservator
of peace.</p>

<p>Let us, the survivors, however, not fail to do credit to the
generous credulity which could not understand how, in violation
of the compact of Union, a war could be waged against the
States, or why they should be invaded because their people had
deemed it necessary to withdraw from an association which had
failed to fulfill the ends for which they had entered into it,
and which, having been broken to their injury by the other
parties, had ceased to be binding upon them. It is a satisfaction
to know that the calamities which have befallen the
Southern States were the result of their credulous reliance on
the power of the Constitution, that, if it failed to protect their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id="page229"></a>[pg 229]</span>
rights, it would at least suffice to prevent an attempt at coercion,
if, in the last resort, they peacefully withdrew from the
Union.</p>

<p>When, in after times, the passions of the day shall have
subsided, and all the evidence shall have been collected and
compared, the philosophical inquirer, who asks why the majority
of the stronger section invaded the peaceful homes of
their late associates, will be answered by History: "The lust
of empire impelled them to wage against their weaker neighbors
a war of subjugation."</p>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-v" id="chap-iii-v"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Meeting of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States.&mdash;Adoption of a Provisional
Constitution.&mdash;Election of President and Vice-President.&mdash;Notification
to the Author of his Election.&mdash;His Views with Regard to it.&mdash;Journey to
Montgomery.&mdash;Interview
with Judge Sharkey.&mdash;False Reports of Speeches on the
Way.&mdash;Inaugural Address.&mdash;Editor's Note.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The congress of delegates from the seceding States convened
at Montgomery, Alabama, according to appointment, on
the 4th of February, 1861. Their first work was to prepare a
provisional Constitution for the new Confederacy, to be formed
of the States which had withdrawn from the Union, for which
the style "Confederate States of America" was adopted. The
powers conferred upon them were adequate for the performance
of this duty, the immediate necessity for which was obvious
and urgent. This Constitution was adopted on the 8th of February,
to continue in force for one year, unless superseded at an
earlier date by a permanent organization. It is printed in an
appendix, and for convenience of reference the permanent Constitution,
adopted several weeks afterward, is exhibited in connection
with it, and side by side with the Constitution of the
United States, after which it was modeled.<a id="footnotetag123" name="footnotetag123"></a><a href="#footnote123"><sup>123</sup></a> The attention of
the reader is invited to these documents and to a comparison of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230" id="page230"></a>[pg 230]</span>
them, although a more particular notice of the permanent Constitution
will be more appropriate hereafter.</p>

<p>On the next day (9th of February) an election was held for
the chief executive offices, resulting, as I afterward learned, in
my election to the Presidency, with the Hon. Alexander H.
Stephens, of Georgia, as Vice-President. Mr. Stephens was a
delegate from Georgia to the congress.</p>

<p>While these events were occurring, having completed the
most urgent of my duties at the capital of Mississippi, I had
gone to my home, Brierfield, in Warren County, and had begun,
in the homely but expressive language of Mr. Clay, "to
repair my fences." While thus engaged, notice was received
of my election to the Presidency of the Confederate States,
with an urgent request to proceed immediately to Montgomery
for inauguration.</p>

<p>As this had been suggested as a probable event, and what
appeared to me adequate precautions had been taken to prevent
it, I was surprised, and, still more, disappointed. For reasons
which it is not now necessary to state, I had not believed my
self as well suited to the office as some others. I thought
myself better adapted to command in the field; and Mississippi
had given me the position which I preferred to any other&mdash;the
highest rank in her army. It was, therefore, that I afterward
said, in an address delivered in the Capitol, before the Legislature
of the State, with reference to my election to the Presidency
of the Confederacy, that the duty to which I was thus
called was temporary, and that I expected soon to be with the
Army of Mississippi again.</p>

<p>While on my way to Montgomery, and waiting in Jackson,
Mississippi, for the railroad train, I met the Hon. William L.
Sharkey, who had filled with great distinction the office of
Chief-Justice of the State. He said he was looking for me to
make an inquiry. He desired to know if it was true, as he had
just learned, that I believed there <i>would</i> be war. My opinion
was freely given, that there would be war, long and bloody, and
that it behooved every one to put his house in order. He expressed
much surprise, and said that he had not believed the
report attributing this opinion to me. He asked how I supposed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231" id="page231"></a>[pg 231]</span>
war could result from the peaceable withdrawal of a sovereign
State. The answer was, that it was not my opinion that
war <i>should</i> be occasioned by the exercise of that right, but that
it <i>would</i> be.</p>

<p>Judge Sharkey and I had not belonged to the same political
party, he being a Whig, but we fully agreed with regard to the
question of the sovereignty of the States. He had been an
advocate of nullification&mdash;a doctrine to which I had never
assented, and which had at one time been the main issue in Mississippi
politics. He had presided over the well-remembered
Nashville Convention in 1849, and had possessed much influence
in the State, not only as an eminent jurist, but as a citizen
who had grown up with it, and held many offices of honor and
trust.</p>

<p>On my way to Montgomery, brief addresses were made at
various places, at which there were temporary stoppages of the
trains, in response to calls from the crowds assembled at such
points. Some of these addresses were grossly misrepresented
in sensational reports made by irresponsible persons, which
were published in Northern newspapers, and were not considered
worthy of correction under the pressure of the momentous
duties then devolving upon me. These false reports, which
represented me as invoking war and threatening devastation of
the North, have since been adopted by partisan writers as authentic
history. It is a sufficient answer to these accusations to
refer to my farewell address to the Senate, already given, as
reported for the press at the time, and, in connection therewith,
to my inaugural address at Montgomery, on assuming the office
of President of the Confederate States, on the 18th of February.
These two addresses, delivered at an interval of a month,
during which no material change of circumstances had occurred,
being one before and the other after the date of the sensational
reports referred to, are sufficient to stamp them as utterly untrue.
The inaugural was deliberately prepared, and uttered as
written, and, in connection with the farewell speech to the Senate,
presents a clear and authentic statement of the principles
and purposes which actuated me on assuming the duties of the
high office to which I had been called.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232" id="page232"></a>[pg 232]</span>

<blockquote><p>
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.</p>

<p>"<i>Gentlemen of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Friends,
and Fellow-Citizens:</i></p>

<p>"Called to the difficult and responsible station of Chief Magistrate
of the Provisional Government which you have instituted,
I approach the discharge of the duties assigned to me with humble
distrust of my abilities, but with a sustaining confidence in
the wisdom of those who are to guide and aid me in the administration
of public affairs, and an abiding faith in the virtue and
patriotism of the people. Looking forward to the speedy establishment
of a permanent government to take the place of this,
which by its greater moral and physical power will be better able
to combat with many difficulties that arise from the conflicting
interests of separate nations, I enter upon the duties of the office
to which I have been chosen with the hope that the beginning of
our career, as a Confederacy, may not be obstructed by hostile
opposition to our enjoyment of the separate existence and independence
we have asserted, and which, with the blessing of Providence,
we intend to maintain.</p>

<p>"Our present political position has been achieved in a manner
unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American
idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed,
and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at
will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they
were established. The declared purpose of the compact of the
Union from which we have withdrawn was to 'establish justice,
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity'; and when, in the judgment of
the sovereign States composing this Confederacy, it has been perverted
from the purposes for which it was ordained, and ceased
to answer the ends for which it was established, a peaceful appeal
to the ballot-box declared that, so far as they are concerned, the
Government created by that compact should cease to exist. In
this they merely asserted the right which the Declaration of Independence
of July 4, 1776, defined to be 'inalienable.' Of the
time and occasion of its exercise they as sovereigns were the final
judges, each for itself. The impartial and enlightened verdict of
mankind will vindicate the rectitude of our conduct; and He
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233" id="page233"></a>[pg 233]</span>
who knows the hearts of men will judge of the sincerity with
which we have labored to preserve the Government of our fathers
in its spirit.</p>

<p>"The right solemnly proclaimed at the birth of the United
States, and which has been solemnly affirmed and reaffirmed in
the Bills of Rights of the States subsequently admitted into the
Union of 1789, undeniably recognizes in the people the power to
resume the authority delegated for the purposes of government.
Thus the sovereign States here represented have proceeded to
form this Confederacy; and it is by abuse of language that their
act has been denominated a revolution. They formed a new
alliance, but within each State its government has remained; so
that the rights of person and property have not been disturbed.
The agent through which they communicated with foreign nations
is changed, but this does not necessarily interrupt their international
relations. Sustained by the consciousness that the transition
from the former Union to the present Confederacy has not
proceeded from a disregard on our part of just obligations, or any
failure to perform every constitutional duty, moved by no interest
or passion to invade the rights of others, anxious to cultivate
peace and commerce with all nations, if we may not hope to avoid
war, we may at least expect that posterity will acquit us of having
needlessly engaged in it. Doubly justified by the absence of
wrong on our part, and by wanton aggression on the part of
others, there can be no cause to doubt that the courage and patriotism
of the people of the Confederate States will be found equal
to any measure of defense which their honor and security may
require.</p>

<p>"An agricultural people, whose chief interest is the export of
commodities required in every manufacturing country, our true
policy is peace, and the freest trade which our necessities will permit.
It is alike our interest and that of all those to whom we
would sell, and from whom we would buy, that there should be
the fewest practicable restrictions upon the interchange of these
commodities. There can, however, be but little rivalry between
ours and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as
the Northeastern States of the American Union. It must follow,
therefore, that mutual interest will invite to good-will and kind
offices on both parts. If, however, passion or lust of dominion
should cloud the judgment or inflame the ambition of those States,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234" id="page234"></a>[pg 234]</span>
we must prepare to meet the emergency and maintain, by the final
arbitrament of the sword, the position which we have assumed
among the nations of the earth.</p>

<p>"We have entered upon the career of independence, and it
must be inflexibly pursued. Through many years of controversy
with our late associates of the Northern States, we have vainly
endeavored to secure tranquillity and obtain respect for the rights
to which we were entitled. As a necessity, not a choice, we have
resorted to the remedy of separation, and henceforth our energies
must be directed to the conduct of our own affairs, and the perpetuity
of the Confederacy which we have formed. If a just perception
of mutual interest shall permit us peaceably to pursue our
separate political career, my most earnest desire will have been
fulfilled.  But if this be denied to us, and the integrity of our
territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us
with firm resolve to appeal to arms and invoke the blessing of
Providence on a just cause.</p>

<p>"As a consequence of our new condition and relations, and
with a view to meet anticipated wants, it will be necessary to provide
for the speedy and efficient organization of branches of the
Executive department having special charge of foreign intercourse,
finance, military affairs, and the postal service. For purposes
of defense, the Confederate States may, under ordinary
circumstances, rely mainly upon the militia; but it is deemed
advisable, in the present condition of affairs, that there should be
a well-instructed and disciplined army, more numerous than would
usually be required on a peace establishment. I also suggest that,
for the protection of our harbors and commerce on the high seas,
a navy adapted to those objects will be required. But this, as
well as other subjects appropriate to our necessities, have doubtless
engaged the attention of Congress.</p>

<p>"With a Constitution differing only from that of our fathers
in so far as it is explanatory of their well-known intent, freed
from sectional conflicts, which have interfered with the pursuit of
the general welfare, it is not unreasonable to expect that States
from which we have recently parted may seek to unite their fortunes
to ours under the Government which we have instituted.
For this your Constitution makes adequate provision; but beyond
this, if I mistake not the judgment and will of the people, a reunion
with the States from which we have separated is neither
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235" id="page235"></a>[pg 235]</span>
practicable nor desirable. To increase the power, develop the
resources, and promote the happiness of the Confederacy, it is
requisite that there should be so much of homogeneity that the
welfare of every portion shall be the aim of the whole. When
this does not exist, antagonisms are engendered which must and
should result in separation.</p>

<p>"Actuated solely by the desire to preserve our own rights,
and promote our own welfare, the separation by the Confederate
States has been marked by no aggression upon others, and followed
by no domestic convulsion. Our industrial pursuits have
received no check, the cultivation of our fields has progressed
as heretofore, and, even should we be involved in war, there
would be no considerable diminution in the production of the staples
which have constituted our exports, and in which the commercial
world has an interest scarcely less than our own. This
common interest of the producer and consumer can only be interrupted
by exterior force which would obstruct the transmission of
our staples to foreign markets&mdash;a course of conduct which would
be as unjust, as it would be detrimental, to manufacturing and
commercial interests abroad.</p>

<p>"Should reason guide the action of the Government from
which we have separated, a policy so detrimental to the civilized
world, the Northern States included, could not be dictated by
even the strongest desire to inflict injury upon us; but, if the contrary
should prove true, a terrible responsibility will rest upon it,
and the suffering of millions will bear testimony to the folly and
wickedness of our aggressors. In the mean time there will remain
to us, besides the ordinary means before suggested, the well known
resources for retaliation upon the commerce of an enemy.</p>

<p>"Experience in public stations, of subordinate grade to this
which your kindness has conferred, has taught me that toil and
care and disappointment are the price of official elevation. You
will see many errors to forgive, many deficiencies to tolerate; but
you shall not find in me either want of zeal or fidelity to the cause
that is to me the highest in hope, and of most enduring affection.
Your generosity has bestowed upon me an undeserved distinction,
one which I neither sought nor desired.  Upon the continuance
of that sentiment, and upon your wisdom and patriotism, I rely to
direct and support me in the performance of the duties required
at my hands.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236"></a>[pg 236]</span>

<p>"We have changed the constituent parts, but not the system
of government. The Constitution framed by our fathers is that
of these Confederate States. In their exposition of it, and in the
judicial construction it has received, we have a light which reveals
its true meaning.</p>

<p>"Thus instructed as to the true meaning and just interpretation
of that instrument, and ever remembering that all offices are
but trusts held for the people, and that powers delegated are to
be strictly construed, I will hope by due diligence in the performance
of my duties, though I may disappoint your expectations,
yet to retain, when retiring, something of the good-will and confidence
which welcome my entrance into office.</p>

<p>"It is joyous in the midst of perilous times to look around
upon a people united in heart, where one purpose of high resolve
animates and actuates the whole; where the sacrifices to be made
are not weighed in the balance against honor and right and liberty
and equality. Obstacles may retard, but they can not long
prevent, the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice and
sustained by a virtuous people.  Reverently let us invoke the God
of our Fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate
the principles which by his blessing they were able to vindicate,
establish, and transmit to their posterity. With the continuance
of his favor ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hopefully
look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity."
</p></blockquote>

<p><span class="sc">Note</span>, <i>relative to the Election of President of the Confederate States under
the Provisional Constitution, and some Other Subjects referred to in the
Foregoing Chapters.</i></p>

<p>Statements having been made, seeming to imply that I was a
candidate "for the Presidency of the Confederate States; that my
election was the result of a misunderstanding, or of accidental
complications"; and also that I held "extreme views," and entertained
at that period an inadequate conception of the magnitude
of the war probably to be waged, information on the subject has
been contributed by several distinguished members of the Provisional
Congress, who still survive. From a number of their letters
which have been published, the annexed extracts are given, parts
being omitted which refer to matters not of historical interest.</p>

<p>From a communication of the Hon. Alexander M. Clayton,
of Mississippi, to the Memphis "Appeal" of June 21, 1870:</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237" id="page237"></a>[pg 237]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"... I was at the time a member of the Provisional Congress
from Mississippi. Believing that Mr. Davis was the choice of the
South for the position of President, before repairing to Montgomery
I addressed him a letter to ascertain if he would accept it. He
replied that it was not the place he desired; that, if he could have
his choice, he would greatly prefer to be in active service as commander-in-chief
of the army, but that he would give himself to
the cause in any capacity whatever. That was the only letter of
which I have any knowledge that he wrote on the subject, and
that was shown to only a very few persons, and only when I was
asked if Mr. Davis would accept the presidency....</p>

<p>"There was no electioneering, no management, on the part of
any one. Each voter was left to determine for himself in whose
hands the destinies of the infant Confederacy should be placed.
By a law as fixed as gravitation itself, and as little disturbed
by outside influences, the minds of members centered upon Mr.
Davis.</p>

<p>"After a few days of anxious, intense labor, the Provisional
Constitution was framed, and it became necessary to give it vitality
by putting some one at the head of the new Government....</p>

<p>"Without any effort on the part of the friends of either
[Messrs. Davis or Stephens], the election was made without the
slightest dissent. Of the accidental complications referred to, I
have not the least knowledge, and always thought that the election
of Mr. Davis arose from the spontaneous conviction of his
peculiar fitness. I have consulted no one on the subject, and have
appended my name only to avoid resting an important fact upon
anonymous authority. Very respectfully yours,</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Alexander M. Clayton</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>From the Hon. J. A. P. Campbell, of Mississippi, now a Justice
of the Supreme Court of that State:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"... If there was a delegate from Mississippi, or any other
State, who was opposed to the election of Jefferson Davis as President
of the Confederate States, I never heard of the fact. I had
the idea that Mr. Davis did not desire to be President, and preferred
to be in the military service, but no other man was spoken
of for President within my hearing....</p>

<p>"It is within my personal knowledge that the statement of the
interview, that Mr. Davis did not have a just appreciation of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238" id="page238"></a>[pg 238]</span>
serious character of the contest between the seceding States and
the Union, is wholly untrue. Mr. Davis, more than any man I
ever heard talk on the subject, had a correct apprehension of the
consequences of secession and of the magnitude of the war to be
waged to coerce the seceding States. While at Montgomery, he
expressed the belief that heavy fighting must occur, and that Virginia
was to be the chief battle-ground. Years prior to secession,
in his address before the Legislature and people of Mississippi,
Mr. Davis had earnestly advised extensive preparation for the possible
contingency of secession.</p>

<p>"After the formation of the Confederate States, he was far in
advance of the Constitutional Convention and the Provisional Congress,
and, as I believe, of any man in it, in his views of the gravity
of the situation and the probable extent and duration of the
war, and of the provision which should be made for the defense
of the seceding States. Before secession, Mr. Davis thought war
would result from it; and, after secession, he expressed the view
that the war commenced would be an extensive one.  What he
may have thought at a later day than the early part of 1862, I do
not know; but it is inconceivable that the 'interview' can be
correct as to that.</p>

<p>"The idea that Mr. Davis was so 'extreme' in his views is a
new one. He was extremely conservative on the subject of secession.</p>

<p>"The suggestion that Mississippi would have preferred General
Toombs or Mr. Cobb for President has no foundation in fact.
My opinion is, that no man could have obtained a single vote in
the Mississippi delegation against Mr. Davis, who was then, as he
is now, the most eminent and popular of all the citizens of Mississippi....
Very respectfully,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">J. A. P. Campbell</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>From the Hon. Duncan F. Kenner, of Louisiana:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"....My recollections of what transpired at the time are very
vivid and positive....</p>

<p>"Who should be President, was the absorbing question of the
day. It engaged the attention of all present, and elicited many
letters from our respective constituencies.  The general inclination
was strongly in favor of Mr. Davis. In fact, no other name
was so prominently or so generally mentioned. The name of Mr.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239" id="page239"></a>[pg 239]</span>
Rhett, of South Carolina, was probably more frequently mentioned
than that of any other person, next to Mr. Davis.</p>

<p>"The rule adopted at our election was that each State should
have one vote, to be delivered in open session, <i>viva voce</i>, by one
of the delegates as spokesman for his colleagues. The delegates
of the different States met in secret session to select their candidate
and spokesman.</p>

<p>"Of what occurred in these various meetings I can not speak
authoritatively as to other States, as their proceedings were considered
secret. I can speak positively, however, of what took
place at a meeting of the delegates from Louisiana. We, the
Louisiana delegates, without hesitation, and unanimously, after a
very short session, decided in favor of Mr. Davis. No other name
was mentioned; the claims of no one else were considered, or even
alluded to. There was not the slightest opposition to Mr. Davis
on the part of any of our delegation; certainly none was expressed;
all appeared enthusiastic in his favor, and, I have no reason
to doubt, felt so. Nor was the feeling induced by any solicitation
on the part of Mr. Davis or his friends. Mr. Davis was not
in or near Montgomery at the time. He was never heard from on
this subject, so far as I knew. He was never announced as a candidate.
We were seeking the best man to fill the position, and
the conviction at the time, in the minds of a large majority of the
delegates, that Mr. Davis was the best qualified, from both his
civil and military knowledge and experience, induced many to look
upon Mr. Davis as the best selection that could be made.</p>

<p>"This conviction, coupled with his well-recognized conservative
views&mdash;for in no sense did we consider Mr. Davis extreme,
either in his views or purposes&mdash;was the deciding consideration
which controlled the votes of the Louisiana delegation. Of this
I have not the least doubt. I remain, respectfully, very truly
yours, etc.</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Duncan F. Kenner</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>From the Hon. James Chesnut, of South Carolina:</p>

<blockquote><p>
".... Before leaving home I had made up my mind as to
who was the fittest man to be President, and who to be Vice-President;
Mr. Davis for the first, and Mr. Stephens for the second.
And this was known to all my friends as well as to my colleagues.</p>

<p>"Mr. Davis, then conspicuous for ability, had long experience
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240"></a>[pg 240]</span>
in civil service, was reputed a most successful organizer and administrator
of the military department of the United States when
he was Secretary of War, and came out of the Mexican war with
much <i>&eacute;clat</i> as a soldier. Possessing a combination of these high
and needful qualities, he was regarded by nearly the whole South
as the fittest man for the position. I certainly so regarded him,
and did not change my mind on the way to Montgomery....</p>

<p>"Georgia was a great State&mdash;great in numbers, comparatively
great in wealth, and great in the intellectual gifts and experiences
of many of her sons. Conspicuous among them were Stephens,
Toombs, and Cobb. In view of these facts, it was thought by all
of us expedient&mdash;nay, more, positively right and just&mdash;that Georgia
should have a corresponding weight in the counsels and conduct
of the new Government.</p>

<p>"Mr. Stephens was also a man of conceded ability, of high
character, conservative, devoted to the rights of the States, and
known to be a power in his own State; hence all eyes turned to
him to fill the second place.</p>

<p>"Howell Cobb became President of the Convention, and General
Toombs Secretary of State. These two gifted Georgians
were called to these respective positions because of their experience,
ability, and ardent patriotism....</p>

<p>"Mr. Rhett was a very bold and frank man. So was Colonel
Keitt; and they, as always, avowed their opinions and acted upon
them with energy. Nevertheless, the vote of the delegation was
cast for Mr. Davis....</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">James Chesnut</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>From the Hon. W. Porcher Miles, of Virginia, formerly of
South Carolina, and a member of the Provisional Congress of
1861:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Oak Ridge</span>, <i>January 27, 1880</i>.</p>

<p>"....To the best of my recollection there was entire unanimity
in the South Carolina delegation at Montgomery on the subject
of the choice of a President. I think it very likely that Keitt,
from his warm personal friendship for Mr. Toombs, may at first
have preferred him. I have no recollections of Chesnut's predilections.
I think there was no question that Mr. Davis was the choice
of our delegation and of the whole people of South Carolina....
I do not think Mr. Rhett ever attempted to influence the course
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241" id="page241"></a>[pg 241]</span>
of his colleagues, either in this or in matters generally before the
Congress. Nor do I think his personal influence in the delegation
was as great as that of some other members of it. If I were to
select any one as having a special influence with us, I would consider
Mr. Robert Barnwell as the one. His singularly pure and
elevated character, entire freedom from all personal ambition or
desire for place or position (he declined Mr. Davis's offer of a seat
in the Cabinet), as well as his long experience in public life and
admirably calm and well-balanced mind, all combined to make his
influence with his colleagues very great. But neither could he be
said 'to lead' the delegation. He had no desire, and never made
any attempt to do so. I think there was no delegation in the Congress,
the individual members of which were more independent
in coming to their own conclusions of what was right and expedient
to be done. There was always the frankest and freest interchange
of opinions among them, but every one determined his
own course for himself."
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote123" name="footnote123"></a><b>Footnote 123:</b><a href="#footnotetag123"> (return) </a><p>See Appendix K.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-vi" id="chap-iii-vi"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Confederate Cabinet.
</p></blockquote>



<p>After being inaugurated, I proceeded to the formation of
my Cabinet, that is, the heads of the executive departments
authorized by the laws of the Provisional Congress. The unanimity
existing among our people made this a much easier and
more agreeable task than where the rivalries in the party of an
executive have to be consulted and accommodated, often at the
expense of the highest capacity and fitness. Unencumbered
by any other consideration than the public welfare, having no
friends to reward or enemies to punish, it resulted that not
one of those who formed my first Cabinet had borne to me the
relation of close personal friendship, or had political claims
upon me; indeed, with two of them I had no previous acquaintance.</p>

<p>It was my wish that the Hon. Robert W. Barnwell, of
South Carolina, should be Secretary of State. I had known
him intimately during a trying period of our joint service in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242" id="page242"></a>[pg 242]</span>
the United States Senate, and he had won alike my esteem and
regard. Before making known to him my wish in this connection,
the delegation of South Carolina, of which he was a member,
had resolved to recommend one of their number to be Secretary
of the Treasury, and Mr. Barnwell, with characteristic
delicacy, declined to accept my offer to him.</p>

<p>I had intended to offer the Treasury Department to Mr.
Toombs, of Georgia, whose knowledge on subjects of finance
had particularly attracted my notice when we served together
in the United States Senate. Mr. Barnwell having declined
the State Department, and a colleague of his, said to be peculiarly
qualified for the Treasury Department, having been recommended
for it, Mr. Toombs was offered the State Department,
for which others believed him to be well qualified.</p>

<p>Mr. Mallory, of Florida, had been chairman of the Committee
on Naval Affairs in the United States Senate, was extensively
acquainted with the officers of the navy, and for a landsman
had much knowledge of nautical affairs; therefore he was
selected for Secretary of the Navy.</p>

<p>Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana, had a very high reputation as
a lawyer, and my acquaintance with him in the Senate had impressed
me with the lucidity of his intellect, his systematic
habits and capacity for labor.  He was therefore invited to the
post of Attorney-General.</p>

<p>Mr. Reagan, of Texas, I had known for a sturdy, honest
Representative in the United States Congress, and his acquaintance
with the territory included in the Confederate States was
both extensive and accurate.  These, together with his industry
and ability to labor, indicated him as peculiarly fit for the office
of Postmaster-General.</p>

<p>Mr. Memminger, of South Carolina, had a high reputation
for knowledge of finance. He bore an unimpeachable character
for integrity and close attention to duties, and, on the recommendation
of the delegation from South Carolina, he was appointed
Secretary of the Treasury, and proved himself entirely
worthy of the trust.</p>

<p>Mr. Walker, of Alabama, was a distinguished member of
the bar of north Alabama, and was eminent among the politicians
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243" id="page243"></a>[pg 243]</span>
of that section. He was earnestly recommended by gentlemen
intimately and favorably known to me, and was therefore
selected for the War Department. His was the only name
presented from Alabama.</p>

<p>The executive departments having been organized, my attention
was first directed to preparation for military defense,
for, though I, in common with others, desired to have a peaceful
separation, and sent commissioners to the United States Government
to effect, if possible, negotiations to that end, I did not
hold the common opinion that we would be allowed to depart
in peace, and therefore regarded it as an imperative duty to
make all possible preparation for the contingency of war.</p>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-vii" id="chap-iii-vii"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Early Acts of the Confederate Congress.&mdash;Laws of the United States continued in
Force.&mdash;Officers of Customs and Revenue continued in Office.&mdash;Commission to
the United States.&mdash;Navigation of the Mississippi.&mdash;Restrictions on the Coasting-Trade
removed.&mdash;Appointment of Commissioners to Washington.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The legislation of the Confederate Congress furnishes the
best evidence of the temper and spirit which prevailed in the
organization of the Confederate Government. The very first
enactment, made on the 9th of February, 1861&mdash;the day after
the adoption of the Provisional Constitution&mdash;was this:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That all the laws of the United States of America in force
and in use in the Confederate States of America on the first day
of November last, and not inconsistent with the Constitution of
the Confederate States, be and the same are hereby continued in
force until altered or repealed by the Congress."<a id="footnotetag124" name="footnotetag124"></a><a href="#footnote124"><sup>124</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>The next act, adopted on the 14th of February, was one
continuing in office until the 1st of April next ensuing all officers
connected with the collection of customs and the assistant
treasurers intrusted with the keeping of the moneys arising
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id="page244"></a>[pg 244]</span>
therefrom, who were engaged in the performance of such duties
within any of the Confederate States, with the same powers and
functions which they had been exercising under the Government
of the United States.<a id="footnotetag125" name="footnotetag125"></a><a href="#footnote125"><sup>125</sup></a></p>

<p>The Provisional Constitution itself, in the second section of
its sixth article, had ordained as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The Government hereby instituted shall take immediate
steps for the settlement of all matters between the States forming
it and their other late confederates of the United States, in relation
to the public property and public debt at the time of their
withdrawal from them; these States hereby declaring it to be
their wish and earnest desire to adjust everything pertaining to
the common property, common liabilities, and common obligations
of that Union, upon the principles of right, justice, equity, and
good faith."<a id="footnotetag126" name="footnotetag126"></a><a href="#footnote126"><sup>126</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>In accordance with this requirement of the Constitution, the
Congress, on the 15th of February&mdash;before my arrival at Montgomery&mdash;passed
a resolution declaring "that it is the sense of
this Congress that a commission of three persons be appointed
by the President-elect, as early as may be convenient after his
inauguration, and sent to the Government of the United States
of America, for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations
between that Government and the Confederate States of America,
and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement
between the two Governments, upon principles of right, justice,
equity, and good faith."<a id="footnotetag127" name="footnotetag127"></a><a href="#footnote127"><sup>127</sup></a></p>

<p>Persistent and to a great extent successful efforts were made
to inflame the minds of the people of the Northwestern States
by representing to them that, in consequence of the separation
of the States, they would lose the free navigation of the Mississippi
River. At that early period in the life of the Confederacy,
the intercourse between the North and South had been
so little interrupted, that the agitators, whose vocation it was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245" id="page245"></a>[pg 245]</span>
to deceive the masses of the people, could not, or should not,
have been ignorant that, as early as the 25th of February, 1861,
an act was passed by the Confederate Congress, and approved
by the President, "to declare and establish the free navigation
of the Mississippi River." That act began with the announcement
that "the peaceful navigation of the Mississippi River is
hereby declared <span class="sc">free</span> to the citizens of any of the States upon
its borders, or upon the borders of its navigable tributaries,"
and its provisions secure that freedom for "all ships, boats, or
vessels," with their cargoes, "without any duty or hindrance,
except light-money, pilotage, and other like charges."<a id="footnotetag128" name="footnotetag128"></a><a href="#footnote128"><sup>128</sup></a></p>

<p>By an act approved on the 26th of February, all laws which
forbade the employment in the coasting-trade of vessels not
enrolled or licensed, and all laws imposing discriminating duties
on foreign vessels or goods imported in them, were repealed.<a id="footnotetag129" name="footnotetag129"></a><a href="#footnote129"><sup>129</sup></a>
These acts and all other indications manifest the well-known
wish of the people of the Confederacy to preserve the peace
and encourage the most unrestricted commerce with all nations,
surely not least with their late associates, the Northern States.
Thus far, the hope that peace might be maintained was predominant;
perhaps, the wish was father to the thought that there
would be no war between the States lately united. Indeed, all
the laws enacted during the first session of the Provisional Congress
show how consistent were the purposes and actions of its
members with their original avowal of a desire peacefully to
separate from those with whom they could not live in tranquillity,
albeit the Government had been established to promote
the common welfare.  Under this state of feeling the Government
of the Confederacy was instituted.</p>

<p>My own views and inclinations, as has already been fully
shown, were in entire accord with the disposition manifested by
the requirement of the Provisional Constitution and the resolution
of the Congress above recited, for the appointment of a commission
to negotiate friendly relations with the United States and an
equitable and peaceable settlement of all questions which would
necessarily arise under the new relations of the States toward
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246" id="page246"></a>[pg 246]</span>
one another. Next to the organization of a Cabinet, that of
such a commission was accordingly one of the very first objects
of attention. Three discreet, well-informed, and distinguished
citizens were selected as said Commissioners, and accredited to
the President of the Northern States, Mr. Lincoln, to the end
that by negotiation all questions between the two Governments
might be so adjusted as to avoid war, and perpetuate the kind
relations which had been cemented by the common trials, sacrifices,
and glories of the people of all the States. If sectional
hostility had been engendered by dissimilarity of institutions,
and by a mistaken idea of moral responsibilities, and by irreconcilable
creeds&mdash;if the family could no longer live and grow
harmoniously together&mdash;by patriarchal teaching older than Christianity,
it might have been learned that it was better to part,
to part peaceably, and to continue, from one to another, the
good offices of neighbors who by sacred memories were forbidden
ever to be foes.  The nomination of the members of the
commission was made on the 25th of February&mdash;within a week
after my inauguration&mdash;and confirmed by Congress on the same
day. The Commissioners appointed were Messrs. A. B. Roman,
of Louisiana; Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia; and John Forsyth,
of Alabama. Mr. Roman was an honored citizen, and
had been Governor of his native State. Mr. Crawford had
served with distinction in Congress for several years. Mr. Forsyth
was an influential journalist, and had been Minister to
Mexico under appointment of Mr. Pierce near the close of his
term, and continued so under that of Mr. Buchanan. These gentlemen,
moreover, represented the three great parties which had
ineffectually opposed the sectionalism of the so-called "Republicans."
Ex-Governor Roman had been a Whig in former
years, and one of the "Constitutional Union," or Bell-and-Everett,
party in the canvass of 1860. Mr. Crawford, as a
State-rights Democrat, had supported Mr. Breckinridge; and
Mr. Forsyth had been a zealous advocate of the claims of Mr.
Douglas.  The composition of the commission was therefore
such as should have conciliated the sympathy and co&ouml;peration
of every element of conservatism with which they might have
occasion to deal. Their commissions authorized and empowered
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247" id="page247"></a>[pg 247]</span>
them, "in the name of the Confederate States, to meet
and confer with any person or persons duly authorized by the
Government of the United States, being furnished with like
power and authority, and with him or them to agree, treat, consult,
and negotiate" concerning all matters in which the parties
were both interested. No secret instructions were given them,
for there was nothing to conceal. The objects of their mission
were open and avowed, and its inception and conduct throughout
were characterized by frankness and good faith. How this
effort was received, how the Commissioners were kept waiting,
and, while fair promises were held to the ear, how military
preparations were pushed forward for the unconstitutional,
criminal purpose of coercing States, let the shameful record of
that transaction attest.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote124" name="footnote124"></a><b>Footnote 124:</b><a href="#footnotetag124"> (return) </a><p> Statutes at Large, Provisional Government, Confederate States of America,
p. 27.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote125" name="footnote125"></a><b>Footnote 125:</b><a href="#footnotetag125"> (return) </a><p> Statutes at Large, Provisional Government, Confederate States of America,
pp. 27, 28.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote126" name="footnote126"></a><b>Footnote 126:</b><a href="#footnotetag126"> (return) </a><p>See Provisional Constitution, Appendix K, <i>in loco</i>.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote127" name="footnote127"></a><b>Footnote 127:</b><a href="#footnotetag127"> (return) </a><p> Statutes at Large, Provisional Government, Confederate States of America,
p. 92.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote128" name="footnote128"></a><b>Footnote 128:</b><a href="#footnotetag128"> (return) </a><p> Statutes at Large, Provisional Government, Confederate States of America,
pp. 36-38.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote129" name="footnote129"></a><b>Footnote 129:</b><a href="#footnotetag129"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 38.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-viii" id="chap-iii-viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Peace Conference.&mdash;Demand for "a Little Bloodletting."&mdash;Plan proposed by
the Conference.&mdash;Its Contemptuous Reception and Treatment in the United
States Congress.&mdash;Failure of Last Efforts at Reconciliation and Reunion.&mdash;Note.&mdash;Speech
of General Lane, of Oregon.
</p></blockquote>


<p>While the events which have just been occupying our attention
were occurring, the last conspicuous effort was made
within the Union to stay the tide of usurpation which was
driving the Southern States into secession. This effort was set
on foot by Virginia, the General Assembly of which State, on
the 19th of January, 1861, adopted a preamble and resolutions,
deprecating disunion, and inviting all such States as were willing
to unite in an earnest endeavor to avert it by an adjustment
of the then existing controversies to appoint commissioners to
meet in Washington, on the 4th of February, "to consider,
and, if practicable, agree upon some suitable adjustment." Ex-President
John Tyler, and Messrs. William C. Rives, John W.
Brockenbrugh, George W. Summers, and James A. Seddon&mdash;five
of the most distinguished citizens of the State&mdash;were appointed
to represent Virginia in the proposed conference. If
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248" id="page248"></a>[pg 248]</span>
they could agree with the Commissioners of other States upon
any plan of settlement requiring amendments to the Federal
Constitution, they were instructed to communicate them to
Congress, with a view to their submission to the several States
for ratification.</p>

<p>The "border States" in general promptly acceded to this
proposition of Virginia, and others followed, so that in the
"Peace Congress," or conference, which assembled, according
to appointment, on the 4th, and adjourned on the 27th of February,
twenty-one States were eventually represented, of which
fourteen were Northern, or "non-slaveholding," and seven slaveholding
States. The six States which had already seceded were
of course not of the number represented; nor were Texas and
Arkansas, the secession of which, although not consummated,
was obviously inevitable. Three of the Northwestern States&mdash;Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota&mdash;and the two Pacific
States&mdash;Oregon and California&mdash;also held aloof from the conference.
In the case of these last two, distance and lack of time
perhaps hindered action. With regard to the other three, their
reasons for declining to participate in the movement were not
officially assigned, and are therefore only subjects for conjecture.
Some remarkable revelations were afterward made, however,
with regard to the action of one of them. It appears,
from correspondence read in the Senate on the 27th of February,
that the two Senators from Michigan had at first opposed
the participation of that State in the conference, on the ground
that it was, as one of them expressed it, "a step toward obtaining
that concession which the imperious slave power so insolently
demands."<a id="footnotetag130" name="footnotetag130"></a><a href="#footnote130"><sup>130</sup></a>&mdash;that is to say, in plain terms, they objected to
it because it might lead to a compromise and pacification. Finding,
however, that most of the other Northern States were represented&mdash;some
of them by men of moderate and conciliatory
temper&mdash;that writer had subsequently changed his mind, and at
a late period of the session of the conference recommended the
sending of delegations of "true, unflinching men," who would
be "in favor of the Constitution as it is"&mdash;that is, who would
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249"></a>[pg 249]</span>
oppose any amendment proposed in the interests of harmony
and pacification.</p>

<p>The other Senator exhibits a similar alarm at the prospect of
compromise and a concurrent change of opinion. He urges the
sending of "stiff-backed" men, to thwart the threatened success
of the friends of peace, and concludes with an expression of the
humane and patriotic sentiment that "without a little bloodletting"
the Union would not be "worth a rush."<a id="footnotetag131" name="footnotetag131"></a><a href="#footnote131"><sup>131</sup></a> With such
unworthy levity did these leaders of sectional strife express
their exultation in the prospect of the conflict, which was to
drench the land with blood and enshroud thousands of homes
in mourning!</p>

<p>It is needless to follow the course of the deliberations of the
Peace Conference. It included among its members many men
of distinction and eminent ability, and some of unquestionable
patriotism, from every part of the Union. The venerable John
Tyler presided, and took an active and ardent interest in the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250"></a>[pg 250]</span>
efforts made to effect a settlement and avert the impending disasters.
A plan was finally agreed upon by a majority of the
States represented, for certain amendments to the Federal Constitution,
which it was hoped might be acceptable to all parties
and put an end to further contention.  In its leading features
this plan resembled that of Mr. Crittenden, heretofore spoken
of, which was still pending in the Senate, though with some
variations, which were regarded as less favorable to the South.
It was reported immediately to both Houses of the United
States Congress. In the Senate, Mr. Crittenden promptly expressed
his willingness to accept it as a substitute for his own
proposition, and eloquently urged its adoption. But the arrogance
of a sectional majority inflated by recent triumph was
too powerful to be allayed by the appeals of patriotism or the
counsels of wisdom. The plan of the Peace Conference was
treated by the majority with the contemptuous indifference
shown to every other movement for conciliation. Its mere consideration
was objected to by the extreme radicals, and, although
they failed in this, it was defeated on a vote, as were the Crittenden
propositions.</p>

<p>With the failure of these efforts, which occurred on the eve
of the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and the accession to power
of a party founded on a basis of sectional aggression, and now
thoroughly committed to its prosecution and perpetuation, expired
the last hopes of reconciliation and union.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Note.</span>&mdash;In the course of the debate in the Senate on these
grave propositions, a manly and eloquent speech was made on the
2d of March, 1861, by the Hon. Joseph Lane, a Senator from Oregon,
who had been the candidate of the Democratic State-rights
party for the Vice-Presidency of the United States, in the canvass
of 1860. Some passages of this speech seem peculiarly appropriate
for insertion here. General Lane was replying to a speech
of Mr. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, afterward President of the
United States:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Mr. President, the Senator from Tennessee complains of my
remarks on his speech. He complains of the tone and temper of
what I said. He complains that I replied at all, as I was a Northern
Senator.  Mr. President, I am a citizen of this Union and a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id="page251"></a>[pg 251]</span>
Senator of the United States.  My residence is in the North, but
I have never seen the day, and I never shall, when I will refuse
justice as readily to the South as to the North. I know nothing
but my country, the whole country, the Constitution, and the
equality of the States&mdash;the equal right of every man in the common
territory of the whole country; and by that I shall stand.</p>

<p>"The Senator complains that I replied at all, as I was a Northern
Senator, and a Democrat whom he had supported at the last
election for a high office. Now, I was, as I stated at the time,
surprised at the Senator's speech, because I understood it to be
for coercion, as I think it was understood by almost everybody
else, except, as we are now told, by the Senator himself; and I
still think it amounted to a coercion speech, notwithstanding the
soft and plausible phrases by which he describes it&mdash;a speech for
the execution of the laws and the protection of the Federal property.
Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then,
whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no
laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such
State that can be protected by the power of this Government. In
attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases 'executing
the laws' and 'protecting public property' for coercion, for civil
war, we have an important concession: that is, that this Government
dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real
purposes and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to
inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the
design in smooth and ambiguous terms."&mdash;("Congressional Globe,"
second session, Thirty-sixth Congress, p. 1347.)
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote130" name="footnote130"></a><b>Footnote 130:</b><a href="#footnotetag130"> (return) </a><p>
See letter of Hon. S. K. Bingham to Governor Blair, of Michigan, in "Congressional
Globe," second session, Thirty-sixth Congress, Part II, p. 1247.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote131" name="footnote131"></a><b>Footnote 131:</b><a href="#footnotetag131"> (return) </a><p>
See "Congressional Globe," <i>ut supra</i>. As this letter, last referred to, is brief
and characteristic of the temper of the typical so-called Republicans of the period,
it may be inserted entire:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>February</i> 11, 1861.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">My dear Governor</span>: Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on Saturday,
at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the Peace
or Compromise Congress. They admit that we were right, and that they were
wrong; that no Republican State should have sent delegates; but they are here, and
can not get away; Ohio, Indiana, and Rhode Island are caving in, and there is
danger of Illinois; and now they beg us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue,
and save the Republican party from rupture. I hope you will send <i>stiff-backed</i>
men, or none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and
will end in thin smoke. Still, I hope, as a matter of courtesy to some of our erring
brethren, that you will send the delegates.</p>

<p>"Truly your friend,</p>

<p>"(Signed)  <span class="sc">Z. Chandler</span>.</p>

<p>"His Excellency <span class="sc">Austin Blair</span>."</p>

<p>"P.S.&mdash;Some of the manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful.
Without a <i>little bloodletting</i>, this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth
a rush."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The reader should not fall into the mistake of imagining that the "erring brethren,"
toward whom a concession of courtesy is recommended by the writer of this
letter, were the people of the seceding, or even of the border, States. It is evident
from the context that he means the people of those so-called "Republican" States
which had fallen into the error of taking part in a plan for peace, which might have
averted the bloodletting recommended.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-ix" id="chap-iii-ix"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Northern Protests against Coercion.&mdash;The "New York Tribune," Albany "Argus,"
and "New York Herald."&mdash;Great Public Meeting in New York.&mdash;Speeches of
Mr. Thayer, ex-Governor Seymour, ex-Chancellor Walworth, and Others.&mdash;The
Press in February, 1861.&mdash;Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural.&mdash;The Marvelous Change or
Suppression of Conservative Sentiment.&mdash;Historic Precedents.
</p></blockquote>


<p>It is a great mistake, or misstatement of fact, to assume that,
at the period under consideration, the Southern States stood
alone in the assertion of the principles which have been laid
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id="page252"></a>[pg 252]</span>
down in this work, with regard to the right of secession and the
wrong of coercion. Down to the formation of the Confederate
Government, the one was distinctly admitted, the other still
more distinctly disavowed and repudiated, by many of the
leaders of public opinion in the North of both parties&mdash;indeed,
any purpose of direct coercion was disclaimed by nearly all.
If presented at all, it was in the delusive and ambiguous guise
of "the execution of the laws" and "protection of the public
property."</p>

<p>The "New York Tribune"&mdash;the leading organ of the party
which triumphed in the election of 1860&mdash;had said, soon after
the result of that election was ascertained, with reference to
secession: "We hold, with Jefferson, to the inalienable right of
communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have
become oppressive or injurious; and, if the cotton States shall
decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we
insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be
a revolutionary right, <i>but it exists nevertheless</i>; and we do not
see how one party can have <i>a right to do what another party
has a right to prevent</i>. We must ever resist the asserted right
of any State to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the
laws thereof: <i>to withdraw from the Union is quite another
matter</i>. And, whenever a considerable section of our Union
shall deliberately resolve to go out, <i>we shall resist all coercive
measures designed to keep her in. We hope never to live in a
republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets</i>."<a id="footnotetag132" name="footnotetag132"></a><a href="#footnote132"><sup>132</sup></a></p>

<p>The only liberty taken with this extract has been that of
presenting certain parts of it in italics. Nothing that has ever
been said by the author of this work, in the foregoing chapters,
on the floor of the Senate, or elsewhere, more distinctly asserted
the right of secession. Nothing that has been quoted from
Hamilton, or Madison, or Marshall, or John Quincy Adams,
more emphatically repudiates the claim of right to restrain or
coerce a State in the exercise of its free choice. Nothing that
has been said since the war which followed could furnish a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253"></a>[pg 253]</span>
more striking condemnation of its origin, prosecution, purposes,
and results. A comparison of the sentiments above quoted,
with the subsequent career of the party, of which that journal
was and long had been the recognized organ, would exhibit a
striking incongruity and inconsistency.</p>

<p>The "Tribune" was far from being singular among its
Northern contemporaries in the entertainment of such views,
as Mr. Greeley, its chief editor, has shown by many citations in
his book, "The American Conflict." The Albany "Argus,"
about the same time, said, in language which Mr. Greeley characterizes
as "clear and temperate": "We sympathize with and
justify the South as far as this: their rights have been invaded
to the extreme limit possible within the forms of the Constitution;
and, beyond this limit, their feelings have been insulted
and their interests and honor assailed by almost every possible
form of denunciation and invective; and, if we deemed it certain
that the real <i>animus</i> of the Republican party could be carried
into the administration of the Federal Government, and
become the permanent policy of the nation, we should think
that all the instincts of self-preservation and of manhood rightfully
impelled them to a resort to revolution and a separation
from the Union, and we would applaud them and wish them
godspeed in the adoption of such a remedy."</p>

<p>Again, the same paper said, a day or two afterward: "If
South Carolina or any other State, through a convention of
her people, shall formally separate herself from the Union, probably
both the present and the next Executive will simply let her
alone and <i>quietly allow all the functions of the Federal Government
within her limits to be suspended. Any other course
would be madness</i>; as it would at once enlist all the Southern
States in the controversy and plunge the whole country into
a civil war.... As a matter of policy and wisdom, therefore,
independent of the question of right, we should deem resort
to force most disastrous."</p>

<p>The "New York Herald"&mdash;a journal which claimed to be
independent of all party influences&mdash;about the same period said:
"Each State is organized as a complete government, holding
the purse and wielding the sword, possessing the right to break
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id="page254"></a>[pg 254]</span>
the tie of the confederation as a nation might break a treaty,
and to repel coercion as a nation might repel invasion....
Coercion, if it were possible, is out of the question."</p>

<p>On the 31st of January, 1861&mdash;after six States had already
seceded&mdash;a great meeting was held in the city of New York, to
consider the perilous condition of the country.  At this meeting
Mr. James S. Thayer, "an old-line Whig," made a speech,
which was received with great applause. The following extracts
from the published report of Mr. Thayer's speech will
show the character of the views which then commanded the
cordial approval of that metropolitan audience:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We can at least, in an authoritative way and a practical manner,
arrive at the basis of a <i>peaceable separation</i>. [Cheers.] We
can at least by discussion enlighten, settle, and concentrate the
public sentiment in the State of New York upon this question,
and save it from that fearful current, which circuitously but certainly
sweeps madly on, through the narrow gorge of 'the enforcement
of the laws,' to the shoreless ocean of civil war!
[Cheers.]  Against this, under all circumstances, in every place
and form, we must now and at all times oppose a resolute and unfaltering
resistance.  The public mind will bear the avowal, and
let us make it&mdash;that, if a revolution of force is to begin, <i>it shall
be inaugurated at home</i>. And if the incoming Administration
shall attempt to carry out the line of policy that has been foreshadowed,
we announce that, when the hand of Black Republicanism
turns to blood-red, and seeks <i>from the fragment of the Constitution
to construct a scaffolding for coercion&mdash;another name
for execution</i>&mdash;we will reverse the order of the French Revolution,
and save the blood of the people by making those who would
inaugurate a reign of terror the first victims of a national guillotine!"
[Enthusiastic applause.]
</p></blockquote>

<p>And again:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It is announced that the Republican Administration will enforce
the laws against and in all the seceding States. A nice discrimination
must be exercised in the performance of this duty.
You remember the story of William Tell.... Let an arrow
winged by the Federal bow strike the heart of an American citizen,
and who can number the avenging darts that will cloud the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255" id="page255"></a>[pg 255]</span>
heavens in the conflict that will ensue? [Prolonged applause.]
What, then, is the duty of the State of New York? What shall
we say to our people when we come to meet this state of facts?
That the Union must be preserved? But, if that can not be, what
then? <i>Peaceable separation.</i> [Applause.] Painful and humiliating
as it is, let us temper it with all we can of love and kindness,
so that we may yet be left in a comparatively prosperous condition,
in friendly relations with another Confederacy." [Cheers.]
</p></blockquote>

<p>At the same meeting ex-Governor Horatio Seymour asked
the question&mdash;on which subsequent events have cast their own
commentary&mdash;whether "successful coercion by the North is less
revolutionary than successful secession by the South? Shall
we prevent revolution [he added] by being foremost in over-throwing
the principles of our Government, and all that makes
it valuable to our people and distinguishes it among the nations
of the earth?"</p>

<p>The venerable ex-Chancellor Walworth thus expressed himself:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It would be as brutal, in my opinion, to send men to butcher
our own brothers of the Southern States as it would be to massacre
them in the Northern States. We are told, however, that
it is our duty to, and we must, enforce the laws.  But why&mdash;and
what laws are to be enforced? There were laws that were to be
enforced in the time of the American Revolution.... Did Lord
Chatham go for enforcing those laws? No, he gloried in defense
of the liberties of America. He made that memorable declaration
in the British Parliament, 'If I were an American citizen, instead
of being, as I am, an Englishman, I never would submit to such
laws&mdash;never, never, never!'" [Prolonged applause.]
</p></blockquote>

<p>Other distinguished speakers expressed themselves in similar
terms&mdash;varying somewhat in their estimate of the propriety
of the secession of the Southern States, but all agreeing in emphatic
and unqualified reprobation of the idea of coercion. A
series of conciliatory resolutions was adopted, one of which
declares that "civil war will not restore the Union, but will
defeat for ever its reconstruction."</p>

<p>At a still later period&mdash;some time in the month of February&mdash;the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id="page256"></a>[pg 256]</span>
"Free Press," a leading paper in Detroit, had the following:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"If there shall not be a change in the present seeming purpose
to yield to no accommodation of the national difficulties, and if
troops shall be raised in the North to march against the people of
the South, <i>a fire in the rear will be opened upon such troops</i>, which
will either stop their march altogether or wonderfully accelerate
it."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The "Union," of Bangor, Maine, spoke no less decidedly to
the same effect:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The difficulties between the North and the South must be
compromised, or the separation of the States <i>shall be peaceable</i>.
If the Republican party refuse to go the full length of the Crittenden
amendment&mdash;<i>which is the very least the South can or
ought to take</i>&mdash;then, here in Maine, not a Democrat will be found
who will raise his arm against his brethren of the South. From
one end of the State to the other let the cry of the Democracy
be, <span class="sc">Compromise or Peaceable Separation</span>!"
</p></blockquote>

<p>That these were not expressions of isolated or exceptional
sentiment is evident from the fact that they were copied with
approval by other Northern journals.</p>

<p>Mr. Lincoln, when delivering his inaugural address, on the
4th of March, 1861, had not so far lost all respect for the consecrated
traditions of the founders of the Constitution and for
the majesty of the principle of State sovereignty as openly to
enunciate the claim of coercion. While arguing against the
right to secede, and asserting his intention "to hold, occupy,
and possess the property and places belonging to the Government,
and collect the duties and imposts," he says that, "beyond
what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no
invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere,"
and appends to this declaration the following pledge:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Where hostility to the United States shall be so great as to
prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal
offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers
among the people for that object. While the strict legal right
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page257" id="page257"></a>[pg 257]</span>
may exist of the Government to enforce the exercise of these
offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly
impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time
the uses of such offices."
</p></blockquote>

<p>These extracts will serve to show that the people of the
South were not without grounds for cherishing the hope, to
which they so fondly clung, that the separation would, indeed,
be as peaceable in fact as it was, on their part, in purpose;
that the conservative and patriotic feeling still existing in the
North would control the elements of sectional hatred and
bloodthirsty fanaticism; and that there would be really "no
war."</p>

<p>And here the ingenuous reader may very naturally ask,
What became of all this feeling? How was it that, in the
course of a few weeks, it had disappeared like a morning mist?
Where was the host of men who had declared that an army
marching to invade the Southern States should first pass over
their dead bodies? No <i>new</i> question had arisen&mdash;no change in
the attitude occupied by the seceding States&mdash;no cause for controversy
not already existing when these utterances were made.
And yet the sentiments which they expressed were so entirely
swept away by the tide of reckless fury which soon afterward
impelled an armed invasion of the South, that (with a few
praiseworthy but powerless exceptions) scarcely a vestige of
them was left. Not only were they obliterated, but seemingly
forgotten.</p>

<p>I leave to others to offer, if they can, an explanation of this
strange phenomenon. To the student of human nature, however,
it may not seem altogether without precedent, when he
remembers certain other instances on record of mutations in
public sentiment equally sudden and extraordinary. Ten thousand
swords that would have leaped from their scabbards&mdash;as
the English statesman thought&mdash;to avenge even a look of insult
to a lovely queen, hung idly in their places when she was
led to the scaffold in the midst of the vilest taunts and execrations.
The case that we have been considering was, perhaps,
only an illustration of the general truth that, in times of revolutionary
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258"></a>[pg 258]</span>
excitement, the higher and better elements are crushed
and silenced by the lower and baser&mdash;not so much on account
of their greater extent, as of their greater violence.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote132" name="footnote132"></a><b>Footnote 132:</b><a href="#footnotetag132"> (return) </a><p>
"New York Tribune" of November 9, 1860, quoted in "The American Conflict,"
vol. i, chap. xxiii, p. 359.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-x" id="chap-iii-x"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Temper of the Southern People indicated by the Action of the Confederate Congress.&mdash;The
Permanent Constitution.&mdash;Modeled after the Federal Constitution.&mdash;Variations
and Special Provisions.&mdash;Provisions with Regard to Slavery and
the Slave-Trade.&mdash;A False Assertion refuted.&mdash;Excellence of the Constitution.&mdash;Admissions
of Hostile or Impartial Criticism.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The conservative temper of the people of the Confederate
States was conspicuously exhibited in the most important product
of the early labors of their representatives in Congress assembled.
The Provisional Constitution, although prepared only
for temporary use, and necessarily in some haste, was so well
adapted for the purposes which it was intended to serve, that
many thought it would have been wise to continue it in force
indefinitely, or at least until the independency of the Confederacy
should be assured. The Congress, however, deeming it
best that the system of Government should emanate from the
people, accordingly, on the 11th of March, prepared the permanent
Constitution, which was submitted to and ratified by the
people of the respective States.</p>

<p>Of this Constitution&mdash;which may be found in an appendix,<a id="footnotetag133" name="footnotetag133"></a><a href="#footnote133"><sup>133</sup></a>
side by side with the Constitution of the United States&mdash;the
Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, who was one of its authors, very
properly says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The whole document utterly negatives the idea, which so
many have been active in endeavoring to put in the enduring
form of history, that the Convention at Montgomery was nothing
but a set of 'conspirators,' whose object was the overthrow of the
principles of the Constitution of the United States, and the erection
of a great 'slavery oligarchy,' instead of the free institutions
thereby secured and guaranteed. This work of the Montgomery
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id="page259"></a>[pg 259]</span>
Convention, with that of the Constitution for a Provisional Government,
will ever remain, not only as a monument of the wisdom,
forecast, and statesmanship of the men who constituted it, but an
everlasting refutation of the charges which have been brought
against them. These works together show clearly that their only
leading object was to sustain, uphold, and perpetuate the fundamental
principles of the Constitution of the United States."<a id="footnotetag134" name="footnotetag134"></a><a href="#footnote134"><sup>134</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>The Constitution of the United States was the model followed
throughout, with only such changes as experience suggested
for better practical working or for greater perspicuity.
The preamble to both instruments is the same in substance, and
very nearly identical in language. The words "We, the people
of the United States," in one, are replaced by "We, the
people of the Confederate States," in the other; and the gross
perversion which has been made of the former expression is
precluded in the latter merely by the addition of the explanatory
clause, "each State acting in its sovereign and independent
character"&mdash;an explanation which, at the time of the formation
of the Constitution of the United States, would have
been deemed entirely superfluous.</p>

<p>The official term of the President was fixed at six instead of
four years, and it was provided that he should not be eligible
for re&euml;lection. This was in accordance with the original draft
of the Constitution of 1787.<a id="footnotetag135" name="footnotetag135"></a><a href="#footnote135"><sup>135</sup></a></p>

<p>The President was empowered to remove officers of his
Cabinet, or those engaged in the diplomatic service, at his discretion,
but in all other cases removal from office could be
made only for cause, and the cause was to be reported to the
Senate.<a id="footnotetag136" name="footnotetag136"></a><a href="#footnote136"><sup>136</sup></a></p>

<p>Congress was authorized to provide by law for the admission
of "the principal officer in each of the executive departments"
(or Cabinet officers) to a seat upon the floor of either
House, with the privilege of taking part in the discussion of
subjects pertaining to his department.<a id="footnotetag137" name="footnotetag137"></a><a href="#footnote137"><sup>137</sup></a> This wise and judicious
provision, which would have tended to obviate much
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260" id="page260"></a>[pg 260]</span>
delay and misunderstanding, was, however, never put into execution
by the necessary legislation.</p>

<p>Protective duties for the benefit of special branches of
industry, which had been so fruitful a source of trouble under
the Government of the United States, were altogether prohibited.<a id="footnotetag138" name="footnotetag138"></a><a href="#footnote138"><sup>138</sup></a>
So, also, were bounties from the Treasury,<a id="footnotetag139" name="footnotetag139"></a><a href="#footnote139"><sup>139</sup></a> and extra
compensation for services rendered by officers, contractors, or
employees, of any description.<a id="footnotetag140" name="footnotetag140"></a><a href="#footnote140"><sup>140</sup></a></p>

<p>A vote of two thirds of each House was requisite for the
appropriation of money from the Treasury, unless asked for by
the chief of a department and submitted to Congress by the
President, or for payment of the expenses of Congress, or
of claims against the Confederacy judicially established and
declared.<a id="footnotetag141" name="footnotetag141"></a><a href="#footnote141"><sup>141</sup></a> The President was also authorized to approve
any one appropriation and disapprove any other in the same
bill.<a id="footnotetag142" name="footnotetag142"></a><a href="#footnote142"><sup>142</sup></a></p>

<p>With regard to the impeachment of Federal officers, it was
intrusted, as formerly, to the discretion of the House of Representatives,
with the additional provision, however, that, in the
case of any judicial or other officer exercising his functions
solely within the limits of a particular State, impeachment
might be made by the Legislature of such State&mdash;the trial in
all cases to be by the Senate of the Confederate States.<a id="footnotetag143" name="footnotetag143"></a><a href="#footnote143"><sup>143</sup></a></p>

<p>Any two or more States were authorized to enter into compacts
with each other for the improvement of the navigation
of rivers flowing between or through them.<a id="footnotetag144" name="footnotetag144"></a><a href="#footnote144"><sup>144</sup></a> A vote of two
thirds of each House&mdash;the Senate voting by States&mdash;was required
for the admission of a new State.<a id="footnotetag145" name="footnotetag145"></a><a href="#footnote145"><sup>145</sup></a></p>

<p>With regard to amendments of the Constitution, it was
made obligatory upon Congress, on the demand of any three
States, concurring in the proposed amendment or amendments,
to summon a convention of all the States to consider and act
upon them, voting by States, but restricted in its action to the
particular propositions thus submitted. If approved by such
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id="page261"></a>[pg 261]</span>
convention, the amendments were to be subject to final ratification
by two thirds of the States.<a id="footnotetag146" name="footnotetag146"></a><a href="#footnote146"><sup>146</sup></a></p>

<p>Other changes or modifications, worthy of special notice, related
to internal improvements, bankruptcy laws, duties on exports,
suits in the Federal courts, and the government of the
Territories.<a id="footnotetag147" name="footnotetag147"></a><a href="#footnote147"><sup>147</sup></a></p>

<p>With regard to slavery and the slave-trade, the provisions
of this Constitution furnish an effectual answer to the assertion,
so often made, that the Confederacy was founded on
slavery, that slavery was its "corner-stone," etc. Property in
slaves, <i>already existing</i>, was recognized and guaranteed, just as
it was by the Constitution of the United States; and the rights
of such property in the common Territories were protected
against any such hostile discrimination as had been attempted in
the Union. But the "extension of slavery," in the only practical
sense of that phrase, was more distinctly and effectually
precluded by the Confederate than by the Federal Constitution.
This will be manifest on a comparison of the provisions of the
two relative to the slave-trade.  These are found at the beginning
of the ninth section of the first article of each instrument.
The Constitution of the United States has the following:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited
by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight
hundred and eight; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such
importations, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The Confederate Constitution, on the other hand, ordained
as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any
foreign country, other than the slaveholding States or Territories
of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress
is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the
same.</p>

<p>"2. Congress shall also have the power to prohibit the introduction
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id="page262"></a>[pg 262]</span>
of slaves from any state not a member of, or Territory
not belonging to, this Confederacy."
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the case of the United States, the only prohibition is
against any interference by Congress with the slave-trade for a
term of years, and it was further legitimized by the authority
given to impose a duty upon it. The term of years, it is true,
had long since expired, but there was still no prohibition of the
trade by the Constitution; it was after 1808 entirely within the
discretion of Congress either to encourage, tolerate, or prohibit it.</p>

<p>Under the Confederate Constitution, on the contrary, the
African slave-trade was "<i>hereby forbidden</i>," positively and
unconditionally, from the beginning. Neither the Confederate
Government nor that of any of the States could permit it, and
the Congress was expressly "required" to enforce the prohibition.
The only discretion in the matter intrusted to the Congress
was, whether or not to permit the introduction of slaves
from any of the United States or their Territories.</p>

<p>Mr. Lincoln, in his inaugural address, had said: "I have
no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution
of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have
no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
Now, if there was no purpose on the part of the Government
of the United States to interfere with the institution of slavery
within its already existing limits&mdash;a proposition which permitted
its propagation within those limits by natural increase&mdash;and
inasmuch as the Confederate Constitution precluded any other
than the same natural increase, we may plainly perceive the
disingenuousness and absurdity of the pretension by which a
factitious sympathy has been obtained in certain quarters for the
war upon the South, on the ground that it was a war in behalf
of freedom against slavery.<a id="footnotetag148" name="footnotetag148"></a><a href="#footnote148"><sup>148</sup></a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>[pg 263]</span>
I had no direct part in the preparation of the Confederate
Constitution. No consideration of delicacy forbids me, therefore,
to say, in closing this brief review of that instrument, that
it was a model of wise, temperate, and liberal statesmanship.
Intelligent criticism, from hostile as well as friendly sources, has
been compelled to admit its excellences, and has sustained the
judgment of a popular Northern journal which said, a few days
after it was adopted and published:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The new Constitution is the Constitution of the United States
with various modifications and some very important and most
desirable improvements. We are free to say that the invaluable
reforms enumerated should be adopted by the United States, with
or without a reunion of the seceded States, and as soon as possible.
But why not accept them with the propositions of the Confederate
States on slavery as a basis of reunion?"<a id="footnotetag149" name="footnotetag149"></a><a href="#footnote149"><sup>149</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote133" name="footnote133"></a><b>Footnote 133:</b><a href="#footnotetag133"> (return) </a><p>See Appendix K.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote134" name="footnote134"></a><b>Footnote 134:</b><a href="#footnotetag134"> (return) </a><p>"War between the States," vol. ii, col. xix, p. 389.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote135" name="footnote135"></a><b>Footnote 135:</b><a href="#footnotetag135"> (return) </a><p>See Article II, section 1.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote136" name="footnote136"></a><b>Footnote 136:</b><a href="#footnotetag136"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 2, &para; 3.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote137" name="footnote137"></a><b>Footnote 137:</b><a href="#footnotetag137"> (return) </a><p>Article I, section 6, &para; 2.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote138" name="footnote138"></a><b>Footnote 138:</b><a href="#footnotetag138"> (return) </a><p>Article I, section 8, &para; 1.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote139" name="footnote139"></a><b>Footnote 139:</b><a href="#footnotetag139"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote140" name="footnote140"></a><b>Footnote 140:</b><a href="#footnotetag140"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 9, &para; 10.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote141" name="footnote141"></a><b>Footnote 141:</b><a href="#footnotetag141"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., &para; 9.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote142" name="footnote142"></a><b>Footnote 142:</b><a href="#footnotetag142"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 7, &para; 2.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote143" name="footnote143"></a><b>Footnote 143:</b><a href="#footnotetag143"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 2, &para; 5.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote144" name="footnote144"></a><b>Footnote 144:</b><a href="#footnotetag144"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 10, &para; 3.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote145" name="footnote145"></a><b>Footnote 145:</b><a href="#footnotetag145"> (return) </a><p>Article IV, section 3, &para; 1.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote146" name="footnote146"></a><b>Footnote 146:</b><a href="#footnotetag146"> (return) </a><p>Article V.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote147" name="footnote147"></a><b>Footnote 147:</b><a href="#footnotetag147"> (return) </a><p>
Article I, section 8, &para;&para; 1 and 4, section 9, &para; 6; Article III, section 2, &para; 1;
Article IV, section 3, &para; 3.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote148" name="footnote148"></a><b>Footnote 148:</b><a href="#footnotetag148"> (return) </a><p> As late as the 22d of April, 1861, Mr. Seward, United
States Secretary of State, in a dispatch to Mr. Dayton, Minister to
France, since made public, expressed the views and purposes of the
United States Government in the premises as follows. It may be proper to
explain that, by what he is pleased to term "the revolution," Mr. Seward
means the withdrawal of the Southern States; and that the words
italicized are, perhaps, not so distinguished in the original. He says:
"The Territories will remain in all respects the same, whether the
revolution shall succeed or shall fail. <i>The condition of slavery in
the several States will remain just the same, whether it succeed or
fail.</i> There is not even a pretext for the complaint that the
disaffected States are to be conquered by the United States if the
revolution fails; for the rights of the States and <i>the condition of
every being in them</i> will remain subject to exactly the same laws and
forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether
it shall fail. In the one case, the States would be federally connected
with the new Confederacy; in the other, they would, as now, be members
of the United States; <i>but their Constitutions and laws, customs,
habits, and institutions, in either ease, will remain the same</i>."</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote149" name="footnote149"></a><b>Footnote 149:</b><a href="#footnotetag149"> (return) </a><p>"New York Herald," March 19, 1861.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-xi" id="chap-iii-xi"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Commission to Washington City.&mdash;Arrival of Mr. Crawford.&mdash;Mr. Buchanan's
Alarm.&mdash;Note of the Commissioners to the New Administration.&mdash;Mediation
of Justices Nelson and Campbell.&mdash;The Difficulty about Forts Sumter and Pickens.&mdash;Mr.
Secretary Seward's Assurances.&mdash;Duplicity of the Government at
Washington.&mdash;Mr. Fox's Visit to Charleston.&mdash;Secret Preparations for Coercive
Measures.&mdash;Visit of Mr. Lamon.&mdash;Renewed Assurances of Good Faith.&mdash;Notification
to Governor Pickens.&mdash;Developments of Secret History.&mdash;Systematic
and Complicated Perfidy exposed.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The appointment of Commissioners to proceed to Washington,
for the purpose of establishing friendly relations with the
United States and effecting an equitable settlement of all questions
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>[pg 264]</span>
relating to the common property of the States and the
public debt, has already been mentioned. No time was lost in
carrying this purpose into execution. Mr. Crawford&mdash;first of the
Commissioners&mdash;left Montgomery on or about the 27th of February,
and arrived in Washington two or three days before the
expiration of Mr. Buchanan's term of office as President of the
United States. Besides his official credentials, he bore the following
letter to the President, of a personal or semi-official character,
intended to facilitate, if possible, the speedy accomplishment
of the objects of his mission:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>To the President of the United States.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: Being animated by an earnest desire to unite and bind
together our respective countries by friendly ties, I have appointed
Martin J. Crawford, one of our most esteemed and trustworthy
citizens, as special Commissioner of the Confederate States to the
Government of the United States; and I have now the honor to
introduce him to you, and to ask for him a reception and treatment
corresponding to his station, and to the purposes for which
he is sent.</p>

<p>"Those purposes he will more particularly explain to you.
Hoping that through his agency these may be accomplished, I
avail myself of this occasion to offer to you the assurance of my
distinguished consideration.</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Montgomery</span>, <i>February 27, 1861</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>It may here be mentioned, in explanation of my desire that
the commission, or at least a part of it, should reach Washington
before the close of Mr. Buchanan's term, that I had received
an intimation from him, through a distinguished Senator of one
of the border States,<a id="footnotetag150" name="footnotetag150"></a><a href="#footnote150"><sup>150</sup></a> that he would be happy to receive a Commissioner
or Commissioners from the Confederate States, and
would refer to the Senate any communication that might be
made through such a commission.</p>

<p>Mr. Crawford&mdash;now a Judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia,
and the only surviving member of the commission&mdash;in a
manuscript account, which he has kindly furnished, of his recollections
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>[pg 265]</span>
of events connected with it, says that, on arriving in
Washington at the early hour of half-past four o'clock in the
morning, he was "surprised to see Pennsylvania Avenue, from
the old National to Willard's Hotel, crowded with men hurrying,
some toward the former, but most of the faces in the direction
of the latter, where the new President [Mr. Lincoln, President-elect],
the great political almoner, for the time being, had
taken up his lodgings. At this point," continues Judge Crawford,
"the crowd swelled to astonishing numbers of expectant
and hopeful men, awaiting an opportunity, either to see Mr.
Lincoln himself, or to communicate with him through some one
who might be so fortunate as to have access to his presence."</p>

<p>Describing his reception in the Federal capital, Judge Crawford
says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The feverish and emotional condition of affairs soon made
the presence of the special Commissioner at Washington known
throughout the city. Congress was still, of course, in session;
Senators and members of the House of Representatives, excepting
those of the Confederate States, who had withdrawn, were in their
seats, and the manifestations of anxious care and gloomy forebodings
were plainly to be seen on all sides.  This was not confined
to sections, but existed among the men of the North and West as
well as those of the South....</p>

<p>"Mr. Buchanan, the President, was in a state of most thorough
alarm, not only for his home at Wheatland, but for his personal
safety.<a id="footnotetag151" name="footnotetag151"></a><a href="#footnote151"><sup>151</sup></a>  In the very few days which had elapsed between the
time of his promise to receive a Commissioner from the Confederate
States and the actual arrival of the Commissioner, he had become
so fearfully panic-stricken, that he declined either to receive
him or to send any message to the Senate touching the subject-matter
of his mission.</p>

<p>"The Commissioner had been for several years in Congress
before the Administration of Mr. Buchanan, as well as during his
official term, and had always been in close political and social
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>[pg 266]</span>
relations with him; yet he was afraid of a public visit from him.
He said that he had only three days of official life left, and could
incur no further dangers or reproaches than those he had already
borne from the press and public speakers of the North.</p>

<p>"The intensity of the prevalent feeling increased as the vast
crowds, arriving by every train, added fresh material; and hatred
and hostility toward our new Government were manifested in
almost every conceivable manner."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Another of the Commissioners (Mr. Forsyth) having arrived
in Washington on the 12th of March&mdash;eight days after the inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln&mdash;the two Commissioners then present,
Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, addressed to Mr. Seward,
Secretary of State, a note informing him of their presence,
stating the friendly and peaceful purposes of their mission, and
requesting the appointment of a day, as early as possible, for
the presentation to the President of the United States of their
credentials and the objects which they had in view. This letter
will be found in the Appendix,<a id="footnotetag152" name="footnotetag152"></a><a href="#footnote152"><sup>152</sup></a> with other correspondence
which ensued, published soon after the events to which it relates.
The attention of the reader is specially invited to these
documents, but, as additional revelations have been made since
they were first published, it will be proper, in order to a full
understanding of the transactions to which they refer, to give
here a brief statement of the facts.</p>

<p>No <i>written</i> answer to the note of the Commissioners was
delivered to them for twenty-seven days after it was written.
The paper of Mr. Seward, in reply, without signature or address,
dated March 15th,<a id="footnotetag153" name="footnotetag153"></a><a href="#footnote153"><sup>153</sup></a> was "filed," as he states, on that
day, in the Department of State, but a copy of it was not
handed to the Commissioners until the 8th of April. But an
oral answer had been made to the note of the Commissioners
at a much earlier date, for the significance of which it will be
necessary to bear in mind the condition of affairs at Charleston
and Pensacola.</p>

<p>Fort Sumter was still occupied by the garrison under command
of Major Anderson, with no material change in the circumstances
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>[pg 267]</span>
since the failure of the attempt made in January
to re&euml;nforce it by means of the Star of the West. This standing
menace at the gates of the chief harbor of South Carolina
had been tolerated by the government and people of that State,
and afterward by the Confederate authorities, in the abiding
hope that it would be removed without compelling a collision
of forces. Fort Pickens, on one side of the entrance to the
harbor of Pensacola, was also occupied by a garrison of United
States troops, while the two forts (Barrancas and McRee) on
the other side were in possession of the Confederates. Communication
by sea was not entirely precluded, however, in the
case of Fort Pickens; the garrison had been strengthened, and
a fleet of Federal men-of-war was lying outside of the harbor.
The condition of affairs at these forts&mdash;especially at Fort Sumter&mdash;was
a subject of anxiety with the friends of peace, and
the hope of settling by negotiation the questions involved in
their occupation had been one of the most urgent motives for
the prompt dispatch of the Commissioners to Washington.</p>

<p>The letter of the Commissioners to Mr. Seward was written,
as we have seen, on the 12th of March. The oral message,
above mentioned, was obtained and communicated to the Commissioners
through the agency of two Judges of the Supreme
Court of the United States&mdash;Justices Nelson, of New York,
and Campbell, of Alabama. On the 15th of March, according
to the statement of Judge Campbell,<a id="footnotetag154" name="footnotetag154"></a><a href="#footnote154"><sup>154</sup></a> Mr. Justice Nelson visited
the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury and the Attorney-General
(Messrs. Seward, Chase, and Bates), to dissuade them
from undertaking to put in execution any policy of coercion.
"During the term of the Supreme Court he had very carefully
examined the laws of the United States to enable him to attain
his conclusions, and from time to time he had consulted the
Chief Justice [Taney] upon the questions which his examination
had suggested.  His conclusion was that, without very serious
violations of Constitution and statutes, coercion could not
be successfully effected by the executive department. I had
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>[pg 268]</span>
made [continues Judge Campbell] a similar examination, and
I concurred in his conclusions and opinions. As he was returning
from his visit to the State Department, we casually met,
and he informed me of what he had done. He said he had
spoken to these officers at large; that he was received with
respect and listened to with attention by all, with approbation
by the Attorney-General, and with great cordiality by the
Secretary of State; that the Secretary had expressed gratification
to find so many impediments to the disturbance of peace,
and only wished there had been more. He stated that the
Secretary told him there was a present cause of embarrassment:
that the Southern Commissioners had demanded recognition,
and a refusal would lead to irritation and excitement in the
Southern States, and would cause a counter-irritation and excitement
in the Northern States, prejudicial to a peaceful adjustment.
Justice Nelson suggested that I might be of service."</p>

<p>The result of the interview between these two distinguished
gentlemen, we are informed, was another visit, by both of them,
to the State Department, for the purpose of urging Mr. Seward
to reply to the Commissioners, and assure them of the desire of
the United States Government for a friendly adjustment. Mr.
Seward seems to have objected to an immediate recognition of
the Commissioners, on the ground that the state of public sentiment
in the North would not sustain it, in connection with
the withdrawal of the troops from Fort Sumter, which had been
determined on. "The evacuation of Sumter," he said, "is as
much as the Administration can bear."</p>

<p>Judge Campbell adds: "I concurred in the conclusion that
the evacuation of Sumter involved responsibility, and stated
that there could not be too much caution in the adoption of
measures so as not to shock or to irritate the public sentiment,
and that the evacuation of Sumter was sufficient for the present
in that direction.  I stated that I would see the Commissioners,
and I would write to Mr. Davis to that effect.  I asked him
what I should say as to Sumter and as to Pickens. <i>He authorized
me to say that, before that letter could reach him</i> [Mr.
Davis], <i>he would learn by telegraph that the order for the evacuation
of Sumter had been made</i>. He said the condition of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>[pg 269]</span>
Pickens was satisfactory, and there would be no change made
there." The italics in this extract are my own.</p>

<p>The letter in which this promise was communicated to me
has been lost, but it was given in substantially the terms above
stated as authorized by Mr. Seward&mdash;that the order for the
evacuation of the fort would be issued before the letter could
reach me. The same assurance was given, on the same day, to
the Commissioners. Judge Campbell tells us that Mr. Crawford
was slow to consent to refrain from pressing the demand
for recognition. "It was only after some discussion and the
expression of some objections that he consented" to do so.
This consent was clearly one part of a stipulation, of which the
other part was the pledge that the fort would be evacuated in
the course of a few days. Mr. Crawford required the pledge
of Mr. Seward to be reduced to writing, with Judge Campbell's
personal assurance of its genuineness and accuracy.<a id="footnotetag155" name="footnotetag155"></a><a href="#footnote155"><sup>155</sup></a> This
written statement was exhibited to Judge Nelson, before its
delivery, and approved by him. The fact that the pledge had
been given in his name and behalf was communicated to Mr.
Seward the same evening by letter. He was cognizant of, consenting
to, and in great part the author of, the whole transaction.</p>

<p>It will be observed that not only the Commissioners in
Washington, but the Confederate Government at Montgomery
also, were thus assured on the highest authority&mdash;that of the
Secretary of State of the United States, the official organ of
communication of the views and purposes of his Government&mdash;of
the intention of that Government to order the evacuation of
Fort Sumter within a few days from the 15th of March, and
not to disturb the existing <i>status</i> at Fort Pickens. Moreover,
this was not the mere statement of a fact, but a <i>pledge</i>, given as
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>[pg 270]</span>
the consideration of an appeal to the Confederate Government
and its Commissioners to refrain from embarrassing the Federal
Administration by prosecuting any further claims at the same
time. As such a pledge, it was accepted, and, while its fulfillment
was quietly awaited, the Commissioners forbore to make
any further demand for reply to their note of the 12th of
March.</p>

<p>Five days having elapsed in this condition of affairs, the
Commissioners in Washington telegraphed Brigadier-General
Beauregard, commander of the Confederate forces at Charleston,
inquiring whether the fort had been evacuated, or any
action taken by Major Anderson indicating the probability of
an evacuation. Answer was made to this dispatch, that the
fort had not been evacuated, that there were no indications of
such a purpose, but that Major Anderson was still working on
its defenses. This dispatch was taken to Mr. Seward by Judge
Campbell. Two interviews occurred in relation to it, at both
of which Judge Nelson was also present. Of the result of
these interviews, Judge Campbell states: "The last was full
and satisfactory. The Secretary was buoyant and sanguine; he
spoke of his ability to carry through his policy with confidence.
He accounted for the delay as accidental, and <i>not involving the
integrity of his assurance that the evacuation would take place</i>,
and that I should know whenever any change was made in the
resolution in reference to Sumter or to Pickens. I repeated this
assurance in writing to Judge Crawford, <i>and informed Governor
Seward in writing what I had said</i>."<a id="footnotetag156" name="footnotetag156"></a><a href="#footnote156"><sup>156</sup></a></p>

<p>It would be incredible, but for the ample proofs which have
since been brought to light, that, during all this period of reiterated
assurances of a purpose to withdraw the garrison from Fort
Sumter, and of excuses for delay on account of the difficulties
which embarrassed it, the Government of the United States
was assiduously engaged in devising means for furnishing supplies
and re&euml;nforcements to the garrison, with the view of retaining
possession of the fort!</p>

<p>Mr. G. V. Fox, afterward Assistant Secretary of the United
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>[pg 271]</span>
States Navy, had proposed a plan for re&euml;nforcing and furnishing
supplies to the garrison of Fort Sumter in February, during the
Administration of Mr. Buchanan. In a letter published in the
newspapers since the war, he gives an account of the manner in
which the proposition was renewed to the new Administration
and its reception by them, as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"On the 12th of March I received a telegram from Postmaster-General
Blair to come to Washington. I arrived there on the
13th. Mr. Blair having been acquainted with the proposition I
presented to General Scott, under Mr. Buchanan's Administration,
sent for me to tender the same to Mr. Lincoln, informing me that
Lieutenant-General Scott had advised the President that the fort
could not be relieved, and must be given up. Mr. Blair took me
at once to the White House, and I explained the plan to the President.
Thence we adjourned to Lieutenant-General Scott's office,
where a renewed discussion of the subject took place. The General
informed the President that my plan was practicable in February,
but that the increased number of batteries erected at the
mouth of the harbor since that time rendered it impossible in
March.</p>

<p>"Finding that there was great opposition to any attempt at
relieving Fort Sumter, and that Mr. Blair alone sustained the
President in his policy of refusing to yield, I judged that my arguments
in favor of the practicability of sending in supplies would
be strengthened by a visit to Charleston and the fort. The President
readily agreed to my visit, if the Secretary of War and General
Scott raised no objection.</p>

<p>"Both these gentlemen consenting, I left Washington on the
19th of March, and, passing through Richmond and Wilmington,
reached Charleston on the 21st."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Thus we see that, at the very moment when Mr. Secretary
Seward was renewing to the Confederate Government, through
Judge Campbell, his positive assurance that "the evacuation
<i>would</i> take place," this emissary was on his way to Charleston
to obtain information and devise measures by means of which
this promise might be broken.</p>

<p>On his arrival in Charleston, Mr. Fox tells us that he sought
an interview with Captain Hartstein, of the Confederate Navy,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>[pg 272]</span>
and through this officer obtained from Governor Pickens permission
to visit Fort Sumter. He fails, in his narrative, to state
what we learn from Governor Pickens himself,<a id="footnotetag157" name="footnotetag157"></a><a href="#footnote157"><sup>157</sup></a> that this permission
was obtained "expressly upon the pledge of 'pacific
purposes.'" Notwithstanding this pledge, he employed the opportunity
afforded by his visit to mature the details of his plan
for furnishing supplies and re&euml;nforcements to the garrison. He
did not, he says, communicate his plan or purposes to Major
Anderson, the commanding officer of the garrison, having discernment
enough, perhaps, to divine that the instincts of that
brave and honest soldier would have revolted at and rebuked
the duplicity and perfidy of the whole transaction. The result
of his visit was, however, reported at Washington, his plan was
approved by President Lincoln, and he was sent to New York
to make arrangements for putting it in execution.</p>

<blockquote><p>
"In a very few days after" (says Governor Pickens, in the message
already quoted above), "another confidential agent, Colonel
Lamon, was sent by the President [Mr. Lincoln], who informed
me that he had come to try and arrange for the removal of the
garrison, and, when he returned from the fort, asked if a war-vessel
could not be allowed to remove them. I replied that no war-vessel
could be allowed to enter the harbor on any terms. He said
he believed Major Anderson preferred an ordinary steamer, and I
agreed that the garrison might be thus removed. He said he
hoped to return in a very few days for that purpose."
</p></blockquote>

<p>This, it will be remembered, occurred while Mr. Fox was
making active, though secret, preparations for his relief expedition.</p>

<p>Colonel, or Major, Lamon, as he is variously styled in the
correspondence, did not return to Charleston, as promised.
About the 30th of March (which was Saturday) a telegram
from Governor Pickens was received by the Commissioners in
Washington, making inquiry with regard to Colonel Lamon, and
the meaning of the protracted delay to fulfill the promise of
evacuation. This was fifteen days after the original assurance
of Mr. Seward that the garrison would be withdrawn immediately,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span>
and ten days after his explanation that the delay was
"accidental."  The dispatch of Governor Pickens was taken by
Judge Campbell to Mr. Seward, who appointed the ensuing
Monday (1st of April) for an interview and answer.  At that interview
Mr. Seward informed Judge Campbell that "the President
was concerned about the contents of the telegram&mdash;<i>there
was a point of honor involved</i>; that Lamon had no agency
from him, nor title to speak."<a id="footnotetag158" name="footnotetag158"></a><a href="#footnote158"><sup>158</sup></a> (This late suggestion of the
point of <i>honor</i> would seem, under the circumstances, to have
been made in a spirit of sarcastic pleasantry, like Sir John Falstaff's
celebrated discourse on the same subject.)  The only substantial
result of the conversation, however, was the written
assurance of Mr. Seward, to be communicated to the Commissioners,
that "the Government will not undertake to supply
Fort Sumter without giving notice to Governor Pickens."</p>

<p>This, it will be observed, was a very material variation from
the positive pledge previously given, and reiterated, to the
Commissioners, to Governor Pickens, and to myself directly,
that the fort was to be forthwith evacuated. Judge Campbell,
in his account of the interview, says: "I asked him [Mr. Seward]
whether I was to understand that there had been a change
in his former communications. His answer was, 'None.'"<a id="footnotetag159" name="footnotetag159"></a><a href="#footnote159"><sup>159</sup></a></p>

<p>About the close of the same week (the first in April), the
patience of the Commissioners having now been wellnigh exhausted,
and the hostile preparations of the Government of the
United States, notwithstanding the secrecy with which they
were conducted, having become matter of general rumor, a
letter was addressed to Mr. Seward, upon the subject, by Judge
Campbell, in behalf of the Commissioners, again asking whether
the assurances so often given were well or ill founded. To this
the Secretary returned answer in writing: "<i>Faith as to Sumter
fully kept. Wait and see.</i>"</p>

<p>This was on the 7th of April.<a id="footnotetag160" name="footnotetag160"></a><a href="#footnote160"><sup>160</sup></a>  The very next day (the
8th) the following official notification (without date or signature)
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg 274]</span>
was read to Governor Pickens, of South Carolina, and
General Beauregard, in Charleston, by Mr. Chew, an official of
the <i>State Department</i> (Mr. Seward's) in Washington, who said&mdash;as
did a Captain or Lieutenant Talbot, who accompanied him&mdash;that
it was from the President of the United States, and delivered
by him to Mr. Chew on the 6th&mdash;the day <i>before</i> Mr.
Seward's assurance of "<i>faith fully kept</i>."</p>

<blockquote><p>
"I am directed by the President of the United States to notify
you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter
with provisions only; and that, if such an attempt be not resisted,
no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, will be made,
without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort."<a id="footnotetag161" name="footnotetag161"></a><a href="#footnote161"><sup>161</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Thus disappeared the last vestige of the plighted faith and
pacific pledges of the Federal Government.</p>

<p>In order fully to appreciate the significance of this communication,
and of the time and circumstances of its delivery, it
must be borne in mind that the naval expedition which had
been secretly in preparation for some time at New York, under
direction of Captain Fox, was now ready to sail, and might reasonably
be expected to be at Charleston almost immediately
after the notification was delivered to Governor Pickens, and
before preparation could be made to receive it. Owing to cross-purposes
or misunderstandings in the Washington Cabinet, however,
and then to the delay caused by a severe storm at sea,
this expectation was disappointed, and the Confederate commander
at Charleston had opportunity to communicate with
Montgomery and receive instructions for his guidance, before
the arrival of the fleet, which had been intended to be a surprise.</p>

<p>In publications made since the war by members of Mr. Lincoln's
Cabinet, it has been represented that, during the period
of the disgraceful transactions above detailed, there were dissensions
and divisions in the Cabinet&mdash;certain members of it
urging measures of prompt and decided coercion; the Secretary
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg 275]</span>
of State favoring a pacific or at least a dilatory policy; and the
President vacillating for a time between the two, but eventually
adopting the views of the coercionists. In these statements it
is represented that the assurances and pledges, given by Mr.
Seward to the Confederate Government and its Commissioners,
were given on his own authority, and without the consent or
approval of the President of the United States. The absurdity
of any such attempt to disassociate the action of the President
from that of his Secretary, and to relieve the former of responsibility
for the conduct of the latter, is too evident to require
argument or comment. It is impossible to believe that, during
this whole period of nearly a month, Mr. Lincoln was ignorant
of the communications that were passing between the Confederate
Commissioners and Mr. Seward, through the distinguished
member of the Supreme Court&mdash;still holding his seat as such&mdash;who
was acting as intermediary. On one occasion, Judge
Campbell informs us that the Secretary, in the midst of an important
interview, excused himself for the purpose of conferring
with the President before giving a final answer, and left his
visitor for some time, awaiting his return from that conference,
when the answer was given, avowedly and directly proceeding
from the President.</p>

<p>If, however, it were possible to suppose that Mr. Seward was
acting on his own responsibility, and practicing a deception upon
his own chief, as well as upon the Confederate authorities, in the
pledges which he made to the latter, it is nevertheless certain
that the principal facts were brought to light within a few days
after the close of the efforts at negotiation. Yet the Secretary
of State was not impeached and brought to trial for the grave
offense of undertaking to conduct the most momentous and vital
transactions that had been or could be brought before the Government
of the United States, without the knowledge and in
opposition to the will of the President, and for having involved
the Government in dishonor, if not in disaster. He was not
even dismissed from office, but continued to be the chief officer
of the Cabinet and confidential adviser of the President, as he
was afterward of the ensuing Administration, occupying that
station during two consecutive terms.  No disavowal of his action,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>[pg 276]</span>
no apology nor explanation, was ever made. Politically
and legally, the President is unquestionably responsible in all
cases for the action of any member of his Cabinet, and in this
case it is as preposterous to attempt to dissever from him the
moral, as it would be impossible to relieve him of the legal,
responsibility that rests upon the Government of the United
States for the systematic series of frauds perpetrated by its authority.</p>

<p>On the other hand, Mr. Seward, throughout the whole negotiation,
was fully informed of the views of his colleagues in the
Cabinet and of the President. Whatever his real hopes or purposes
may have been in the beginning, it is positively certain
that long before the end, and while still reiterating his assurances
that the garrison would be withdrawn, he knew that it
had been <i>determined</i>, and that active preparations were in progress,
to strengthen it.</p>

<p>Mr. Gideon Welles, who was Secretary of the Navy in Mr.
Lincoln's Cabinet, gives the following account of one of the
transactions of the period:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"One evening in the latter part of the month of March, there
was a small gathering at the Executive Mansion, while the Sumter
question was still pending. The members of the Cabinet were
soon individually and quietly invited to the council-chamber,
where, as soon as assembled, the President informed them he had
just been advised by General Scott that it was expedient to evacuate
Fort Pickens, as well as Fort Sumter, which last was assumed
at military headquarters to be a determined fact, in conformity
with the views of Secretary Seward and the General-in-Chief....</p>

<p>"A brief silence followed the announcement of the amazing
recommendation of General Scott, when Mr. Blair, who had been
much annoyed by the vacillating course of the General-in-Chief
in regard to Sumter, remarked, looking earnestly at Mr. Seward,
that it was evident the old General was playing politician in regard
to both Sumter and Pickens; for it was not possible, if there
was a defense, for the rebels to take Pickens; and the Administration
would not be justified if it listened to his advice and evacuated
either. Very soon thereafter, I think at the next Cabinet
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>[pg 277]</span>
meeting, the President announced his decision that <i>supplies should
be sent to Sumter</i>, and issued confidential orders to that effect.
All were gratified with this decision, except Mr. Seward, who still
remonstrated, <i>but preparations were immediately commenced to fit
out an expedition to forward supplies</i>."<a id="footnotetag162" name="footnotetag162"></a><a href="#footnote162"><sup>162</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>This account is confirmed by a letter of Mr. Montgomery
Blair.<a id="footnotetag163" name="footnotetag163"></a><a href="#footnote163"><sup>163</sup></a> The date of the announcement of the President's final
purpose is fixed by Mr. Welles, in the neat paragraph to that
above quoted, as the 28th of March. This was four days before
Mr. Seward's assurance given Judge Campbell&mdash;after conference
with the President&mdash;that there would be no departure
from the pledges previously given (which were that the fort
<i>would be evacuated</i>), and ten days before his written renewal of
the assurance&mdash;"<i>Faith as to Sumter fully kept. Wait and
see!</i>" This assurance, too, was given at the very moment when
a messenger from his own department was on the way to
Charleston to notify the Governor of South Carolina that faith
would <i>not</i> be kept in the matter.</p>

<p>It is scarcely necessary to say that the Commissioners had,
with good reason, ceased to place any confidence in the promises
of the United States Government, before they ceased to be
made. On the 8th of April they sent the following dispatch
to General Beauregard:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>April 8, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General G. T. Beauregard</span>: Accounts uncertain, because
of the constant vacillation of this Government. We were reassured
yesterday that the status of Sumter would not be changed
without previous notice to Governor Pickens, but we have no
faith in them. The war policy prevails in the Cabinet at this time.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">M. J. Crawford</span>."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>On the same day the announcement made to Governor
Pickens through Mr. Chew was made known. The Commissioners
immediately applied for a definitive answer to their note
of March 12th, which had been permitted to remain in abeyance.
The paper of the Secretary of State, dated March 15th,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span>
was thereupon delivered to them.  This paper, with the final
rejoinder of the Commissioners and Judge Campbell's letters
to the Secretary of April 13th and April 20th, respectively,
will be found in the Appendix.</p>

<p>Negotiation was now at an end, and the Commissioners
withdrew from Washington and returned to their homes. Their
last dispatch, before leaving, shows that they were still dependent
upon public rumor and the newspapers for information as
to the real purposes and preparations of the Federal Administration.
It was in these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>April 10, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General G. T. Beauregard</span>: The 'Tribune' of to-day declares
the main object of the expedition to be the relief of Sumter,
and that a force will be landed which will overcome all opposition.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Roman, Crawford, and Forsyth</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The annexed extracts from my message to the Confederate
Congress at the opening of its special session, on the 29th of
April, will serve as a recapitulation of the events above narrated,
with all of comment that it was then, or is now, considered
necessary to add:</p>

<blockquote><p>
[<i>Extracts from President's Message to the Confederate Congress, of April
29, 1861.</i>]</p>

<p>"... Scarce had you assembled in February last, when, prior
even to the inauguration of the Chief Magistrate you had elected,
you expressed your desire for the appointment of Commissioners,
and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between
the two Governments upon principles of right, justice, equity, and
good faith.</p>

<p>"It was my pleasure, as well as my duty, to co&ouml;perate with
you in this work of peace. Indeed, in my address to you, on
taking the oath of office, and before receiving from you the communication
of this resolution, I had said that, as a necessity, not
as a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separating, and
henceforth our energies must be directed to the conduct of our
own affairs, and the perpetuity of the Confederacy which we have
formed. If a just perception of mutual interest shall permit us
to peaceably pursue our separate political career, my most earnest
desire will then have been fulfilled.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>[pg 279]</span>

<p>"It was in furtherance of these accordant views of the Congress
and the Executive, that I made choice of three discreet, able,
and distinguished citizens, who repaired to Washington.  Aided
by their cordial co&ouml;peration and that of the Secretary of State,
every effort compatible with self-respect and the dignity of the
Confederacy was exhausted, before I allowed myself to yield to
the conviction that the Government of the United States was
determined to attempt the conquest of this people, and that our
cherished hopes of peace were unobtainable.</p>

<p>"On the arrival of our Commissioners in Washington on the
5th of March,<a id="footnotetag164" name="footnotetag164"></a><a href="#footnote164"><sup>164</sup></a> they postponed, at the suggestion of a friendly intermediator,
doing more than giving informal notice of their arrival.
This was done with a view to afford time to the President of the
United States, who had just been inaugurated, for the discharge
of other pressing official duties in the organization of his Administration,
before engaging his attention to the object of their
mission.</p>

<p>"It was not until the 12th of the month that they officially
addressed the Secretary of State, informing him of the purpose of
their arrival, and stating in the language of their instructions their
wish to make to the Government of the United States overtures
for the opening of negotiations, assuring the Government of the
United States that the President, Congress, and people of the Confederate
States desired a peaceful solution of these great questions;
that it was neither their interest nor their wish to make
any demand which was not founded on the strictest principles of
justice, nor to do any act to injure their late confederates.</p>

<p>"To this communication, no formal reply was received until
the 8th of April. During the interval, the Commissioners had consented
to waive all questions of form, with the firm resolve to
avoid war, if possible.  They went so far even as to hold, during
that long period, unofficial intercourse through an intermediary,
whose high position and character inspired the hope of success,
and through whom constant assurances were received from the
Government of the United States of its peaceful intentions&mdash;of
its determination to evacuate Fort Sumter; and, further, that no
measure would be introduced changing the existing status prejudicial
to the Confederate States; that, in the event of any change
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>[pg 280]</span>
in regard to Fort Pickens, notice would be given to the Commissioners.</p>

<p>"The crooked path of diplomacy can scarcely furnish an example
so wanting in courtesy, in candor, and directness, as was
the course of the United States Government toward our Commissioners
in Washington. For proof of this, I refer to the annexed
documents marked, (?) taken in connection with further
facts, which I now proceed to relate.</p>

<p>"Early in April the attention of the whole country was attracted
to extraordinary preparations, in New York and other
Northern ports, for an extensive military and naval expedition.
These preparations were commenced in secrecy for an expedition
whose destination was concealed, and only became known when
nearly completed; and on the 5th, 6th, and 7th of April, transports
and vessels of war, with troops, munitions, and military supplies,
sailed from Northern ports, bound southward.</p>

<p>"Alarmed by so extraordinary a demonstration, the Commissioners
requested the delivery of an answer to their official communication
of the 12th of March, and the reply, dated on the 15th
of the previous month, was obtained, from which it appears that,
during the whole interval, while the Commissioners were receiving
assurances calculated to inspire hope of the success of their
mission, the Secretary of State and the President of the United
States had already determined to hold no intercourse with them
whatever, to refuse even to listen to any proposals they had to
make; and had profited by the delay created by their own assurances,
in order to prepare secretly the means for effective hostile
operations.</p>

<p>"That these assurances were given, has been virtually confessed
by the Government of the United States, by its act of sending
a messenger to Charleston to give notice of its purpose to use
force, if opposed in its intention of supplying Fort Sumter.</p>

<p>"No more striking proof of the absence of good faith in the
conduct of the Government of the United States toward the
Confederacy can be required, than is contained in the circumstances
which accompanied this notice.</p>

<p>"According to the usual course of navigation, the vessels composing
the expedition, and designed for the relief of Fort Sumter,
might be looked for in Charleston Harbor on the 9th of April.
Yet our Commissioners in Washington were detained under assurances
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281"></a>[pg 281]</span>
that notice should be given of any military movement. The
notice was not addressed to them, but a messenger was sent to
Charleston to give notice to the Governor of South Carolina,
and the notice was so given at a late hour on the 8th of April,
the eve of the very day on which the fleet might be expected to
arrive.</p>

<p>"That this man&oelig;uvre failed in its purpose was not the fault
of those who controlled it. A heavy tempest delayed the arrival
of the expedition, and gave time to the commander of our forces
at Charleston to ask and receive instructions of the Government." ...
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote150" name="footnote150"></a><b>Footnote 150:</b><a href="#footnotetag150"> (return) </a><p>Mr. Hunter, of Virginia.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote151" name="footnote151"></a><b>Footnote 151:</b><a href="#footnotetag151"> (return) </a><p> This statement is in accord with a remark which Mr. Buchanan made to the
author at an earlier period of the same session, with regard to the violence of Northern
sentiment then lately indicated, that he thought it not impossible that his homeward
route would be lighted by burning effigies of himself, and that on reaching
his home he would find it a heap of ashes.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote152" name="footnote152"></a><b>Footnote 152:</b><a href="#footnotetag152"> (return) </a><p>See Appendix L.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote153" name="footnote153"></a><b>Footnote 153:</b><a href="#footnotetag153"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote154" name="footnote154"></a><b>Footnote 154:</b><a href="#footnotetag154"> (return) </a><p> See letter of Judge Campbell to Colonel George W. Munford in "Papers of
the Southern Historical Society," appended to "Southern Magazine" for February,
1874.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote155" name="footnote155"></a><b>Footnote 155:</b><a href="#footnotetag155"> (return) </a><p>
"In the course of this conversation I told Judge Crawford that it was fair to
tell him that the opinion at Washington was, the secession movements were short-lived;
that his Government would wither under sunshine, and that the effect of
these measures might be as supposed; that they might have a contrary effect, but
that I did not consider the effect. I wanted, above all other things, peace.  I was
willing to accept whatever peace might bring, whether union or disunion. I did not
look beyond peace. He said he was willing to take all the risks of sunshine."&mdash;(Letter
of Judge Campbell to Colonel Munford, as above.)</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote156" name="footnote156"></a><b>Footnote 156:</b><a href="#footnotetag156"> (return) </a><p> Letter to Colonel Munford, above quoted. The italics are not in the
original.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote157" name="footnote157"></a><b>Footnote 157:</b><a href="#footnotetag157"> (return) </a><p>Message to the Legislature of South Carolina, November, 1861.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote158" name="footnote158"></a><b>Footnote 158:</b><a href="#footnotetag158"> (return) </a><p>Letter to Colonel Munford, above cited.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote159" name="footnote159"></a><b>Footnote 159:</b><a href="#footnotetag159"> (return) </a><p>Letter to Munford.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote160" name="footnote160"></a><b>Footnote 160:</b><a href="#footnotetag160"> (return) </a><p> Judge Campbell, in his letter to Mr. Seward of April 13, 1861 (see Appendix
L), written a few days after the transaction, gives this date.  In his letter to Colonel
Munford, written more than twelve years afterward, he says "Sunday, April 8th."</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote161" name="footnote161"></a><b>Footnote 161:</b><a href="#footnotetag161"> (return) </a><p>
For this and other documents quoted relative to the transactions of the period,
see "The Record of Fort Sumter," compiled by W. A. Harris, Columbia, South Carolina,
1862.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote162" name="footnote162"></a><b>Footnote 162:</b><a href="#footnotetag162"> (return) </a><p> "Lincoln and Seward," New York, 1874, pp. 57, 58. The italics are not in
the original.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote163" name="footnote163"></a><b>Footnote 163:</b><a href="#footnotetag163"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., pp. 64-69.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote164" name="footnote164"></a><b>Footnote 164:</b><a href="#footnotetag164"> (return) </a><p>
Mr. Crawford, as we have seen, had arrived some days earlier.  The statement
in the message refers to the arrival of the full commission, or a majority of it.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-xii" id="chap-iii-xii"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Protests against the Conduct of the Government of the United States.&mdash;Senator
Douglas's Proposition to evacuate the Forts, and Extracts from his Speech in
Support of it.&mdash;General Scott's Advice.&mdash;Manly Letter of Major Anderson, protesting
against the Action of the Federal Government.&mdash;Misstatements of the
Count of Paris.&mdash;Correspondence relative to Proposed Evacuation of the Fort.&mdash;A
Crisis.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The course pursued by the Government of the United
States with regard to the forts had not passed without earnest
remonstrance from the most intelligent and patriotic of its own
friends during the period of the events which constitute the
subject of the preceding chapter. In the Senate of the United
States, which continued in executive session for several weeks
after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, it was the subject of discussion.
Mr. Douglas, of Illinois&mdash;who was certainly not suspected
of sympathy with secession, or lack of devotion to the
Union&mdash;on the 15th of March offered a resolution recommending
the withdrawal of the garrisons from all forts within the
limits of the States which had seceded, except those at Key
West and the Dry Tortugas. In support of this resolution he
said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We certainly can not justify the holding of forts there, much
less the recapturing of those which have been taken, unless we intend
to reduce those States themselves into subjection. I take it
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id="page282"></a>[pg 282]</span>
for granted, no man will deny the proposition, that whoever permanently
holds Charleston and South Carolina is entitled to the possession
of Fort Sumter. Whoever permanently holds Pensacola and
Florida is entitled to the possession of Fort Pickens. Whoever holds
the States in whose limits those forts are placed is entitled to the
forts themselves, unless there is something peculiar in the location
of some particular fort that makes it important for us to hold it
for the general defense of the whole country, its commerce and
interests, instead of being useful only for the defense of a particular
city or locality. It is true that Forts Taylor and Jefferson, at
Key West and Tortugas, are so situated as to be essentially national,
and therefore important to us without reference to our
relations with the seceded States. Not so with Moultrie, Johnson,
Castle Pinckney, and Sumter, in Charleston Harbor; not so with
Pulaski, on the Savannah River; not so with Morgan and other
forts in Alabama; not so with those other forts that were intended
to guard the entrance of a particular harbor for local defense....</p>

<p>"We can not deny that there is a Southern Confederacy, <i>de
facto</i>, in existence, with its capital at Montgomery. We may regret
it. <i>I</i> regret it most profoundly; but I can not deny the truth
of the fact, painful and mortifying as it is.... I proclaim boldly
the policy of those with whom I act. We are for peace."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Mr. Douglas, in urging the maintenance of <i>peace</i> as a motive
for the evacuation of the forts, was no doubt aware of the full
force of his words. He knew that their continued occupation
was virtually a declaration of war.</p>

<p>The General-in-Chief of the United States Army, also, it is
well known, urgently advised the evacuation of the forts. But
the most striking protest against the coercive measures finally
adopted was that of Major Anderson himself. The letter in
which his views were expressed has been carefully suppressed
in the partisan narratives of that period and wellnigh lost sight
of, although it does the highest honor to his patriotism and integrity.
It was written on the same day on which the announcement
was made to Governor Pickens of the purpose of the
United States Government to send supplies to the fort, and is
worthy of reproduction here:<a id="footnotetag165" name="footnotetag165"></a><a href="#footnote165"><sup>165</sup></a></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283"></a>[pg 283]</span>

<blockquote><p>
[<i>Letter of Major Anderson, United States Army, protesting against Fox's
Plan for relieving Fort Sumter</i>.]</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Fort Sumter</span>, S. C., <i>April 8, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<i>To Colonel L. Thomas, Adjutant-General United States Army</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Colonel</span>: I have the honor to report that the resumption of
work yesterday (Sunday) at various points on Morris Island, and
the vigorous prosecution of it this morning, apparently strengthening
all the batteries which are under the fire of our guns, shows
that they either have just received some news from Washington
which has put them on the <i>qui vive</i>, or that they have received
orders from Montgomery to commence operations here. I am preparing,
by the side of my barbette guns, protection for our men
from the shells which will be almost continually bursting over or
in our work.</p>

<p>"I had the honor to receive, by yesterday's mail, the letter of
the Honorable Secretary of War, dated April 4th, and confess
that what he there states surprises me very greatly&mdash;following, as
it does, and contradicting so positively, the assurance Mr. Crawford
telegraphed he was 'authorized' to make. I trust that this matter
will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now,
when the South has been erroneously informed that none such
would be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout
our country.  It is, of course, now too late for me to give any
advice in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain Fox. I fear
that its result can not fail to be disastrous to all concerned.  Even
with his boat at our walls, the loss of life (as I think I mentioned
to Mr. Fox) in unloading her will more than pay for the good to
be accomplished by the expedition, which keeps us, if I can maintain
possession of this work, out of position, surrounded by strong
works which must be carried to make this fort of the least value
to the United States Government.</p>

<p>"We have not oil enough to keep a light in the lantern for
one night. The boats will have to, therefore, rely at night entirely
upon other marks.  I ought to have been informed that this expedition
was to come.  Colonel Lamon's remark convinced me that
the idea, merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not be carried
out.<a id="footnotetag166" name="footnotetag166"></a><a href="#footnote166"><sup>166</sup></a></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id="page284"></a>[pg 284]</span>

<p>
"We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my
heart is not in this war, which I see is to be thus commenced.
That God will still avert it, and cause us to resort to pacific means
to maintain our rights, is my ardent prayer!</p>

<p>"I am, Colonel, very respectfully,</p>

<p>"Your obedient servant,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Robert Anderson</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Major 1st Artillery, commanding</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>This frank and manly letter, although written with the reserve
necessarily belonging to a communication from an officer
to his military superiors, expressing dissatisfaction with orders,
fully vindicates Major Anderson from all suspicion of complicity
or sympathy with the bad faith of the Government
which he was serving. It accords entirely with the sentiments
expressed in his private letter to me, already mentioned as lost
or stolen, and exhibits him in the attitude of faithful performance
of a duty inconsistent with his domestic ties and repugnant
to his patriotism.</p>

<p>The "relief squadron," as with unconscious irony it was
termed, was already under way for Charleston, consisting,
according to their own statement, of eight vessels, carrying
twenty-six guns and about fourteen hundred men, including
the troops sent for re&euml;nforcement of the garrison.</p>

<p>These facts became known to the Confederate Government,
and it was obvious that no time was to be lost in preparing for,
and if possible anticipating the impending assault. The character
of the instructions given General Beauregard in this emergency
may be inferred from the ensuing correspondence, which
is here reproduced from contemporary publications:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Charleston</span>, <i>April 8th</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">L. P. Walker</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>.</p>

<p>"An authorized messenger from President Lincoln just informed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285"></a>[pg 285]</span>
Governor Pickens and myself that provisions will be sent
to Fort Sumter peaceably, or otherwise by force.</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Montgomery</span>, <i>10th</i>.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>, <i>Charleston</i>.</p>

<p>"If you have no doubt of the authorized character of the
agent who communicated to you the intention of the Washington
Government to supply Fort Sumter by force, you will at once demand
its evacuation, and, if this is refused, proceed, in such a manner
as you may determine, to reduce it.  Answer.</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">L. P. Walker</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Charleston</span>, <i>April 10th</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">L. P. Walker</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>.</p>

<p>"The demand will be made to-morrow at twelve o'clock.</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Montgomery</span>, <i>April 10th</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General Beauregard</span>, <i>Charleston</i>.</p>

<p>"Unless there are especial reasons connected with your own
condition, it is considered proper that you should make the demand
at an early hour.</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">L. P. Walker</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Charleston</span>, <i>April 10th</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">L. P. Walker</span>, <i>Secretary of War, Montgomery</i>.</p>

<p>"The reasons are special for twelve o'clock.</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Headquarters Provisional Army</span>, C. S. A.,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Charleston</span>, S.C., <i>April 11, 1861, 2</i> <span class="sc">P. M.</span></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: The Government of the Confederate States has hitherto
forborne from any hostile demonstration against Fort Sumter, in
the hope that the Government of the United States, with a view
to the amicable adjustment of all questions between the two Governments,
and to avert the calamities of war, would voluntarily
evacuate it. There was reason at one time to believe that such
would be the course pursued by the Government of the United
States; and, under that impression, my Government has refrained
from making any demand for the surrender of the fort.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286" id="page286"></a>[pg 286]</span>

<p>"But the Confederate States can no longer delay assuming
actual possession of a fortification commanding the entrance
of one of their harbors, and necessary to its defense and security.</p>

<p>"I am ordered by the Government of the Confederate States
to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter. My aides, Colonel
Chesnut and Captain Lee, are authorized to make such demand of
you. All proper facilities will be afforded for the removal of
yourself and command, together with company arms and property,
and all private property, to any post in the United States which
you may elect. The flag which you have upheld so long and with
so much fortitude, under the most trying circumstances, may be
saluted by you on taking it down.</p>

<p>"Colonel Chesnut and Captain Lee will, for a reasonable time,
await your answer.</p>

<p>"I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Brigadier-General commanding</i>.</p>

<p>"Major <span class="sc">Robert Anderson</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Commanding at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, S. C.</i>"</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Headquarters Fort Sumter</span>, S. C., <i>April 11, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General</span>: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of
your communication demanding the evacuation of this fort; and
to say in reply thereto that it is a demand with which I regret
that my sense of honor and of my obligations to my Government
prevents my compliance.</p>

<p>"Thanking you for the fair, manly, and courteous terms proposed,
and for the high compliment paid me,</p>

<p>"I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Robert Anderson</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Major U. S. Army, commanding</i>.</p>

<p>"To Brigadier-General <span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Commanding Provisional Army, C. S. A.</i>"</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Montgomery</span>, <i>April 11th</i>.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">Beauregard</span>, <i>Charleston</i>.</p>

<p>"We do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter, if
Major Anderson will state the time at which, as indicated by him,
he will evacuate, and agree that, in the mean time, he will not use
his guns against us, unless ours should be employed against Fort
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287"></a>[pg 287]</span>
Sumter. You are thus to avoid the effusion of blood. If this or
its equivalent be refused, reduce the fort as your judgment decides
to be most practicable.</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">L. P. Walker</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Headquarters Provisional Army</span>, C. S. A.,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Charleston</span>, <i>April 11, 1861, 11</i> <span class="sc">P. M.</span></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Major</span>: In consequence of the verbal observations made by
you to my aides, Messrs. Chesnut and Lee, in relation to the condition
of your supplies, and that you would in a few days be
starved out if our guns did not batter you to pieces&mdash;or words to
that effect&mdash;and desiring no useless effusion of blood, I communicated
both the verbal observation and your written answer to my
Government.</p>

<p>"If you will state the time at which you will evacuate Fort
Sumter, and agree that in the mean time you will not use your
guns against us, unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter,
we will abstain from opening fire upon you. Colonel Chesnut
and Captain Lee are authorized by me to enter into such an
agreement with you. You are therefore requested to communicate
to them an open answer.</p>

<p>"I remain, Major, very respectfully,</p>

<p>"Your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Brigadier-General commanding</i>.</p>

<p>"Major <span class="sc">Robert Anderson</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Commanding at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, S. C.</i>"</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Headquarters Fort Sumter</span>, S. C., <i>2.30</i> <span class="sc">A. M.</span>,
<i>April 12, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General</span>: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of
your second communication of the 11th instant, by Colonel Chesnut,
and to state, in reply, that, cordially uniting with you in the
desire to avoid the useless effusion of blood, I will, if provided
with the proper and necessary means of transportation, evacuate
Fort Sumter by noon on the 15th instant, should I not receive,
prior to that time, controlling instructions from my Government,
or additional supplies; and that I will not, in the mean time, open
my fire upon your forces unless compelled to do so by some hostile
act against this fort, or the flag of my Government, by the forces
under your command, or by some portion of them, or by the perpetration
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288" id="page288"></a>[pg 288]</span>
of some act showing a hostile intention on your part
against this fort or the flag it bears.</p>

<p>"I have the honor to be, General,</p>

<p>"Your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Robert Anderson</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Major U. S. Army, commanding</i>.</p>

<p>"To Brigadier-General <span class="sc">G. T. Beauregard</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Commanding Provisional Army, C. S. A.</i>"</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Fort Sumter</span>, S. C., <i>April</i> 12, 1861, 3.20 <span class="sc">A. M.</span></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: By authority of Brigadier-General Beauregard, commanding
the provisional forces of the Confederate States, we have
the honor to notify you that he will open the fire of his batteries
on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.</p>

<p>"We have the honor to be, very respectfully,</p>

<p>"Your obedient servants,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">James Chesnut</span>, Jr,</p>

<p>"<i>Aide-de-camp</i>.</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Stephen D. Lee</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Captain S. C. Army, and Aide-de-camp</i>.</p>

<p>"Major <span class="sc">Robert Anderson</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>United States Army, commanding Fort Sumter</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>It is essential to a right understanding of the last two letters
to give more than a superficial attention to that of Major Anderson,
bearing in mind certain important facts not referred to in
the correspondence. Major Anderson had been requested to
state the time at which he <i>would evacuate</i> the fort, if unmolested,
agreeing in the mean time not to use his guns against
the city and the troops defending it unless <i>Fort Sumter</i> should
be first attacked by them. On these conditions General Beauregard
offered to refrain from opening fire upon him. In his
reply Major Anderson promises to evacuate the fort on the 15th
of April, <i>provided</i> he should not, before that time, receive
"controlling instructions" or "additional supplies" from his
Government. He furthermore offers to pledge himself not to
open fire upon the Confederates, unless in the mean time compelled
to do so by some hostile act against the fort <i>or the flag
of his Government</i>.</p>

<p>Inasmuch as it was known to the Confederate commander
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289" id="page289"></a>[pg 289]</span>
that the "controlling instructions" were already issued, and
that the "additional supplies" were momentarily expected; inasmuch,
also, as any attempt to introduce the supplies would
compel the opening of fire upon the vessels bearing them under
the flag of the United States&mdash;thereby releasing Major Anderson
from his pledge&mdash;it is evident that his conditions could not
be accepted. It would have been merely, after the avowal of a
hostile determination by the Government of the United States,
to await an inevitable conflict with the guns of Fort Sumter
and the naval forces of the United States in combination; with
no possible hope of averting it, unless in the improbable event
of a delay of the expected fleet for nearly four days longer.
(In point of fact, it arrived off the harbor on the same day, but
was hindered by a gale of wind from entering it.)  There was
obviously no other course to be pursued than that announced
in the answer given by General Beauregard.</p>

<p>It should not be forgotten that, during the early occupation
of Fort Sumter by a garrison the attitude of which was at least
offensive, no restriction had been put upon their privilege of
purchasing in Charleston fresh provisions, or any delicacies or
comforts not directly tending to the supply of the means needful
to hold the fort for an indefinite time.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote165" name="footnote165"></a><b>Footnote 165:</b><a href="#footnotetag165"> (return) </a><p>See "The Record of Fort Sumter," p. 37.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote166" name="footnote166"></a><b>Footnote 166:</b><a href="#footnotetag166"> (return) </a><p> The Count of Paris libels the memory of Major Anderson, and perverts the
truth of history in this, as he has done in other particulars, by saying, with reference
to the visit of Captain Fox to the fort, that, "having visited Anderson at Fort
Sumter, <i>a plan had been agreed upon between them for revictualing the
garrison</i>."&mdash;("Civil
War in America," authorized translation, vol. i, chap. iv, p. 137.) Fox himself
says, in his published letter, "I made no arrangements with Major Anderson in
for supplying the fort, nor did I inform him of my plan"; and Major Anderson, in
the letter above, says the idea had been "merely hinted at" by Captain Fox, and
that Colonel Lamon had led him to believe that it had been abandoned.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iii-xiii" id="chap-iii-xiii"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
A Pause and a Review.&mdash;Attitude of the Two Parties.&mdash;Sophistry exposed and Shams
torn away.&mdash;Forbearance of the Confederate Government.&mdash;Who was the Aggressor?&mdash;Major
Anderson's View, and that of a Naval Officer.&mdash;Mr. Horace
Greeley on the Fort Sumter Case.&mdash;The Bombardment and Surrender.&mdash;Gallant
Action of ex-Senator Wigfall.&mdash;Mr. Lincoln's Statement of the Case.
</p></blockquote>


<p>Here, in the brief hour immediately before the outburst of
the long-gathering storm, although it can hardly be necessary
for the reader who has carefully considered what has already
been written, we may pause for a moment to contemplate the
attitude of the parties to the contest and the grounds on which
they respectively stand. I do not now refer to the original
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290" id="page290"></a>[pg 290]</span>
causes of controversy&mdash;to the comparative claims of Statehood
and Union, or to the question of the right or the wrong of secession&mdash;but
to the proximate and immediate causes of conflict.</p>

<p>The fact that South Carolina <i>was</i> a State&mdash;whatever her
relations may have been to the other States&mdash;is not and can not
be denied. It is equally undeniable that the ground on which
Fort Sumter was built was ceded by South Carolina to the
United States <i>in trust</i> for the defense of her own soil and her
own chief harbor. This has been shown, by ample evidence,
to have been the principle governing all cessions by the States
of sites for military purposes, but it applies with special force
to the case of Charleston.  The streams flowing into that harbor,
from source to mouth, lie entirely within the limits of the
State of South Carolina. No other State or combination of
States could have any distinct interest or concern in the maintenance
of a fortress at that point, unless as a means of aggression
against South Carolina herself. The practical view of the case
was correctly stated by Mr. Douglas, when he said: "I take it
for granted that whoever permanently holds Charleston and
South Carolina is entitled to the possession of Fort Sumter.
Whoever permanently holds Pensacola and Florida is entitled
to the possession of Fort Pickens.  Whoever holds the States
in whose limits those forts are placed is entitled to the forts
themselves, unless there is something peculiar in the location of
some particular fort that makes it important for us to hold it
for the general defense of the whole country, its commerce and
interests, instead of being useful only for the defense of a particular
city or locality."</p>

<p>No such necessity could be alleged with regard to Fort Sumter.
The claim to hold it as "public property" of the United
States was utterly untenable and unmeaning, apart from a claim
of coercive control over the State. If South Carolina was a
mere province, in a state of open rebellion, the Government of
the United States had a right to retain its hold of any fortified
place within her limits which happened to be in its possession,
and it would have had an equal right to acquire possession of
any other.  It would have had the same right to send an army
to Columbia to batter down the walls of the State Capitol. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291" id="page291"></a>[pg 291]</span>
subject may at once be stripped of the sophistry which would
make a distinction between the two cases. The one was as
really an act of war as the other would have been. The right
or the wrong of either depended entirely upon the question of
the rightful power of the Federal Government to coerce a State
into submission&mdash;a power which, as we have seen, was unanimously
rejected in the formation of the Federal Constitution,
and which was still unrecognized by many, perhaps by a majority,
even of those who denied the right of a State to secede.</p>

<p>If there existed any hope or desire for a peaceful settlement
of the questions at issue between the States, either party had a
right to demand that, pending such settlement, there should be
no hostile grasp upon its throat. This grip had been held on
the throat of South Carolina for almost four months from the
period of her secession, and no forcible resistance to it had yet
been made. Remonstrances and patient, persistent, and reiterated
attempts at negotiation for its removal had been made
with two successive Administrations of the Government of the
United States&mdash;at first by the State of South Carolina, and by
the Government of the Confederate States after its formation.
These efforts had been met, not by an open avowal of coercive
purposes, but by evasion, prevarication, and perfidy. The
agreement of one Administration to maintain the <i>status quo</i>
at the time when the question arose, was violated in December
by the removal of the garrison from its original position to the
occupancy of a stronger. Another attempt was made to violate
it, in January, by the introduction of troops concealed
below the deck of the steamer Star of the West,<a id="footnotetag167" name="footnotetag167"></a><a href="#footnote167"><sup>167</sup></a> but this was
thwarted by the vigilance of the State service.  The protracted
course of fraud and prevarication practiced by Mr. Lincoln's Administration
in the months of March and April has been fully
exhibited.  It was evident that no confidence whatever could
be reposed in any pledge or promise of the Federal Government
as then administered. Yet, notwithstanding all this, no
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292" id="page292"></a>[pg 292]</span>
resistance, other than that of pacific protest and appeals for an
equitable settlement, was made, until after the avowal of a purpose
of coercion, and when it was known that a hostile fleet was
on the way to support and enforce it. At the very moment
when the Confederate commander gave the final notice to Major
Anderson of his purpose to open fire upon the fort, that fleet
was lying off the mouth of the harbor, and hindered from entering
only by a gale of wind.</p>

<p>The forbearance of the Confederate Government, under the
circumstances, is perhaps unexampled in history. It was carried
to the extreme verge, short of a disregard of the safety of the
people who had intrusted to that government the duty of their
defense against their enemies. The attempt to represent us as
the <i>aggressors</i> in the conflict which ensued is as unfounded as
the complaint made by the wolf against the lamb in the familiar
fable. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he that
strikes the first blow or fires the first gun. To have awaited
further strengthening of their position by land and naval forces,
with hostile purpose now declared, for the sake of having them
"fire the first gun," would have been as unwise as it would be
to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a
deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired. The
disingenuous rant of demagogues about "firing on the flag"
might serve to rouse the passions of insensate mobs in times of
general excitement, but will be impotent in impartial history to
relieve the Federal Government from the responsibility of the
assault made by sending a hostile fleet against the harbor of
Charleston, to co&ouml;perate with the menacing garrison of Fort
Sumter. After the assault was made by the hostile descent of
the fleet, the reduction of Fort Sumter was a measure of defense
rendered absolutely and immediately necessary.</p>

<p>Such clearly was the idea of the commander of the Pawnee,
when he declined, as Captain Fox informs us, without orders
from a superior, to make any effort to enter the harbor, "there
to inaugurate civil war." The straightforward simplicity of the
sailor had not been perverted by the shams of political sophistry.
Even Mr. Horace Greeley, with all his extreme partisan
feeling, is obliged to admit that, "whether the bombardment
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293"></a>[pg 293]</span>
and reduction of Fort Sumter shall or shall not be justified by
posterity, it is clear that the Confederacy had no alternative but
its own dissolution."<a id="footnotetag168" name="footnotetag168"></a><a href="#footnote168"><sup>168</sup></a></p>

<p>According to the notice given by General Beauregard, fire
was opened upon Fort Sumter, from the various batteries which
had been erected around the harbor, at half-past four o'clock
on the morning of Friday, the 12th of April, 1861. The fort
soon responded. It is not the purpose of this work to give
minute details of the military operation, as the events of the
bombardment have been often related, and are generally well
known, with no material discrepancy in matters of fact among
the statements of the various participants. It is enough, therefore,
to add that the bombardment continued for about thirty-three
or thirty-four hours. The fort was eventually set on fire
by shells, after having been partly destroyed by shot, and Major
Anderson, after a resolute defense, finally surrendered on the
13th&mdash;the same terms being accorded to him which had been offered
two days before. It is a remarkable fact&mdash;probably without
precedent in the annals of war&mdash;that, notwithstanding the
extent and magnitude of the engagement, the number and caliber
of the guns, and the amount of damage done to inanimate
material on both sides, especially to Fort Sumter, nobody was
injured on either side by the bombardment. The only casualty
attendant upon the affair was the death of one man and the
wounding of several others by the explosion of a gun in the
firing of a salute to their flag by the garrison on evacuating the
fort the day after the surrender.</p>

<p>A striking incident marked the close of the bombardment.
Ex-Senator Louis T. Wigfall, of Texas&mdash;a man as generous as
he was recklessly brave&mdash;when he saw the fort on fire, supposing
the garrison to be hopelessly struggling for the honor of its flag,
voluntarily and without authority, went under fire in an open
boat to the fort, and climbing through one of its embrasures
asked for Major Anderson, and insisted that he should surrender
a fort which it was palpably impossible that he could hold.
Major Anderson agreed to surrender on the same terms and
conditions that had been offered him before his works were battered
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294" id="page294"></a>[pg 294]</span>
in breach, and the agreement between them to that effect
was promptly ratified by the Confederate commander. Thus
unofficially was inaugurated the surrender and evacuation of
the fort.</p>

<p>The President of the United States, in his message of July
4, 1861, to the Federal Congress convened in extra session, said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort
Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of
the assailants.  They well knew that the garrison in the fort could
by no possibility commit aggression upon them.  They knew&mdash;they
were expressly notified&mdash;that the giving of bread to the few
brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would on
that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so
much, should provoke more."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Mr. Lincoln well knew that, if the brave men of the garrison
were hungry, they had only him and his trusted advisers to thank
for it. They had been kept for months in a place where they
ought not to have been, contrary to the judgment of the General-in-Chief
of his army, contrary to the counsels of the wisest
statesmen in his confidence, and the protests of the commander
of the garrison.  A word from him would have relieved them
at any moment in the manner most acceptable to them and most
promotive of peaceful results.</p>

<p>But, suppose the Confederate authorities had been disposed
to yield, and to consent to the introduction of supplies for the
maintenance of the garrison, what assurance would they have
had that nothing further would be attempted? What reliance
could be placed in any assurances of the Government of the
United States after the experience of the attempted <i>ruse</i> of the
Star of the West and the deceptions practiced upon the Confederate
Commissioners in Washington? He says we were "expressly
notified" that nothing more "would <i>on that occasion</i> be
attempted"&mdash;the words in italics themselves constituting a very
significant though unobtrusive and innocent-looking limitation.
But we had been just as expressly notified, long before, that the
garrison would be withdrawn.  It would be as easy to violate
the one pledge as it had been to break the other.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295" id="page295"></a>[pg 295]</span>

<p>Moreover, the so-called notification was a mere memorandum,
without date, signature, or authentication of any kind, sent to
Governor Pickens, not by an accredited agent, but by a subordinate
employee of the State Department. Like the oral and
written pledges of Mr. Seward, given through Judge Campbell,
it seemed to be carefully and purposely divested of every attribute
that could make it binding and valid, in case its authors
should see fit to repudiate it.  It was as empty and worthless as
the complaint against the Confederate Government based upon
it, is disingenuous.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote167" name="footnote167"></a><b>Footnote 167:</b><a href="#footnotetag167"> (return) </a><p> See the report of her commander, Captain McGowan, who
says he took on board, in the harbor of New York, four officers and two
hundred soldiers. Arriving off Charleston, he says, "<i>The soldiers
were now all put below</i>, and no one allowed on deck except our own
crew."</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote168" name="footnote168"></a><b>Footnote 168:</b><a href="#footnotetag168"> (return) </a><p>"American Conflict," vol. i, chap, xxix, p. 449.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296" id="page296"></a>[pg 296]</span>




<h2><a name="part-iv" id="part-iv"></a>PART IV.</h2>

<h2><i>THE WAR.</i></h2>

<h2><a name="chap-iv-i" id="chap-iv-i"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Failure of the Peace Congress.&mdash;Treatment of the Commissioners.&mdash;Their
Withdrawal.&mdash;Notice
of an Armed Expedition.&mdash;Action of the Confederate Government.&mdash;Bombardment
and Surrender of Fort Sumter.&mdash;Its Reduction required
by the Exigency of the Case.&mdash;Disguise thrown off.&mdash;President Lincoln's Call
for Seventy-five Thousand Men.&mdash;His Fiction of "Combinations."&mdash;Palpable
Violation of the Constitution.&mdash;Action of Virginia.&mdash;Of Citizens of Baltimore.&mdash;The
Charge of Precipitation against South Carolina.&mdash;Action of the Confederate
Government.&mdash;The Universal Feeling.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The Congress, initiated by Virginia for the laudable purpose
of endeavoring, by constitutional means, to adjust all the
issues which threatened the peace of the country, failed to
achieve anything that would cause or justify a reconsideration
by the seceded States of their action to reclaim the grants they
had made to the General Government, and to maintain for themselves
a separate and independent existence.</p>

<p>The Commissioners sent by the Confederate Government,
after having been shamefully deceived, as has been heretofore
fully set forth, left the United States capital to report the
result of their mission to the Confederate Government.</p>

<p>The notice received, that an armed expedition had sailed for
operations against the State of South Carolina in the harbor of
Charleston, induced the Confederate Government to meet, as
best it might, this assault, in the discharge of its obligation to
defend each State of the Confederacy. To this end the bombardment
of the formidable work, Fort Sumter, was commenced,
in anticipation of the re&euml;nforcement which was then
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297" id="page297"></a>[pg 297]</span>
moving to unite with its garrison for hostilities against South
Carolina.</p>

<p>The bloodless bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter
occurred on April 13, 1861.  The garrison was generously permitted
to retire with the honors of war.  The evacuation of
that fort, commanding the entrance to the harbor of Charleston,
which, if in hostile hands, was destructive of its commerce, had
been claimed as the right of South Carolina.  The voluntary
withdrawal of the garrison by the United States Government
had been considered, and those best qualified to judge believed
it had been promised.  Yet, when instead of the fulfillment of
just expectations, instead of the withdrawal of the garrison, a
hostile expedition was organized and sent forward, the urgency
of the case required its reduction before it should be re&euml;nforced.
Had there been delay, the more serious conflict between larger
forces, land and naval, would scarcely have been bloodless, as
the bombardment fortunately was. The event, however, was
seized upon to inflame the mind of the Northern people, and
the disguise which had been worn in the communications with
the Confederate Commissioners was now thrown off, and it was
cunningly attempted to show that the South, which had been
pleading for peace and still stood on the defensive, had by this
bombardment inaugurated a war against the United States.
But it should be stated that the threats implied in the declarations
that the Union could not exist part slave and part free,
and that the Union should be preserved, and the denial of the
right of a State peaceably to withdraw, were virtually a declaration
of war, and the sending of an army and navy to attack
was the result to have been anticipated as the consequence of
such declaration of war.</p>

<p>On the 15th day of the same month, President Lincoln,
introducing his farce "of combinations too powerful to be
suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings,"
called forth the military of the several States to the number
of seventy-five thousand, and commanded "the persons composing
the combinations" to disperse, etc. It can but surprise any
one in the least degree conversant with the history of the
Union, to find States referred to as "persons composing combinations,"
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298" id="page298"></a>[pg 298]</span>
and that the sovereign creators of the Federal Government,
the States of the Union, should be commanded by
their agent to disperse. The levy of so large an army could
only mean war; but the power to declare war did not reside in
the President&mdash;it was delegated to the Congress only.  If, however,
it had been a riotous combination or an insurrection, it
must have been, according to the Constitution, against the State;
and the power of the President to call forth the militia to suppress
it, was dependent upon an application from the State for
that purpose; it could not precede such application, and still
less could it be rightfully exercised against the will of a State.
The authorities on this subject have been heretofore cited, and
need not be referred to again.</p>

<p>Suffice it to say that, by section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution,
the United States are bound to protect each State against
invasion and against domestic violence, whenever application
shall have been made by the Legislature, or by the Executive
when the Legislature can not be convened; and that to fail to
give protection against any invasion whatsoever would be a
dereliction of duty. To add that there could be no justification
for the invasion of a State by an army of the United States, is
but to repeat what has been said, on the absence of any authority
in the General Government to coerce a State.  In any possible
view of the case, therefore, the conclusion must be, that
the calling on some of the States for seventy-five thousand militia
to invade other States which were asserted to be still in the
Union, was a palpable violation of the Constitution, and the
usurpation of undelegated power, or, in other words, of power
reserved to the States or to the people.</p>

<p>It might, therefore, have been anticipated that Virginia&mdash;one
of whose sons wrote the Declaration of Independence, another
of whose sons led the armies of the United States in the
Revolution which achieved their independence, and another of
whose sons mainly contributed to the adoption of the Constitution
of the Union&mdash;would not have been slow, in the face of
such events, to reclaim the grants she had made to the General
Government, and to withdraw from the Union, to the establishment
of which she had so largely contributed.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299" id="page299"></a>[pg 299]</span>

<p>Two days had elapsed between the surrender of Fort Sumter
and the proclamation of President Lincoln calling for seventy-five
thousand militia as before stated. Two other days elapsed,
and Virginia passed her ordinance of secession, and two days
thereafter the citizens of Baltimore resisted the passage of troops
through that city on their way to make war upon the Southern
States. Thus rapidly did the current of events bear us onward
from peace to the desolating war which was soon to ensue.</p>

<p>The manly effort of the unorganized, unarmed citizens of
Baltimore to resist the progress of armies for the invasion of
her Southern sisters, was worthy of the fair fame of Maryland;
becoming the descendants of the men who so gallantly fought
for the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of the States.</p>

<p>The bold stand, then and thereafter taken, extorted a promise
from the Executive authorities that no more troops should
be sent through the city of Baltimore, which promise, however,
was only observed until, by artifice, power had been gained to
disregard it.</p>

<p>Virginia, as has been heretofore stated, passed her ordinance
of secession on the 17th of April. It was, however, subject to
ratification by the people at an election to be held on the fourth
Thursday of May.  She was in the mean time, like her Southern
sisters, the object of Northern hostilities, and, having a common
cause with them, properly anticipated the election of May
by forming an alliance with the Confederate States, which was
ratified by the Convention on the 25th of April.</p>

<p>The Convention for that alliance set forth that Virginia,
looking to a speedy union with the Confederate States, and for
the purpose of meeting pressing exigencies, agreed that "the
whole military force and military operations, offensive and defensive,
of said Commonwealth, in the impending conflict with
the United States, shall be under the chief control and direction
of the President of the said Confederate States." The whole
was made subject to the approval and ratification of the proper
authorities of both governments respectively.</p>

<p>To those who criticise South Carolina as having acted precipitately
in withdrawing from the Union, it may be answered
that intervening occurrences show that her delay could not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300" id="page300"></a>[pg 300]</span>
have changed the result; and, further, that her prompt action
had enabled her better to prepare for the contingency which it
was found impossible to avert. Thus she was prepared in the
first necessities of Virginia to send to her troops organized and
equipped.</p>

<p>Before the convention for co&ouml;peration with the Confederate
States had been adopted by Virginia, that knightly soldier, General
Bonham, of South Carolina, went with his brigade to Richmond;
and, throughout the Southern States, there was a prevailing
desire to rush to Virginia, where it was foreseen that the
first great battles of the war were to be fought; so that, as early
as the 22d of April, I telegraphed to Governor Letcher that, in
addition to the forces heretofore ordered, requisitions had been
made for thirteen regiments, eight to rendezvous at Lynchburg,
four at Richmond, and one at Harper's Ferry. Referring to an
application that had been made to him from Baltimore, I wrote:
"Sustain Baltimore if practicable.  We will re&euml;nforce you."
The universal feeling was that of a common cause and common
destiny.  There was no selfish desire to linger around home, no
narrow purpose to separate local interests from the common
welfare.  The object was to sustain a principle&mdash;the broad principle
of constitutional liberty, the right of self-government.</p>

<p>The early demonstrations of the enemy showed that Virginia
was liable to invasion from the north, from the east, and
from the west.  Though the larger preparation indicated that
the most serious danger to be apprehended was from the line of
the Potomac, the first conflicts occurred in the east.</p>

<p>The narrow peninsula between the James and York Rivers
had topographical features well adapted to defense. It was held
by General John B. Magruder, who skillfully improved its natural
strength by artificial means, and there, on the ground memorable
as the field of the last battle of the Revolution, in which
General Washington compelled Lord Cornwallis to surrender,
Magruder, with a small force, held for a long time the superior
forces of the enemy in check.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301" id="page301"></a>[pg 301]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-ii" id="chap-iv-ii"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Supply of Arms; of Men.&mdash;Love of the Union.&mdash;Secessionists few.&mdash;Efforts to
prevent the Final Step.&mdash;Views of the People.&mdash;Effect on their Agriculture.&mdash;Aid
from African Servitude.&mdash;Answer to the Clamors on the Horrors of Slavery.&mdash;Appointment
of a Commissary-General.&mdash;His Character and Capacity.&mdash;Organization,
Instruction, and Equipment of the Army.&mdash;Action of Congress.&mdash;The
Law.&mdash;Its Signification.&mdash;The Hope of a Peaceful Solution early entertained;
rapidly diminished.&mdash;Further Action of Congress.&mdash;Policy of the Government
for Peace.&mdash;Position of Officers of United States Army.&mdash;The Army
of the States, not of the Government.&mdash;The Confederate Law observed by the
Government.&mdash;Officers retiring from United States Army.&mdash;Organization of
Bureaus.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The question of supplying arms and munitions of war was
the first considered, because it was the want for which it was
the most difficult to provide.  Of men willing to engage in the
defense of their country, there were many more than we could
arm.</p>

<p>Though the prevailing sentiment of the Southern people
was a cordial attachment to the Union as it was formed by their
fathers, their love was for the spirit of the compact, for the liberties
it was designed to secure, for the self-government and
State sovereignty which had been won by separation from the
mother-country, and transmitted to them by their Revolutionary
sires as a legacy for their posterity for ever. The number of
those who desired to dissolve the Union, even though the Constitution
should be faithfully observed&mdash;those who, in the language
of the day, were called "secessionists <i>per se</i>"&mdash;was so small
as not to be felt in any popular decision; but the number of
those who held that the States had surrendered their sovereignty,
and had no right to secede from the Union, was so inappreciably
small, if indeed any such existed, that I can not recall
the fact of a single Southern advocate of that opinion.  The
assertion of the right is not to be confounded with a readiness
to exercise it.  Many who had no doubt as to the right, looked
upon its exercise with reluctance amounting to sorrow, and
claimed that it should be the last resort, only to be adopted as
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id="page302"></a>[pg 302]</span>
the alternative to a surrender of the equality in the Union of
States, free, sovereign, and independent. Of that class, forming
a large majority of the people of Mississippi, I may speak with
the confidence of one who belonged to it. Thus, after the
Legislature of Mississippi had enacted a law for a convention
which, representing the sovereignty of the State, should consider
the propriety of passing an ordinance to reassume the
grants made to the General Government, and withdraw from
the Union, I, as a United States Senator of Mississippi, retained
my position in the Senate, and sought by every practicable
mode to obtain such measures as would allay the excitement
and afford to the South such security as would prevent the final
step, the ordinance of secession from the Union.</p>

<p>When the last hope of preserving the Union of the Constitution
was extinguished, and the ordinance of secession was enacted
by the Convention of Mississippi, which was the highest
authority known under our form of government, the question
of the expediency of adopting that remedy was no longer open
to inquiry by one who acknowledged his allegiance as due to
the State of which he was a citizen. To evade the responsibilities
resulting from the decree of his sovereign, the people, would
be craven; to resist it would be treason. The instincts and
affections of the citizens of Mississippi led them with great
unanimity to the duty of maintaining and defending their State,
without pausing to ask what would be the consequences of refusing
obedience to its mandate.  A like feeling pervaded all of
the seceding States, and it was not only for the military service,
but for every service which would strengthen and sustain the
Confederacy, that an enthusiasm pervading all classes, sexes, and
ages was manifested.</p>

<p>Though our agricultural products had been mainly for export,
insomuch that in the planting States the necessary food-supplies
were to a considerable extent imported from the West,
and it would require that the habits of the planters should be
changed from the cultivation of staples for export to the production
of supplies adequate for home consumption and the
support of armies in the field, yet, even under the embarrassments
of war, this was expected, and for a long time the result
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303" id="page303"></a>[pg 303]</span>
justified the expectation, extraordinary as it must appear when
viewed by comparison with other people who have been subjected
to a like ordeal. Much of our success was due to the
much-abused institution of African servitude, for it enabled
the white men to go into the army, and leave the cultivation
of their fields and the care of their flocks, as well as of their
wives and children, to those who, in the language of the Constitution,
were "held to service or labor."  A passing remark
may here be appropriate as to the answer thus afforded to the
clamor about the "horrors of slavery."</p>

<p>Had these Africans been a cruelly oppressed people, restlessly
struggling to be freed from their bonds, would their masters
have dared to leave them, as was done, and would they have remained
as they did, continuing their usual duties, or could the
proclamation of emancipation have been put on the plea of a
military necessity, if the fact had been that the negroes were
forced to serve, and desired only an opportunity to rise against
their masters? It will be remembered that, when the proclamation
was issued, it was confessed by President Lincoln to
be a nullity beyond the limit within which it could be enforced
by the Federal troops.</p>

<p>To direct the production, preservation, collection, and distribution
of food for the army required a man of rare capacity and
character at the head of the subsistence department. It was our
good fortune to have such an one in Colonel L. B. Northrop, who
was appointed commissary-general at the organization of the
bureaus of the executive department of the Confederate Government.
He had been an officer of the United States Army, had
served in various parts of the South, had been for some time on
duty in the commissariat, and, to the special and general knowledge
thus acquired, added strong practical sense and incorruptible
integrity. Of him and the operations of the subsistence
department I shall have more to say hereafter, when treating
of the bureaus of the Confederacy.</p>

<p>Assured of an army as large as the population of the Confederate
States could furnish, and a sufficient supply of subsistence
for such an army, at least until the chances of war should
interfere with production and transportation, the immediate
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page304" id="page304"></a>[pg 304]</span>
object of attention was the organization, instruction, and equipment
of the army.</p>

<p>As heretofore stated, there was a prevailing belief that there
would be no war, or, if any, that it would be of very short duration.
Therefore the first bill which passed the provisional
Congress provided for receiving troops for short periods&mdash;as my
memory serves, for sixty days. The chairman of the Committee
on Military Affairs, the heroic Colonel Bartow, who sealed
his devotion to the cause with his life's blood on the field of
Manassas, in deference to my earnest remonstrance against such
a policy, returned with the bill to the House (the Congress
then consisted of but one House), and procured a modification
by which the term of service was extended to twelve months
unless sooner discharged.</p>

<p>I had urged upon him, in our conference, the adoption of
a much longer period, but he assured me that one year was as
much as the Congress would agree to. On this, as on other occasions,
that Congress showed a generous desire to yield their
preconceived opinions to my objections as far as they consistently
could, and, there being but one House, it was easier to
change the terms of a bill after conference with the Executive
than when, under the permanent organization, objections had to
be formally communicated in a message to that branch of Congress
in which the bill originated, and when the whole proceeding
was of record.</p>

<p>This first act to provide for the public defense became a law
on the 28th of February, 1861, and its fifth section so clearly
indicates the opinions and expectations prevailing when the
Confederation was formed, that it is inserted here:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"That the President be further authorized to receive into the
service of this Government such forces now in the service of said
States (Confederate States) as may be tendered, or who may volunteer
by consent of their State, in such numbers as he may require
for any time not less than twelve months unless sooner discharged."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The supremacy of the States is the controlling idea.  The
President was authorized to receive from the several States the
arms and munitions which they might desire to transfer to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page305" id="page305"></a>[pg 305]</span>
Government of the Confederate States, and he was also authorized
to receive the forces which the States might tender, or any
which should volunteer by the <i>consent of their State</i>, for any
time not less than twelve months unless sooner discharged; and
such forces were to be received with their officers by companies,
battalions, or regiments, and the President, by and with the advice
and consent of Congress, was to appoint such general officer
or officers for said forces as might be necessary for the service.</p>

<p>It will be seen that the arms and munitions within the limits
of the several States were regarded as entirely belonging to them;
that the forces which were to constitute the provisional army
could only be drawn from the several States by their consent, and
that these were to be organized under State authority and to be
received with their officers so appointed; that the lowest organization
was to be that of a company and the highest that of
a regiment, and that the appointment of general officers to command
these forces was confided to the Government of the Confederate
States, should the assembling of large bodies of troops
require organization above that of a regiment; and it will also
be observed that provision was made for the discharge of the
forces so provided for, before the term of service fixed by the
law. No one will fail to perceive how little was anticipated a
war of the vast proportions and great duration which ensued,
and how tenaciously the sovereignty and self-government of the
States were adhered to. At a later period (March 16, 1861) the
Congress adopted resolutions recommending to the respective
States to "cede the forts, arsenals, navy-yards, dock-yards, and
other public establishments within their respective limits to the
Confederate States," etc.</p>

<p>The hope which was early entertained of a peaceful solution
of the issues pending between the Confederate States and the
United States rapidly diminished, so that we find on the 6th of
March that the Congress, in its preamble to an act to provide
for the public defense, begins with the declaration that, "in order
to provide speedily forces to repel invasion," etc., authorized
the President to employ the militia, and to ask for and
accept the services of any number of volunteers, not exceeding
one hundred thousand, and to organize companies into battalions,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306" id="page306"></a>[pg 306]</span>
battalions into regiments, and regiments into brigades and
divisions. As in the first law, the President was authorized
to appoint the commanding officer of such brigades and divisions,
the commissions only to endure while the brigades were
in service.</p>

<p>On the same day (March 6, 1861) was enacted the law for
the establishment and organization of the Army of the Confederate
States of America, this being in contradistinction to the
provisional army, which was to be composed of troops tendered
by the States, as in the first act, and volunteers received, as
in the second act, to constitute a provisional army. That the
wish and policy of the Government was peace is again manifested
in this act, which, in providing for the military establishment
of the Confederacy, fixed the number of enlisted men of
all arms at nine thousand four hundred and twenty.  Due care
was taken to prevent the appointment of incompetent or unworthy
persons to be officers of the army, and the right to promotion
up to and including the grade of colonel was carefully
guarded, and beyond this the professional character of the army
was recognized as follows: "Appointments to the rank of brigadier-general,
after the army is organized, shall be made by selection
from the army." There being no right of promotion above
the grade of colonel in the Army of the United States, selection
for appointment to the rank of general had no other restriction
than the necessity for confirmation by the Senate.  The provision
just quoted imposed the further restriction of requiring the
person nominated by selection to have previously been an officer
of the Army of the Confederate States.</p>

<p>Regarding the Army of the United States as belonging neither
to a section of the Union nor to the General Government,
but to the States conjointly while they remained united, it follows
as a corollary of the proposition that, when disintegration
occurred, the undivided <i>personnel</i> composing the army would
be left free to choose their future place of service. Therefore,
provision was made for securing to officers, who should leave
the Army of the United States and join that of the Confederate
States, the same relative rank in the latter which they held in the
former.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307" id="page307"></a>[pg 307]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"Be it further enacted that all officers who have resigned, or
who may within six months tender their resignations, from the
Army of the United States, and who have been or may be appointed
to original vacancies in the Army of the Confederate States,
the commissions issued shall bear one and the same date, so that
the relative rank of officers of each grade shall be determined by
their former commissions in the United States Army, held anterior
to the secession of these Confederate States from the United
States."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The provisions hereof are in the view entertained that the
army was of the States, not of the Government, and was to secure
to officers adhering to the Confederate States the same relative
rank which they had before those States had withdrawn
from the Union. It was clearly the intent of the law to embrace
in this provision only those officers who had resigned or
who should resign from the United States Army to enter the
service of the Confederacy, or who, in other words, should thus
be transferred from one service to the other.  It is also to be
noted that, in the eleventh section of the act to which this was
amendatory, the right of promotion up to the grade of colonel,
in established regiments and corps, was absolutely secured,
but that appointments to the higher grade should be by selection,
at first without restriction, but after the army had been
organized the selection was confined to the army, thus recognizing
the profession of arms, and relieving officers from the hazard,
beyond the limit of their legal right to promotion, of being
superseded by civilians through favoritism or political influence.</p>

<p>How well the Government of the Confederacy observed both
the letter and the spirit of the law will be seen by reference to
its action in the matter of appointments.  It is a noteworthy
fact that the three highest officers in rank, and whose fame
stands unchallenged either for efficiency or zeal, were all so
indifferent to any question of personal interest, that they had
received their appointment before they were aware it was to
be conferred. Each brought from the Army of the United
States an enviable reputation, such as would have secured to
him, had he chosen to remain in it, after the war commenced,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308" id="page308"></a>[pg 308]</span>
any position his ambition could have coveted. Therefore, against
considerations of self-interest, and impelled by devotion to principle,
they severed the ties, professional and personal, which had
bound them from their youth up to the time when the Southern
States, asserting the consecrated truth that all governments rest
on the consent of the governed, decided to withdraw from the
Union they had voluntarily entered, and the Northern States
resolved to coerce them to remain in it against their will. These
officers were&mdash;first, Samuel Cooper, a native of New York, a
graduate of the United States Military Academy in 1815, and
who served continuously in the army until March 7, 1861, with
such distinction as secured to him the appointment of Adjutant-General
of the United States Army. Second, Albert Sidney
Johnston, a native of Kentucky, a graduate of the United States
Military Academy in 1826, served conspicuously in the army
until 1834, then served in the army of the Republic of Texas,
and then in the United States Volunteers in the war with Mexico.
Subsequently he re&euml;ntered the United States Army, and
for meritorious conduct attained the rank of brevet brigadier-general.
After the secession of Texas, his adopted State, he
resigned his commission in the United States Army, May 3,
1861, and traveled by land from California to Richmond to
offer his services to the Confederacy.  Third, Robert E. Lee, a
native of Virginia, a graduate of the United States Military
Academy in 1829, when he was appointed in the Engineer Corps
of the United States Army, and served continuously and with
such distinction as to secure for him in 1847 brevets of three
grades above his corps commission.  He resigned from the
Army of the United States, April 25, 1861, upon the secession
of Virginia, in whose army he served until it was transferred
to the Confederate States.</p>

<p>Samuel Cooper was the first of these to offer his services to
the Confederacy at Montgomery. Having known him most
favorably and intimately as Adjutant-General of the United
States Army when I was Secretary of War, the value of his services
in the organization of a new army was considered so great
that I invited him to take the position of Adjutant-General of
the Confederate Army, which he accepted without a question
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309" id="page309"></a>[pg 309]</span>
either as to relative rank or anything else.  The highest grade
then authorized by law was that of brigadier-general, and that
commission was bestowed upon him.</p>

<p>When General Albert Sidney Johnston reached Richmond
he called upon me, and for several days at various intervals we
conversed with the freedom and confidence belonging to the
close friendship which had existed between us for many years.
Consequent upon a remark made by me, he asked to what duty
I would assign him, and, when answered, to serve in the West,
he expressed his pleasure at service in that section, but inquired
how he was to raise his command, and for the first time
learned that he had been nominated and confirmed as a general
in the Army of the Confederacy.</p>

<p>The third, General Robert E. Lee, had been commissioned
by the State of Virginia as major-general and commander of
her army.  When that army was transferred, after the accession
of Virginia to the Confederate States, he was nominated to be
brigadier-general in the Confederate Army, but was left for obvious
reasons in command of the forces in Virginia. After the
seat of government was removed from Montgomery to Richmond,
the course of events on the Southern Atlantic coast
induced me to direct General Lee to repair thither.  Before
leaving, he said that, while he was serving in Virginia, he had
never thought it needful to inquire about his rank; but now,
when about to go into other States and to meet officers with
whom he had not been previously connected, he would like to
be informed upon that point.  Under recent laws, authorizing
appointments to higher grades than that of his first commission,
he had been appointed a full general; but so wholly had his
heart and his mind been consecrated to the public service, that
he had not remembered, if he ever knew, of his advancement.</p>

<p>In organizing the bureaus, it was deemed advisable to select,
for the chief of each, officers possessing special knowledge of
the duties to be performed.  The best assurance of that qualification
was believed to be service creditably rendered in the
several departments of the United States Army before resigning
from it. Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel A. C. Myers, who had
held many important trusts in the United States Quartermaster's
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id="page310"></a>[pg 310]</span>
Department, was appointed Quartermaster-General of the
Confederacy, with the rank of colonel.</p>

<p>Captain L. B. Northrop, a gallant officer of the United States
Dragoons, and who, by reason of a wound disabling him to
perform regimental duty, had been employed in the subsistence
department, was, after resigning from the United States Army,
appointed Commissary-General of the Confederate States Army,
with the rank of colonel. I have heretofore alluded to the
difficult task thus imposed on him, and the success with which
he performed it, and would be pleased here to enter into a
fuller recital, but have not the needful information in regard to
his administration of that department.</p>

<p>Surgeon L. P. Moore, an officer of recognized merit in the
United States Medical Department, from which he had resigned
to join the Confederacy, was appointed the Surgeon-General of
the Confederate States Army. As in the case of other departments,
there was in this a want of the stores requisite, as well
for the field as the hospital.</p>

<p>To supply medicines which were declared by the enemy to
be contraband of war, our medical department had to seek in
the forest for substitutes, and to add surgical instruments and
appliances to the small stock on hand as best they could.</p>

<p>It would be quite beyond my power to do justice to the
skill and knowledge with which the medical corps performed
their arduous task, and regret that I have no report from the
Surgeon-General, Moore, which would enable me to do justice
to the officers of his corps, as well in regard to their humanity
as to their professional skill.</p>

<p>In no branch of our service were our needs so great and our
means to meet them relatively so small as in the matter of
ordnance and ordnance stores.  The Chief of Ordnance, General
Gorgas, had been an ordnance officer of the United States
Army, and resigned to join the Confederacy.  He has favored
me with a succinct though comprehensive statement, which has
enabled me to write somewhat fully of that department; but,
for the better understanding of its operations, the reader is referred
to the ordnance report elsewhere.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311"></a>[pg 311]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-iii" id="chap-iv-iii"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Commissioners to purchase Arms and Ammunition.&mdash;My Letter to Captain
Semmes.&mdash;Resignations
of Officers of United States Navy.&mdash;Our Destitution of Accessories
for the Supply of Naval Vessels.&mdash;Secretary Mallory.&mdash;Food-Supplies.&mdash;The
Commissariat Department.&mdash;The Quartermaster's Department.&mdash;The Disappearance
of Delusions.&mdash;The Supply of Powder.&mdash;Saltpeter.&mdash;Sulphur.&mdash;Artificial
Niter-Beds.&mdash;Services of General G. W. Rains.&mdash;Destruction at Harper's
Ferry of Machinery.&mdash;The Master Armorer.&mdash;Machinery secured.&mdash;Want of
Skillful Employees.&mdash;Difficulties encountered by Every Department of the Executive
Branch of the Government.
</p></blockquote>


<p>On the third day after my inauguration at Montgomery, an
officer of extensive information and high capacity was sent
to the North, to make purchases of arms, ammunition, and
machinery; and soon afterward another officer was sent to Europe,
to buy in the market as far as possible, and, furthermore,
to make contracts for arms and munitions to be manufactured.
Captain (afterward Admiral) Semmes, the officer who
was sent to the North, would have been quite successful but for
the intervention of the civil authorities, preventing the delivery
of the various articles contracted for.  The officer who was sent
to Europe, Major Huse, found few serviceable arms upon the
market; he, however, succeeded in making contracts for the
manufacture of large quantities, being in advance of the agents
sent from the Northern Government for the same purpose. For
further and more detailed information, reference is made to the
monograph of the Chief of Ordnance.</p>

<p>My letter of instructions to Captain Semmes was as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Montgomery, Alabama</span>, <i>February 21, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>: As agent of the Confederate States, you are authorized
to proceed, as hereinafter set forth, to make purchases,
and contracts for machinery and munitions, or for the manufacture
of arms and munitions of war.</p>

<p>"Of the proprietor of the &mdash;&mdash; Powder Company, in &mdash;&mdash;, you
will probably be able to obtain cannon- and musket-powder&mdash;the
former to be of the coarsest grain; and also to engage with him
for the establishment of a powder-mill at some point in the limits
of our territory.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312" id="page312"></a>[pg 312]</span>

<p>"The quantity of powder to be supplied immediately will exceed
his stock on hand, and the arrangement for further supply
should, if possible, be by manufacture in our own territory; if
this is not practicable, means must be sought for further shipments
from any and all sources which are reliable.</p>

<p>"At the arsenal at Washington you will find an artisan named &mdash;&mdash;,
who has brought the cap-making machine to its present
state of efficiency, and who might furnish a cap-machine, and accompany
it to direct its operations.  If not in this, I hope you
may in some other way be able to obtain a cap-machine with little
delay, and have it sent to the Mount Vernon Arsenal, Alabama.</p>

<p>"We shall require a manufactory for friction-primers, and you
will, if possible, induce some capable person to establish one in
our country. The demand of the Confederate States will be the
inducement in this as in the case of the powder-mill proposed.</p>

<p>"A short time since, the most improved machinery for the
manufacture of rifles, intended for the Harper's Ferry Armory,
was, it was said, for sale by the manufacturer. If it be so at this
time, you will procure it for this Government, and use the needful
precaution in relation to its transportation.  Mr. &mdash;&mdash;  &mdash;&mdash;, of the
Harper's Ferry Armory, can give you all the information in that
connection which you may require.  Mr. Ball, the master armorer
at Harper's Ferry, is willing to accept service under our Government,
and could probably bring with him skilled workmen.  If
we get the machinery, this will be important.</p>

<p>"Machinery for grooving muskets and heavy guns is, I hope,
to be purchased ready made.  If not, you will contract for its
manufacture and delivery.  You will endeavor to obtain the most
improved shot for rifled cannon, and persons skilled in the preparation
of that and other fixed ammunition.  Captain G. W. Smith
and Captain Lovell, late of the United States Army, and now of
New York City, may aid you in your task; and you will please
say to them that we will be happy to have their services in our
army.</p>

<p>"You will make such inquiries as your varied knowledge will
suggest in relation to the supply of guns of different calibers, especially
the largest. I suggest the advantage, if to be obtained,
of having a few of the fifteen-inch guns, like the one cast at Pittsburg.</p>

<p>"I have not sought to prescribe so as to limit your inquiries,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313" id="page313"></a>[pg 313]</span>
either as to object or place, but only to suggest for your reflection
and consideration the points which have chanced to come under
my observation. You will use your discretion in visiting places
where information of persons or things is to be obtained for the
furtherance of the object in view.  Any contracts made will be
sent to the Hon. L. P. Walker, Secretary of War, for his approval;
and the contractor need not fear that delay will be encountered in
the action of this Government.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully yours, etc.,</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Captain Semmes had also been directed to seek for vessels
which would serve for naval purposes, and, after his return,
reported that he could not find any vessels which in his
judgment were, or could be made, available for our uses.
The Southern officers of the navy who were in command of
United States vessels abroad, under an idea more creditable to
their sentiment than to their knowledge of the nature of our
constitutional Union, brought the vessels they commanded into
the ports of the North, and, having delivered them to the
authorities of the United States Government, generally tendered
their resignations, and repaired to the States from which
they had been commissioned in the navy, to serve where they
held their allegiance to be due.  The theory that they owed
allegiance to their respective States was founded on the fact
that the Federal Government was of the States; the sequence
was, that the navy belonged to the States, not to their agent
the Federal Government; and, when the States ceased to be
united, the naval vessels and armament should have been divided
among the owners. While we honor the sentiment which caused
them to surrender their heart-bound associations, and the profession
to which they were bred, on which they relied for subsistence,
to go, with nothing save their swords and faithful
hearts, to fight, to bleed, and to die if need be, in defense of their
homes and a righteous cause, we can but remember how much
was lost by their view of what their honor and duty demanded.
Far, however, be it from their countrymen, for that or any other
consideration, to wish that their fidelity to the dictates of a conscientious
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314" id="page314"></a>[pg 314]</span>
belief should have yielded to any temptation of interest.
The course they pursued shows how impossible it was that
they should have done so, for what did they not sacrifice to their
sense of right! We were doubly bereft by losing our share of
the navy we had contributed to build, and by having it all employed
to assail us.  The application of the appropriations for
the Navy of the United States had been such that the construction
of vessels had been at the North, though much of the timber
used and other material employed was transported from the
South to Northern ship-yards.  Therefore, we were without the
accessories needful for the rapid supply of naval vessels.</p>

<p>While attempting whatever was practicable at home, we
sent a competent, well-deserving officer of the navy to England
to obtain there and elsewhere, by purchase or by building, vessels
which could be transformed into ships of war. These efforts
and their results will be noticed more fully hereafter.</p>

<p>It may not be amiss to remark here that, if the anticipations
of our people were not realized, it was not from any lack of
the zeal and ability of the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Mallory.
As was heretofore stated, his fondness for and aptitude in nautical
affairs had led him to know much of vessels, their construction
and management, and, as chairman of the Committee on
United States Naval Affairs, he had superadded to this a very
large acquaintance with officers of the United States Navy,
which gave him the requisite information for the most useful
employment of the instructed officers who joined our service.</p>

<p>At the North many had been deceived by the fictions of
preparations at the South for the war of the sections, and among
ourselves were few who realized how totally deficient the Southern
States were in all which was necessary to the active operations
of an army, however gallant the men might be, and however
able were the generals who directed and led them. From
these causes, operating jointly, resulted undue caution at the
North and overweening confidence at the South. The habits
of our people in hunting, and protecting their stock in fields
from the ravages of ferocious beasts, caused them to be generally
supplied with the arms used for such purposes. The facility
with which individuals traveled over the country led to very
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315" id="page315"></a>[pg 315]</span>
erroneous ideas as to the difficulties of transporting an army.
The small amount of ammunition required in time of peace
gave no measure of the amount requisite for warlike operations,
and the products of a country, which insufficiently supplied food
for its inhabitants when peaceful pursuits were uninterrupted,
would serve but a short time to furnish the commissariat of a
large army. It was, of course, easy to foresee that, if war was
waged against the seceding States by all of those which remained
in the Union, the large supply of provisions which had
been annually sent from the Northwest to the South could not,
under the altered circumstances, be relied on.  That our people
did not more immediately turn their attention to the production
of food-supplies, may be attributed to the prevailing delusion that
secession would not be followed by war.  To the able officer
then at the head of the commissariat department, Colonel L. B.
Northrop, much credit is due for his well-directed efforts to provide
both for immediate and prospective wants. It gives me the
greater pleasure to say this, because those less informed of all
he did, and skillfully tried to do, have been profuse of criticism,
and sparing indeed of the meed justly his due.  Adequate facilities
for transportation might have relieved the local want of
supplies, especially in Virginia, where the largest bodies of troops
were assembled; but, unfortunately, the quartermaster's department
was scarcely less provided than that of the commissary.
Not only were the railroads insufficient in number, but they were
poorly furnished with rolling stock, and had been mainly dependent
upon Northern foundries and factories for their rails and
equipment.  Even the skilled operatives of the railroads were
generally Northern men, and their desertion followed fast upon
every disaster which attended the Confederate arms.  In addition
to other causes which have been mentioned, the idea that
Cotton was king, and would produce foreign intervention, as
well as a desire of the Northern people for the return of peace
and the restoration of trade, exercised a potent influence in preventing
our agriculturists from directing at an early period their
capital and labor to the production of food-supplies rather than
that of our staple for export.  As one after another the illusions
vanished, and the material necessities of a great war were recognized
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316" id="page316"></a>[pg 316]</span>
by our people, never did patriotic devotion exhibit
brighter examples of the sacrifice of self-interest and the abandonment
of fixed habits and opinions, or more effective and
untiring effort to meet the herculean task which was set before
them. Being one of the few who regarded secession and
war as inevitably connected, my early attention was given to
the organization of military forces and the procurement and
preparation of the munitions of war. If our people had not
gone to war without counting the cost, they were, nevertheless,
involved in it without means of providing for its necessities.
It has been heretofore stated that we had no powder-mills.
It would be needless to say that the new-born Government
had no depots of powder, but it may be well to add that,
beyond the small supply required for sporting purposes, our
local traders had no stock on hand. Having no manufacturing
industries which required saltpeter, very little of that
was purchasable in our markets. The same would have been
the case in regard to sulphur, but for the fact that it had
been recently employed in the clarification of sugar-cane juice,
and thus a considerable amount of it was found in New Orleans.
Prompt measures were taken to secure a supply of sulphur,
and parties were employed to obtain saltpeter from the
caves, as well as from the earth of old tobacco-houses and cellars;
and artificial niter-beds were made to provide for prospective
wants. Of soft wood for charcoal there was abundance,
and thus materials were procured for the manufacture of gunpowder
to meet the demand which would arise when the limited
quantity purchased by the Confederate Government at the
North should be exhausted.</p>

<p>It was our good fortune to secure the services of an able
and scientific soldier, General G. W. Rains, who, to a military
education, added experience in a large manufacturing establishment,
and to him was confided the construction of a powder-mill,
and the manufacture of powder, both for artillery and
small-arms. The appalling contemplation of the inauguration
of a great war, without powder or a navy to secure its importation
from abroad, was soon relieved by the extraordinary efforts
of the ordnance department and the well-directed skill of General
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page317" id="page317"></a>[pg 317]</span>
Rains, to whom it is but a just tribute to say that, beginning
without even instructed workmen, he had, before the close
of the war, made what, in the opinion of competent judges,
has been pronounced to be the best powder-mill in the world,
and in which powder of every variety of grain was manufactured
of materials which had been purified from those qualities
which cause its deterioration under long exposure to a moist
atmosphere.</p>

<p>The avowed purpose and declared obligation of the Federal
Government was to occupy and possess the property belonging
to the United States, yet one of the first acts was to set fire
to the armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, the only establishment
of the kind in the Southern States, and the only Southern
depository of the rifles which the General Government had
then on hand.</p>

<p>What conclusion is to be drawn from such action? To
avoid attributing a breach of solemn pledges, it must be supposed
that Virginia was considered as out of the Union, and a
public enemy, in whose borders it was proper to destroy whatever
might be useful to her of the common property of the
States lately united.</p>

<p>As soon as the United States troops had evacuated the place,
the citizens and armorers went to work to save the armory as
far as possible from destruction, and to secure valuable material
stored in it. The master armorer, Armistead Ball, so bravely
and skillfully directed these efforts, that a large part of the machinery
and materials was saved from the flames. The subduing
of the fire was a dangerous and difficult task, and great credit
is due to those who, under the orders of Master Armorer Ball,
attempted and achieved it.  When the fire was extinguished,
the work was continued and persevered in until all the valuable
machinery and material had been collected, boxed, and shipped
to Richmond, about the end of the summer of 1861. The machinery
thus secured was divided between the arsenals at Richmond,
Virginia, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, and, when repaired
and put in working condition, supplied to some extent the
want which existed in the South of means for the alteration
and repair of old or injured arms, and finally contributed to increase
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318" id="page318"></a>[pg 318]</span>
the very scanty supply of arms with which our country
was furnished when the war began. The practice of the Federal
Government, which had kept the construction and manufacture
of the material of war at the North, had consequently left the
South without the requisite number of skilled workmen by
whose labor machinery could at once be made fully effective if
it were obtained; indeed, the want of such employees prevented
the small amount of machinery on hand from being worked to
its full capacity. The gallant Master Armorer Ball, whose capacity,
zeal, and fidelity deserve more than a passing notice, was
sent with that part of the machinery assigned to the Fayetteville
Arsenal.  The toil, the anxiety, and responsibility of his
perilous position at Harper's Ferry, where he remained long
after the protecting force of the Confederate army retired, had
probably undermined a constitution so vigorous that, in the face
of a great exigency, no labor seemed too great or too long for
him to grapple with and endure.  So, like a ship which, after
having weathered the storm, goes down in the calm, the master
armorer, soon after he took his quiet post at Fayetteville, was
"found dead in his bed."</p>

<p>The difficulties which on every side met the several departments
of the executive branch of the Government one must
suppose were but little appreciated by many, whose opportunities
for exact observation were the best, as one often meets with
self-complacent expressions as to modes of achieving readily
what prompt, patient, zealous effort proved to be insurmountable.
In the progress of this work, it is hoped, will be presented
not only the magnitude of the obstacles, but the spirit and capacity
with which they were encountered by the unseen and
much undervalued labors of the officers of the several departments,
on whom devolved provision for the civil service, as
well as for the armies in the field. Already has the report
of General St. John, Commissary-General of Subsistence, of
the operations of that department, just before the close of
the war, exposed the hollowness of many sensational pictures
intended to fix gross neglect or utter incapacity on the Executive.</p>

<p>The hoped-for and expected monograms of other chiefs of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page319" id="page319"></a>[pg 319]</span>
bureaus will silence like criticisms on each, so far as they are
made by those who are not willfully blind, or maliciously intent
on the circulation of falsehood.</p>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-iv" id="chap-iv-iv"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Proclamation for Seventy-five Thousand Men by President
Lincoln further examined.&mdash;The
Reasons presented by him to Mankind for the Justification of his
Conduct shown to be Mere Fictions, having no Relation to the Question.&mdash;What
is the Value of Constitutional Liberty, of Bills of Rights, of Limitations of Powers,
if they may be transgressed at Pleasure?&mdash;Secession of South Carolina.&mdash;Proclamation
of Blockade.&mdash;Session of Congress at Montgomery.&mdash;Extracts
from the President's Message.&mdash;Acts of Congress.&mdash;Spirit of the People.&mdash;Secession
of Border States.&mdash;Destruction of United States Property by Order of
President Lincoln.
</p></blockquote>


<p>If any further evidence had been required to show that it
was the determination of the Northern people not only to make
no concessions to the grievances of the Southern States, but to
increase them to the last extremity, it was furnished by the proclamation
of President Lincoln, issued on April 15, 1861. This
proclamation, which has already been mentioned, requires a further
examination, as it was the official declaration, on the part
of the Government of the United States, of the war which ensued.
In it the President called for seventy-five thousand men
to suppress "combinations" opposed to the laws, and obstructing
their execution in seven sovereign States which had retired from
the Union. Seventy-five thousand men organized and equipped
are a powerful army, and, when raised to operate against these
States, nothing else than war could be intended.  The words in
which he summoned this force were these: "Whereas the laws
of the United States have been for some time past, and now are,
opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed
by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers
vested in the marshals by law: Now, therefore, I, Abraham
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320" id="page320"></a>[pg 320]</span>
Lincoln, by virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution
and laws," etc.</p>

<p>The power granted in the Constitution is thus expressed:
"The Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth
the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections,
and repel invasions."<a id="footnotetag169" name="footnotetag169"></a><a href="#footnote169"><sup>169</sup></a>  It was to the Congress, not the
Executive, to whom the power was delegated, and thus early
was commenced a long series of usurpations of powers inconsistent
with the purposes for which the Union was formed, and
destructive of the fraternity it was designed to perpetuate.</p>

<p>On November 6, 1860, the Legislature of South Carolina
assembled and gave the vote of the State for electors of a President
of the United States.  On the next day an act was passed
calling a State Convention to assemble on December 17th, to
determine the question of the withdrawal of the State from the
United States.  Candidates for membership were immediately
nominated.  All were in favor of secession.  The Convention
assembled on December 17th, and on the 20th passed "an ordinance
to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina
and other States united with her under the compact entitled
'The Constitution of the United States of America.'"  The ordinance
began with these words: "We, the people of the State
of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain,"
etc. The State authorities immediately conformed to
this action of the Convention, and the laws and authority of the
United States ceased to be obeyed within the limits of the State.
About four months afterward, when the State, in union with
others which had joined her, had possessed herself of the forts
within her limits, which the United States Government had refused
to evacuate, President Lincoln issued the above-mentioned
proclamation.</p>

<p>The State of South Carolina is designated in the proclamation
as a combination too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary
course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested
in the marshals by law.  This designation does not recognize
the State, or manifest any consciousness of its existence, whereas
South Carolina was one of the colonies that had declared her
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321" id="page321"></a>[pg 321]</span>
independence, and, after a long and bloody war, she had been
recognized as a sovereign State by Great Britain, the only power
to which she had ever owed allegiance. The fact that she
had been one of the colonies in the original Congress, had been
a member of the Confederation, and subsequently of the Union,
strengthens, but surely can not impair, her claim to be a State.
Though President Lincoln designated her as a "combination,"
it did not make her a combination.  Though he refused to recognize
her as a State, it did not make her any less a State.  By
assertion, he attempted to annihilate seven States; and the war
which followed was to enforce the revolutionary edict, and to
establish the supremacy of the General Government on the
ruins of the blood-bought independence of the States.</p>

<p>By designating the State as a "combination," and considering
that under such a name it might be in a condition of insurrection,
he assumed to have authority to raise a great military force
and attack the State. Yet, even if the fact had been as assumed,
if an insurrection had existed, the President could not lawfully
have derived the power he exercised from such condition of
affairs. The provision of the Constitution is as follows: "The
United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican
form of government, and shall protect each of them
against invasion; and, on application of the Legislature, or of
the Executive (when the Legislature can not be convened),
against domestic violence."<a id="footnotetag170" name="footnotetag170"></a><a href="#footnote170"><sup>170</sup></a>  So the guarantee availed not at
all to justify the act which it was presented to excuse&mdash;the fact
being that a State, and not an "unlawful combination," as asserted,
was the object of assault, and the case one of making war.
For a State or union of States to attack with military force another
State, is to make war.  By the Constitution, the power to
make war is given solely to Congress.  "Congress shall have
power to declare war," says the Constitution.<a id="footnotetag171" name="footnotetag171"></a><a href="#footnote171"><sup>171</sup></a> And, again, "to
raise and support armies."<a id="footnotetag172" name="footnotetag172"></a><a href="#footnote172"><sup>172</sup></a>  Thus, under a perverted use of
language, the Executive at Washington did that which he undeniably
had no power to do, under a faithful observance of
the Constitution.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322"></a>[pg 322]</span>

<p>To justify himself to Congress and the people, or, rather,
before the face of mankind, for this evasion of the Constitution
of his country, President Lincoln, in his message to Congress,
of July 4, 1861, resorted to the artifice of saying, "It [meaning
the proceedings of the Confederate States] presents to the
whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic
or democracy&mdash;a government of the people by the same
people&mdash;can, or can not, maintain its territorial integrity against
its own domestic foes?"</p>

<p>The answer to this question is very plain.  In the nature of
things, no union can be formed except by separate, independent,
and distinct parties.  Any other combination is not a union;
and, upon the destruction of any of these elements in the parties,
the union <i>ipso facto</i> ceases.  If the Government is the result
of a union of States, then these States must be separate,
sovereign, and distinct, to be able to form a union, which is entirely
an act of their own volition.  Such a government as ours
had no power to maintain its existence any longer than the
contracting parties pleased to cohere, because it was founded on
the great principle of voluntary federation, and organized "to
establish justice and insure domestic tranquillity."<a id="footnotetag173" name="footnotetag173"></a><a href="#footnote173"><sup>173</sup></a> Any departure
from this principle by the General Government not only
perverts and destroys its nature, but furnishes a just cause to
the injured State to withdraw from the union.  A new union
might subsequently be formed, but the original one could never
by coercion be restored.  Any effort on the part of the others to
force the seceding State to consent to come back is an attempt
at subjugation.  It is a wrong which no lapse of time or combination
of circumstances can ever make right.  A forced union
is a political absurdity.  No less absurd is President Lincoln's
effort to dissever the sovereignty of the people from that of the
State; as if there could be a State without a people, or a sovereign
people without a State.</p>

<p>But the question which Mr. Lincoln presents "to the whole
family of man" deserves a further notice.  The answer which
he seems to infer would be given "by the whole family of man"
is that such a government as he supposes "can maintain its territorial
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323" id="page323"></a>[pg 323]</span>
integrity against its own domestic foes."  And, therefore,
he concluded that he was right in the judgment of "the
whole family of man" in commencing hostilities against us.
He says, "So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call
out the war power of the Government."  That is the power to
make war against foreign nations, for the Government has no
other war power.  Planting himself on this position, he commenced
the devastation and bloodshed which followed to effect
our subjugation.</p>

<p>Nothing could be more erroneous than such views. The
supposed case which he presents is entirely unlike the real case.
The Government of the United States is like no other government.
It is neither a "constitutional republic or democracy,"
nor has it ever been thus called.  Neither is it a "government
of the people by the same people"; but it is known and designated
as "the Government of the United States." It is an
anomaly among governments. Its authority consists solely of
certain powers delegated to it, as a common agent, by an association
of sovereign and independent States.  These powers are
to be exercised only for certain specified objects; and the purposes,
declared in the beginning of the deed or instrument of
delegation, were "to form a more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity."</p>

<p>The beginning and the end of all the powers of the Government
of the United States are to be found in that instrument of
delegation. All its powers are there expressed, defined, and
limited.  It was only to that instrument Mr. Lincoln as President
should have gone to learn his duties.  That was the chart
which he had just solemnly pledged himself to the country
faithfully to follow.  He soon deviated widely from it&mdash;and
fatally erroneous was his course.  The administration of the
affairs of a great people, at a most perilous period, is decided
by the answer which it is assumed "the whole family of man"
would give to a supposed condition of human affairs which did
not exist and which could not exist.  This is the ground upon
which the rectitude of his cause was placed.  He says, "No
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324" id="page324"></a>[pg 324]</span>
choice was left but to call out the war power of the Government,
and so to resist force employed for its destruction by force
for its preservation."</p>

<p>"Here," he says, "no choice was left but to call out the war
power of the Government." For what purpose must he call
out this war power?  He answers, by saying, "and so to resist
force employed for its destruction by force for its preservation."
But this which he asserts is not a fact.  There was no "force
employed for its destruction."  Let the reader turn to the record
of the facts in Part III of this work, and peruse the fruitless
efforts for peace which were made by us, and which Mr. Lincoln
did not deign to notice.  The assertion is not only incorrect,
in stating that force was employed by us, but also in declaring
that it was for the destruction of the Government of the
United States.  On the contrary, we wished to leave it alone.
Our separation did not involve its destruction.  To such fiction
was Mr. Lincoln compelled to resort to give even apparent justice
to his cause.  He now goes to the Constitution for the exercise
of his war power, and here we have another fiction.</p>

<p>On April 19th, four days later, President Lincoln issued another
proclamation, announcing a blockade of the ports of seven
confederated States, which was afterward extended to North
Carolina and Virginia. It further declared that all persons who
should under their authority molest any vessel of the United
States, or the persons or cargo on board, should be treated as
pirates.  In their efforts to subjugate us, the destruction of our
commerce was regarded by the authorities at Washington as a
most efficient measure.  It was early seen that, although acts
of Congress established ports of entry where commerce existed,
they might be repealed, and the ports nominally closed or declared
to be closed; yet such a declaration would be of no
avail unless sustained by a naval force, as these ports were located
in territory not subject to the United States. An act was
subsequently passed authorizing the President of the United
States, in his discretion, to close our ports, but it was never executed.</p>

<p>The scheme of blockade was resorted to, and a falsehood
was asserted on which to base it.  Mr. Seward writes to Mr.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page325" id="page325"></a>[pg 325]</span>
Dallas: "You will say (to Lord John Russell) that, by our own
laws and the laws of nature and the laws of nations, this Government
has a clear right to suppress insurrection. An exclusion
of commerce from national ports which have been seized
by insurgents, in the equitable form of blockade, is a proper
means to that end."<a id="footnotetag174" name="footnotetag174"></a><a href="#footnote174"><sup>174</sup></a> This is the same doctrine of "combinations"
fabricated by the authorities at Washington to serve as
the basis of a bloody revolution. Under the laws of nations,
separate governments when at war blockade each other's ports.
This is decided to be justifiable. But the Government of the
United States could not consent to justify its blockade of our
ports on this ground, as it would be an admission that the Confederate
States were a separate and distinct sovereignty, and
that the war was prosecuted only for subjugation. It, therefore,
assumed that the withdrawal of the Southern States from
the Union was an insurrection.</p>

<p>Was it an insurrection? When certain sovereign and independent
States form a union with limited powers for some
general purposes, and any one or more of them, in the progress
of time, suffer unjust and oppressive grievances for which
there is no redress but in a withdrawal from the association, is
such withdrawal an insurrection? If so, then of what advantage
is a compact of union to States? Within the Union are
oppressions and grievances; and the attempt to go out brings
war and subjugation. The ambitious and aggressive States obtain
possession of the central authority which, having grown
strong in the lapse of time, asserts its entire sovereignty over
the States. Whichever of them denies it and seeks to retire, is
declared to be guilty of insurrection, its citizens are stigmatized
as "rebels," as if they had revolted against a master, and a war
of subjugation is begun. If this action is once tolerated, where
will it end? Where is the value of constitutional liberty?
What strength is there in bills of rights&mdash;in limitations of power?
What new hope for mankind is to be found in written
constitutions, what remedy which did not exist under kings or
emperors? If the doctrines thus announced by the Government
of the United States are conceded, then, look through either end
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326" id="page326"></a>[pg 326]</span>
of the political telescope, and one sees only an empire, and the
once famous Declaration of Independence trodden in the dust
as a "glittering generality," and the compact of union denounced
as a "flaunting lie." Those who submit to such consequences
without resistance are not worthy of the liberties and
the rights to which they were born, and deserve to be made
slaves. Such must be the verdict of mankind.</p>

<p>Men do not fight to make a fraternal union, neither do nations.
These military preparations of the Government of the
United States signified nothing less than the subjugation of the
Southern States, so that, by one devastating blow, the North
might grasp for ever that supremacy it had so long coveted.</p>

<p>To be prepared for self-defense, I called Congress together
at Montgomery on April 29th, and, in the message of that date,
thus spoke of the proclamation of the President of the United
States: "Apparently contradictory as are the terms of this
singular document, one point is unmistakably evident. The
President of the United States calls for an army of seventy-five
thousand men, whose first service is to be the capture of our
forts. It is a plain declaration of war, which I am not at
liberty to disregard, because of my knowledge that, under the
Constitution of the United States, the President is usurping
a power granted exclusively to Congress."</p>

<p>I then proceeded to say that I did not feel at liberty to disregard
the fact that many of the States seemed quite content to
submit to the exercise of the powers assumed by the President
of the United States, and were actively engaged in levying
troops for the purpose indicated in the proclamation. Meantime,
being deprived of the aid of Congress, I had been under
the necessity of confining my action to a call on the States for
volunteers for the common defense, in accordance with authority
previously conferred on me. I stated that there were then
in the field, at Charleston, Pensacola, Forts Morgan, Jackson, St.
Philip, and Pulaski, nineteen thousand men, and sixteen thousand
more were on their way to Virginia; that it was proposed
to organize and hold in readiness for instant action, in view of
the existing exigencies of the country, an army of one hundred
thousand men; and that, if a further force should be needed,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327" id="page327"></a>[pg 327]</span>
Congress would be appealed to for authority to call it into the
field. Finally, that the intent of the President of the United
States, already developed, to invade our soil, capture our forts,
blockade our ports, and wage war against us, rendered it necessary
to raise means to a much larger amount than had been
done, to defray the expenses of maintaining independence and
repelling invasion.</p>

<p>A brief summary of the internal affairs of the Government
followed, and, notwithstanding frequent declarations of the
peaceful intentions of the withdrawing States had been made in
the most solemn manner, it was deemed not to be out of place
to repeat them once more; and, therefore, the message closed
with these words: "We protest solemnly, in the face of mankind,
that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor.
In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no
concession of any kind from the States with which we have
lately been confederated. All we ask is to be let alone&mdash;that
those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our
subjugation by arms. This we will, we must, resist to the direst
extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned,
the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to
enter into treaties of amity and commerce that can not but be
mutually beneficial. So long as this pretension is maintained,
with a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with
its protection the just cause, we must continue to struggle for
our inherent right to freedom, independence, and self-government."</p>

<p>At this session Congress passed acts authorizing the President
to use the whole land and naval force to meet the necessities
of the war thus commenced; to issue to private armed
vessels letters of marque; in addition to the volunteer force
authorized to be raised, to accept the services of volunteers, to
serve during the war; to receive into the service various companies
of the different arms; to make a loan of fifty millions of
dollars in bonds and notes; and to hold an election for officers
of the permanent Government under the new Constitution. An
act was also passed to provide revenue from imports; another,
relative to prisoners of war; and such others as were necessary
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328" id="page328"></a>[pg 328]</span>
to complete the internal organization of the Government, and
establish the administration of public affairs.</p>

<p>In every portion of the country there was exhibited the
most patriotic devotion to the common cause. Transportation
companies freely tendered the use of their lines for troops and
supplies. Requisitions for troops were met with such alacrity
that the number offering their services in every instance greatly
exceeded the demand and the ability to arm them. Men of the
highest official and social position served as volunteers in the
ranks. The gravity of age and the zeal of youth rivaled each
other in the desire to be foremost in the public defense.</p>

<p>The appearance of the proclamation of the President of the
United States, calling out seventy-five thousand men, was followed
by the immediate withdrawal of the States of Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, and their union with
the Confederate States. The former State, thus placed on the
frontier and exposed to invasion, began to prepare for a resolute
defense. Volunteers were ordered to be enrolled and held in
readiness in every part of the State. Colonel Robert E. Lee,
having resigned his commission in the United States cavalry,
was on April 22d nominated and confirmed by the State Convention
of Virginia as "Commander-in-Chief of the military
and naval forces of the Commonwealth."</p>

<p>Already the Northern officer in charge had evacuated Harper's
Ferry, after having attempted to destroy the public buildings
there. His report says: "I gave the order to apply the
torch. In three minutes or less, both of the arsenal buildings,
containing nearly fifteen thousand stand of arms, together with
the carpenter's shop, which was at the upper end of a long and
connected series of workshops of the armory proper, were in a
blaze. There is every reason for believing the destruction was
complete." Mr. Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War, on
April 22d replied to this report in these words: "I am directed
by the President of the United States to communicate to you,
and through you to the officers and men under your command
at Harper's Ferry Armory, the approbation of the Government
of your and their judicious conduct there, and to tender you
and them the thanks of the Government for the same." At
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329" id="page329"></a>[pg 329]</span>
the same time the ship-yard at Norfolk was abandoned after an
attempt to destroy it. About midnight of April 20th, a fire
was started in the yard, which continued to increase, and before
daylight the work of destruction extended to two immense ship-houses,
one of which contained the entire frame of a seventy-four-gun
ship, and to the long ranges of stores and offices on
each side of the entrance. The great ship Pennsylvania was
burned, and the frigates Merrimac and Columbus, and the Delaware,
Raritan, Plymouth, and Germantown were sunk. A vast
amount of machinery, valuable engines, small-arms, and chronometers,
was broken up and rendered entirely useless. The
value of the property destroyed was estimated at several millions
of dollars.</p>

<p>This property thus destroyed had been accumulated and
constructed with laborious care and skillful ingenuity during a
course of years to fulfill one of the objects of the Constitution,
which was expressed in these words, "To provide for the common
defense" (see Preamble of the Constitution). It had belonged
to all the States in common, and to each one equally
with the others. If the Confederate States were still members
of the Union, as the President of the United States asserted,
where can he find a justification of these acts?</p>

<p>In explanation of his policy to the Commissioners sent to
him by the Virginia State Convention, he said, referring to his
inaugural address, "As I then and therein said, I now repeat,
the power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess
property and places belonging to the Government." Yet
he tendered the thanks of the Government to those who applied
the torch to destroy this property belonging, as he regarded
it, to the Government.</p>

<p>How unreasonable, how blind with rage must have been
that administration of affairs which so quickly brought the Government
to the necessity of destroying its own means of defense
in order, as it publicly declared, "to maintain its life"! It
would seem as if the passions that rule the savage had taken
possession of the authorities at the United States capital! In
the conflagrations of vast structures, the wanton destruction of
public property, and still more in the issue of <i>lettres de cachet</i>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page330" id="page330"></a>[pg 330]</span>
by the Secretary of State, who boasted of the power of his little
bell over the personal liberties of the citizen, the people
saw, or might have seen, the rapid strides toward despotism
made under the mask of preserving the Union. Yet these and
similar measures were tolerated because the sectional hate dominated
in the Northern States over the higher motives of constitutional
and moral obligation.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote169" name="footnote169"></a><b>Footnote 169:</b><a href="#footnotetag169"> (return) </a><p>Constitution of the United States, Article I, section 8.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote170" name="footnote170"></a><b>Footnote 170:</b><a href="#footnotetag170"> (return) </a><p>Constitution of the United States, Article IV, section 4.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote171" name="footnote171"></a><b>Footnote 171:</b><a href="#footnotetag171"> (return) </a><p>Article I, section 8.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote172" name="footnote172"></a><b>Footnote 172:</b><a href="#footnotetag172"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote173" name="footnote173"></a><b>Footnote 173:</b><a href="#footnotetag173"> (return) </a><p>Constitution of the United States, preamble.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote174" name="footnote174"></a><b>Footnote 174:</b><a href="#footnotetag174"> (return) </a><p>Diplomatic correspondence, May 21, 1861.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-v" id="chap-iv-v"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Maryland first approached by Northern Invasion.&mdash;Denies to United States Troops
the Right of Way across her Domain.&mdash;Mission of Judge Handy.&mdash;Views of
Governor Hicks.&mdash;His Proclamation.&mdash;Arrival of Massachusetts Troops at
Baltimore.&mdash;Passage through the City disputed.&mdash;Activity of the Police.&mdash;Burning
of Bridges.&mdash;Letter of President Lincoln to the Governor.&mdash;Visited
by Citizens.&mdash;Action of the State Legislature.&mdash;Occupation of the Relay House.&mdash;The
City Arms surrendered.&mdash;City in Possession of United States Troops.&mdash;Remonstrances
of the City to the Passage of Troops disregarded.&mdash;Citizens
arrested; also, Members of the Legislature.&mdash;Accumulation of Northern Forces
at Washington.&mdash;Invasion of West Virginia by a Force under McClellan.&mdash;Attack
at Philippi; at Laurel Hill.&mdash;Death of General Garnett.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The border State of Maryland was the outpost of the South
on the frontier first to be approached by Northern invasion.
The first demonstration against State sovereignty was to be made
there, and in her fate were the other slaveholding States of
the border to have warning of what they were to expect. She
had chosen to be, for the time at least, neutral in the impending
war, and had denied to the United States troops the right of
way across her domain in their march to invade the Southern
States. The Governor (Hicks) avowed a desire, not only that
the State should avoid war, but that she should be a means for
pacifying those more disposed to engage in combat.</p>

<p>Judge Handy, a distinguished citizen of Mississippi, who
was born in Maryland, had, in December, 1860, been sent as a
commissioner from the State of his adoption to that of his birth,
and presented his views and the object of his mission to Governor
Hicks, who, in his response (December 19, 1860), declared
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page331" id="page331"></a>[pg 331]</span>
his purpose to act in full concert with the other border
States, adding, "I do not doubt the people of Maryland are
ready to go with the people of those States for weal or woe."<a id="footnotetag175" name="footnotetag175"></a><a href="#footnote175"><sup>175</sup></a>
Subsequently, in answer to appeals for and against a proclamation
assembling the Legislature, in order to have a call for a
State convention, Governor Hicks issued an address, in which,
arguing that there was no necessity to define the position of
Maryland, he wrote: "If the action of the Legislature would
be simply to declare that Maryland was with the South in sympathy
and feeling; that she demands from the North the repeal
of offensive, unconstitutional statutes, and appeals to it for new
guarantees; that she will wait a reasonable time for the North
to purge her statute-books, to do justice to her Southern brethren;
and, if her appeals are vain, will make common cause with
her sister border States in resistance to tyranny, if need be, it
would only be saying what the whole country well knows," etc.</p>

<p>On the 18th of April, 1861, Governor Hicks issued a proclamation
invoking them to preserve the peace, and said, "I assure
the people that no troops will be sent from Maryland,
unless it may be for the defense of the national capital." On
the same day Mayor Brown, of the city of Baltimore, issued a
proclamation in which, referring to that of the Governor above
cited, he said, "I can not withhold my expression of satisfaction
at his resolution that no troops shall be sent from Maryland
to the soil of any other State." It will be remembered that the
capital was on a site which originally belonged to Maryland,
and was ceded by her for a special use, so that troops to defend
the capital might be considered as not having been sent out of
Maryland. It will be remembered that these proclamations
were three days after the requisition made by the Secretary of
War on the States which had not seceded for their quota of
troops to serve in the war about to be inaugurated against the
South, and that rumors existed at the time in Baltimore that
troops from the Northeast were about to be sent through that
city toward the South. On the next day, viz., the 19th of
April, 1861, a body of troops arrived at the railroad depot;
the citizens assembled in large numbers, and, though without
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page332" id="page332"></a>[pg 332]</span>
arms, disputed the passage through the city.  They attacked
the troops with the loose stones found in the street, which was
undergoing repair, and with such determination and violence,
that some of the soldiers were wounded, and they fired upon
the multitude, killing a few and wounding many.</p>

<p>The police of Baltimore were very active in their efforts to
prevent conflict and preserve the peace; they rescued the baggage
and munitions of the troops, which had been seized by
the multitude; and the rear portion of the troops was, by direction
of Governor Hicks, sent back to the borders of the
State.  The troops who had got through the city took the railroad
at the Southern Depot and passed on.  The militia of the
city was called out, and by evening quiet was restored. During
the night, on a report that more Northern troops were approaching
the city by the railroads, the bridges nearest to the city were
destroyed, as it was understood, by orders from the authorities
of Baltimore.</p>

<p>On the 20th of April President Lincoln wrote in reply to
Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown, saying, "For the future,
troops must be brought here, but I make no point of bringing
them through Baltimore."  On the next day, the 21st, Mayor
Brown and other influential citizens, by request of the President,
visited him.  The interview took place in presence of the
Cabinet and General Scott, and was reported to the public by
the Mayor after his return to Baltimore. From that report I
make the following extracts. Referring to the President, the
Mayor uses the following language:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The protection of Washington, he asseverated with great earnestness,
was the sole object of concentrating troops there, and
he protested that none of the troops brought through Maryland
were intended for any purposes hostile to the State, or aggressive
as against the Southern States.... He called on General Scott
for his opinion, which the General gave at great length, to the
effect that troops might be brought through Maryland without
going through Baltimore, etc.... The interview terminated with
the distinct assurance, on the part of the President, that no more
troops would be sent through Baltimore, unless obstructed in
their transit in other directions, and with the understanding that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333" id="page333"></a>[pg 333]</span>
the city authorities should do their best to restrain their own
people.</p>

<p>"The Mayor and his companions availed themselves of the
President's full discussion of the questions of the day to urge
upon him respectfully, but in the most earnest manner, a course
of policy which would give peace to the country, and especially
the withdrawal of all orders contemplating the passage of troops
through any part of Maryland."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The Legislature of the State of Maryland appointed commissioners
to the Confederate Government to suggest to it the
cessation of impending hostilities until the meeting of Congress
at Washington in July. Commissioners with like instructions
were also sent to Washington. In my reply to the Commissioners,
dated 25th of May, 1861, I referred to the uniform expression
of desire for peace on the part of the Confederate Government,
and added:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"In deference to the State of Maryland, it again asserts in the
most emphatic terms that its sincere and earnest desire is for
peace; but that, while the Government would readily entertain
any proposition from the Government of the United States tending
to a peaceful solution of the present difficulties, the recent
attempts of this Government to enter into negotiations with that
of the United States were attended with results which forbid any
renewal of proposals from it to that Government.... Its policy
can not but be peace&mdash;peace with all nations and people."
</p></blockquote>

<p>On the 5th of May, the Relay House, at the junction of the
Washington and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads, was occupied
by United States troops under General Butler, and, on the 13th
of the same month, he moved a portion of the troops to Baltimore,
and took position on Federal Hill&mdash;thus was consummated
the military occupation of Baltimore. On the next day,
re&euml;nforcements were received; and, on the same day, the commanding
General issued a proclamation to the citizens, in which
he announced to them his purpose and authority to discriminate
between citizens, those who agreed with him being denominated
"well disposed," and the others described with many offensive epithets.
The initiatory step of the policy subsequently developed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334"></a>[pg 334]</span>
was found in one sentence: "Therefore, all manufacturers of
arms and munitions of war are hereby requested to report to me
forthwith, so that the lawfulness of their occupations may be
known and understood, and all misconstruction of their doings
avoided."</p>

<p>There soon followed a demand for the surrender of the arms
stored by the city authorities in a warehouse. The police refused
to surrender them without the orders of the police commissioners.
The police commissioners, upon representation that
the demand of General Butler was by order of the President,
decided to surrender the arms under protest, and they were accordingly
removed to Fort McHenry.</p>

<p>Baltimore was now disarmed. The Army of the United
States had control of the city. There was no longer necessity
to regard the remonstrance of Baltimore against sending troops
through the city, and that more convenient route was henceforth
to be employed. George P. Kane, Marshal of the Police
of Baltimore, who had rendered most efficient service for the
preservation of peace, as well in the city of Baltimore as at Locust
Point, where troops were disembarked to be dispatched
to Washington, was arrested at home by a military force, and
sent to Fort McHenry, and a provost-marshal was appointed
by General Banks, who had succeeded to the command.  The
excuse given for the arrest of Marshal Kane was that he was
believed to be cognizant of combinations of men waiting for
an opportunity to unite with those in rebellion against the
United States Government. Whether the suspicion were well
or ill founded, it constituted a poor excuse for depriving a
citizen of his liberty without legal warrant and without proof.
But this was only the beginning of unbridled despotism and
a reign of terror. The Mayor and Police Commissioners,
Charles Howard, William H. Gatchell, and John W. Davis,
held a meeting, and, after preparing a protest against the suspension
of their functions in the appointment of a provost-marshall,
resolved that, while they would do nothing to "obstruct
the execution of such measures as Major-General Banks may
deem proper to take, on his own responsibility, for the preservation
of the peace of the city and of public order, they can not,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page335" id="page335"></a>[pg 335]</span>
consistently with their views of official duty and of the obligations
of their oaths of office, recognize the right of any of the
officers and men of the police force, as such, to receive orders or
directions from any other authority than from this Board; and
that, in the opinion of the Board, the forcible suspension of
their functions suspends at the same time the active operations
of the police law."<a id="footnotetag176" name="footnotetag176"></a><a href="#footnote176"><sup>176</sup></a> The Provost-Marshal, with the plenary
powers conferred upon him, commenced a system of search and
seizure, in private houses, of arms and munitions of every description.</p>

<p>On the 1st of July, General Banks announced that, "in
pursuance of orders issued from the headquarters at Washington
for the preservation of the public peace in this department,
I have arrested, and do detain in custody of the United States, the
late members of the Board of Police&mdash;Messrs. Charles Howard,
William H. Gatchell, Charles D. Hinks, and John W. Davis."
If the object had been to preserve order by any proper and legitimate
method, the effective means would palpably have been
to rely upon men whose influence was known to be great, and
whose integrity was certainly unquestionable. The first-named
of the commissioners I knew well. He was of an old Maryland
family, honored for their public services, and himself adorned by
every social virtue. Old, unambitious, hospitable, gentle, loving,
he was beloved by the people among whom his long life
had been passed. Could such a man be the just object of suspicion,
if, when laws had been silenced, suspicion could justify
arrest and imprisonment? Those who knew him will accept as
a just description:</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>"In action faithful, and in honor clear,</p>
<p>Who broke no promise, served no private end,</p>
<p>Who gained no title, and who lost no friend."</p>
  </div>  </div>

<p>Thenceforward, arrests of the most illustrious became the rule.
In a land where freedom of speech was held to be an unquestioned
right, freedom of thought ceased to exist, and men were
incarcerated for opinion's sake.</p>

<p>In the Maryland Legislature, the Hon. S. Teacle Wallis, from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336"></a>[pg 336]</span>
a committee to whom was referred the memorial of the police
commissioners arrested in Baltimore, made a report upon the
unconstitutionality of the act, and "appealed in the most earnest
manner to the whole people of the country, of all parties,
sections, and opinions, to take warnings by the usurpations mentioned,
and come to the rescue of the free institutions of the
country."<a id="footnotetag177" name="footnotetag177"></a><a href="#footnote177"><sup>177</sup></a></p>

<p>For no better reason, so far as the public was informed, than
a vote in favor of certain resolutions, General Banks sent his
provost-marshal to Frederick, where the Legislature was in session;
a cordon of pickets was placed around the town to prevent
any one from leaving it without a written permission from a member
of General Banks's staff; police detectives from Baltimore
then went into the town and arrested some twelve or thirteen
members and several officers of the Legislature, which, thereby
left without a quorum, was prevented from organizing, and it
performed the only act which it was competent to do, i.e., adjourned.
S. Teacle Wallis, the author of the report in defense
of the constitutional rights of citizens, was among those arrested.
Henry May, a member of Congress, who had introduced a resolution
which he hoped would be promotive of peace, was another
of those arrested and thrown into prison. Senator Kennedy,
of the same State, presented a report of the Legislature to
the United States Senate, reciting the outrage inflicted upon
Maryland in the persons of her municipal officers and citizens,
and, after some opposition, merely obtained an order to have it
printed. Governor Hicks, whose promises had been so cheering
in the beginning of the year, sent his final message to the
Legislature on December 3, 1861. In that, referring to the
action of the Maryland Legislature at its several sessions before
that when the arrest of its members prevented an organization,
he wrote, "This continued until the General Government had
ample reason to believe it was about to go through the farce of
enacting an ordinance of secession, when the treason was summarily
stopped by the dispersion of the traitors...."  After referring
to the elections of the 13th of June and the 6th of
November, he says, the people have "declared, in the most emphatic
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337" id="page337"></a>[pg 337]</span>
tones, what I have never doubted, that Maryland has no
sympathy with the rebellion, and desires to do her full share in
the duty of suppressing it." It would be more easy than gracious
to point out the inconsistency between his first statements
and this last. The conclusion is inevitable that he kept himself
in equipoise, and fell at last, as men without convictions usually
do, upon the stronger side.</p>

<p>Henceforth the story of Maryland is sad to the last degree,
only relieved by the gallant men who left their homes to fight
the battle of State rights when Maryland no longer furnished
them a field on which they could maintain the rights their
fathers left them. This was a fate doubly sad to the sons of
the heroic men who, under the designation of the "Maryland
Line," did so much in our Revolutionary struggle to secure the
independence of the States; of the men who, at a later day,
fought the battle of North Point; of the people of a land which
had furnished so many heroes and statesmen, and gave the great
Chief-Justice Taney to the Supreme Court of the United States.</p>

<p>Though Maryland did not become one of the Confederate
States, she was endeared to the people thereof by many most
enduring ties. Last in order, but first in cordiality, were the
tender ministrations of her noble daughters to the sick and
wounded prisoners who were carried through the streets of Baltimore;
and it is with shame we remember that brutal guards
on several occasions inflicted wounds upon gentlewomen who
approached these suffering prisoners to offer them the relief of
which they so evidently stood in need.</p>

<p>The accumulation of Northern forces at and near Washington
City, made it evident that the great effort of the invasion
would be from that point, while assaults of more or less
vigor might be expected upon all important places which the
enemy, by his facilities for transportation, could reach. The
concentration of Confederate troops in Virginia was begun, and
they were sent forward as rapidly as practicable to the points
threatened with attack.</p>

<p>It was soon manifest that, besides the army at Washington,
which threatened Virginia, there was a second one at Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, under Major-General Patterson, designed to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338" id="page338"></a>[pg 338]</span>
move through Williamsport and Martinsburg, and another forming
in Ohio, under the command of Major-General McClellan,
destined to invade the western counties of Virginia.</p>

<p>This latter force, having landed at Wheeling on May 26th,
advanced as far as Grafton on the 29th. At this time Colonel
Porterfield, with the small force of seven hundred men, sent forward
by Governor Letcher, of Virginia, was at Philippi.  On
the night of June 2d he was attacked by General McClellan,
with a strong force, and withdrew to Laurel Hill. Re&euml;nforcements
under General Garnett were sent forward and occupied
the hill, while Colonel Pegram, the second in command, held
Rich Mountain. On July 11th the latter was attacked by two
columns of the enemy, and, after a vigorous defense, fell back
on the 12th, losing many of his men, who were made prisoners.
General Garnett, hearing of this reverse, attempted to fall back,
but was pursued by McClellan, and, while striving to rally his
rear guard, was killed.  Five hundred of his men were taken
prisoners. This success left the Northern forces in possession
of that region.</p>

<p>The difficult character of the country in which the battle was
fought, as well from mountain acclivity as dense wood, rendered
a minute knowledge of the roads of vast importance. There is
reason to believe that competent guides led the enemy, by roads
unknown to our army, to the flank and rear of its position, and
thus caused the sacrifice of those who had patriotically come to
repel the invasion of the very people who furnished the guides
to the enemy. It was treachery confounding the counsels of
the brave. Thus occurred the disaster of Rich Mountain and
Laurel Hill.</p>

<p>General Robert Garnett was a native of Virginia, and a
graduate of the United States Military Academy. He served
in Mexico, on the staff of General Z. Taylor, and was conspicuous
for gallantry and good conduct, especially in the battles of
Monterey and Buena Vista. Recognizing his allegiance as due
to the State of Virginia, from which he was appointed a cadet,
and thence won his various promotions in the army, he resigned
his commission when the State withdrew from the Union, and
earnestly and usefully served as aide-de-camp to General R. E.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page339" id="page339"></a>[pg 339]</span>
Lee, the commander-in-chief of the Army of Virginia, until
she acceded to the Confederacy.</p>

<p>When Western Virginia was invaded, he offered his services
to go to her defense, and, relying confidently on the sentiment,
so strong in his own heart, of devotion to the State by all Virginians,
he believed it was only needful for him to have a nucleus
around which the people could rally to resist the invasion
of their country. How sadly he was disappointed, and how
bravely he struggled against adverse fortune, and how gallantly
he died in the discharge of his duty, are memories which, though
sad, bear with them to his friends the consolation that the manner
of his death was worthy of the way in which he lived, and
that even his life was an offering he was not unwilling to make
for the welfare and honor of Virginia.</p>

<p>He fell while commanding the rear guard, to save his retreating
army, thus exemplifying the highest quality of man, self-sacrifice
for others, and such devotion and fortitude as made
Ney the grandest figure in Bonaparte's retreat from Moscow.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote175" name="footnote175"></a><b>Footnote 175:</b><a href="#footnotetag175"> (return) </a><p>"Annual Cyclop&aelig;dia," vol. i, p. 443.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote176" name="footnote176"></a><b>Footnote 176:</b><a href="#footnotetag176"> (return) </a><p>"Baltimore American," June 28, 1861.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote177" name="footnote177"></a><b>Footnote 177:</b><a href="#footnotetag177"> (return) </a><p>New York "World", August 6, 1861.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-vi" id="chap-iv-vi"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Removal of the Seat of Government to Richmond.&mdash;Message to Congress at
Richmond.&mdash;Confederate
Forces in Virginia.&mdash;Forces of the Enemy.&mdash;Letter to General
Johnston.&mdash;Combat at Bethel Church.&mdash;Affair at Romney.&mdash;Movements
of McDowell.&mdash;Battle of Manassas.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The Provisional Congress, in session at Montgomery, Alabama,
on the 21st of May, 1861, resolved "that this Congress
will adjourn on Tuesday next, to meet again on the 20th day of
July at Richmond, Virginia." The resolution further authorized
the President to have the several executive departments,
with their archives, removed at such intermediate time as he
might determine, and added a proviso that, if any public emergency
should "render it impolitic to meet in Richmond," he
should call the Congress together at some other place to be
selected by him.</p>

<p>The hostile demonstrations of the United States Government
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340"></a>[pg 340]</span>
against Virginia caused the President, at an early day after the
adjournment of Congress, to proceed to Richmond and to direct
the executive departments, with their archives, to be removed
to that place as soon as could be conveniently done.</p>

<p>In the message delivered to the Congress at its meeting in
Richmond, according to adjournment, I gave the following explanation
of my conduct under the resolution above cited: "Immediately
after your adjournment, the aggressive movement of
the enemy required prompt, energetic action. The accumulation
of his forces on the Potomac sufficiently demonstrated that
his efforts were to be directed against Virginia, and from no
point could necessary measures for her defense and protection
be so effectively decided as from her own capital."</p>

<p>On my arrival in Richmond, General R. E. Lee, as commander
of the Army of Virginia, was found there, where he
had established his headquarters. He possessed my unqualified
confidence, both as a soldier and a patriot, and the command he
had exercised over the Army of Virginia, before her accession
to the Confederacy, gave him that special knowledge which at
the time was most needful. As has been already briefly stated,
troops had previously been sent from other States of the Confederacy
to the aid of Virginia. The forces there assembled were
divided into three armies, at positions the most important and
threatened: one, under General J. E. Johnston, at Harper's
Ferry, covering the valley of the Shenandoah; another, under
General P. G. T. Beauregard, at Manassas, covering the direct
approach from Washington to Richmond; and the third, under
Generals Huger and Magruder, at Norfolk and on the Peninsula
between the James and York Rivers, covering the approach
to Richmond from the seaboard.</p>

<p>The first and second of these armies, though separated by
the Blue Ridge, had such practicable communication with each
other as to render their junction possible when the necessity
should be foreseen. They both were confronted by forces
greatly superior in numbers to their own, and it was doubtful
which would first be the object of attack. Harper's Ferry was
an important position, both for military and political considerations,
and, though unfavorably situated for defense against an
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341" id="page341"></a>[pg 341]</span>
enemy which should seek to turn its position by crossing the
Potomac above, it was desirable to hold it as long as was consistent
with safety. The temporary occupation was especially
needful for the removal of the valuable machinery and material
in the armory located there, and which the enemy had failed to
destroy, though he had for that purpose fired the buildings before
his evacuation of the post. The demonstrations of General
Patterson, commanding the Federal army in that region, caused
General Johnston earnestly to insist on being allowed to retire
to a position nearer to Winchester. Under these circumstances,
an official letter was addressed to him, from which the following
extract is made:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Adjutant and Inspector-General's Office</span>,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Richmond</span>, <i>June 13, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<i>To</i> General J. E. <span class="sc">Johnston</span>, <i>commanding Harper's Ferry, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: ... You had been heretofore instructed to exercise
your discretion as to retiring from your position at Harper's Ferry,
and taking the field to check the advance of the enemy.... The
ineffective portion of your command, together with the baggage
and whatever else would impede your operations in the field, it
would be well to send, without delay, to the Manassas road.
Should you not be sustained by the population of the Valley, so
as to enable you to turn upon the enemy before reaching Winchester,
you will continue slowly to retire to the Manassas road,
upon some of the passes of which it is hoped you will be able to
make an effective stand, even against a very superior force. To
this end, it might be well to send your engineer to make a reconnaissance
and construct such temporary works as may be useful
and proper.... For these reasons it has been with reluctance
that any attempt was made to give you specific instructions, and
you will accept assurances of the readiness with which the freest
exercise of discretion on your part will be sustained.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">S. Cooper</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Adjutant and Inspector-General</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The earliest combat in this quarter, and which, in the inexperience
of the time, was regarded as a great battle, may claim a
passing notice, as exemplifying the extent to which the individuality,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342"></a>[pg 342]</span>
self-reliance, and habitual use of small-arms by the people
of the South was a substitute for military training, and, on
the other hand, how the want of such training made the Northern
new levies inferior to the like kind of Southern troops.</p>

<p>A detached work on the right of General Magruder's line
was occupied June 11, 1861, by the First Regiment of North
Carolina Volunteers and three hundred and sixty Virginians
under the command of an educated, vigilant, and gallant soldier,
then Colonel D. H. Hill, First Regiment North Carolina Volunteers,
subsequently a lieutenant-general in the Confederate
service. He reports that this small force was "engaged for five
and a half hours with four and a half regiments of the enemy
at Bethel Church, nine miles from Hampton. The enemy made
three distinct and well-sustained charges, but were repulsed
with heavy loss. Our cavalry pursued them for six miles, when
their retreat became a total rout."</p>

<p>On the other side, Frederick Townsend, colonel of Third
Regiment of the enemy's forces, after stating with much minuteness
the orders and line of march, describes how, "about five or
six miles from Hampton, a heavy and well-sustained fire of canister
and small-arms was opened upon the regiment," and how
it was afterward discovered to be a portion of their own column
which had fired upon them. After due care for the wounded
and a recognition of their friends, the column proceeded, and
the Colonel describes his regiment as moving to the attack "in
line of battle, as if on parade, in the face of a severe fire of
artillery and small-arms."  Subsequently, the description proceeds,
"a company of my regiment had been separated from
the regiment by a thickly-hedged ditch," and marched in the
adjoining field in line with the main body. Not being aware of
the separation of that company, the Colonel states that, therefore,
"upon seeing among the breaks in the hedge the glistening
of bayonets in the adjoining field, I immediately concluded
that the enemy were outflanking, and conceived it to be my
duty to immediately retire and repel that advance."<a id="footnotetag178" name="footnotetag178"></a><a href="#footnote178"><sup>178</sup></a></p>

<p>Without knowing anything of the subsequent career of the
Colonel from whose report these extracts have been made, or of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343" id="page343"></a>[pg 343]</span>
the officers who opened fire upon him while he was marching
to the execution of the orders under which they were all acting,
it is fair to suppose that, after a few months' experience, such
scenes as are described could not have occurred, and these citations
have been made to show the value of military training.</p>

<p>In further exemplification of the difference between the
troops of the Confederate States and those of the United States,
before either had been trained in war, I will cite an affair which
occurred on the upper Potomac. Colonel A. P. Hill, commanding
a brigade at Romney, in Western Virginia, having learned
that the enemy had a command at the twenty-first bridge on the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, decided to attack it and to destroy
the bridge, so as to interrupt the use of that important
line of the enemy's communication.  For this purpose he ordered
Colonel John C. Vaughn, of the Third Tennessee Volunteers,
to proceed with a detachment of two companies of his
regiment and two companies of the Thirteenth Virginia Volunteers
to the position where the enemy were reported to be
posted.</p>

<p>Colonel Vaughn reports that on June 18, 1861, at 8 <span class="sc">P. M.</span>, he
moved with his command as ordered, marched eighteen miles,
and, at 5 <span class="sc">A. M.</span> the next morning, found the enemy on the north
bank of the Potomac in some strength of infantry and with
two pieces of artillery.  He had no picket-guards.</p>

<p>After reconnaissance, the order to charge was given. It was
necessary, in the execution of the order, to ford the river waist-deep,
which Colonel Vaughn reports "was gallantly executed in
good order but with great enthusiasm. As we appeared in sight
at a distance of four hundred yards, the enemy broke and fled
in all directions, firing as they ran only a few random shots....
The enemy did not wait to fire their artillery, which we
captured, both guns loaded; they were, however, spiked by the
enemy before he fled. From the best information, their number
was between two and three hundred."</p>

<p>Colonel Vaughn further states that, in pursuance of orders,
he fired the bridge and then retired, bringing away the two
guns and the enemy's flag, and other articles of little value
which had been captured, and arrived at brigade headquarters
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344" id="page344"></a>[pg 344]</span>
in the evening, with his command in high spirits good
condition.</p>

<p>Colonel A. P. Hill, the energetic brigade commander who
directed this expedition, left the United States Army when the
State, which had given him to the military service of the General
Government, passed her ordinance of secession. The vigilance
and enterprise he manifested on this early occasion in the
war of the States gave promise of the brilliant career which
gained for him the high rank of a lieutenant-general, and which
there was nothing for his friends to regret save the honorable
death which he met upon the field of battle.</p>

<p>Colonel Vaughn, the commander of the detachment, was
new to war. His paths had been those of peace, and his home
in the mountains of East Tennessee might reasonably have secured
him from any expectation that it would ever be the theatre
on which armies were to contend, and that he, in the mutation
of human affairs, would become a soldier.  He lived until
the close of the war, and, on larger fields than that on which he
first appeared, proved that, though not educated for a soldier,
he had endowments which compensated for that disadvantage.</p>

<p>The activity and vigilance of Stuart, afterward so distinguished
as commander of cavalry in the Army of Virginia, and
the skill and daring of Jackson, soon by greater deeds to become
immortal, checked, punished, and embarrassed the enemy in his
threatened advances, and his movements became so devoid of a
definite purpose that one was at a loss to divine the object of
his campaign, unless it was to detain General Johnston with
his forces in the Valley of the Shenandoah, while General
McDowell, profiting by the feint, should make the real attack
upon General Beauregard's army at Manassas. However that
may be, the evidence finally became conclusive that the enemy
under General McDowell was moving to attack the army under
General Beauregard.  The contingency had therefore arisen for
that junction which was necessary to enable us to resist the vastly
superior numbers of our assailant; for, though the most strenuous
and not wholly unsuccessful exertions had been made to re&euml;nforce
both the Armies of the Shenandoah and of the Potomac, they
yet remained far smaller than those of the enemy confronting
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345" id="page345"></a>[pg 345]</span>
them, and made a junction of our forces indispensable whenever
the real point of attack should be ascertained. For this
movement we had the advantage of an interior line, so that, if
the enemy should discover it after it commenced, he could not
counteract it by adopting the same tactics.  The success of this
policy, it will readily be perceived, depended upon the time of
execution, for, though from different causes, failure would equally
result if done too soon or too late.  The determination as to
which army should be re&euml;nforced from the other, and the exact
time of the transfer, must have been a difficult problem, as
both the generals appear to have been unable to solve it (each
asking re&euml;nforcements from the other).</p>

<p>On the 9th of July General Johnston wrote an official letter,
from which I make the following extracts:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Headquarters, Winchester</span>, <i>July 9, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General</span>: ... Similar information from other sources
gives me the impression that the re&euml;nforcements arriving at Martinsburg
amount to seven or eight thousand. I have estimated
the enemy's force hitherto, you may remember, at eighteen thousand.
Additional artillery has also been received. They were
greatly superior to us in that arm before.</p>

<p>"The object of re&euml;nforcing General Patterson must be an advance
upon this place. Fighting here against great odds seems
to me more prudent than retreat.</p>

<p>"I have not asked for re&euml;nforcements, because I supposed that
the War Department, informed of the state of affairs everywhere,
could best judge where the troops at its disposal are most required....</p>

<p>"Most respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Joseph E. Johnston</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Brigadier-General, etc.</i>"</p>

<p>"If it is proposed to strengthen us against the attack I suggest
as soon to be made, it seems to me that General Beauregard
might with <i>great expedition</i> furnish five or six thousand men for
a few days.</p>

<p>J. E. J."
</p></blockquote>

<p>As soon as I became satisfied that Manassas was the objective
point of the enemy's movement, I wrote to General Johnston,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346" id="page346"></a>[pg 346]</span>
urging him to make preparations for a junction with General
Beauregard, and to his objections, and the difficulties he presented,
replied at great length, endeavoring to convince him
that the troops he described as embarrassing a hasty march
might be withdrawn in advance of the more effective portion of
his command. Writing with entire confidence, I kept no copy
of my letters, and, when subsequent events caused the wish to
refer to them, I requested General Johnston to send me copies
of them. He replied that his tent had been blown down, and
his papers had been scattered. His letters to me, which would
show the general purport of mine to him, have shared the fate
which during or soon after the close of the war befell most of
the correspondence I had preserved, and his retained copies, if
still in his possession, do not appear to have been deemed of sufficient
importance to be inserted in his published "Narrative."</p>

<p>On the 17th of July, 1861, the following telegram was sent
by the Adjutant-General:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond</span>, <i>July 17, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<i>To</i> General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>Winchester, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"General Beauregard is attacked. To strike the enemy a decisive
blow, a junction of all your effective force will be needed.
If practicable, make the movement, sending your sick and baggage
to Culpepper Court-House, either by railroad or by Warrenton.
In all the arrangements exercise your discretion.</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">S. Cooper</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Adjutant and Inspector-General</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The confidence reposed in General Johnston, sufficiently
evinced by the important command intrusted to him, was more
than equal to the expectation that he would do all that was
practicable to execute the order for a junction, as well as to
secure his sick and baggage. For the execution of the one great
purpose, that he would allow no minor question to interfere
with that which was of vital importance, and for which he was
informed all his "effective force" would "be needed."</p>

<p>The order referred to was the telegram inserted above, in
which the sending the sick to Culpepper Court-House might
have been after or before the effective force had moved to the
execution of the main and only positive part of the order.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page347" id="page347"></a>[pg 347]</span>
All the arrangements were left to the discretion of the General.
It seems strange that any one has construed this expression
as meaning that the movement for a junction was left to the
discretion of that officer, and that the forming of a junction&mdash;the
imperious necessity&mdash;should have been termed in the order
"all the arrangement," instead of referring that word to its
proper connection, the route and mode of transportation. The
General had no margin on which to institute a comparison as to
the importance of his remaining in the Valley, according to his
previous assignment, or going where he was ordered by competent
authority.</p>

<p>It gives me pleasure to state that, from all the accounts received
at the time, the plans of General Johnston, for masking
his withdrawal to form a junction with General Beauregard,
were conducted with marked skill, and, though all of his troops
did not arrive as soon as expected and needed, he has satisfactorily
shown that the failure was not due to any defect in his
arrangements for their transportation.</p>

<p>The great question of uniting the two armies had been
decided at Richmond. The time and place depended on the
enemy, and, when it was seen that the real attack was to be
against the position at Manassas, the order was sent to General
Johnston to move to that point. His letters of the 12th and 15th
instant expressed his doubts about his power to retire from before
the superior force of General Patterson, therefore the word
"practicable" was in this connection the equivalent of possible.
That it was, at the time, so understood by General Johnston, is
shown by his reply to the telegram.</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Headquarters, Winchester</span>, <i>July 18, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General</span>: I have had the honor to receive your telegram of
yesterday.</p>

<p>"General Patterson, who had been at Bunker Hill since Monday,
seems to have moved yesterday to Charlestown, twenty-three
miles to the east of Winchester.</p>

<p>"Unless he prevents it, we shall move toward General Beauregard
to-day....</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Joseph E. Johnston.</span></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General S. Cooper.</span>"
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348"></a>[pg 348]</span>

<p>After General Johnston commenced his march to Manassas,
he sent to me a telegram, the substance of which, as my memory
serves and the reply indicates, was an inquiry as to the relative
position he would occupy toward General Beauregard. I
returned the following answer:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond</span>, <i>July 20, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>Manassas Junction, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"You are a general in the Confederate Army, possessed of the
power attaching to that rank. You will know how to make the
exact knowledge of Brigadier-General Beauregard, as well of the
ground as of the troops and preparation, avail for the success of
the object in which you co&ouml;perate. The zeal of both assures me
of harmonious action.</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>General Johnston, by his promotion to the grade of general,
as well as his superior rank as a brigadier over Brigadier-General
Beauregard, gave him precedence; so there was no need
to ask which of the two would command the whole, when their
troops should join and do duty together. Therefore his inquiry,
as it was revolved in my mind, created an anxiety, not felt before,
lest there should be some unfortunate complication, or misunderstanding,
between these officers, when their forces should
be united. Regarding the combat of the 18th of July as the
precursor of a battle, I decided, at the earliest moment, to go
in person to the army.</p>

<p>As has been heretofore stated, Congress was to assemble
on the 20th of July, to hold its first session at the new capital,
Richmond, Virginia. My presence on that occasion and the delivery
of a message were required by usage and law. After the
delivery of the message to Congress on Saturday, the 20th of
July, I intended to leave in the afternoon for Manassas, but was
detained until the next morning, when I left by rail, accompanied
by my aide-de-camp, Colonel J. R. Davis, to confer with
the generals on the field. As we approached Manassas Railroad
junction, a cloud of dust was visible a short distance to the west
of the railroad. It resembled one raised by a body of marching
troops, and recalled to my remembrance the design of General
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349" id="page349"></a>[pg 349]</span>
Beauregard to make the Rappahannock his second line of defense.
It was, however, subsequently learned that the dust was
raised by a number of wagons which had been sent to the rear
for greater security against the contingencies of the battle. The
sound of the firing had now become very distinct, so much so as
to leave no doubt that a general engagement had commenced.
Though that event had been anticipated as being near at hand
after the action of the 18th, it was both hoped and desired that
it would not occur quite so soon, the more so as it was not known
whether the troops from the Valley had yet arrived.</p>

<p>On reaching the railroad junction, I found a large number
of men, bearing the usual evidence of those who leave the field
of battle under a panic.  They crowded around the train with
fearful stories of a defeat of our army.  The railroad conductor
announced his decision that the railroad train should proceed no
farther. Looking among those who were about us for one
whose demeanor gave reason to expect from him a collected
answer, I selected one whose gray beard and calm face gave
best assurance.  He, however, could furnish no encouragement.
Our line, he said, was broken, all was confusion, the army routed,
and the battle lost.  I asked for Generals Johnston and Beauregard;
he said they were on the field when he left it.  I returned
to the conductor and told him that I must go on; that the railroad
was the only means by which I could proceed, and that,
until I reached the headquarters, I could not get a horse to ride
to the field where the battle was ragging.  He finally consented
to detach the locomotive from the train, and, for my accommodation,
to run it as far as the army headquarters.  In this manner
Colonel Davis, aide-de-camp, and myself proceeded.</p>

<p>At the headquarters we found the Quartermaster General,
W. L. Cabell, and the Adjutant-General, Jordan, of General
Beauregard's staff, who courteously agreed to furnish us horses,
and also to show us the route. While the horses were being
prepared, Colonel Jordan took occasion to advise my aide-de-camp,
Colonel Davis, of the hazard of going to the field,
and the impropriety of such exposure on my part. The horses
were after a time reported ready, and we started to the field.
The stragglers soon became numerous, and warnings as to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350" id="page350"></a>[pg 350]</span>
fate which awaited us if we advanced were not only frequent
but evidently sincere.</p>

<p>There were, however, many who turned back, and the
wounded generally cheered upon meeting us. I well remember
one, a mere stripling, who, supported on the shoulders of a
man, who was bearing him to the rear, took off his cap and
waved it with a cheer, that showed within that slender form
beat the heart of a hero&mdash;breathed a spirit that would dare the
labors of Hercules.</p>

<p>As we advanced, the storm of the battle was rolling westward,
and its fury became more faint. When I met General
Johnston, who was upon a hill which commanded a general
view of the field of the afternoon's operations, and inquired of
him as to the state of affairs, he replied that we had won the
battle. I left him there and rode still farther to the west.
Several of the volunteers on General Beauregard's staff joined
me, and a command of cavalry, the gallant leader of which, Captain
John F. Lay, insisted that I was too near the enemy to be
without an escort.  We, however, only saw one column near to
us that created a doubt as to which side it belonged; and, as we
were riding toward it, it was suggested that we should halt until
it could be examined with a field-glass.  Colonel Chesnut dismounted
so as the better to use his glass, and at that moment
the column formed into line, by which the wind struck the flag
so as to extend it, and it was plainly revealed to be that of the
United States.</p>

<p>Our cavalry, though there was present but the squadron
previously mentioned, and from a statement of the commander
of which I will make some extracts, dashed boldly forward to
charge.  The demonstration was followed by the immediate retreat
of what was, I believe, the last, thereabout, of the enemy's
forces maintaining their organization, and showing a disposition
to dispute the possession of the field of battle.  In riding over the
ground, it seemed quite possible to mark the line of a fugitive's
flight. Here was a musket, there a cartridge-box, there a blanket
or overcoat, a haversack, etc., as if the runner had stripped himself,
as he went, of all impediments to speed.</p>

<p>As we approached toward the left of our line, the signs of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page351" id="page351"></a>[pg 351]</span>
an utter rout of the enemy were unmistakable, and justified the
conclusion that the watchword of "On to Richmond!" had been
changed to "Off for Washington!"</p>

<p>On the extreme left of our field of operations, I found the
troops whose opportune arrival had averted impending disaster,
and had so materially contributed to our victory. Some of them
had, after arriving at the Manassas Railroad junction, hastened
to our left; their brigadier-general, E. K. Smith, was wounded
soon after getting into action, and the command of the brigade
devolved upon Elzy, by whom it was gallantly and skillfully led
to the close of the battle; others, under the command of General
(then Colonel) Early, made a rapid march, under the pressing
necessity, from the extreme right of our line to and beyond our
left, so as to attack the enemy in flank, thus inflicting on him
the discomfiture his oblique movement was designed to inflict
on us. All these troops and the others near to them had hastened
into action without supplies or camp-equipage; weary, hungry,
and without shelter, night closed around them where they
stood, the blood-stained victors on a hard-fought field.</p>

<p>It was reported to me that some of the troops had been so
long without food as to be suffering severe hunger, and that no
supplies could be got where they were.  I made several addresses
to them, all to the effect that their position was that best adapted
to a pursuit of the enemy, and that they should therefore remain
there; adding that I would go to the headquarters and
direct that supplies should be sent to them promptly.</p>

<p>General (then Colonel) Early, commanding a brigade, informed
me of some wounded who required attention; one, Colonel
Gardner, was, he said, at a house not far from where we
were. I rode to see him, found him in severe pain, and from
the twitching, visible and frequent, seemed to be threatened
with tetanus.  A man sat beside him whose uniform was that
of the enemy; but he was gentle, and appeared to be solicitously
attentive.  He said that he had no morphine, and did not know
where to get any.  I found in a short time a surgeon who went
with me to Colonel Gardner, having the articles necessary in
the case.  Before leaving Colonel Gardner, he told me that the
man who was attending to him might, without hindrance, have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page352" id="page352"></a>[pg 352]</span>
retreated with his comrades, but had kindly remained with him,
and he therefore asked my protection for the man. I took the
name and the State of the supposed good Samaritan, and at army
headquarters directed that he should not be treated as a prisoner.
The sequel will be told hereafter.</p>

<p>It was then late, and we rode back in the night, say seven
miles, to the army headquarters. I had not seen General Beauregard
on the field, and did not find him at his quarters when we
returned; the promise made to the troops was therefore communicated
to a staff-officer, who said he would have the supplies
sent out. At a later hour when I met General Beauregard
and informed him of what had occurred, he stated that,
because of a false alarm which had reached him, he had ordered
the troops referred to from the left to the right of our line, so as
to be in position to repel the reported movement of the enemy
against that flank.  That such an alarm should have been credited,
and a night march ordered on account of it, shows how
little the completeness of the victory was realized.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote178" name="footnote178"></a><b>Footnote 178:</b><a href="#footnotetag178"> (return) </a><p>see "Rebellion Record," vol. ii, pp. 164, 165.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-vii" id="chap-iv-vii"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Conference with the Generals after the Battle.&mdash;Order to pursue the Enemy.&mdash;Evidences
of a Thorough Rout.&mdash;"Sweet to die for such a Cause."&mdash;Movements
of the Next Day.&mdash;What more it was practicable to do.&mdash;Charge against
the President of preventing the Capture of Washington.&mdash;The Failure to
pursue.&mdash;Reflection
on the President.&mdash;General Beauregard's Report.&mdash;Endorsement
upon it.&mdash;Strength of the Opposing Forces.&mdash;Extracts relating to the
Battle, from the Narrative of General Early.&mdash;Resolutions of Congress.&mdash;Efforts
to increase the Efficiency of the Army.
</p></blockquote>


<p>At a late hour of the night, I had a conference with Generals
Johnston and Beauregard; the Adjutant-General of the
latter, Colonel Jordan, was present, and sat opposite to me at the
table.</p>

<p>When, after some preliminary conversation, I asked whether
any troops had been sent in pursuit of the enemy, I was answered
in the negative. Upon further inquiry as to what troops
were in the best position for pursuit, and had been least fatigued
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353" id="page353"></a>[pg 353]</span>
during the day, General Bonham's brigade was named.  I then
suggested that he should be ordered in pursuit; a pause ensued,
until Colonel Jordan asked me if I would dictate the order.  I
at once dictated an order for immediate pursuit.  Some conversation
followed, the result of which was a modification of the
order by myself, so that, instead of immediate pursuit, it should
be commenced at early dawn.  Colonel Jordan spoke across the
table to me, saying, "If you will send the order as you first dictated
it, the enemy won't stop till he gets into the Potomac."
I believe I remember the words very nearly, and am quite sure
that I do remember them substantially.  On the 25th of March,
1878, I wrote to General Beauregard as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Dear Sir:</span> Permit me to ask you to recall the conference
held between General Johnston, yourself, and myself, on the night
after the close of the battle of Manassas; and to give me, if you can,
a copy of the order which I dictated, and which your adjutant-general,
T. J. Jordan, wrote at my dictation, directing Brigadier-General
Bonham to follow the retreating enemy. If you can not furnish
a copy of the order, please give me your recollection of its
substance.</p>

<p>"Yours respectfully,</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>To this letter General Beauregard courteously replied that
his order-book was in New York, in the hands of a friend, to
whom he would write for a copy of the order desired if it should
be in said book, and that he would also write to his adjutant,
General Jordan, for his recollection of the order if it had not
been inscribed in the order-book.</p>

<p>On the 24th of April General Beauregard forwarded to me
the answer to his inquiries in my behalf, as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">New York</span>, 63 <span class="sc">Broadway</span>, <i>April 18, 1878</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">My dear General</span>: In answer to your note, I hasten to say
that properly Mr. Davis is not to be held accountable for our failure
to pursue McDowell from the field of Manassas the night of
the 21st of July, 1861.</p>

<p>"As to the order, to which I presume Mr. Davis refers in his
note to you, I recollect the incident very distinctly.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354"></a>[pg 354]</span>

<p>"The night of the battle, as I was about to ascend to your
quarters over my office, Captain E. P. Alexander, of your staff,
informed me that Captain &mdash;&mdash;, attached to General Johnston's
Army of the Shenandoah, reported that he had been as far forward
as Centreville, where he had seen the Federal army completely
routed and in full flight toward Washington.</p>

<p>"This statement I at once repeated to Mr. Davis, General
Johnston, and yourself, whom I found seated around your table&mdash;Mr.
Davis at the moment writing a dispatch to General Cooper.</p>

<p>"As soon as I had made my report, Mr. Davis with much animation
asserted the necessity for an urgent pursuit that night by
Bonham, who, with his own brigade and that of Longstreet, was in
close proximity to Centreville at the moment. So I took my seat at
the same table with you, and wrote the order for pursuit, substantially
at the dictation of Mr. Davis. But, while writing, either I
happened to remember, or Captain Alexander himself&mdash;as I am inclined
to believe&mdash;called me aside to remind me that his informant
was known among us of the old army as &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;, because
of eccentricities, and in contradistinction with others of the same
name.  When I repeated this reminder, Mr. Davis recalled the
<i>sobriquet</i>, as he had a precise personal knowledge of the officers of
the old army.  He laughed heartily, as did all present.</p>

<p>"The question of throwing General Bonham forward that night,
upon the unverified report of Captain &mdash;&mdash;, was now briefly discussed,
with a unanimous decision against it; therefore, the order
was not dispatched.</p>

<p>"It is proper to add in this connection that, so far as I am
aware&mdash;and I had the opportunity of knowing what occurred&mdash;this
was the only instance during Mr. Davis's stay at Manassas in
which he exercised any voice as to the movement of the troops.
Profoundly pleased with the results achieved by the happy juncture
of the two Confederate armies upon the very field of battle,
his bearing toward the generals who commanded them was eminently
proper, as I have testified on a former occasion; and, I
repeat, he certainly expressed or manifested no opposition to a forward
movement, nor did he display the least disposition to interfere
by opinion or authority touching what the Confederate forces
should or should not do.</p>

<p>"You having at the close of the day surrendered the command,
which had been left in your hands, over both Confederate armies
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355" id="page355"></a>[pg 355]</span>
during the engagement, General Johnston was that night in chief
command. He was decidedly averse to an immediate offensive,
and emphatically discountenanced it as impracticable.</p>

<p>"Very truly, your friend,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Thomas Jordan</span>.</p>

<p>"General P. G. T. <span class="sc">Beauregard</span>, <i>New Orleans, Louisiana</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>General Beauregard, in his letter forwarding the above,
wrote, "The account given herewith by General Jordan of what
occurred there respecting further pursuit that night agrees with
my own recollection."</p>

<p>It was a matter of importance, as I regarded it, to follow
closely on the retreating enemy, but it was of no consequence
then or now as to who issued the order for pursuit, and, unless
requested, I should not have dictated one, preferring that the
generals to whom the operations were confided should issue
all orders to the troops. I supposed the order, as modified by
myself, had been sent. I have found, however, since the close
of the war, that it was not, but that an order to the same effect
was sent on the night of the 21st of July, for a copy of which I
am indebted to the kindness of that chivalrous gentleman, soldier,
and patriot, General Bonham. It is as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Headquarters Army of the Potomac</span>,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Manassas</span>, <i>July 21, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"(<span class="sc">Special Orders</span>, No. 140.)</p>

<p>"I. General Bonham will send, as early as practicable in the
morning, a command of two of his regiments of infantry, a strong
force of cavalry, and one field-battery, to scour the country and
roads to his front, toward Centreville. He will carry with him
abundant means of transportation for the collection of our wounded,
all the arms, ammunition, and abandoned hospital stores, subsistence,
and baggage, which will be sent immediately to these headquarters.</p>

<p>"General Bonham will advance with caution, throwing out an
advanced guard and skirmishers on his right and left, and the utmost
caution must be taken to prevent firing into our own men.</p>

<p>"Should it appear, while this command is occupied as directed,
that it is insufficient for the purposes indicated, General Bonham
will call on the nearest brigade commander for support.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356" id="page356"></a>[pg 356]</span>

<p>"II. Colonel P. St. George Cocke, commanding, will dispatch at
the same time, for similar purposes, a command of the same size
and proportions of infantry, artillery, and cavalry on the road <i>via</i>
Stone Bridge; and another command of two companies of infantry
and one of cavalry on the road by which the enemy retreated toward
and <i>via</i> Sudley's Mills.</p>

<p>"By command of Brigadier-General Beauregard:</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Thomas Jordan</span>, <i>A. A. Adjutant-General.</i></p>

<p>"To Brigadier-General <span class="sc">Bonham.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>Impressed with the belief that the enemy was very superior
to us, both in numbers and appointments, I had felt apprehensive
that, unless pressed, he would recover from the panic under
which he fled from the field, rally on his reserves, and renew the
contest. Therefore it was that I immediately felt the necessity
for a pursuit of the fugitives, and insisted that the troops on the
extreme left should retain their position during the night of the
21st, as has been heretofore stated.  In conference with the generals
that night, this subject was considered, and I dictated an
order for a movement on the rear of the enemy at early dawn,
which, on account of the late hour at which it was given, differed
very little from one for an immediate movement. A rainfall,
extraordinary for its violence and duration, occurred on the
morning of the succeeding day, so that, over places where during
the battle one could scarcely get a drink of water, rolled torrents
which, in the afternoon of the 22d, it was difficult to cross.</p>

<p>From these and other causes, the troops were scattered to
such an extent that but few commands could have been assembled
for immediate service. It was well for us that the enemy,
instead of retiring in order, so as to be rallied and again brought
to the attack, left hope behind, and fled in dismay to seek for
safety beyond the Potomac.</p>

<p>Each hour of the day following the battle added to the evidence
of a thorough rout of the enemy. Abandoned wagons,
stores, guns, caissons, small-arms, and ammunition, proved his
complete demoralization.  As far as our cavalry went, no hostile
force was met, and all the indications favored the conclusion that
the purpose of invasion had for the time been abandoned.</p>

<p>The victory, though decisive and important, both in its moral
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page357" id="page357"></a>[pg 357]</span>
and physical effect, had been dearly bought by the sacrifice of
the lives of many of our bravest and best, who at the first call
of their country had rushed to its defense.</p>

<p>When riding to the front, I met an ambulance bearing General
Barnard Bee from the field, where he had been mortally
wounded, after his patriotism had been illustrated by conspicuous
exhibitions of skill, daring, and fortitude. Soon after, I
learned that my friend Colonel Bartow had heroically sealed
with his life-blood his faith in the sanctity of our cause.  He
had been the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in
the Provisional Congress, and, after the laws were enacted to provide
for the public defense, he went to the field to maintain
them.  It is to such virtuous and devoted citizens that a country
is indebted for its prosperity and honor, as well in peace as in
war.</p>

<p>Reference has been made to the dispersion of our troops
after the battle, and in this connection the following facts are
mentioned: In the afternoon of the 22d, with a guide, supposed
to be cognizant of the positions at which the different
commands would be found, I went to visit the wounded, and
among them a youth of my family, who, it was reported to
me, was rapidly sinking. After driving many miles, and witnessing
very painful scenes, but seldom finding the troops in
the position where my guide supposed them to be, and always
disappointed in not discovering him I particularly sought, I
was, at the approach of night, about to abandon the search, when,
accidentally meeting an officer of the command to which the
youth belonged, I was directed to the temporary hospital to
which the wounded of that command had been removed.  It
was too late; the soul of the young soldier had just left his body;
the corpse lay before me. Around him were many gentle boys,
suffering in different degrees from the wounds they had received.
One bright, refined-looking youth from South Carolina,
severely if not fatally wounded, responded to my expression
of sympathy by the heroic declaration that it was "sweet
to die for such a cause."</p>

<p>Many kindred spirits ascended to the Father from that field
of their glory.  The roll need not be recorded here; it has a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358" id="page358"></a>[pg 358]</span>
more enduring depository than the pen can make&mdash;the traditions
of a grateful people.</p>

<p>The victory at Manassas was certainly extraordinary, not
only on account of the disparity of numbers and the inferiority
of our arms, but also because of many other disadvantages under
which we labored. We had no disciplined troops, and, though
our citizens were generally skilled in the use of small-arms,
which, with their high pride and courage, might compensate for
the want of training while in position, these inadequately substituted
military instruction when man&oelig;uvres had to be performed
under fire, and could not make the old-fashioned musket
equal to the long-range, new-model muskets with which
the enemy was supplied. The disparity in artillery was still
greater, both in the number and kind of guns; but, thanks to
the skill and cool courage of the Rev. Captain W. N. Pendleton,
his battery of light, smooth-bore guns, manned principally
by the youths whose rector he had been, proved more effective
in battle than the long-range rifle-guns of the enemy. The
character of the ground brought the forces into close contact,
and the ricochet of the round balls carried havoc into the columns
of the enemy, while the bolts of their rifle-guns, if they
missed their object, penetrated harmlessly into the ground.</p>

<p>The field was very extensive, broken, and wooded. The
senior general had so recently arrived that he had no opportunity
minutely to learn the ground, and the troops he brought
were both unacquainted with the field and with those with
whom they had to co&ouml;perate. To all this must be added the
disturbing fact that the plan of battle, as originally designed,
was entirely changed by the movement of the enemy on our
extreme left, instead of right and center, as anticipated. The
operations, therefore, had to be conducted against the plan of
the enemy, instead of on that which our generals had prepared
and explained to their subordinate commanders. The promptitude
with which the troops moved, and the readiness with which
our generals modified their preconceived plans to meet the
necessities as they were developed, entitled them to the commendation
so liberally bestowed at the time by their countrymen
at large.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page359" id="page359"></a>[pg 359]</span>

<p>General Johnston had been previously promoted to the highest
grade in our army, and I deemed it but a fitting reward for
the services rendered by General Beauregard that he should be
promoted to the same grade; therefore, I addressed to him the
following letter:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Manassas, Virginia</span>, <i>July 21, 1861.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: Appreciating your services in the battle of Manassas,
and on several other occasions during the existing war, as affording
the highest evidence of your skill as a commander, your gallantry
as a soldier, and your zeal as a patriot, you are promoted to
be a general in the army of the Confederate States of America,
and, with the consent of the Congress, will be duly commissioned
accordingly.</p>

<p>"Yours, etc.,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">P. G. T. Beauregard</span>, etc."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The 22d, the day after the battle, was spent in following up
the line of the retreating foe, and collecting the large supplies
of arms, of ammunition, and other military stores. The supplies
of the army were on a scale of such luxurious extravagance
as to excite the surprise of those accustomed only to our rigid
economy. The anticipation of an easy victory had caused many
to come to the battle as to a joyous feast, and the signs left behind
them of the extent to which they had been disappointed in the
entertainment, constituted the staple of many laughable stories,
which were not without their value because of the lesson they
contained as to the uncertainties of war, and the mortification
that usually follows vain boasting. Among the articles abandoned
by the enemy in his flight were some which excited a
just indignation, and which indicated the shameless disregard
of all the usages of honorable warfare.  They were handcuffs,
the fit appendage of a policeman, but not of a soldier who came
to meet his foeman hilt to hilt. These were reported to have
been found in large numbers; some of them were sent to Richmond.</p>

<p>On the night of the 22d I held a second conference with
Generals Johnston and Beauregard. All the revelations of the
day were of the most satisfactory character as to the completeness
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360" id="page360"></a>[pg 360]</span>
of our victory.  The large amount gained of fine artillery,
small-arms, and ammunition, all of which were much needed
by us, was not the least gratifying consequence of our success.
The generals, like myself, were well content with what had
been done.</p>

<p>I propounded to them the inquiry as to what more it was
practicable to do. They concurred as to their inability to cross
the Potomac, and to the further inquiry as to an advance to the
south side of the Potomac, General Beauregard promptly stated
that there were strong fortifications there, occupied by garrisons,
which had not been in the battle, and were therefore not affected
by the panic which had seized the defeated army.  He described
those fortifications as having wide, deep ditches, with palisades,
which would prevent the escalade of the works.  Turning to General
Johnston, he said, "They have spared no expense."  It was
further stated in explanation that we had no sappers and miners,
nor even the tools requisite to make regular approaches.  If we
had possessed both, the time required for such operations would
have more than sufficed for General Patterson's army and other
forces to have been brought to that locality in such numbers as
must have rendered the attempt, with our present means, futile.</p>

<p>This view of the matter rests on the supposition that the
fortifications and garrisons described did actually exist, of which
there seemed then to be no doubt.  If the reports which have
since reached us be true, that there were at that time neither
fortifications nor troops stationed on the south bank of the Potomac;
that all the enemy's forces fled to the north side of the
river, and even beyond; that the panic of the routed army infected
the whole population of Washington City; and that no
preparation was made, or even contemplated, for the destruction
of the bridge across the Potomac&mdash;then it may have been,
as many have asserted, that our army, following close upon
the flying enemy, could have entered and taken possession of
the United States capital. These reports, however, present a
condition of affairs altogether at variance with the information
on which we had to act.  Thus it was, and, so far as I knew, for
the reasons above stated, that an advance to the south bank of
the Potomac was not contemplated as the immediate sequence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page361" id="page361"></a>[pg 361]</span>
of the victory at Manassas. What discoveries would have
been made and what results would have ensued from the establishment
of our guns upon the south bank of the river, to
open fire upon the capital, are speculative questions upon which
it would be useless to enter.</p>

<p>After the conference of the 22d, and because of it, I decided
to return to Richmond and employ all the power of my office
to increase the strength of the army, so as the better to enable
it to meet the public need, whether in offensive-defensive or
purely defensive operations, as opportunity should offer for the
one, or the renewal of invasion require the other.</p>

<p>A short time subsequent to my return, a message was brought
to me from the prison, to the effect that a non-commissioned
officer, captured at Manassas, claimed to have a promise of protection
from me.  The name was given Hulburt, of Connecticut.
I had forgotten the name he gave when I saw him; but,
believing that I would recognize the person who had attended
to Colonel Gardner, and to whom only such a promise had been
given, the officer in charge was directed to send him to me.
When he came, I had no doubt of his identity, and explained to
him that I had directed that he should not be treated as a prisoner,
but that, in the multitude of those wearing the same uniform
as his, some neglect or mistake had arisen, for which I
was very sorry, and that he should be immediately released and
sent down the river to the neighborhood of Fortress Monroe,
where he would be among his own people.  He then told me
that he had a sister residing a few miles in the country, whom he
would be very glad to visit.  Permission was given him to do
so, and a time fixed at which he was to report for transportation;
and so he left, with manifestations of thankfulness for the
kindness with which he had been treated.  In due time a newspaper
was received, containing an account of his escape, and
how he had lingered about the suburbs of Richmond and made
drawings of the surrounding fortifications.  The treachery was
as great as if his drawings had been valuable, which they could
not have been, as we had only then commenced the detached
works which were designed as a system of defenses for Richmond.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page362" id="page362"></a>[pg 362]</span>

<p>When the smoke of battle had lifted from the field of Manassas,
and the rejoicing over the victory had spread over the
land and spent its exuberance, some, who, like Job's war-horse,
"snuffed the battle from afar," but in whom the likeness there
ceased, censoriously asked why the fruits of the victory had not
been gathered by the capture of Washington City. Then some
indiscreet friends of the generals commanding in that battle,
instead of the easier task of justification, chose the harder one
of exculpation for the imputed failure.  Their ill-advised zeal,
combined perhaps with malice against me, induced the allegation
that the President had prevented the generals from making
an immediate and vigorous pursuit of the routed enemy.</p>

<p>This, as other stories had been, was left to the correction
which time it was hoped would bring, the sooner because it was
expected to be refuted by the reports of the commanding generals
with whom I had conferred on that subject immediately
after the battle.</p>

<p>After considerable time had elapsed, it was reported to me
that a member of Congress, who had served on that occasion as
a volunteer aide to General Beauregard, had stated in the House
of Representatives that I had prevented the pursuit of the
enemy after his defeat at Manassas.</p>

<p>This gave to the rumor such official character and dignity as
seemed to me to entitle it to notice not theretofore given, wherefore
I addressed to General Johnston the following inquiry,
which, though restricted in its terms to the allegation, was of
such tenor as left it to his option to state all the facts connected
with the slander, if he should choose to do me that justice, or
should see the public interest involved in the correction, which,
as stated in my letter to him, was that which gave it in my estimation
its claim to consideration, and had caused me to address
him on the subject:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>November 3, 1861.</i></p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>commanding Department of the Potomac.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: Reports have been, and are being, widely circulated to
the effect that I prevented General Beauregard from pursuing the
enemy after the battle of Manassas, and had subsequently restrained
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363" id="page363"></a>[pg 363]</span>
him from advancing upon Washington City. Though
such statements may have been made merely for my injury, and
in that view might be postponed to a more convenient season, they
have acquired importance from the fact that they have served to
create distrust, to excite disappointment, and must embarrass the
Administration in its further efforts to re&euml;nforce the armies of the
Potomac, and generally to provide for the public defense. For
these public considerations, I call upon you, as the commanding
general, and as a party to all the conferences held by me on the
21st and 22d of July, to say whether I obstructed the pursuit of
the enemy after the victory at Manassas, or have ever objected
to an advance or other active operation which it was feasible for
the army to undertake.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully, yours, etc.,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Headquarters, Centreville</span>, <i>November 10, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"To his Excellency the President.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 3d
inst., in which you call upon me, 'as the commanding general,
and as a party to all the conferences held by you on the 21st and
22d of July, to say whether you obstructed the pursuit after the
victory of Manassas, or have ever objected to an advance or other
active operation which it was feasible for the army to undertake?'</p>

<p>"To the first question I reply, No. The pursuit was 'obstructed'
by the enemy's troops at Centreville, as I have stated in my
official report. In that report I have also said why no advance
was made upon the enemy's capital (for reasons) as follows:</p>

<p>"The apparent freshness of the United States troops at Centreville,
which checked our pursuit; the strong forces occupying the
works near Georgetown, Arlington, and Alexandria; the certainty,
too, that General Patterson, if needed, would reach Washington
with his army of more than thirty thousand sooner than we
could; and the condition and inadequate means of the army in
ammunition, provisions, and transportation, prevented any serious
thoughts of advancing against the capital.</p>

<p>"To the second question I reply that it has never been feasible
for the army to advance farther than it has done&mdash;to the line of
Fairfax Court-House, with its advanced posts at Upton's, Munson's,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364" id="page364"></a>[pg 364]</span>
and Mason's Hills.  After a conference at Fairfax Court-House
with the three senior general officers, you announced it to
be impracticable to give this army the strength which those officers
considered necessary to enable it to assume the offensive.  Upon
which I drew it back to its present position.</p>

<p>"Most respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">J. E. Johnston.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>This answer to my inquiry was conclusive as to the charge
which had been industriously circulated that I had prevented
the immediate pursuit of the enemy, and had obstructed active
operations after the battle of Manassas, and thus had caused the
failure to reap the proper fruits of the victory.</p>

<p>No specific inquiry was made by me as to the part I took in
the conferences of the 21st and 22d of July, but a general reference
was made to them.  The entire silence of General Johnston
in regard to those conferences is noticeable from the fact
that, while his answer was strictly measured by the terms of my
inquiry as to pursuit, he added a statement about a conference at
Fairfax Court-House, which occurred in the autumn, say October,
and could have had no relation to the question of pursuit of the
enemy after the victory of Manassas, or other active operations
therewith connected. The reasons stated in my letter for making
an inquiry, naturally pointed to the conferences of the 21st
and 22d of July, but surely not to a conference held months
subsequent to the battle, and on a question quite different from
that of hot pursuit.  In regard to the matter of this subsequent
conference I shall have more to say hereafter.</p>

<p>I left the field of Manassas, proud of the heroism of our
troops in battle, and of the conduct of the officers who led them.
Anxious to recognize the claim of the army on the gratitude of
the country, it was my pleasing duty to bear testimony to their
merit in every available form. Those who left the field and did
not return to share its glory, it was wished, should only be remembered
as exceptions proving a rule.</p>

<p>With all the information possessed at the time by the commanding
generals, the propriety of maintaining our position,
while seeking objects more easily attained than the capture of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365" id="page365"></a>[pg 365]</span>
the United States capital, seemed to me so demonstrable as to
require no other justification than the statements to which I
have referred in connection with the conference of the 22d of
July. It would have seemed to me then, as it does now, to be
less than was due to the energy and fortitude of our troops, to
plead a want of transportation and supplies for a march of about
twenty miles through a country which had not then been denuded
by the ravages of war.</p>

<p>Under these impressions, and with such feelings, I wrote to
General Beauregard as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>August 4, 1861.</i></p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">Beauregard</span>, <i>Manassas, Virginia.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">My Dear Sir</span>: ... I think you are unjust to yourself in
putting your failure to pursue the enemy to Washington to the
account of short supplies of subsistence and transportation. Under
the circumstances of our army, and in the absence of the knowledge
since acquired, if indeed the statements be true, it would have
been extremely hazardous to have done more than was performed.
You will not fail to remember that, so far from knowing that the
enemy was routed, a large part of our forces was moved by you,
in the night of the 21st, to repel a supposed attack upon our right,
and that the next day's operations did not fully reveal what has
since been reported of the enemy's panic. Enough was done for
glory, and the measure of duty was full; let us rather show the
untaught that their desires are unreasonable, than, by dwelling on
possibilities recently developed, give form and substance to the
criticisms always easy to those who judge after the event.</p>

<p>"With sincere esteem, I am your friend,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>I had declared myself content and gratified with the conduct
of the troops and the officers, and supposed the generals,
in recognition of my efforts to aid them by increasing their
force and munitions, as well as by my abstinence from all interference
with them upon the field, would have neither cause nor
motive to reflect upon me in their reports, and it was with equal
surprise and regret that in this I found myself mistaken. General
Johnston, in his report, represented the order to him to
make a junction with General Beauregard as a movement left
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366" id="page366"></a>[pg 366]</span>
to his discretion, with the condition that, if made, he should first
send his sick and baggage to Culpepper Court-House. I felt
constrained to put upon his report when it was received the
following endorsement:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The telegram referred to by General Johnston in this report
as received by him about one o'clock on the morning of the 18th
of July is inaccurately reported. The following is a copy:</p>

<p>"'<span class="sc">Richmond</span>, <i>July 17, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"'General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>Winchester, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"'General Beauregard is attacked. To strike the enemy a decisive
blow, a junction of all your effective force will be needed.
If practicable, make the movement, sending your sick and baggage
to Culpepper Court-House, either by railroad or by Warrenton.
In all the arrangements, exercise your discretion.</p>

<p>"'<span class="sc">S. Cooper</span>, <i>Adjutant and Inspector-General</i>.'</p>

<p>"The word 'after' is not found in the dispatch before the
words 'sending your sick,' as is stated in the report; so that the
argument based on it requires no comment. The order to move 'if
practicable' had reference to General Johnston's letters of the 12th
and 15th of July, representing the relative strength and positions
of the enemy under Patterson and of his own forces to be such
as to make it doubtful whether General Johnston had the power
to effect the movement."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Upon the receipt of General Beauregard's report of the battle
of Manassas, I found that it contained matter which seemed
to me out of place, and therefore addressed to him the following
letter:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>October 30, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">Beauregard</span>, <i>Manassas, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: Yesterday my attention was called to various newspaper
publications purporting to have been sent from Manassas,
and to be a synopsis of your report of the battle of the 21st of July
last, and in which it is represented that you have been overruled by
me in your plan for a battle with the enemy south of the Potomac,
for the capture of Baltimore and Washington, and the liberation
of Maryland.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page367" id="page367"></a>[pg 367]</span>

<p>"I inquired for your long-expected report, and it has been to-day
submitted to my inspection. It appears, by official endorsement,
to have been received by the Adjutant-General on the 18th of
October, though it is dated August 26, 1861.</p>

<p>"With much surprise I found that the newspaper statements
were sustained by the text of your report. I was surprised, because,
if we did differ in opinion as to the measure and purposes of
contemplated campaigns, such fact could have no appropriate place
in the report of a battle; further, because it seemed to be an attempt
to exalt yourself at my expense; and, especially, because no
such plan as that described was submitted to me.  It is true that,
some time before it was ordered, you expressed a desire for the
junction of General Johnston's army with your own.  The movement
was postponed until the operations of the enemy rendered it
necessary, and until it became thereby practicable to make it with
safety to the Valley of Virginia.  Hence, I believe, was secured
the success by which it was attended.</p>

<p>"If you have retained a copy of the plan of campaign which
you say was submitted to me through Colonel Chesnut, allow me
to request that you will furnish me with a duplicate of it."</p>

<p>"Very respectfully yours, etc.,"</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>As General Beauregard did not think proper to omit that
portion of his report to which objection was made, it necessitated,
when the entire report was transmitted to Congress, the
placing of an endorsement upon it, reviewing that part of the
report which I considered objectionable.  The Congress, in its
discretion, ordered the publication of the report, except that
part to which the endorsement referred, thereby judiciously
suppressing both the endorsement and the portion of the report
to which it related.  In this case, and <i>every other</i> official
report ever submitted to me, I made neither alteration nor
erasure.</p>

<p>That portion of the report which was suppressed by the Congress
has, since the war, found its way into the press, but the
endorsement which belonged to it has not been published.  As
part of the history of the time, I will here present both in their
proper connection:</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page368" id="page368"></a>[pg 368]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"General <span class="sc">S. Cooper</span>, <i>Adjutant and Inspector-General, Richmond
Virginia.</i></p>

<p>"Before entering upon a narration of the general military operations
in the presence of the enemy on July 21st, I propose&mdash;I
hope not unreasonably&mdash;first to recite certain events which belong
to the strategy of the campaign, and consequently form an essential
part of the history of the battle.</p>

<p>"Having become satisfied that the advance of the enemy with
a decidedly superior force, both as to numbers and war equipage,
to attack or turn my position in this quarter was immediately impending,
I dispatched, on July 13th, one of my staff, Colonel James
Chesnut, of South Carolina, to submit for the consideration of the
President a plan of operations substantially as follows:</p>

<p>"I proposed that General Johnston should unite, as soon as
possible, the bulk of the Army of the Shenandoah with that of the
Potomac, then under my command, leaving only sufficient force
to garrison his strong works at Winchester, and to guard the five
defensive passes of the Blue Ridge, and thus hold Patterson in
check. At the same time Brigadier-General Holmes was to march
hither with all of his command not essential for the defense of the
position of Acquia Creek. These junctions having been effected
at Manassas, an immediate, impetuous attack of our combined
armies upon General McDowell was to follow, as soon as he approached
my advanced position, at and around Fairfax Court-House,
with the inevitable result, as I submitted, of his complete
defeat, and the destruction or capture of his army.  This accomplished,
the Army of the Shenandoah, under General Johnston, increased
with a part of my forces and rejoined as he returned by
the detachment left to hold the mountain-passes, was to march
back rapidly into the Valley, fall upon and crush Patterson with a
superior force, wheresoever he might be found. This, I confidently
estimated, could be achieved within fifteen days after General
Johnston should march from Winchester for Manassas.</p>

<p>"Meanwhile, I was to occupy the enemy's works on this side
of the Potomac, if, as I anticipated, he had been so routed as to
enable me to enter them with him or, if not, to retire again for a
time within the lines of Bull Run with my main force. Patterson
having been virtually destroyed, then General Johnston would
re&euml;nforce General Garnett sufficiently to make him superior to
his opponent (General McClellan) and able to defeat that officer.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369" id="page369"></a>[pg 369]</span>
This done, General Garnett was to form an immediate junction
with General Johnston, who was forthwith to cross the Potomac
into Maryland with his whole force, arouse the people as he advanced
to the recovery of their political rights, and the defense of
their homes and families from an offensive invader, and then
march to the investment of Washington, in the rear, while I resumed
the offensive in front. This plan of operations, you are
aware, was not acceptable at the time, from considerations which
appeared so weighty as to more than counterbalance its proposed
advantages.  Informed of these views, and of the decision of the
War Department, I then made my preparations for the stoutest
practicable defense of the line of Bull Run, the enemy having developed
his purpose, by the advance on and occupation of Fairfax
Court-House, from which my advance brigade had been withdrawn.</p>

<p>"The War Department having been informed by me, by telegraph
on July 17th, of the movement of General McDowell, General
Johnston was immediately ordered to form a junction of his
army corps with mine, should the movement in his judgment be
deemed advisable. General Holmes was also directed to push forward
with two regiments, a battery, and one company of cavalry."<a id="footnotetag179" name="footnotetag179"></a><a href="#footnote179"><sup>179</sup></a></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">ENDORSEMENT.</span></p>

<p>"The order issued by the War Department to General Johnston
was not, as herein reported, to form a junction, 'should the
movement in his judgment be deemed advisable.' The following
is an accurate copy of the order:</p>

<p>"'General Beauregard is attacked.  To strike the enemy a decisive
blow, a junction of all your effective force will be needed.
If practicable, make the movement, sending your sick and baggage
to Culpepper Court-House, either by railroad or by Warrenton.
In all the arrangements, exercise your discretion.'</p>

<p>"The words 'if practicable' had reference to letters of General
Johnston of the 12th and 15th of July, which made it extremely
doubtful if he had the power to make the movement, in view of
the relative strength and position of Patterson's forces as compared
with his own.</p>

<p>"The plan of campaign reported to have been submitted, but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370" id="page370"></a>[pg 370]</span>
not accepted, and to have led to a decision of the War Department,
can not be found among its files, nor any reference to any
decision made upon it; and it was not known that the army had
advanced beyond the line of Bull Run, the position previously selected
by General Lee, and which was supposed to have continued
to be the defensive line occupied by the main body of our forces.
Inquiry has developed the fact that a message, to be verbally
delivered, was sent by Hon. Mr. Chesnut. If the conjectures
recited in the report were entertained, they rested on the accomplishment
of one great condition, namely, that a junction of the
forces of Generals Johnston and Holmes should be made with the
army of General Beauregard and should gain a victory. The junction
was made, the victory was won; but the consequences that
were predicted did not result. The reasons why no such consequences
could result are given in the closing passages of the reports
of both the commanding generals, and the responsibility can
not be transferred to the Government at Richmond, which certainly
would have united in any feasible plan to accomplish such desirable
results.</p>

<p>"If the plan of campaign mentioned in the report had been
presented in a written communication, and in sufficient detail to
permit proper investigation, it must have been pronounced to be
impossible at that time, and its proposal could only have been accounted
for by the want of information of the forces and positions
of the armies in the field. The facts that rendered it impossible
are the following:</p>

<p>"1. It was based, as related from memory by Colonel Chesnut,
on the supposition of drawing a force of about twenty-five
thousand men from the command of General Johnston. The letters
of General Johnston show his effective force to have been only
eleven thousand, with an enemy thirty thousand strong in his
front, ready to take possession of the Valley of Virginia on his
withdrawal.</p>

<p>"2. It proposed to continue operations by effecting a junction
of a part of the victorious forces with the army of General Garnett
in Western Virginia. General Garnett's forces amounted
only to three or four thousand men, then known to be in rapid retreat
before vastly superior forces under McClellan, and the news
that he was himself killed and his army scattered arrived within
forty-eight hours of Colonel Chesnut's arrival in Richmond.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371" id="page371"></a>[pg 371]</span>

<p>"3. The plan was based on the improbable and inadmissible
supposition that the enemy was to await everywhere, isolated and
motionless, until our forces could effect junctions to attack them
in detail.</p>

<p>"4. It could not be expected that any success obtainable on
the battle-field would enable our forces to carry the fortifications
on the Potomac, garrisoned, and within supporting distance of
fresh troops; nor after the actual battle and victory did the generals
on the field propose an advance on the capital, nor does it
appear that they have since believed themselves in a condition to
attempt such a movement.</p>

<p>"It is proper also to observe that there is no communication on
file in the War Department, as recited at the close of the report,
showing what were the causes which prevented the advance of our
forces and prolonged, vigorous pursuit of the enemy to and beyond
the Potomac.</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>It has not been my purpose to describe the battles of the
war. To the reports of the officers serving on the field, in the
armies of both Governments, the student of history must turn
for knowledge of the details, and it will be the task of the
future historian, from comparison of the whole, to deduce the
truth.</p>

<p>It is fortunate for the cause of justice that error and misrepresentation
have, in their inconsistencies and improbabilities,
the elements of self-destruction, while truth is in its nature
consistent and therefore self-sustaining. To such general remarks
in regard to campaigns, sieges, and battles as may seem
to me appropriate to the scope and object of my work, I shall
append or insert, from time to time, the evidence of reliable
actors in those affairs, as well to elucidate obscurity as to correct
error.</p>

<p>From the official reports it appears that the strength of the
two armies was: Confederate, 30,167 men of all arms, with 29
guns;<a id="footnotetag180" name="footnotetag180"></a><a href="#footnote180"><sup>180</sup></a> Federal, 35,732 men,<a id="footnotetag181" name="footnotetag181"></a><a href="#footnote181"><sup>181</sup></a> with a body of cavalry, of which
only one company is reported, and a large artillery force not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page372" id="page372"></a>[pg 372]</span>
shown in the tabular statement. Of these troops, some on both
sides were not engaged in the battle. This, it is believed, was
the case to a much larger extent on our side than on that of the
enemy. He selected the point of attack, and could concentrate
his troops for that purpose, but we were guarding a line of
some seven miles front, and therefore widely dispersed.</p>

<p>For the purpose above stated, extracts are herein inserted
from a narrative in the "Operations on the Line of Bull Run in
June and July, 1861, including the First Battle of Manassas."
The name of the author, J. A. Early, will, to all who know
him, be a sufficient guarantee for the accuracy of the statements,
and for the justice of the conclusions announced. To
those who do not know him, it may be proper to state that he
was educated as a soldier; after leaving the army became a lawyer,
but, when his country was involved in war with Mexico, he
volunteered and served in a regiment of his native State, Virginia.
After that war terminated, he returned to the practice
of his profession, which he was actively pursuing when the controversy
between the sections caused the call of a convention to
decide whether Virginia should secede from the Union. He
was sent, by the people of the county in which he resided, to represent
them in that convention. There he opposed to the last
the adoption of the ordinance for secession; but, when it was
decided, against his opinion, to resort to the remedy of withdrawal
from the Union, he, true to his allegiance to the State of
which he was a citizen, paused not to cavil or protest, but at
once stepped forth to defend her against a threatened invasion.
The sword that had rusted in peace gleamed brightly in war.
He rose to the high grade of lieutenant-general. None have a
more stainless record as a soldier, none have shown a higher
patriotism or purer fidelity through all the bitter trials to which
we have been subjected since open war was ended and nominal
peace began.</p>

<p>Extracts from the narrative of General J. A. Early, of events
occurring when he was colonel of the Twenty-fourth Regiment
of Virginia Infantry and commanding a brigade:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"On June 19, 1861, I arrived at Manassas Junction and reported
to General P. G. T. Beauregard, the Twenty-fourth Virginia
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page373" id="page373"></a>[pg 373]</span>
Regiment having been previously sent to him, under the command
of Lieutenant-Colonel Hairsten, from Lynchburg, where I had
been stationed under the orders of General Robert E. Lee, for the
purpose of organizing the Virginia troops which were being mustered
into service at that place....</p>

<p>"On the morning of July 18th, my brigade was moved, by
order of General Beauregard, to the left of Camp Walker, on the
railroad, and remained there some time....</p>

<p>"On falling back, General Ewell, in pursuance of his instructions,
had burned the bridges on the railroad over Pope's Run,
from Fairfax Station to Union Mills, and while I was at Camp
Walker I saw the smoke ascending from the railroad-bridge over
Bull Run, which was burned that morning.</p>

<p>"The burning of this bridge had not been included in the previous
instructions to Ewell, and I have always been at a loss to
know why it was now fired. That bridge certainly was not necessary
to the enemy for crossing Bull Run, either with his troops or
wagons, as that stream was easily fordable at numerous places,
both above and below. The bridge was, moreover, susceptible of
easy defense, as there were deep cuts leading to it on both sides.
The only possible purpose to be subserved by the burning of that
bridge would have been the prevention for a short time of the
running of trains over it by the enemy, in the event of our defeat,
or evacuation of Manassas without a fight. As it was, we were
afterward greatly inconvenienced by its destruction." ...
</p></blockquote>

<p>The attack made on the 18th is described as directed
against our right center, and as having been met and repulsed
in a manner quite creditable to our raw troops, of whom he
writes:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"On the 19th they were occupied in the effort to strengthen
their position by throwing up the best defenses they could with
the implements at hand, which consisted of a very few picks and
spades, some rough bowie-knives, and the bayonets of the muskets....
The position was a very weak one, as the banks on the
opposite side of Bull Run overlooked and commanded those on
the south side, which were but a few feet above the water's edge,
and there was an open field in rear of the strip of woods on our
side of the stream, for a considerable distance up and down it,
which exposed all of our movements on that side to observation
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374" id="page374"></a>[pg 374]</span>
from the opposite one, as the strip of woods afforded but a thin
veil which could be seen through....</p>

<p>"About dusk on the 19th, brigade commanders were summoned
to a conference at McLean's house by General Beauregard,
and he then informed us of the fact that General Johnston had
been ordered, at his instance, from the Valley, and was marching
to co&ouml;perate with us. He stated that Johnston would march directly
across the Blue Ridge toward the enemy's right flank, and
would probably attack on that flank at dawn the next morning.
Before he had finished his statement of the plans he proposed pursuing
in the event of Johnston's attack on the enemy's right flank,
a party of horsemen rode up in front of the house, and, dismounting,
one of them walked in and reported himself as Brigadier-General
T. J. Jackson, who had arrived with the advanced brigade
of Johnston's troops by the way of Manassas Gap Railroad, and
he stated that his brigade was about twenty-five hundred strong.
This information took General Beauregard very much by surprise,
and, after ascertaining that General Jackson had taken the cars at
Piedmont Station, General Beauregard asked him if General Johnston
would not march the rest of his command on the direct road,
so as to get on the enemy's right flank. General Jackson replied
with some little hesitation, and, as I thought at the time, in rather
a stolid manner, that he thought not; that he thought the purpose
was to transport the whole force by railroad from Piedmont
Station. This was the first time I ever saw General Jackson, and
my first impressions of him were not very favorable from the manner
in which he gave his information. I subsequently ascertained
very well how it was that he seemed to know so little, in the presence
of the strangers among whom he found himself, of General
Johnston's intended movements, and I presume nothing but the
fact of General Beauregard being his superior in rank, and his being
ordered to report to him, could have elicited as much information
from him, under the circumstances, as was obtained. After
General Jackson had given the information above stated, and received
instructions where to put his brigade, he retired, and General
Beauregard proceeded to develop fully his plans for the next
day. The information received from General Jackson was wholly
unexpected, but General Beauregard said he thought Jackson was
not correctly informed, and was mistaken; that he was satisfied
General Johnston was marching with the rest of his troops and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page375" id="page375"></a>[pg 375]</span>
would attack the enemy's right flank early next day as he had before
stated. Upon this hypothesis, he directed that when General
Johnston's attack began and he had become fully engaged, of
which we were to judge from the character of the musketry-fire,
we should cross Bull Run from our several positions, and move
upon the enemy so as to attack him on his left flank and rear. He
said that he had no doubt General Johnston's attack would be a
complete surprise to the enemy; that the latter would not know
what to think of it; that when he turned to meet that attack, and
soon found himself assailed on the other side, he would be still
more surprised and would not know what to do; that the effect
would become a complete rout&mdash;a perfect Waterloo; and that,
when the enemy took to flight, we would pursue, cross the Potomac,
and arouse Maryland....</p>

<p>"During the 20th General Johnston arrived at Manassas
Junction by the railroad, and that day we received the order from
him assuming command of the combined armies of General Beauregard
and himself.</p>

<p>"Early on the morning of the 21st (Sunday), we heard the enemy's
guns open from the heights north of Bull Run, from which
they had opened on the 18th, and I soon received orders for the
movement of my brigade....</p>

<p>"Upon arriving there (McLean's Ford), I found General Jones
had returned to the intrenchments with his brigade, and I was
informed by him that General Beauregard had directed that I
should join him (General Beauregard) with my brigade.... He
then asked me if I had received an order from General Beauregard
to go to him, and, on my replying in the negative, he informed me
that he had such an order for me in a note to him.  He sent to
one of his staff-officers for the note, and showed it to me. The
note was one directing him to fall back behind Bull Run, and was
in pencil. At the foot of it were these words: 'Send Early to
me.' This was all the order that I received to move to the left,
and it was shown to me a very little after twelve o'clock.... Chisholm,
who carried the note to Jones, in which was contained
the order I received, passed me at McLean's Ford going on to
Jones about, or a little after, eleven o'clock. If I had not received
the order until 2 <span class="sc">P. M.</span>, it would have been impossible for me to
get on the field at the time I reached it, about 3.30 <span class="sc">P. M.</span> Colonel
Chisholm informed me that the order was for all the troops to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376"></a>[pg 376]</span>
fall back across Bull Run.... I was met by Colonel John S.
Preston, one of the General's aides, who informed me that General
Beauregard had gone where the fighting was ... but
that General Johnston was just in front, and his directions were
that we should proceed to the left, where there was a heavy fire
of musketry.... When we reached General Johnston, he expressed
great gratification at our arrival, but it was very perceptible
that his anticipations were not sanguine. He gave me special
instructions as to my movements, directing me to clear our lines
completely before going to the front.... In some fields on the
left of our line we found Colonel Stuart with a body of cavalry
and some pieces of artillery, belonging, as I understood, to a battery
commanded by Lieutenant Beckham.... I found Stuart
already in position beyond our extreme left, and, as I understood it,
supporting and controlling Beckham's guns, which were firing on
the enemy's extreme right flank, thus rendering very efficient service.
I feel well assured that Stuart had but <i>two</i> companies of
cavalry with him, as these were all I saw when he afterward went
in pursuit of the enemy. As I approached the left, a young man
named Saunders came galloping to me from Stuart with the information
that the enemy was about retreating, and a request to
hurry on. This was the first word of encouragement we had
received since we reached the vicinity of the battle. I told the
messenger to inform Stuart that I was then moving as rapidly as
my men could move; but he soon returned with another message
informing me that the other was a mistake, that the enemy had
merely retired behind the ridge in front to form a new flanking
column, and cautioning me to be on my guard. This last information
proved to be correct. It was the last effort of the enemy to
extend his right beyond our left, and was met by the formation of
my regiments in his front.... The hill on which the enemy's
troops were was Chinn's Hill, so often referred to in the accounts
of this battle, and the one next year, on the same field.... An
officer came to me in a gallop, and entreated me not to fire on the
troops in front, and I was so much impressed by his earnest manner
and confident tone, that I halted my brigade on the side of the
hill, and rode to the top of it, when I discovered, about a hundred
and fifty yards to my right, a regiment bearing a flag which was
drooping around the staff in such a manner as not to be distinguishable
from the Confederate flag of that day. I thought that,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377" id="page377"></a>[pg 377]</span>
if the one that had been in front of me was a Virginia regiment,
this must also be a Confederate one; but one or two shots from
Beckham's guns on the left caused the regiment to face about, when
its flag unfurled, and I discovered it to be the United States flag.
I forthwith ordered my brigade forward, but it did not reach the
top of the hill soon enough to do any damage to the retiring regiment,
which retreated precipitately down the hill and across the
Warrenton Pike. At that time there was very little distinction
between the dress of some of the Federal regiments and some of
ours. As soon as the misrepresentation in regard to the character
of the troops was corrected, my brigade advanced to the top of
the hill that had been occupied by the enemy, and we ascertained
that his troops had retired precipitately, and a large body of them
was discovered in the fields in rear of Dogan's house, and north of
the turnpike. Colonel Cocke, with one of his regiments, now joined
us, and our pieces of artillery were advanced and fired upon the
enemy's columns with considerable effect, causing them to disperse,
and we soon discovered that they were in full retreat.... When
my column was seen by General Beauregard, he at first
thought it was a column of the enemy, having received erroneous
information that such a column was on the Manassas Gap Railroad.
The enemy took my troops, as they approached his right, for a
large body of our troops from the Valley; and as my men, moving
by flank, were stretched out at considerable length, from weariness,
they were greatly over-estimated. We scared the enemy worse than
we hurt him....</p>

<p>"We saw the evidences of the flight all along our march, and
unmistakable indications of the overwhelming character of the
enemy's defeat in abandoned muskets and equipments. It was
impossible for me to pursue the enemy farther, as well because I
was utterly unacquainted with the crossings of the Run and the
woods in front, as because most of the men belonging to my brigade
had been marching the greater part of the day and were very
much exhausted. But pursuit with infantry would have been unavailing,
as the enemy's troops retreated with such rapidity that
they could not have been overtaken by any other than mounted
troops. On the next day we found a great many articles that the
routed troops had abandoned in their flight, showing that no expense
or trouble had been spared by the enemy in equipping his
army.... In my movement after the retreat of the enemy commenced,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378"></a>[pg 378]</span>
I passed the Carter house and beyond our line of battle.
The enemy had by this time entirely disappeared, and, having no
knowledge of the country whatever, being on the ground for the
first time, besides not observing any movement of troops from our
line, I halted, with the expectation of receiving further orders.
Observing some men near the Carter house, I rode to it, and found
some five or six Federal soldiers, who had collected some wounded
there of both sides, and among them Colonel Gardner, of the Eighth
Georgia Regiment, who was suffering from a very painful wound in
the leg, which was fractured just above the ankle.... Just after
my return from the house where I saw Colonel Gardner, President
Davis, in company with several gentlemen, rode to where my
command was, and addressed a few stirring remarks to my regiments,
in succession, which received him with great enthusiasm.</p>

<p>"I briefly informed Mr. Davis of the orders I had received, and
the movements of my brigade, and asked him what I should do
under the circumstances. He told me that I had better get my
men into line, and wait for further orders. I then requested him
to inform Generals Johnston and Beauregard of my position, and
my desire to receive orders. I also informed him of the condition
in which I had found Colonel Gardner, and also of Colonel Jones
being in the neighborhood badly wounded, requesting him to have
a surgeon sent to their relief, as all of mine were in the rear attending
to the wounded of their regiments. While we were talking,
we saw a body of troops moving on the opposite side of Bull Run,
some distance below us.</p>

<p>"Mr. Davis then left me, going to the house where Colonel
Gardner was, and I moved my brigade some half a mile farther,
and formed it in line across the peninsula formed by a very considerable
bend in Bull Run above the stone bridge. I put out a
line of pickets in front, and my brigade bivouacked in this position
for the night. By the time all these dispositions were made
it was night, and I then rode back with Captain Gardner over the
route I had moved on, as I knew no other, in order to find General
Johnston or General Beauregard, so that I might receive orders,
supposing that there would be a forward movement early in the
morning. I first went to the Lewis house, which I found to be a
hospital filled with wounded men; but was unable to get any information
about either of the generals. I then rode toward Manassas,
and, after going some distance in that direction, I met an
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379" id="page379"></a>[pg 379]</span>
officer who inquired for General Johnston, stating that he was on
his staff. I informed him that I was looking for General Johnston
also, as well as for General Beauregard, and supposed they were at
Manassas; but he said that he was just from Manassas, and neither
of the generals was there.... At about twelve o'clock at
night I lay down in the field in rear of my command, on a couple
of bundles of wheat in the straw. My men had no rations with
them. I had picked up a haversack on the field, which was filled
with hard biscuits, and had been dropped by some Yankee in
his flight, and out of its contents I made my own supper, distributing
the rest among a number of officers who had nothing.</p>

<p>"Very early next morning, I sent Captain Gardner to look
out for the generals, and get orders for my command. He went
to Manassas, and found General Beauregard, who sent orders to
me to remain where I was until further orders, and to send for
the camp-equipage, rations, etc., of my command. A number of
the men spread over the country in the vicinity of the battlefield,
and picked up a great many knapsacks, India-rubber cloths,
blankets, overcoats, etc., as well as a good deal of sugar, coffee,
and other provisions that had been abandoned by the enemy....</p>

<p>"After I had received orders showing that there was no purpose
to make a forward movement, I rode over a good deal of
the field, north of the Warrenton pike, and to some hospitals in
the vicinity, in order to see what care was being taken of the
wounded. I found a hospital on the Sudley road, back of the
field of battle, at which Colonel Jones, of the Fourth Alabama,
had been, which was in charge of a surgeon of a Rhode Island
regiment, whose name was Harris, I think. I asked him if he
had what he wanted for the men under his care, and he told me
he would like to have some morphine, of which his supply was
short. I directed a young surgeon of our cavalry, who rode up at
the time, to furnish the morphine, which he did, from a pair of
medical saddle-pockets which he had. Dr. Harris told me that he
knew that their troops had had a great deal of coffee and sugar
mixed, ready for boiling, of which a good deal had been left at
different points near the field, and asked if there would be any
objection to his sending out and gathering some of it for the use
of the wounded under his charge, as it would be of much service
to them. I gave him the permission to get not only that, but anything
else that would tend to the comfort of his patients. There
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page380" id="page380"></a>[pg 380]</span>
did not come within my observation any instance of harsh or unkind
treatment of the enemy's wounded; nor did I see any indication
of a spirit to extend such treatment to them. The stories
which were afterward told before the Committee on the Conduct
of the War (appointed by the Federal Congress), in regard to
'rebel atrocities,' were very grossly exaggerated, or manufactured
from the whole cloth....</p>

<p>"On the night following the battle, when I was looking for
Generals Beauregard and Johnston, in riding over and to the rear
of the battle-field, I discovered that the greater part of the troops
that had been engaged in the battle were in a great state of
confusion. I saw companies looking for their regiments, and
squads looking for their companies, and they were scattered as far
as I went toward Manassas. It was very apparent that no considerable
body of those troops that had been engaged on the left
could have been brought into a condition next day for an advance
toward Washington....</p>

<p>"The dispute as to who planned the battle, or commanded on
the field, General Johnston or General Beauregard, is a most unprofitable
one. The battle which General Beauregard planned
was never fought, because the enemy did not move as he expected
him to move. The battle which was fought was planned by
McDowell, at least so far as the ground on which it was fought
was concerned. He made a movement on our left which was
wholly unexpected and unprovided for, and we were compelled to
fight a defensive battle on that flank, by bringing up re&euml;nforcements
from other points as rapidly as possible. When Generals Johnston
and Beauregard arrived on the field where the battle was actually
fought, it had been progressing for some time, with the odds greatly
against us. What was required then was to rally the troops already
engaged, which had been considerably shattered, and hold the position
to which they had been compelled to retire until re&euml;nforcements
could be brought up. According to the statements of both
generals, the command of the troops then on the field was given
to General Beauregard, and he continued to exercise it until the
close, but in subordination, of course, to General Johnston, as
commander-in-chief, while the movements of all the re&euml;nforcements
as they arrived were unquestionably directed by the latter.
According to the statement of both, the movement of Elzey's
brigade to the left averted a great danger, and both concur in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id="page381"></a>[pg 381]</span>
attributing the turning of the tide of battle to the movement of
my brigade against the enemy's extreme right flank (General
Beauregard in a letter on the origin of the battle-flag, and General
Johnston in his 'Narrative' recently published).</p>

<p>"General Beauregard unquestionably performed the duty assigned
him with great ability, and General Johnston gives him full
credit therefor. Where, then, is there any room for a controversy in
regard to the actual command, and what profit can there be in it?</p>

<p>"General Johnston assumes the responsibility for the failure to
advance on Washington, and why, then, should an effort be made
to shift it on any one else?  He certainly was commander-in-chief,
and had the privilege of advancing if he thought proper.
The attempt to show that the failure to advance was due to the
want of transportation and rations for the army is idle.  If the
Bull Run bridge had not been burned on the 18th, our supplies
could have been run to Alexandria, if we could have advanced, as
easily as to Manassas, for the enemy had repaired the railroad to
Fairfax Station as he moved up, and failed to destroy it when he
went back. Moreover, we had abundant transportation at that
time for all the purposes of an advance as far as Washington. In
my brigade, the two Virginia regiments had about fourteen six-horse
wagons each, and that would have furnished enough for the
brigade, if the Seventh Louisiana had none. In 1862 we carried
into Maryland only enough wagons to convey ammunition, medical
supplies, and cooking-utensils, and we started from the battle-field
of second Manassas with no rations on hand, being, before
we crossed the Potomac, entirely dependent on the country, which,
in July, 1861, was teeming with supplies, but in August and September,
1862, was nearly depleted. The pretense, therefore, that
the advance in July, 1861, was prevented by the want of transportation
and of supplies is wholly untenable."
</p></blockquote>

<p>I will now make the promised extracts from reminiscences
of Colonel (then Captain) Lay, which were sent to a friend, and
handed to me for my use. The paper bears date February 13,
1878. After some preliminary matter, and stating that his force
consisted of three cavalry companies, the narrative proceeds:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"I was under orders to be in the saddle at 6.30 <span class="sc">A. M.</span>, July 21,
1861, and to report immediately to General Beauregard at his headquarters.
About 7.30 <span class="sc">A. M.</span> I accompanied him and General Johnston
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382" id="page382"></a>[pg 382]</span>
to a position near to Mitchell's Ford, where for some hours we
remained under an active fire of the long-range guns of the enemy
upon the opposite hills. When the unexpected flank movement
of the enemy was developed, with the generals named, we rode
at rapid speed to the left, when General Beauregard immediately
rode to the front, General Johnston taking position near and to
the left of the Lewis house.... About 3.15 <span class="sc">P. M.</span>, Captain R.
Lindsey Walker, with his battery, took position to the left and in
front of the Lewis house and commenced firing.  I was near him
when the shot from his battery was fired, and watched its effect
as it swept through the columns of the enemy, producing perfect
confusion and demoralization.... I rode to join my brother,
Colonel Lay, whom I saw going toward my command from General
Johnston.  He reported to me that General Johnston said:
'Now is your time; push the pursuit.'  I started at once on a
trot, was passing General Johnston, who gave some orders, and I
understood him to say, 'Salute the President in passing.' ... I
saluted, and passed on at a gallop.</p>

<p>"I halted at Bull Run to water my horses&mdash;then suffering&mdash;and
to confer a moment or two with my gallant old commander,
General Philip St. George Cocke.</p>

<p>"I passed on, ... when to my astonishment I saw the President
near me in the orchard. I immediately rode up to him, and
said that he was much farther forward than he should be; that
the forces of the enemy were not entirely broken, and very few of
our troops in front of the Run, and advised him to retire; that
I was then about to charge....</p>

<p>"We made the charge; a small body of the enemy broke before
we reached them, and scattered, and the larger body of troops
beyond proved to be of our own troops rapidly advancing upon our
left.... After parting from the President, I pushed on to Sudley
Church, and far beyond. Sent my surgeon, Dr. Randolph
Barksdale, to Captains Tillinghast, Ricketts, and other badly
wounded United States officers, and was going on until a superior
force should stop me, but was recalled by an order and returned
over the field to my quarters at Manassas a little before daylight&mdash;I
and my little gallant squadron&mdash;having been actively in the
saddle, I think, more than twenty hours....</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">John F. Lay</span>,</p>

<p><i>"Late Colonel of Cavalry, C. S. A.</i></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page383" id="page383"></a>[pg 383]</span>

<p>"N.B.: It may be well to add that General R. Lindsey Walker
(then Captain Walker, of the battery referred to) is now in my
office, and confirms my recollection....  J. F. L."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The quartermaster-general of General Beauregard's command,
W. L. Cabell, states in a letter written at Dallas, Texas,
on the 16th of August, 1880, in regard to the field transportation
of General Beauregard's forces before the battle of Manassas,
that as nearly as he could remember it was as follows,
viz.:</p>

<p>One four-horse wagon to each company.<br/>
One for field and staff (regimental).<br/>
One for ammunition.<br/>
One for hospital purposes.<br/>
Two wagons for each battery of artillery.<br/>
Twenty-five wagons in a train for depot purposes.<br/>
One ambulance for each regiment.</p>

<p>Transportation belonging to General Johnston's army did
not arrive until the day (or probably two days) after the battle.</p>

<p>If General Johnston, as stated, had nine thousand infantry,
the field transportation reported above could surely have been
distributed so as to supply this additional force, and have rendered,
as General Early states, the pretense wholly untenable
that the advance in July, 1861, was prevented by want of transportation.</p>

<p>The deep anxiety which had existed, and was justified by the
circumstances, had corresponding gratification among all classes
and in all sections of our country.  On the day after the victory,
the Congress, then sitting in Richmond, upon receiving the
dispatch of the President from the field of Manassas, adopted
resolutions expressive of their thanks to the most high God, and
inviting the people of the Confederate States to offer up their
united thanksgiving and praise for the mighty deliverance. The
resolutions also deplored the necessity which had caused the soil
of our country to be stained with the blood of its sons, and to
their families and friends offered the most cordial sympathy;
assuring them that in the hearts of our people would be enshrined
"the names of the gallant dead as the champions of free
and constitutional liberty."</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page384" id="page384"></a>[pg 384]</span>

<p>If universal gratulation at our success inspired an overweening
confidence, it also begat increased desire to enter the military
service; and, but for our want of arms and munitions, we could
have enrolled an army little short of the number of able-bodied
men in the Confederate States.</p>

<p>I have given so much space to the battle of Manassas because
it was the first great action of the war, exciting intense feeling,
and producing important moral results among the people of the
Confederacy; and further, because it was made the basis of misrepresentation,
and unjust reflection upon the chief Executive,
which certainly had no plausible pretext in the facts, and can
not be referred to a reasonable desire to promote the successful
defense of our country.</p>

<p>Impressed with the conviction that time would naturally
work to our disadvantage, as training was more necessary to
make soldiers of the Northern people than of our own; and
further, because of their larger population, as well as their
greater facility in obtaining recruits from foreign countries, the
Administration continued assiduously to exert every faculty to
increase the efficiency of the army by addition to its numbers,
by improving its organization, and by supplying the needful
munitions and equipments. Inactivity is the prolific source of
evil to an army, especially if composed of new levies, who, like
ours, had hurried from their homes at their country's call.  For
these, and other reasons more readily appreciated, it was thought
desirable that all our available forces should be employed as
actively as might be practicable.</p>

<p>On the 1st of August, 1861, I wrote to General J. E. Johnston,
at Manassas, as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We are anxiously looking for the official reports of the battle
of Manassas, and have present need to know what supplies and
wagons were captured.  I wish you would have prepared a statement
of your wants in transportation and supplies of all kinds, to
put your army on a proper footing for active operations....</p>

<p>"I am, as ever, your friend,</p>

<p>(Signed) "<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis.</span>"
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote179" name="footnote179"></a><b>Footnote 179:</b><a href="#footnotetag179"> (return) </a><p> The foregoing was copied from "The Land we Love," for February, 1867 (vol.
ii, No. 4).</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote180" name="footnote180"></a><b>Footnote 180:</b><a href="#footnotetag180"> (return) </a><p>General Beauregard's report.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote181" name="footnote181"></a><b>Footnote 181:</b><a href="#footnotetag181"> (return) </a><p>General McDowell's return, July 16, 17, 1861.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385" id="page385"></a>[pg 385]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-viii" id="chap-iv-viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-'99.&mdash;Their Influence on Political Affairs.&mdash;Kentucky
declares for Neutrality.&mdash;Correspondence of Governor Magoffin with the
President of the United States and the President of the Confederate States.&mdash;Occupation
of Columbus, Kentucky, by Major-General Polk.&mdash;His Correspondence
with the Kentucky Commissioners.&mdash;President Lincoln's View of Neutrality.&mdash;Acts
of the United States Government.&mdash;Refugees.&mdash;Their Motives of Expatriation.&mdash;Address
of ex-Vice-President Breckinridge to the People of the
State.&mdash;The Occupation of Columbus secured.&mdash;The Purpose of the United
States Government.&mdash;Battle of Belmont.&mdash;Albert Sidney Johnston commands
the Department.&mdash;State of Affairs.&mdash;Line of Defense.-Efforts to obtain Arms;
also Troops.
</p></blockquote>


<p>Kentucky, the eldest daughter of Virginia, had moved contemporaneously
with her mother in the assertion of the cardinal
principles announced in the resolutions of 1798-'99. She then by
the properly constituted authority did with due solemnity declare
that the Government of the United States was the result of a
compact between the States to which each acceded as a State;
that it possessed only delegated powers, of which it was not the
exclusive or final judge; and that, as in all cases of compact
among parties having no common judge, "each party has an
equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions as of the
mode and measure of redress."  Thus spoke Kentucky in the
first years of her existence as a sovereign.  The great truth announced
in her series of resolutions was the sign under which
the Democracy conquered in 1800, and which constituted the
corner-stone of the political edifice of which Jefferson was the
architect, and which stood unshaken for sixty years from the
time its foundation was laid.  During this period, the growth,
prosperity, and happiness of the country seemed unmistakably
to confirm the wisdom of the voluntary union of free sovereign
States under a written compact confining the action of the General
Government to the expressly enumerated powers which
had been delegated therein.  When infractions of the compact
had been deliberately and persistently made, when the intent
was clearly manifested to pervert the powers of the General
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386" id="page386"></a>[pg 386]</span>
Government from the purposes for which they had been conferred,
and to use them for the injury of a portion of the States,
which were the integral parties to the compact, some of them
resolved to judge for themselves of the "mode and measure of
redress," and to exercise the right, enunciated in the Declaration
of Independence to be the unalienable endowment of every
people, to alter or abolish any form of government, and to institute
a new one, "laying its foundation on such principles, and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their safety and happiness." By no rational
mode of construction, in view of the history of the Declaration
of Independence, or of the resolutions of Kentucky, can it be
claimed that the word "people" had any other meaning than
that of a distinct community, such as the people of each colony
who by their delegates in the Congress declared themselves
to be henceforth a State; and that none other than the people
of each State could, by the resolutions of 1798-'99, have been
referred to as the final judge of infractions of their compact,
and of the remedy which should be applied.</p>

<p>Kentucky made no decision adverse to this right of a State,
but she declared, in the impending conflict between the States
seceding from and those adhering to the Federal Government,
that she would hold the position of neutrality. If the question
was to be settled by a war of words, that was feasible; but, if
the conflict was to be one of arms, it was utterly impracticable.
To maintain neutrality under such circumstances would have
required a power greater than that of both the contestants, or a
moral influence commanding such respect for her wishes as
could hardly have been anticipated from that party which had,
in violation of right, inflicted the wrongs which produced the
withdrawal of some of the States, and had uttered multiplied
threats of coercion if any State attempted to exercise the rights
defined in the resolutions of 1798-'99.  If, however, any such
hope may have been entertained, but few moons had filled and
waned before the defiant occupation of her territory and the
enrollment of her citizens as soldiers in the army of invasion
must have dispelled the illusion.</p>

<p>The following correspondence took place in August, between
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387" id="page387"></a>[pg 387]</span>
Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, and President Lincoln&mdash;also
between the Governor and myself, as President of the Confederate
States&mdash;relative to the neutrality of the State:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Commonwealth of Kentucky, Executive Department,</span></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Frankfort</span>, <i>August 19,1861</i>.</p>

<p>To his Excellency <span class="sc">Abraham Lincoln</span>, <i>President of the United
States</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: From the commencement of the unhappy hostilities
now pending in this country, the people of Kentucky have indicated
an earnest desire and purpose, as far as lay in their power,
while maintaining their original political status, to do nothing by
which to involve themselves in the war. Up to this time they
have succeeded in securing to themselves and to the State peace
and tranquillity as the fruits of the policy they adopted.  My
single object now is to promote the continuance of these blessings
to this State.</p>

<p>"Until within a brief period the people of Kentucky were quiet
and tranquil, free from domestic strife, and undisturbed by internal
commotion.  They have resisted no law, rebelled against no
authority, engaged in no revolution, but constantly proclaimed
their firm determination to pursue their peaceful avocations, earnestly
hoping that their own soil would be spared the presence of
armed troops, and that the scene of conflict would be kept removed
beyond the border of their State. By thus avoiding all
occasions for the introduction of bodies of armed soldiers, and
offering no provocation for the presence of military force, the
people of Kentucky have sincerely striven to preserve in their
State domestic peace and avert the calamities of sanguinary engagements.</p>

<p>"Recently a large body of soldiers have been enlisted in the
United States army and collected in military camps in the central
portion of Kentucky.  This movement was preceded by the active
organization of companies, regiments, etc., consisting of men
sworn into the United States service, under officers holding commissions
from yourself. Ordnance, arms, munitions, and supplies
of war are being transported into the State, and placed in large
quantities in these camps.  In a word, an army is now being organized
and quartered within the State, supplied with all the appliances
of war, without the consent or advice of the authorities
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388" id="page388"></a>[pg 388]</span>
of the State, and without consultation with those most prominently
known and recognized as loyal citizens. This movement now
imperils that peace and tranquillity which from the beginning of
our pending difficulties have been the paramount desire of this
people, and which, up to this time, they have so secured to the
State.</p>

<p>"Within Kentucky there has been, and is likely to be, no occasion
for the presence of military force. The people are quiet and
tranquil, feeling no apprehension of any occasion arising to invoke
protection from the Federal arm.  They have asked that their
territory be left free from military occupation, and the present
tranquillity of their communication left uninvaded by soldiers.
They do not desire that Kentucky shall be required to supply the
battle-field for the contending armies, or become the theatre of the
war.</p>

<p>"Now, therefore, as Governor of the State of Kentucky, and in
the name of the people I have the honor to represent, and with
the single and earnest desire to avert from their peaceful homes
the horrors of war, I urge the removal from the limits of Kentucky
of the military force now organized and in camp within
the State. If such action as is here urged be promptly taken, I
firmly believe the peace of the people of Kentucky will be preserved,
and the horrors of a bloody war will be averted from a
people now peaceful and tranquil.</p>

<p>"I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">B. Magoffin</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>August 24, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"To his Excellency <span class="sc">B. Magoffin</span>, <i>Governor of the State of
Kentucky.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: Your letter of the 19th instant, in which you 'urge the
removal from the limits of Kentucky of the military force now
organized and in camp within that State,' is received.</p>

<p>"I may not possess full and precisely accurate knowledge upon
this subject; but I believe it is true that there is a military force
in camp within Kentucky, acting by authority of the United
States, which force is not very large, and is not now being augmented.</p>

<p>"I also believe that some arms have been furnished to this
force by the United States.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389" id="page389"></a>[pg 389]</span>

<p>"I also believe this force consists exclusively of Kentuckians,
having their camp in the immediate vicinity of their own homes,
and not assailing or menacing any of the good people of Kentucky.</p>

<p>"In all I have done in the premises, I have acted upon the
urgent solicitation of many Kentuckians, and in accordance with
what I believed, and still believe, to be the wish of a majority of
all the Union-loving people of Kentucky.</p>

<p>"While I have conversed on this subject with many of the
eminent men of Kentucky, including a large majority of her members
of Congress, I do not remember that any one of them, or any
other person except your Excellency and the bearers of your Excellency's
letter, has urged me to remove the military force from
Kentucky, or to disband it. One very worthy citizen of Kentucky
did solicit me to have the augmenting of the force suspended for
a time.</p>

<p>"Taking all the means within my reach to form a judgment,
I do not believe it is the popular wish of Kentucky that this force
shall be removed beyond her limits; and, with this impression, I
must respectfully decline to so remove it.</p>

<p>"I most cordially sympathize with your Excellency in the wish
to preserve the peace of my own native State, Kentucky. It is
with regret I search for, and can not find, in your not very short
letter, any declaration or intimation that you entertain any desire
for the preservation of the Federal Union.</p>

<p>"Your obedient servant, <span class="sc">A. Lincoln.</span>"</p>
</blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Commonwealth of Kentucky, Executive Department</span>,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Frankfort</span>, <i>August 24, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"Hon. <span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>, <i>Richmond, Virginia.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: Since the commencement of the unhappy difficulties
pending in the country, the people of Kentucky have indicated a
steadfast desire and purpose to maintain a position of strict neutrality
between the belligerent parties. They have earnestly
striven by their policy to avert from themselves the calamity of
war, and protect their own soil from the presence of contending
armies. Up to this period they have enjoyed comparative tranquillity
and entire domestic peace.</p>

<p>"Recently a military force has been enlisted and quartered by
the United States authorities within this State. I have on this
day addressed a communication and dispatched commissioners to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390"></a>[pg 390]</span>
the President of the United States, urging the removal of these
troops from the soil of Kentucky, and thus exerting myself to
carry out the will of the people in the maintenance of a neutral
position. The people of this State desire to be free from the
presence of the soldiers of either belligerent, and to that end my
efforts are now directed.</p>

<p>"Although I have no reason to presume that the Government
of the Confederate States contemplate or have ever proposed any
violation of the neutral attitude thus assumed by Kentucky, there
seems to be some uneasiness felt among the people of some portion
of the State, occasioned by the collection of bodies of troops along
their southern frontier. In order to quiet this apprehension, and
to secure to the people their cherished object of peace, this communication
is to present these facts and elicit an authoritative
assurance that the Government of the Confederate States will
continue to respect and observe the position indicated as assumed
by Kentucky.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">B. Magoffin</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond</span>, <i>August 28, 1861.</i></p>

<p>"To Hon. <span class="sc">B. Magoffin</span>, <i>Governor of Kentucky, etc.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have received your letter informing me that 'since
the commencement of the unhappy difficulties pending in the country,
the people of Kentucky have indicated a steadfast desire to
maintain a position of strict neutrality between the belligerent
parties.' In the same communication you express your desire to
elicit 'an authoritative assurance that the Government of the Confederate
States will continue to respect and observe the neutral
position of Kentucky.'</p>

<p>"In reply to this request, I lose no time in assuring you that
the Government of the Confederate States neither desires nor intends
to disturb the neutrality of Kentucky. The assemblage of
troops in Tennessee, to which you refer, had no other object than
to repel the lawless invasion of that State by the forces of the
United States, should their Government seek to approach it
through Kentucky, without respect for its position of neutrality.
That such apprehensions were not groundless has been proved by
the course of that Government in the States of Maryland and Missouri,
and more recently in Kentucky itself, in which, as you inform
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page391" id="page391"></a>[pg 391]</span>
me, 'a military force has been enlisted and quartered by the
United States authorities.'</p>

<p>"The Government of the Confederate States has not only respected
most scrupulously the neutrality of Kentucky, but has
continued to maintain the friendly relations of trade and intercourse
which it has suspended with the United States generally.</p>

<p>"In view of the history of the past, it can scarcely be necessary
to assure your Excellency that the Government of the Confederate
States will continue to respect the neutrality of Kentucky so long
as her people will maintain it themselves.</p>

<p>"But neutrality, to be entitled to respect, must be strictly
maintained between both parties; or, if the door be opened on
the one side for the aggressions of one of the belligerent parties
upon the other, it ought not to be shut to the assailed when they
seek to enter it for purposes of self-defense.</p>

<p>"I do not, however, for a moment believe that your gallant
State will suffer its soil to be used for the purpose of giving an
advantage to those who violate its neutrality and disregard its
rights, over others who respect both.</p>

<p>"In conclusion, I tender to your Excellency the assurance of
my high consideration and regard, and am, sir, very respectfully,</p>

<p>"Yours, etc.,  <span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Movements by the Federal forces in southwestern Kentucky
revealed such designs as made it absolutely necessary that General
Polk, commanding the Confederate forces in that section,
should immediately occupy the town of Columbus, Kentucky;
a position of much strategic importance on the shore of the
Mississippi River.</p>

<p>That position was doubly important, because it commanded
the opposite shore in Missouri, and was the gateway on the
border of Tennessee.</p>

<p>Two States of the Confederacy were therefore threatened
by the anticipated movement of the enemy to get possession
of Columbus.</p>

<p>Major-General Polk, therefore, crossed the State line, took
possession of Hickman on September 3d, and on the 4th secured
Columbus. General Grant, who took command at Cairo on
September 2d, being thus anticipated, seized Paducah, at the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page392" id="page392"></a>[pg 392]</span>
mouth of the Tennessee River, and occupied it in force on the
5th and 6th.</p>

<p>After the occupation, under date of September 4th, I received
the following dispatch from Major-General Polk: "The enemy
having descended the Mississippi River some three or four days
since, and seated himself with cannon and entrenched lines opposite
the town of Columbus, Kentucky, making such demonstrations
as left no doubt upon the minds of any of their intention
to seize and forcibly possess said town, I thought proper,
under the plenary power delegated to me, to direct a sufficient
portion of my command both by the river way and land to concentrate
at Columbus, as well to offer to its citizens that protection
they unite to a man in accepting, as also to prevent, in time,
the occupation by the enemy of a point so necessary to the security
of western Tennessee. The demonstration on my part
has had the desired effect. The enemy has withdrawn his
forces even before I had fortified my position.  It is my intention
to continue to occupy and hold this place." On the
same day I sent the following reply to Major-General Polk:
"Your telegram received; the necessity must justify the action."</p>

<p>The Legislature of Kentucky passed resolutions and appointed
a committee to inquire into the action of General Polk, from
which the annexed correspondence resulted:</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MAJOR-GENERAL POLK AND THE AUTHORITIES
OF KENTUCKY.</span></p>

<p><i>Resolutions of the Kentucky Senate relative to the Violation of the Neutrality
of Kentucky.</i></p>

<p>"<i>Resolved by the Senate</i>, That the special committee of the
Senate, raised for the purpose of considering the reported occupation
of Hickman and other points in Kentucky by Confederate
troops, take into consideration the occupation of Paducah and
other places in Kentucky by the Federal authorities, and report
thereon when the true state of the case shall have been ascertained.
That the Speaker appoint three members of the Senate
to visit southern Kentucky, who are directed to obtain all the
facts they can in reference to the recent occupation of Kentucky
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393" id="page393"></a>[pg 393]</span>
soil by Confederate and Federal forces, and report in writing at
as early a day as practicable.</p>

<p>"In Senate of Kentucky, Saturday, September 7, <span class="sc">A. D.</span> 1861.</p>

<p>"Twice read and adopted.</p>

<p>"Attest:  (Signed)  <span class="sc">J. H. Johnson</span>, S. S.</p>

<p>"In accordance with the foregoing resolution, the Speaker appointed
as said committee Messrs. John M. Johnson, William B.
Read, and Thornton F. Marshall.</p>

<p>"Attest:  (Signed)  <span class="sc">J. H. Johnson</span>, S. S."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Letter of Hon. J. M. Johnson, Chairman of the Committee of the Kentucky
Senate, to General Polk</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Columbus, Kentucky</span>, <i>September 9, 1861.</i></p>

<p>"To Major-General <span class="sc">Polk</span>, <i>commanding forces, etc.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have the honor to inclose herewith a resolution of the
Senate of Kentucky, adopted by that body upon the reception of
the intelligence of the military occupation of Hickman, Chalk
Bank, and Columbus, by the Confederate troops under your
command. I need not say that the people of Kentucky are profoundly
astonished that such an act should have been committed
by the Confederates, and especially that they should have
been the first to do so with an equipped and regularly organized
army.</p>

<p>"The people of Kentucky, having with great unanimity determined
upon a position of neutrality in the unhappy war now being
waged, and which they had tried in vain to prevent, had hoped
that one place at least in this great nation might remain uninvaded
by passion, and through whose good office something might be
done to end the war, or at least to mitigate its horrors, or, if this
were not possible, that she might be left to choose her destiny
without disturbance from any quarter.</p>

<p>"In obedience to the thrice-repeated will of the people, as expressed
at the polls, and in their name, I ask you to withdraw your
forces from the soil of Kentucky.</p>

<p>"I will say, in conclusion, that all the people of the State await,
in deep suspense, your action in the premises.</p>

<p>"I have the honor to be, your obedient servant, etc.,</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">John M. Johnson</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Chairman of Committee</i>."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page394" id="page394"></a>[pg 394]</span>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Letter from General Polk to the Kentucky Commissioners.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Columbus, Kentucky</span>, <i>September 9, 1861.</i></p>

<p>To <span class="sc">J. M. Johnson</span>, <i>Chairman of Committee, Senate of Kentucky.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of this date, conveying to me a copy of a resolution of the
Senate of Kentucky, under which a committee (of which you are
chairman) was raised 'for the purpose of considering the reported
occupation of Hickman and other points in Kentucky by the Confederate
troops, and that they take into consideration the reported
occupation of Paducah and other points in Kentucky by the Federal
authorities, and report thereon'; also, that they be 'directed
to obtain all the facts they can in reference to the recent occupation
of Kentucky soil by the Confederate and Federal forces, and
report, in writing, at as early a day as practicable.'</p>

<p>"From the terms of the resolution, it appears your office, as
committee-men, was restricted merely to collecting the facts in
reference to the recent occupation of Kentucky soil by the Confederate
and Federal forces, and to report thereon in writing, at as
early a day as possible. In answer to these resolutions, I have
respectfully to say that, so far as the Confederate forces are concerned,
the facts are plain, and shortly stated. The Government
which they represent, recognizing as a fundamental principle the
right of sovereign States to take such a position as they choose in
regard to their relations with other States, was compelled by that
principle to concede to Kentucky the right to assume the position
of neutrality, which she has chosen in the passing struggle. This
it has done on all occasions, and without an exception. The cases
alluded to by his Excellency, Governor Magoffin, in his recent
message, as 'raids,' I presume, are the cases of the steamers Cheney
and Orr. The former was the unauthorized and unrecognized
act of certain citizens of Alabama, and the latter the act of citizens
of Tennessee and others, and was an act of reprisal. They
can not, therefore, be charged, in any sense, as acts of the Confederate
Government.</p>

<p>"The first and only instance in which the neutrality of Kentucky
has been disregarded is that in which the troops under my
command, and by my direction, took possession of the place I now
hold, and so much of the territory between it and the Tennessee
line as was necessary for me to pass over in order to reach it.
This act finds abundant justification in the history of the concessions
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395" id="page395"></a>[pg 395]</span>
granted to the Federal Government by Kentucky ever since
the war began, notwithstanding the position of neutrality which
she had assumed, and the firmness with which she proclaimed her
intention to maintain it. That history shows the following among
other facts: In January, the House of Representatives of Kentucky
passed anti-coercion resolutions&mdash;only four dissenting. The
Governor, in May, issued his neutrality proclamation. The address
of the Union Central Committee, including Mr. James Speed,
Mr. Prentice, and other prominent Union men, in April, proclaimed
neutrality as the policy of Kentucky, and claimed that an attempt
to coerce the South should induce Kentucky to make common
cause with her, and take part in the contest on her side, 'without
counting the cost.' The Union speakers and papers, with few exceptions,
claimed, up to the last election, that the Union vote was
strict neutrality and peace. These facts and events gave assurance
of the integrity of the avowed purpose of your State, and we
were content with the position she assumed.</p>

<p>"Since the election, however, she has allowed the seizure in
her port (Paducah) of property of citizens of the Confederate
States; she has, by her members in the Congress of the United
States, voted supplies of men and money to carry on the war against
the Confederate States; she has allowed the Federal Government
to cut timber from her forests for the purpose of building armed
boats for the invasion of the Southern States; she is permitting
to be enlisted in her territory, troops, not only of her own citizens,
but of the citizens of other States, for the purpose of being armed
and used in offensive warfare against the Confederate States.
At Camp Robinson, in the county of Garrard, there are now ten
thousand troops, if the newspapers can be relied upon, in which
men from Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are mustered with
Kentuckians into the service of the United States, and armed by
that Government for the avowed purpose of giving aid to the disaffected
in one of the Confederate States, and of carrying out the
designs of that Government for their subjugation. Notwithstanding
all these and other acts of a similar character, the Confederate
States have continued to respect the attitude which Kentucky had
assumed as a neutral, and forborne from reprisals, in the hope
that Kentucky would yet enforce respect for her position on the
part of the Government of the United States.</p>

<p>"Our patient expectation has been disappointed, and it was only
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page396" id="page396"></a>[pg 396]</span>
when we perceived that this continued indifference to our rights
and our safety was about to culminate in the seizure of an important
part of her territory by the United States forces for offensive
operations against the Confederate States, that a regard for self-preservation
demanded of us to seize it in advance. We are here,
therefore, not by choice, but of necessity, and as I have had the
honor to say, in a communication addressed to his Excellency Governor
Magoffin, a copy of which is herewith inclosed and submitted
as a part of my reply, so I now repeat in answer to your
request, that I am prepared to agree to withdraw the Confederate
troops from Kentucky, provided she will agree that the troops of
the Federal Government be withdrawn simultaneously, with a
guarantee (which I will give reciprocally for the Confederate Government)
that the Federal troops shall not be allowed to enter nor
occupy any part of Kentucky for the future.</p>

<p>"In view of the facts thus submitted, I can not but think the
world at large will find it difficult to appreciate the 'profound
astonishment' with which you say the people of Kentucky received
the intelligence of the occupation of this place.</p>

<p>"I have the honor to be, respectfully,</p>

<p>"Your obedient servant, etc.,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Leonidas Polk</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Major-General commanding</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Letter from General Polk to Governor Magoffin.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Columbus, Kentucky</span>, <i>September 3, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"Governor <span class="sc">Magoffin</span>, <i>Frankfort, Kentucky</i>.</p>

<p>"I should have dispatched to you immediately, as the troops
under my command took possession of this position, the very few
words I addressed to the people here; but my duties since that
time have so preoccupied me, that I have but now the first leisure
moment to communicate with you. It will be sufficient for me to
inform you (as my short address herewith will do) that I had information,
on which I could rely, that the Federal forces intended,
and were preparing to seize Columbus. I need not describe to you
the danger resulting to western Tennessee from such occupation.</p>

<p>"My responsibility could not permit me quietly to lose to the
command intrusted to me so important a position. In evidence
of the accuracy of the information I possessed, I will state that, as
the Confederate force approached this place, the Federal troops
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page397" id="page397"></a>[pg 397]</span>
were found in formidable numbers in position upon the opposite
bank, with their cannon turned upon Columbus. The citizens of
the town had fled with terror, and not a word of assurance of safety
or protection had been addressed to them.  Since I have taken
possession of this place, I have been informed by highly respected
citizens of your State that certain representatives of the Federal
Government are seeking to take advantage of its own wrong, are
setting up complaints against my acts of occupation, and are making
it a pretest for seizing other points. Upon this proceeding I
have no comments to make.  But I am prepared to say that I will
agree to withdraw the Confederate troops from Kentucky, provided
that she will agree that the troops of the Federal Government
be withdrawn simultaneously, with a guarantee (which I will
give reciprocally for the Confederate Government) that the Federal
troops shall not be allowed to enter or occupy any part of Kentucky
in the future.</p>

<p>"I have the honor to be, respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>(Signed)</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Leonidas Polk</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Major-General commanding</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>However willing the government of Kentucky might have
been to accede to the proposition of General Polk, and which
from his knowledge of the views of his own Government he
was fully justified in offering, the State of Kentucky had no
power, moral or physical, to prevent the United States Government
from using her soil as best might suit its purposes in the
war it was waging for the subjugation of the seceded States.
President Lincoln, in his message of the previous July, had distinctly
and reproachfully spoken of the idea of neutrality as existing
in some of the border States. He said: "To prevent the
Union forces passing one way, or the disunion the other, over
their soil, would be disunion completed.... At a stroke it
would take all the trouble off the hands of secession, except
only what proceeds from the external blockade."</p>

<p>The acts of the Federal Government corresponded with the
views announced by its President. Briefly, but conclusively,
General Polk showed in his answer that the United States
Government paid no respect to the neutral position which Kentucky
wished to maintain; that it was armed, but not neutral,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page398" id="page398"></a>[pg 398]</span>
for the arms and the troops assembled on her soil were for
the invasion of the South; and that he occupied Columbus to
prevent the enemy from taking possession of it. When our
troops first entered Columbus they found the inhabitants had
been in alarm from demonstrations of the United States forces,
but that they felt no dread of the Confederate troops. As far as
the truth could be ascertained, a decided majority of the people
of Kentucky, especially its southwestern portion, if left to a free
choice, would have joined the Confederacy in preference to remaining
in the Union.  Could they have foreseen what in a
short time was revealed, there can be little doubt that mule
contracts, and other forms of bribery, would have proved unavailing
to make her the passive observer of usurpations destructive
of the personal and political rights of which she had
always been a most earnest advocate.  With the slow and sinuous
approach of the serpent, the General Government, little by
little, gained power over Kentucky, and then, throwing off the
mask, proceeded to outrages so regardless of law and the usages
of English-speaking people, as could not have been anticipated,
and can only be remembered with shame by those who honor
the constitutional Government created by the States. While
artfully urging the maintenance of the Union as a duty of
patriotism, the Constitution which gave the Union birth was
trampled under foot, and the excesses of the Reign of Terror
which followed the French Revolution were re&euml;nacted in our
land, once the vaunted home of law and liberty.  Men who
had been most honored by the State, and who had reflected
back most honor upon it, were seized without warrant, condemned
without trial, because they had exercised the privilege
of free speech, and for adhering to the principles which were
the bed-rock on which our fathers builded our political temple.
Members of the Legislature vacated their seats and left the State
to avoid arrest, the penalty hanging over them for opinion's
sake. The venerable Judge Monroe, who had presided over the
United States District Court for more than a generation, driven
from the land of his birth, the State he had served so long and so
well, with feeble step, but upright conscience and indomitable
will, sought a resting place among those who did not regard it a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page399" id="page399"></a>[pg 399]</span>
crime to adhere to the principles of 1776 and of 1787, and the
declaratory affirmation of them in the resolutions of 1793-'99.
About the same time others of great worth and distinction, impelled
by the feeling that "where liberty is there is my
country," left the land desecrated by despotic usurpation, to
join the Confederacy in its struggle to maintain the personal
and political liberties which the men of the Revolution had left
as an inheritance to their posterity. Space would not suffice
for a complete list of the refugees who became conspicuous in
the military events of the Confederacy; let a few answer for
the many: J. C. Breckinridge, the late Vice-President of the
United States, and whose general and well-deserved popularity
might have reasonably led him to expect in the Union the
highest honors the States could bestow; William Preston,
George W. Johnston, S. B. Buckner, John H. Morgan, and a
host of others, alike meritorious and alike gratefully remembered.
When the passions of the hour shall have subsided, and
the past shall be reviewed with discrimination and justice, the
question must arise in every reflecting mind, Why did such men
as these expatriate themselves, and surrender all the advantages
which they had won by a life of honorable effort in the land of
their nativity?  To such inquiry the answer must be, the usurpations
of the General Government foretold to them the wreck
of constitutional liberty.  The motives which governed them
may best be learned from the annexed extracts from the statement
made in the address of Mr. Breckinridge to the people
of Kentucky, whom he had represented in both Houses of the
United States Congress, with such distinguished ability and zeal
for the general welfare as to place him in the front rank of
the statesmen of his day:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Bowling Green, Kentucky</span>, <i>October 8,1861</i>.</p>

<p>"In obedience, as I supposed, to your wishes, I proceeded to
Washington, and at the special session of Congress, in July, spoke
and voted against the whole war policy of the President and Congress;
demanding, in addition, for Kentucky, the right to refuse,
not men only, but money also, to the war, for I would have
blushed to meet you with the confession that I had purchased for
you exemption from the perils of the battle-field, and the shame of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page400" id="page400"></a>[pg 400]</span>
waging war against your Southern brethren, by hiring others to do
the work you shrunk from performing. During that memorable
session a very small body of Senators and Representatives, even
beneath the shadow of a military despotism, resisted the usurpations
of the Executive, and, with what degree of dignity and
firmness, they willingly submit to the judgment of the world.</p>

<p>"Their efforts were unavailing, yet they may prove valuable
hereafter, as another added to former examples of many protest
against the progress of tyranny.</p>

<p>"On my return to Kentucky, at the close of the late special
session of Congress, it was my purpose immediately to resign the
office of Senator. The verbal and written remonstrances of many
friends in different parts of the State induced me to postpone the
execution of my purpose; but the time has arrived to carry it
into effect, and accordingly I now hereby return the trust into
your hands.... In the House of Representatives it was declared
that the South should be reduced to 'abject submission,' or their
institutions be overthrown. In the Senate it was said that, if
necessary, the South should be depopulated and repeopled from
the North; and an eminent Senator expressed a desire that the
President should be made dictator.  This was superfluous, since
they had already clothed him with dictatorial powers. In the
midst of these proceedings, no plea for the Constitution is listened
to in the North; here and there a few heroic voices are feebly
heard protesting against the progress of despotism, but, for the
most part, beyond the military lines, mobs and anarchy rule the
hour.</p>

<p>"The great mass of the Northern people seem anxious to sunder
every safeguard of freedom; they eagerly offer to the Government
what no European monarch would dare to demand. The
President and his generals are unable to pick up the liberties of
the people as rapidly as they are thrown at their feet.... In
every form by which you could give direct expression to your
will, you declared for neutrality.  A large majority of the people
at the May and August elections voted for the neutrality and
peace of Kentucky.  The press, the public speakers, the candidates&mdash;with
exceptions in favor of the Government at Washington
so rare as not to need mention&mdash;planted themselves on this
position.  You voted for it, and you meant it.  You were promised
it, and you expected it.... Look now at the condition of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page401" id="page401"></a>[pg 401]</span>
Kentucky, and see how your expectations have been realized&mdash;how
these promises have been redeemed.... General Anderson,
the military dictator of Kentucky, announces in one of his proclamations
that he will arrest no one who does not act, write, or
speak in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's Government. It would have
completed the idea if he had added, or think in opposition to it.
Look at the condition of our State under the rule of our new protectors.
They have suppressed the freedom of speech and of the
press.  They seize people by military force upon mere suspicion,
and impose on them oaths unknown to the laws.  Other citizens
they imprison without warrant, and carry them out of the State,
so that the writ of <i>habeas corpus</i> can not reach them.</p>

<p>"Every day foreign armed bands are making seizures among
the people. Hundreds of citizens, old and young, venerable
magistrates, whose lives have been distinguished by the love of
the people, have been compelled to fly from their homes and families
to escape imprisonment and exile at the hands of Northern
and German soldiers, under the orders of Mr. Lincoln and his
military subordinates. While yet holding an important political
trust, confided by Kentucky, I was compelled to leave my home
and family, or suffer imprisonment and exile.  If it is asked why
I did not meet the arrest and seek a trial, my answer is, that I
would have welcomed an arrest to be followed by a judge and
jury; but you well know that I could not have secured these constitutional
rights. I would have been transported beyond the
State, to languish in some Federal fortress during the pleasure of
the oppressor.  Witness the fate of Morehead and his Kentucky
associates in their distant and gloomy prison.</p>

<p>"The case of the gentleman just mentioned is an example of
many others, and it meets every element in a definition of despotism.
If it should occur in England it would be righted, or it
would overturn the British Empire.  He is a citizen and native
of Kentucky.  As a member of the Legislature, Speaker of the
House, Representative in Congress from the Ashland district, and
Governor of the State, you have known, trusted, and honored him
during a public service of a quarter of a century.  He is eminent
for his ability, his amiable character, and his blameless life.  Yet
this man, without indictment, without warrant, without accusation,
but by the order of President Lincoln, was seized at midnight, in
his own house, and in the midst of his own family, and led through
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page402" id="page402"></a>[pg 402]</span>
the streets of Louisville, as I am informed, with his hands crossed
and pinioned before him&mdash;was carried out of the State and district,
and now lies a prisoner in a fortress in New York Harbor, a
thousand miles away....</p>

<p>"The Constitution of the United States, which these invaders
unconstitutionally swear every citizen whom they unconstitutionally
seize to support, has been wholly abolished. It is as much
forgotten as if it lay away back in the twilight of history. The
facts I have enumerated show that the very rights most carefully
reserved by it to the States and to individuals have been most
conspicuously violated.... Your fellow-citizen,</p>

<p>(Signed)  "<span class="sc">John C. Breckinridge.</span>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>Such was the "neutrality" suffered by the Confederacy from
governments both at home and abroad.</p>

<p>The chivalric people of Kentucky showed their sympathy
with the just cause of the people of the Southern States, by
leaving the home where they could not serve the cause of right
against might, and nobly shared the fortunes of their Southern
brethren on many a blood-dyed field. In like manner did the
British people see with disapprobation their Government, while
proclaiming neutrality, make new rules, and give new constructions
to old ones, so as to favor our enemy and embarrass us.
The Englishman's sense of fair-play, and the manly instinct
which predisposes him to side with the weak, gave us hosts of
friends, but all their good intentions were paralyzed or foiled by
their wily Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his coadjutor on
this side, the artful, unscrupulous United States Secretary of
State.</p>

<p>I have thus presented the case of Kentucky, not because it
was the only State where false promises lulled the people into
delusive security, until, by gradual approaches, usurpation had
bound them hand and foot, and where despotic power crushed
all the muniments of civil liberty which the Union was formed
to secure, but because of the attempt, which has been noticed,
to arraign the Confederacy for invasion of the State in disregard
of her sovereignty.</p>

<p>The occupation of Columbus by the Confederate forces was
only just soon enough to anticipate the predetermined purpose
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page403" id="page403"></a>[pg 403]</span>
of the Federal Government, all of which was plainly set forth in
the letter of General Polk to the Governor of Kentucky, and
his subsequent letter to the Kentucky commissioners.</p>

<p>Missouri, like Kentucky, had wished to preserve peaceful
relations in the contest which it was foreseen would soon occur
between the Northern and the Southern States. When the Federal
Government denied to her the privilege of choosing her own
position, which betokened no hostility to the General Government,
and she was driven to the necessity of deciding whether
or not her citizens should be used for the subjugation of the
Southern States, her people and their representative, the State
government, repelled the arbitrary assumption of authority by
military force to control her government and her people.</p>

<p>Among other acts of invasion, the Federal troops had occupied
Belmont, a village in Missouri opposite to Columbus, and
with artillery threatened that town, inspiring terror in its peaceful
inhabitants. After the occupation of Columbus, under these
circumstances of full justification, a small Confederate force,
Colonel Tappan's Arkansas regiment, and Beltzhoover's battery,
were thrown across the Mississippi to occupy and hold the village,
in the State of Missouri, then an ally, and soon to become a
member, of the Confederacy. On the 6th of November General
Grant left his headquarters at Cairo with a land and naval force,
and encamped on the Kentucky shore. This act and a demonstration
made by detachments from his force at Paducah were
probably intended to induce the belief that he contemplated
an attack on Columbus, thus concealing his real purpose to
surprise the small garrison at Belmont. General Polk on the
morning of the 7th discovered the landing of the Federal forces
on the Missouri shore, some seven miles above Columbus, and,
divining the real purpose of the enemy, detached General Pillow
with four regiments of his division, say two thousand men,
to re&euml;nforce the garrison at Belmont. Very soon after his
arrival, the enemy commenced an assault which was sternly
resisted, and with varying fortune, for several hours. The enemy's
front so far exceeded the length of our line as to enable
him to attack on both flanks, and our troops were finally driven
back to the bank of the river with the loss of their battery,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page404" id="page404"></a>[pg 404]</span>
which had been gallantly and efficiently served until nearly all
its horses had been killed, and its ammunition had been expended.
The enemy advanced to the bank of the river below
the point to which our men had retreated, and opened an artillery-fire
upon the town of Columbus, to which our guns from
the commanding height responded with such effect as to drive
him from the river bank.  In the mean time General Polk had
at intervals sent three regiments to re&euml;nforce General Pillow.
Upon the arrival of the first of these, General Pillow led it to a
favorable position, where it for some time steadily resisted and
checked the advance of the enemy. General Pillow, with great
energy and gallantry, rallied his repulsed troops and brought
them again into action. General Polk now proceeded in person
with two other regiments.  Whether from this or some other
cause, the enemy commenced a retreat.  General Pillow, whose
activity and daring on the occasion were worthy of all praise, led
the first and second detachments, by which he had been re&euml;nforced,
to attack the enemy in the rear, and General Polk, landing
further up the river, moved to cut off the enemy's retreat;
but some embarrassment and consequent delay which occurred
in landing his troops caused him to be too late for the purpose
for which he crossed, and to become only a part of the pursuing
force.</p>

<p>One would naturally suppose that the question about which
there would be the greatest certainty would be the number of
troops engaged in a battle, yet there is nothing in regard to
which we have such conflicting accounts. It is fairly concluded,
from the concurrent reports, that the enemy attacked us on both
flanks, and that in the beginning of the action we were outnumbered;
but the obstinacy with which the conflict was maintained
and the successive advances and retreats which occurred in the
action indicate that the disparity could not have been very great,
and therefore that, after the arrival of our re&euml;nforcements, our
troops must have become numerically superior. The dead and
wounded left by the enemy upon the field, the arms, ammunition,
and military stores abandoned in his flight, so incontestably
prove his defeat, that his claim to have achieved a victory is
too preposterous for discussion.  Though the forces engaged
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page405" id="page405"></a>[pg 405]</span>
were comparatively small to those in subsequent battles of
the war, six hours of incessant combat, with repeated bayonet-charges,
must place this in the rank of the most stubborn engagements,
and the victors must accord to the vanquished the meed
of having fought like Americans. One of the results of the
battle, which is at least significant, is the fact that General
Grant, who had superciliously refused to recognize General Polk
as one with whom he could exchange prisoners, did, after the
battle, send a flag of truce to get such privileges as are recognized
between armies acknowledging each other to be "foemen
worthy of their steel."</p>

<p>General Polk reported as follows: "We pursued them to
their boats, seven miles, and then drove their boats before us.
The road was strewed with their dead and wounded, guns, ammunition,
and equipments. The number of prisoners taken by the
enemy, as shown by their list furnished, was one hundred and six,
all of whom have been returned by exchange. After making a
liberal allowance to the enemy, a hundred of their prisoners
still remain in my hands, one stand of colors, and a fraction over
one thousand stand of arms, with knapsacks, ammunition, and
other military stores. Our loss in killed, wounded, and missing,
was six hundred and forty one; that of the enemy was
probably not less than twelve hundred."</p>

<p>Meanwhile, Albert Sidney Johnston, a soldier of great distinction
in the United States Army, where he had attained the
rank of brigadier-general by brevet, and was in command of the
Department of California, resigned his commission, and came
overland from San Francisco to Richmond, to tender his services
to the Confederate States. Though he had been bred a
soldier, and most of his life had been spent in the army, he had
not neglected such study of political affairs as properly belongs
to the citizen of a republic, and appreciated the issue made between
States claiming the right to resume the powers they had
delegated to a general agent and the claims set up by that
agent to coerce States, his creators, and for whom he held a
trust.</p>

<p>He was a native of Kentucky, but his first military appointment
was from Louisiana, and he was a volunteer in the war for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page406" id="page406"></a>[pg 406]</span>
independence by Texas, and for a time resided in that State.
Much of his military service had been in the West, and he felt
most identified with it. On the 10th of September, 1861, he was
assigned to command our Department of the West, which included
the States of Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, the Indian
country, and the western part of Mississippi.</p>

<p>General Johnston, on his arrival at Nashville, found that he
lacked not only men, but the munitions of war and the means
of obtaining them. Men were ready to be enlisted, but the
arms and equipments had nearly all been required to fit out the
first levies. Immediately on his survey of the situation, he
determined to occupy Bowling Green in Kentucky, and ordered
Brigadier-General S. B. Buckner, with five thousand men, to
take possession of the position. This invasion of Kentucky was
an act of self-defense rendered necessary by the action of the
government of Kentucky, and by the evidences of intended
movements of the forces of the United States. It was not possible
to withdraw the troops from Columbus in the west, nor from
Cumberland Ford in the east, to which General Felix K. Zollicoffer
had advanced with four thousand men. A compliance
with the demands of Kentucky would have opened the frontiers
of Tennessee and the Mississippi River to the enemy; besides,
it was essential to the defense of Tennessee.</p>

<p>East of Columbus, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Hopkinsville
were garrisoned with small bodies of troops; and the
territory between Columbus and Bowling Green was occupied
by moving detachments which caused the supposition that a
large military force was present and contemplated an advance.
A fortified camp was established at Cumberland Gap as the
right of General Johnston's line, and an important point for the
protection of East Tennessee against invasion. Thus General
Johnston located his line of defense, from Columbus on the
west to the Cumberland Mountains on the east, with his center at
Bowling Green, which was occupied and intrenched. It was a
good base for military operations, was a proper depot for supplies,
and, if fortified, could be held against largely superior
numbers.</p>

<p>On October 28th General Johnston took command at Bowling
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page407" id="page407"></a>[pg 407]</span>
Green. He states his force to have been twelve thousand
men, and that the enemy's force at that time was estimated to
be double his own, or twenty-four thousand. He says: "The
enemy's force increased more rapidly than our own, so that by
the last of November it numbered fifty thousand, and continued
to increase until it ran up to between seventy-five and one
hundred thousand. My force was kept down by disease, so
that it numbered about twenty-two thousand."</p>

<p>The chief anxiety of the commander of the department was
to procure arms and men. On the next day after his arrival
at Nashville, he wrote to the Governor of Alabama, "I shall beg
to rely on your Excellency to furnish us as rapidly as possible,
at this point, with every arm it may be in your power to provide&mdash;I
mean small-arms for infantry and cavalry." The Governor
replied, "It is out of the power of Alabama to afford you
any assistance in the way of arms." The Governor of Georgia
replied to the same request on September 18th, "It is utterly
impossible for me to comply with your request." General
Bragg, in command at Pensacola, writes in reply on September
27th: "The mission of Colonel Buckner will not be successful,
I fear, as our extreme Southern country has been stripped
of both arms and men. We started early in this matter, and
have wellnigh exhausted our resources." On September 19th
General Johnston telegraphed to me: "Thirty thousand stand
of arms are a necessity to my command. I beg you to order
them, or as many as can be got, to be instantly procured and
sent with dispatch." The Secretary of War replied: "The
whole number received by us, by that steamer, was eighteen
hundred, and we purchased of the owners seventeen hundred
and eighty, making in all thirty-five hundred Enfield rifles, of
which we have been compelled to allow the Governor of Georgia
to have one thousand for arming troops to repel an attack now
hourly threatened at Brunswick. Of the remaining twenty-five
hundred, I have ordered one thousand sent to you, leaving us
but fifteen hundred for arming several regiments now encamped
here, and who have been awaiting their arms for several months....
We have not an engineer to send you. The whole engineer
corps comprises only six captains together with three majors, of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page408" id="page408"></a>[pg 408]</span>
whom one is on bureau duty.  You will be compelled to employ
the best material within your reach, by detailing officers
from other corps, and by employing civil engineers."</p>

<p>These details are given to serve as an illustration of the deficiencies
existing in every department of the military service in
the first years of the war. In this respect much relief came
from the well-directed efforts of Governor Harris and the Legislature
of Tennessee.  A cap-factory, ordnance-shops, and workshops
were established.  The powder-mills at Nashville turned
out about four-hundred pounds a day.  Twelve or fourteen batteries
were fitted out at Memphis. Laws were passed to impress
and pay for the private arms scattered throughout the State,
and the utmost efforts were made to collect and adapt them to
military uses.  The returns make it evident that, during most of
the autumn of 1861, fully one half of General Johnston's troops
were imperfectly armed, and whole brigades remained without
weapons for months.</p>

<p>No less energetic were the measures taken to concentrate and
recruit his forces. General Hardee's command was moved from
northeastern Arkansas, and sent to Bowling Green, which added
four thousand men to the troops there. The regiment of Texan
rangers was brought from Louisiana, and supplied with horses
and sent to the front.  Five hundred Kentuckians joined General
Buckner on his advance, and five regiments were gradually
formed and filled up.  A cavalry company under John H. Morgan
was also added.  At this time (September, 1861), General
Johnston, under the authority granted to him by the Government,
made a requisition for thirty thousand men from Tennessee,
ten thousand from Mississippi, and ten thousand from Arkansas.
The Arkansas troops were directed to be sent to General
McCulloch for the defense of their own frontier.  The
Governor of Mississippi sent four regiments, when this source
of supply was closed.</p>

<p>Up to the middle of November only three regiments were
mustered in under this call from Tennessee, but, by the close of
December, the number of men who joined was from twelve to
fifteen thousand. Two regiments, fifteen hundred strong, had
joined General Polk.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page409" id="page409"></a>[pg 409]</span>

<p>In Arkansas, five companies and a battalion had been organized,
and were ready to join General McCulloch.</p>

<p>A speedy advance of the enemy was now indicated, and an
increase of force was so necessary that further delay was impossible.
General Johnston, therefore, determined upon a levy
<i>en masse</i> in his department. He made a requisition on the Governors
of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, to call out every
able-bodied member of the militia into whose hands arms could
be placed, or to provide a volunteer force large enough to use
all the arms that could be procured. In his letters to these
Governors, he plainly presents his view of the posture of affairs
on December 24th, points out impending dangers, and shows
that to his applications the response had not been such as the
emergency demanded. He says:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It was apprehended by me that the enemy would attempt to
assail the South, not only by boats and troops moving down the
river, to be assembled during the fall and winter, but by columns
marching inland, threatening Tennessee, by endeavoring to turn
the defenses of Columbus. Further observation confirms me in
this opinion; but I think the means employed for the defense of
the river will probably render it comparatively secure.  The enemy
will energetically push toward Nashville the heavy masses of
troops now assembled between Louisville and Bowling Green.
The general position of Bowling Green is good and commanding;
but the peculiar topography of the place and the length
of the line of the Barren River as a line of defense, though strong,
require a large force to defend it.  There is no position equally
defensive as Bowling Green, nor line of defense as good as the
Barren River, between the Barren and the Cumberland at Nashville;
so that it can not be abandoned without exposing Tennessee,
and giving vastly the vantage-ground to the enemy.  It
is manifest that the Northern generals appreciate this; and, by
withdrawing their forces from western Virginia and east Kentucky,
they have managed to add them to the new levies from
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and to concentrate a force in front
of me variously estimated at from sixty to one hundred thousand
men, and which I believe will number seventy-five thousand.
To maintain my position, I have only about seventeen thousand
men in this neighborhood.  It is impossible for me to obtain
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page410" id="page410"></a>[pg 410]</span>
additions to my strength from Columbus; the generals in
command in that quarter consider that it would imperil that point
to diminish their force, and open Tennessee to the enemy. General
Zollicoffer can not join me, as he guards the Cumberland, and
prevents the invasion and possible revolt of East Tennessee."
</p></blockquote>

<p>On June 5th General Johnston was re&euml;nforced by the brigades
of Floyd and Maney from western Virginia. He also sent
a messenger to Richmond to ask that a few regiments might be
detached from the several armies in the field, and sent to him to
be replaced by new levies.  He said: "I do not ask that my
force shall be made equal to that of the enemy; but, if possible,
it should be raised to fifty thousand men."  Meantime such an
appearance of menace had been maintained as led the enemy to
believe that our force was large, and that he might be attacked
at any time. Frequent and rapid expeditions through the
sparsely settled country gave rise to rumors which kept alive
this apprehension.</p>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-ix" id="chap-iv-ix"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Coercion of Missouri.&mdash;Answers of the Governors of States to President Lincoln's
Requisition for Troops.&mdash;Restoration of Forts Caswell and Johnson to
the United States Government.&mdash;Condition of Missouri similar to that of
Kentucky.&mdash;Hostilities,
how initiated in Missouri.&mdash;Agreement between Generals
Price and Harney.&mdash;Its Favorable Effects.&mdash;General Harney relieved of Command
by the United States Government because of his Pacific Policy.&mdash;Removal
of Public Arms from Missouri.&mdash;Searches for and Seizure of Arms.&mdash;Missouri
on the Side of Peace.&mdash;Address of General Price to the People.&mdash;Proclamation
of Governor Jackson.&mdash;Humiliating Concessions of the Governor to the United
States Government, for the sake of Peace.&mdash;Demands of the Federal Officers.&mdash;Revolutionary
Principles attempted to be enforced by the United States Government.&mdash;The
Action at Booneville.&mdash;The Patriot Army of Militia.&mdash;Further
Rout of the Enemy.&mdash;Heroism and Self-sacrifice of the People.&mdash;Complaints and
Embarrassments&mdash;Zeal: its effects.&mdash;Action of Congress.&mdash;Battle of Springfield.&mdash;General
Price.&mdash;Battle at Lexington.&mdash;Bales of Hemp.&mdash;Other Combats.
</p></blockquote>


<p>To preserve the Union in the spirit and for the purposes for
which it was established, an equilibrium between the States, as
grouped in sections, was essential. When the Territory of Missouri
constitutionally applied for admission as a State into the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page411" id="page411"></a>[pg 411]</span>
Union, the struggle between State rights and that sectional
aggrandizement which was seeking to destroy the existing
equilibrium gave rise to the contest which shook the Union to
its foundation, and sowed the seeds of geographical divisions,
which have borne the most noxious weeds that have choked
our political vineyard. Again, in 1861, Missouri appealed to
the Constitution for the vindication of her rights, and again
did usurpation and the blind rage of a sectional party disregard
the appeal, and assume powers, not only undelegated, but in
direct violation of the fourth section of the fourth article of
the Constitution, which every Federal officer had sworn to
maintain, and which secured to every State a republican government,
and protection against invasion.</p>

<p>If it be contended that the invasion referred to must have
been by other than the troops of the United States, and that
their troops were therefore not prohibited from entering a State
against its wishes, and for purposes hostile to its policy, the
section of the Constitution referred to fortifies the fact, heretofore
noticed, of the refusal of the Convention, when forming the
Constitution, to delegate to the Federal Government power to
coerce a State. By its last clause it was provided that not even
to suppress domestic violence could the General Government,
on its own motion, send troops of the United States into the
territory of one of the States. That section reads thus:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of
them against invasion, and on application of the Legislature, or of
the executive (when the Legislature can not be convened), against
domestic violence."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Surely, if Federal troops could not be sent into a State without
its application, even to protect it against domestic violence,
still less could it be done to overrule the will of its people.
That, instead of an obligation upon the citizens of other States
to respond to a call by the President for troops to invade a particular
State, it was in April, 1861, deemed a high crime to so use
them: reference is here made to the published answers of the
Governors of States, which had not seceded, to the requisition
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page412" id="page412"></a>[pg 412]</span>
made upon them for troops to be employed against the States
which had seceded.</p>

<p>Governor Letcher, of Virginia, replied to the requisition of
the United States Secretary of War as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia
the quota designated in a table which you append, to serve
as infantry or riflemen, for the period of three months, unless
sooner discharged.</p>

<p>"In reply to this communication, I have only to say that the
militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington
for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your
object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made
upon me for such an object&mdash;an object, in my judgment, not within
the purview of the Constitution, or the Act of 1795&mdash;will not be
complied with."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, replied:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Your dispatch is received. In answer, I say emphatically,
Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing
her sister Southern States."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Governor Harris, of Tennessee, replied:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but
fifty thousand, if necessary, for the defense of our rights, or those
of our Southern brothers."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Governor Jackson, of Missouri, answered:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman,
diabolical, and can not be complied with."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Governor Rector, of Arkansas, replied:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"In answer to your requisition for troops from Arkansas, to
subjugate the Southern States, I have to say that none will be
furnished. The demand is only adding insult to injury."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, responded to the requisition
for troops from that State as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Your dispatch is received, and, if genuine&mdash;which its extraordinary
character leads me to doubt&mdash;I have to say, in reply, that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page413" id="page413"></a>[pg 413]</span>
I regard the levy of troops made by the Administration, for the
purpose of subjugating the States of the South, as in violation of
the Constitution, and a usurpation of power. I can be no party
to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this
war upon the liberties of a free people.  You can get no troops
from North Carolina."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Governor Ellis, who had lived long enough to leave behind
him an enviable reputation, was a fair representative of the conservatism,
gallantry, and tenacity in well-doing, of the State over
which he presided.  He died too soon for his country's good,
and the Confederacy seriously felt the loss of his valuable services.
The prompt and spirited answer he gave to the call upon
North Carolina to furnish troops for the subjugation of the
Southern States, was the fitting complement of his earlier action
in immediately restoring to the Federal Government Forts
Johnson and Caswell, which had been seized without proper
authority.  In communicating his action to President Buchanan,
he wrote:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"My information satisfies me that this popular outbreak was
caused by a report, very generally credited, but which, for the
sake of humanity, I hope is not true, that it was the purpose of
the Administration to coerce the Southern States, and that troops
were on their way to garrison the Southern ports, and to begin the
work of subjugation.... Should I receive assurance that no
troops will be sent to this State prior to the 4th of March next,
then all will be peace and quiet here, and the property of the
United States will be fully protected, as heretofore. If, however,
I am unable to get such assurances, I will not undertake to answer
for the consequences.</p>

<p>"The forts in this State have long been unoccupied, and their
being garrisoned at this time will unquestionably be looked upon
as a hostile demonstration, and will in my opinion certainly be
resisted."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The plea so constantly made by the succeeding Administration,
as an excuse for its warlike acts, that the duty to protect
the public property required such action, is shown by this letter
of Governor Ellis to have been a plea created by their usurpations,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page414" id="page414"></a>[pg 414]</span>
but for which there might have been peace, as well as
safety to property, and, what was of greater worth, the lives, the
liberties, and the republican institutions of the country.</p>

<p>There was great similarity in the condition of Missouri to
that of Kentucky. They were both border States, and, by their
institutions and the origin of a large portion of their citizens,
were identified with the South. Both sought to occupy a neutral
position in the impending war, and offered guarantees of
peace and order throughout their territory if left free to control
their own affairs.  Both refused to furnish troops to the United
States Government for the unconstitutional purpose of coercing
the Southern States.  Both, because of their stronger affinity to
the South than to the North, were the objects of suspicion, and
consequent military occupation by the troops of the United
States Government.  At the inception of this unwarrantable
proceeding, an effort was made by the Governor of Missouri to
preserve the rights of the State without disturbing its relations
to the United States Government.  If it had been the policy of
the Government to allow to Missouri the control of her domestic
affairs, and an exemption from being a party to the violation
of the Constitution in making war against certain of the States,
the above-described effort of the Governor might and probably
would have been successful. The form and purpose of that
effort appear in the compact entered into between Major-General
Price, commanding the militia or "Missouri State Guard,"
and General Harney, of the United States Army, commanding
the Department of the West, a geographical division which included
the State of Missouri.</p>

<p>During a temporary absence of General Harney, Captain
Lyon, commanding United States forces at St. Louis, initiated
hostilities against the State of Missouri under the following circumstances:</p>

<p>In obedience to the militia law of the State, an annual encampment
was directed by the Governor for instruction in
tactics.  Camp Jackson, near St. Louis, was designated for the
encampment of the militia of the county in 1861.  Here for
some days companies of State militia, amounting to about eight
hundred men, under command of Brigadier-General D. M.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page415" id="page415"></a>[pg 415]</span>
Frost, were being exercised, as is usual upon such occasions.
They presented no appearance of a hostile camp. There were
no sentinels to guard against surprise; visitors were freely admitted;
it was the picnic-ground for the ladies of the city, and
everything wore the aspect of merry-making rather than that
of grim-visaged war.</p>

<p>Suddenly, Captain (afterward General) Nathaniel Lyon appeared
with an overwhelming force of Federal troops, surrounded
this holiday encampment, and demanded an unconditional
surrender. Resistance was impracticable, and none was attempted;
the militia surrendered, and were confined as prisoners;
but prisoners of what? There was no war, and no
warrant for their arrest as offenders against the law. It is left
for the usurpers to frame a vocabulary suited to their act.</p>

<p>After the return of General Harney, Brigadier-General D. M.
Frost, of the Missouri militia, appealed to him from his
prison, the St. Louis Arsenal, on May 11, 1861, representing
that, "in accordance with the laws of the State of Missouri,
which have been existing for some years, and in obedience to
the orders of the Governor, on Monday last I entered into an
encampment with the militia force of St. Louis County for the
purpose of instructing the same in accordance with the laws of
the United States and of this State." He further sets forth that
every officer and soldier of his command had taken an oath to
sustain the Constitution and laws of the United States and of
the State of Missouri, and that while in the peaceable performance
of their duties the encampment was surrounded by the
command of Captain N. Lyon, United States Army, and a surrender
demanded, to which General Frost replied as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Camp Jackson</span>, <i>May 10, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I, never for a moment having conceived the idea that so
illegal and unconstitutional a demand as I have just received from
you would be made by an officer of the United States Army, am
wholly unprepared to defend my command from this unwarranted
attack, and shall therefore be forced to comply with your demand.</p>

<p>"I am sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">D. Frost</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Brigadier-General, commanding Camp Jackson, M. M.</i></p>

<p>"Captain <span class="sc">N. Lyon</span>, <i>commanding United States troops</i>."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page416" id="page416"></a>[pg 416]</span>

<p>General Frost's letter to General Harney continues: "My
command was, in accordance with the above, deprived of their
arms, and surrendered into the hands of Captain Lyon; after
which, while thus disarmed and surrounded, a fire was opened
on a portion of it by his troops, and a number of my men put to
death, together with several innocent lookers-on, men, women,
and children." On the occasion of the attack upon Camp Jackson,
"a large crowd of citizens, men, women, and children, were
gathered around, gazing curiously at these strange proceedings,
when a volley was fired into them, killing ten and wounding
twenty non-combatants, mostly women and children. A reign
of terror was at once established, and the most severe measures
were adopted by the Federals to overawe the excitement and
the rage of the people."<a id="footnotetag182" name="footnotetag182"></a><a href="#footnote182"><sup>182</sup></a></p>

<p>The massacre at Camp Jackson produced intense excitement
throughout the State. The Legislature, upon receipt of the
news, passed several bills for the enrollment and organization
of the militia, and to confer special powers upon the Governor
of the State.  By virtue of these, general officers were appointed,
chief of whom was Sterling Price.</p>

<p>Because of the atrocities at St. Louis, and the violent demonstrations
consequent upon them, not only in St. Louis but elsewhere
in the State, General Price, well known to be what was
termed "a Union man," and not only by his commission as commander-in-chief
of the militia of the State, but also, and even
more, because of his influence among the people, was earnestly
solicited by influential citizens of St. Louis to unite with General
Harney in a joint effort to restore order and preserve peace.
With the sanction of Governor Jackson he proceeded to St.
Louis, the headquarters of the Department of the West, and,
after some preliminary conference, entered into the following
agreement, which, being promulgated to the people, was received
with general satisfaction, and for a time allayed excitement.
The agreement was as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">St. Louis</span>, <i>May 21, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"The undersigned, officers of the United States Government
and of the government of the State of Missouri, for the purpose
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page417" id="page417"></a>[pg 417]</span>
of removing misapprehension and of allaying public excitement,
deem it proper to declare publicly that they have this day had a
personal interview in this city, in which it has been mutually understood,
without the semblance of dissent on either part, that
each of them has no other than a common object, equally interesting
and important to every citizen of Missouri&mdash;that of restoring
peace and good order to the people of the State in subordination
to the laws of the General and State governments.</p>

<p>"It being thus understood, there seems no reason why every
citizen should not confide in the proper officers of the General and
State governments to restore quiet, and, as among the best means
of offering no counter-influences, we mutually commend to all persons
to respect each other's rights throughout the State, making
no attempt to exercise unauthorized powers, as it is the determination
of the proper authorities to suppress all unlawful proceedings
which can only disturb the public peace. General Price, having
by commission full authority over the militia of the State of Missouri,
undertakes with the sanction of the Governor of the State,
already declared, to direct the whole power of the State officers
to maintaining order within the State among the people thereof.
General Harney publicly declares that, this object being assured,
he can have no occasion, as he has no wish, to make military movements
that might otherwise create excitement and jealousy, which
he most earnestly desires to avoid.</p>

<p>"We, the undersigned, do therefore mutually enjoin upon the
people of the State to attend to their civil business, of whatever
sort it may be, and it is hoped that the unquiet elements which
have threatened so seriously to disturb the public peace may soon
subside, and be remembered only to be deplored.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">W. S. Harney</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Brigadier-General commanding.</i></p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sterling Price</span>,</p>

<p>"<i>Major-General Missouri State Guard.</i>"
</p></blockquote>

<p>The distinct position of General Harney, that the military
force of the United States should not be used in Missouri except
in case of necessity, together with the emphatic declaration of
General Price that he had the power and would use it to preserve
peace and order in Missouri, seemed to remove all danger
of collision in that State between the Federal and local forces.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page418" id="page418"></a>[pg 418]</span>
In conformity with this understanding, General Price returned
to the capital of the State, and sent to their homes the militia
who had been assembled there by the Governor for the defense
of the capital against an anticipated attack by the troops of the
United States.</p>

<p>Those who desired to preserve peace in Missouri had just
cause to be gratified at the favorable prospect now presented.
Those who desired war had equal ground for dissatisfaction. A
few days after the promulgation of the agreement between General
Price and General Harney, the latter was removed from
command, as many believed, because of his successful efforts to
allay excitement and avoid war. Rumors had been in circulation
that the Missourians were driving the "Union men" from
their homes, and many letters purporting to be written in different
parts of the State represented the persecution of Union
men. It was suspected that many of them were written in St.
Louis, or inspired by the cabal. An incident related in confirmation
of the justice of this suspicion is, that General Harney
received a letter from St. Joseph, stating that ex-Governor Stewart
and a number of the most respectable men in St. Joseph
had been driven from their homes, and that, unless soldiers were
soon sent, the Union men would all have to leave. He called
upon the Hon. F. P. Blair, an influential citizen of St. Louis,
and asked him if he knew the writer of the letter.  The reply
was: "Oh, yes, he is perfectly reliable; you can believe anything
he says."<a id="footnotetag183" name="footnotetag183"></a><a href="#footnote183"><sup>183</sup></a>  General Harney said he would write immediately
to General Price. Dissatisfaction was then manifested
at such delay; but, two or three days later, a letter from ex-Governor
Stewart was published in the "St. Joseph News," in
which was a marked paragraph of the copy sent to General
Harney: "Neither I nor any other Union man has been driven
out of St. Joe."<a id="footnotetag184" name="footnotetag184"></a><a href="#footnote184"><sup>184</sup></a> An attempt has been made to evade the conclusion
that General Harney was relieved from command because
of his pacific policy. The argument is, that the order was
dated the 16th of May, and his agreement with General Price
was on the 21st of the same month, an argument more specious
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page419" id="page419"></a>[pg 419]</span>
than fair, as it appears from the letter of President Lincoln of
May 18, 1861, to Hon. F. P. Blair, that the order sent from the
War Department to him was to be delivered or withheld at his
discretion, and that it was not delivered until the 30th of the
month, and until after General Harney had not only entered
into his agreement with General Price, but had declined to act
upon sensational stories of persecution, on which applications
were made to send troops into the interior of Missouri. During
the days this order was held for his removal, with discretionary
power to deliver or withhold it, the above-recited events occurred,
and they may fairly be considered as having decided the question
of his removal from that command.</p>

<p>The principal United States arsenal at the West was that
near to St. Louis. To it had been transferred a large number
of the altered muskets sent from Springfield, Massachusetts, so
that in 1861 the arms in that arsenal were, perhaps, numerically
second only to those at Springfield. These arms, by a conjunction
of deceptive and bold measures, were removed from the
arsenal in Missouri and transported to Illinois.  To whom did
those arms belong? Certainly to those whose money had made or
purchased them.  That is, to the States in common, not to their
agent the General Government, or to a portion of the States
which might be in a condition to appropriate them to their
special use, and in disregard of the rights of their partners.</p>

<p>Not satisfied with removing the public arms from the limits
of Missouri, the next step was that, in total disrespect of the
constitutional right of the citizens to bear arms for their own
defense, and to be free from searches and seizures except by
warrants duly issued, the officers of the General Government
proceeded to search the houses of citizens in St. Louis, and to
seize arms wherever they were found.</p>

<p>Missouri had refused to engage in war against her sister
States of the South; therefore she was first to be disarmed, and
then to be made the victim of an invasion characterized by
such barbarous atrocities as shame the civilization of the age.
The wrongs she suffered, the brave efforts of her unarmed people
to defend their hearthstones and their liberties against the
desecration and destruction of both, form a melancholy chapter
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page420" id="page420"></a>[pg 420]</span>
in the history of the United States, which all who would cherish
their fair fame must wish could be obliterated.</p>

<p>These acts of usurpation and outrage, as well upon the political
as personal rights of the people of Missouri, aroused an
intense feeling in that State. It will be remembered that Governor
Jackson had responded to the call of Mr. Lincoln upon
him for troops with the just indignation of one who understood
the rights of the State, and the limited powers of the General
Government.  His stern refusal to become a party to the war
upon the South made him the object of special persecution.
By his side in this critical juncture stood the gallant veteran,
General Price.  To the latter was confided the conduct of the
military affairs of the State, and, after exhausting every effort
to maintain order by peaceful means, and seeing that the Government
would recognize no other method than that of force,
he energetically applied himself to raise troops, and procure
arms so as to enable the State to meet force by force.  During
this and all the subsequent period, the Governor and the General
were ably seconded by the accomplished, gallant, and indefatigable
Lieutenant-Governor, Reynolds.</p>

<p>The position of Missouri in 1860-'61 was unquestionably
that of opposition to the secession of the State. The people
generously confided in the disposition of the General Government
to observe their rights, and continued to hope for a
peaceful settlement of the questions then agitating the country.
This was evinced by the fact that not a single secessionist was
elected to the State Convention, and that General Price, an
avowed "Union man," was chosen as President of the Convention.
Hence the general satisfaction with the agreement made
between Generals Harney and Price for the preservation of
peace and non-intervention by the army of the United States.
General Harney, the day before the order for his removal was
communicated to him, wrote to the War Department, expressing
his confidence in the preservation of peace in Missouri, and
used this significant expression: "Interference by unauthorized
parties as to the course I shall pursue can alone prevent the
realization of these hopes."<a id="footnotetag185" name="footnotetag185"></a><a href="#footnote185"><sup>185</sup></a>  The "unauthorized parties"
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page421" id="page421"></a>[pg 421]</span>
here referred to could not have been the people or the government
of Missouri. Others than they must have been the parties
wishing to use force, provocative of hostilities.</p>

<p>As has been heretofore stated, after his agreement with
General Harney at St. Louis, General Price returned to the
capital and dismissed to their homes the large body of militia
that had been there assembled.</p>

<p>After the removal of General Harney, believed to be in consequence
of his determination to avoid the use of military force
against the people of Missouri, reports were rife of a purpose
on the part of the Administration at Washington to disarm the
citizens of Missouri who did not sympathize with the views of
the Federal Government, and to put arms into the hands of
those who could be relied on to enforce them. On the 4th of
June General Price issued an address to the people of Missouri,
and in reference to that report said: "The purpose of
such a movement could not be misunderstood; and it would not
only be a palpable violation of the agreement referred to, and
an equally plain violation of our constitutional rights, but a
gross indignity to the citizens of this State, which would be resisted
to the last extremity."</p>

<p>The call of President Lincoln for seventy-five thousand volunteers
removed any pre&euml;xisting doubt as to the intent to
coerce the States which should claim to assert their right of
sovereignty.  Missouri, while avowing her purpose to adhere
to the Union, had asserted her right to exercise supreme control
over her domestic affairs, and this put her in the category of a
State threatened by the proceedings of the United States Government.
To provide for such contingency as might be anticipated,
Governor Jackson, on the 13th of June, issued a call for
fifty thousand volunteers, and Major-General Price took the
field in command. In this proclamation Governor Jackson
said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"A series of unprovoked and unparalleled outrages has been
inflicted on the peace and dignity of this Commonwealth, and
upon the rights and liberties of its people, by wicked and unprincipled
men professing to act under the authority of the
Government of the United States."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page422" id="page422"></a>[pg 422]</span>

<p>In his endeavor to maintain the peace of the State, and to
avert, if possible, from its borders a civil war, he caused the
aforementioned agreement to be made with the commander of
the Northern forces in the State, by which its peace might be
preserved. That officer was promptly removed by his Government.
The Governor then, upon the increase of hostile actions,
proposed, at an interview with the new officer commanding the
forces of the United States Government, to disband the State
Guard, and break up its organization; to disarm all companies
that had been armed by the State; to pledge himself not to organize
the militia under the military bill; that no arms or
munitions of war should be brought into the State; that he
would protect the citizens equally in all their rights, regardless
of their political opinions; that he would repress all insurrectionary
movements within the State; would repel all attempts
to invade it, from whatever quarter, and by whomsoever made;
and would maintain a strict neutrality and preserve the peace
of the State.  And, further, if necessary, he would invoke the
assistance of the United States troops to carry out the pledges.
The only conditions to this proposition made by the Governor
were that the United States Government should undertake to
disarm the "Home Guard" which it had illegally organized and
armed throughout the State, and pledge itself not to occupy
with its troops any localities in the State not occupied by them
at that time.</p>

<p>The words of a Governor of a State who offered such truly
generous terms deserve to be inserted: "Nothing but the most
earnest desire to avert the horrors of civil war from our beloved
State could have tempted me to propose these humiliating
terms. They were rejected by the Federal officers."</p>

<p>These demanded not only the disorganization and disarming
of the State militia and the nullification of the military bill, but
they refused to disarm their own "Home Guard," and insisted
that the Government of the United States should enjoy an unrestricted
right to move and station its troops throughout the
State whenever and wherever it might, in the opinion of its
officers, be necessary either for the protection of its "loyal subjects"
or for the repelling of invasion; and they plainly announced
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page423" id="page423"></a>[pg 423]</span>
that it was the intention of the Administration to take
military occupation of the whole State, and to reduce it, as
avowed by General Lyon, to the "exact condition of Maryland."</p>

<p>We have already stated that the revolutionary measures
which the United States Government had undertaken to enforce
involved the subjection of every State, either by voluntary submission
or subjugation. However much a State might desire
peace and neutrality, its own will could not elect. The scheme
demanded the absolute sovereignty of the Government of the
United States, or, in other words, the extinguishment of the
independence and sovereignty of the State. Human actions
are not only the fruit of the ruling motive, but they are also
the evidence of the existence of that motive. Thus, when
we see the Governor of the State of Missouri offering such generous
terms to the government of the United States in order to
preserve peace and neutrality, and the latter, rejecting them,
avow its intention to do its will with the authorities, the property,
and the citizens of the State, and proceed with military
force to do it, its actions are both the evidence and the fruit of
its theory. These measures were revolutionary in the extreme.
They involved the entire subversion of those principles on
which the American Union was founded, and of the compact
or Constitution of that Union. The Government of the United
States, in the hands of those who wielded its authority, was
made the bloody instrument to establish these usurpations on
the ruins of the crushed hopes of mankind for permanent freedom
under constitutional government. For the justness and
truthfulness of these allegations I appeal to the impartial and
sober judgment of posterity.</p>

<p>The volunteers who were assembled under this proclamation
of Governor Jackson, of June 13th, had few arms except their
squirrel-rifles and shot-guns, and could scarcely be said to have
any military equipments. The brigadier-generals who were
appointed were assigned to geographical divisions, and, with
such men as they could collect, reported in obedience to their
orders at Booneville and Lexington. On the 20th of June,
1861, General Lyon and Colonel F. P. Blair, with an estimated
force of seven thousand well-armed troops, having eight pieces
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page424" id="page424"></a>[pg 424]</span>
of artillery, ascended the Missouri River, and debarked about
five miles below Booneville. To oppose them, the Missourians
had there about eight hundred men, poorly armed, without a
piece of artillery, and but little ammunition. With courage
which must be commended at the expense of their discretion,
they resolved to engage the enemy, and, after a combat of an
hour and a half or more, retired, having inflicted heavy loss
upon the enemy, and suffering but little themselves.  This first
skirmish between the Federal troops and the Missouri militia
inspired confidence in their fellow-citizens, and checked the
contemptuous terms in which the militia had been spoken of
by the enemy. Governor Jackson, with some two hundred
and fifty to three hundred of the militia engaged in the action
at Booneville, started toward the southwestern portion of the
State. He marched in the direction of a place called Cole
Camp, and, when within twelve or fifteen miles of it, learned
that a force of seven hundred to one thousand of the enemy
had been sent to that point by General Lyon and Colonel Blair,
with the view of intercepting his retreat. The design, however,
was frustrated by an expedition consisting of about three hundred
and fifty men, commanded by Colonel O'Kane, who had
assembled them in a very few hours in the neighborhood south
of the enemy's camp. There were no pickets out except in the
neighborhood of Jackson's forces, and Colonel O'Kane surprised
the enemy where they were asleep in two large barns. The attack
was made at daybreak, the enemy routed after suffering
the heavy loss of two hundred and six killed and more wounded,
and more than a hundred prisoners. Three hundred and sixty-two
muskets with bayonets were captured. The Missourians
lost four killed and fifteen or twenty wounded.</p>

<p>General Price, with a view to draw his army from the baseline
of the enemy, the Missouri River, ordered his troops to the
southwestern portion of the State. The column from Lexington
marched without transportation, without tents or blankets,
and relied for subsistence on the country through which it
passed, being in the mean time closely pursued by the enemy.
The movement was successfully made, and a junction effected
in Cedar County with the forces present with Governor Jackson.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page425" id="page425"></a>[pg 425]</span>
The total when assembled was about thirty-six hundred
men.</p>

<blockquote><p>
"This, then, was the patriot army of Missouri. It was a
heterogeneous mass representing every condition of Western life.
There were the old and young, the rich and poor, the grave and
gay, the planter and laborer, the farmer and clerk, the hunter
and boatman, the merchant and woodsman. At least five hundred
of these men were entirely unarmed.  Many had only the
common rifle and shot-gun.  None were provided with cartridges
or canteens.  They had eight pieces of cannon, but no shells, and
very few solid shot, or rounds of grape and canister.</p>

<p>"Rude and almost incredible devices were made to supply
these wants: trace-chains, iron rods, hard pebbles, and smooth
stones were substituted for shot; and evidence of the effect of
such rough missiles was to be given in the next encounter with the
enemy."<a id="footnotetag186" name="footnotetag186"></a><a href="#footnote186"><sup>186</sup></a>
</p></blockquote>

<p>Governor Jackson continued his march toward southwestern
Missouri. He had received reliable intelligence that he was
pursued by General Lyon from the northeast, and by Lane and
Sturgis from the northwest, their supposed object being to
form a junction in his rear, and he subsequently learned that a
column numbering three thousand had been sent out from St.
Louis to intercept his retreat, and had arrived at the town of Carthage,
immediately in his front. These undisciplined, poorly
armed Missourians were, therefore, in a position which would
have appalled less heroic men&mdash;a large hostile force in their
rear, and another, nearly equal in numbers to their own, disputing
their passage in front. They, however, cheerfully moved
forward, attacked the enemy in position, and, after a severe engagement,
routed him, pursued him to a second position, from
which he was again driven, falling back to Carthage, where he
made his last stand, and, upon being driven from which, as was
subsequently ascertained, continued his retreat all night. The
killed and wounded of the enemy, left along the route of his
retreat over a space of ten miles, were estimated at from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred killed, and from three to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page426" id="page426"></a>[pg 426]</span>
four hundred wounded.  Several hundred muskets were captured,
and the Missourians were better prepared for future
conflicts. Our loss was between forty and fifty killed, and
from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty
wounded.<a id="footnotetag187" name="footnotetag187"></a><a href="#footnote187"><sup>187</sup></a></p>

<p>If any shall ask why I have entered into such details of engagements
where the forces were comparatively so small, and
the results so little affected the final issue of the war, the reply
is, that such heroism and self-sacrifice as these undisciplined,
partially armed, unequipped men displayed against superior
numbers, possessed of all the appliances of war, claim special
notice as bearing evidence not only of the virtue of the men,
but the sanctity of the cause which could so inspire them. Unsupported,
save by the consciousness of a just cause, without
other sympathy than that which the Confederate States fully
gave, despising the plea of helplessness, and defying the threats
of a powerful Government to crush her, Missouri, without arms
or other military preparation, took up the gauntlet thrown at
her feet, and dared to make war in defense of the laws and
liberties of her people.</p>

<p>My motive for promptly removing the seat of government,
after authority was given by the Provisional Congress, has been
heretofore stated, but proximity to the main army of the enemy,
and the flanking attacks by which the new capital was threatened,
did not diminish the anxiety, which had been felt before
removal from Montgomery, in regard to affairs in Missouri, the
"far West" of the Confederacy.</p>

<p>The State, which forty years before had been admitted to
the Union, against sectional resistance to the right guaranteed
by the Constitution, and specifically denominated in the treaty
for the acquisition of Louisiana, now, because her Governor
refused to furnish troops for the unconstitutional purpose of
coercing States, became the subject of special hostility and the
object of extraordinary efforts for her subjugation.</p>

<p>The little which it would have been possible for the Confederacy
to do to promote her military efficiency was diminished
by the anomalous condition in which the State troops remained
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page427" id="page427"></a>[pg 427]</span>
until some time in the second year of the war. A strange misapprehension
led to unreasonable complaints, under the supposition
that Missouri was generally neglected, and her favorite officer,
General Price, was not accorded a commission corresponding to
his merit and the wishes of the people. It is due to that gallant
soldier and true patriot, that it should here be stated that he
was not a party to any such complaints, knew they were unfounded,
and realized that his wishes for the defense of Missouri
were fully reciprocated by the Executive of the Confederacy;
all of which was manifested in the correspondence between us,
before Missouri had tendered any troops to the Confederate
States. It was his statement of the difficulties and embarrassments
which surrounded him that caused me to write to the
Governor of Missouri on the 21st of December, 1861, stating to
him my anxiety to have the troops of Missouri tendered and
organized into brigades and divisions, so that they might be
rendered more effective, and we be better able to provide for
them by the appointment of general officers and otherwise.</p>

<p>For a full understanding of the nature and degree of the
complaints and embarrassments referred to, I here insert my
reply to letters sent to me by the Hon. John B. Clarke, M.C.,
of Missouri:</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>January 8, 1862</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Hon. John B. Clarke</span>, <i>Richmond</i>, <i>Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have received the two letters from Governor Jackson
sent by you this day. The Governor speaks of delay by the
authorities of Richmond, and neglect of the interests of Missouri,
and expresses the hope that he has said enough to be well understood
by me.</p>

<p>"When I remember that he wrote in reply to my call upon
him to hasten the tender of Missouri troops, so that they should
be put upon the footing of those of other States, and with a knowledge
that as militia of the State I had no power to organize or
appoint commanders for them, and that it was his duty to attend
to their wants, but that I had sent an agent of the Confederate
Government as far as practicable to furnish the necessary supplies
to the militia of Missouri actually in service, I can only say, I
hope he is not understood by me. It is but a short time since, in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page428" id="page428"></a>[pg 428]</span>
a conversation of hours, I fully explained to you the ease so far as
I am connected with it, and there is nothing for me to add to what
you then seemed to consider conclusive.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>As is usually the case when citizens are called from their
ordinary pursuits for the purposes of war, the people of Missouri
did not then realize the value of preparation in camp, and
were reluctant to enroll themselves for long periods. The State,
even less than the Confederate Government, could not supply
them with the arms, munitions, and equipage necessary for campaigns
and battles and sieges. Under all these disadvantages,
it is a matter of well-grounded surprise that they were able to
achieve so much.  The Missourians who fought at Vicksburg,
and who, after that long, trying, and disastrous siege, asked,
when in the camp of parolled prisoners, not if they could get a
furlough, not if they might go home when released, but how
soon they might hope to be exchanged and resume their places
in the line of battle, show of what metal the Missouri troops
were made, and of what they were capable when tempered in
the fiery furnace of war.</p>

<p>I can recall few scenes during the war which impressed me
more deeply than the spirit of those worn prisoners waiting for
the exchange that would again permit them to take the hazards
of battle for the cause of their country.</p>

<p>This memory leads me to recur with regret to my inability,
in the beginning of the war, to convince the Governor of Missouri
of the necessity for thorough organization and the enrollment
of men for long terms, instead of loose combinations of
militia for periods always short and sometimes uncertain.</p>

<p>General Price possessed an extraordinary power to secure
the personal attachment of his troops, and to inspire them with
a confidence which served in no small degree as a substitute for
more thorough training. His own enthusiasm and entire devotion
to the cause he served were infused throughout his followers,
and made them all their country's own.  To Lord Wellington
has been attributed the remark that he did not want
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page429" id="page429"></a>[pg 429]</span>
zeal in a soldier, and to Napoleon the apothegm that Providence
is on the side of the heavy battalions. Zeal was oftentimes
our main dependence, and on many a hard-fought field served
to drive our small battalions, like a wedge, through the serried
ranks of the enemy.</p>

<p>The Confederate States, yet in their infancy, and themselves
engaged in an unequal struggle for existence, by act of their
Congress declared that, if Missouri was engaged in repelling a
lawless invasion of her territory by armed forces, it was their
right and duty to aid the people and government of said State
in resisting such invasion, and in securing the means and the
opportunity of expressing their will upon all questions affecting
their rights and liberties. With small means, compared to
their wants, the Confederate Congress, on the 6th of August,
appropriated one million dollars "to aid the people of the
State of Missouri in the effort to maintain, within their own
limits, the constitutional liberty which it is the purpose of the
Confederate States in the existing war to vindicate," etc.</p>

<p>In the next battle after that of Carthage, which has been
noticed, Missourians were no longer to be alone. General
McCullough, commanding a brigade of Confederate troops,
marched from Arkansas to make a junction with General Price,
then threatened with an attack by a large force of the enemy
under General Lyon, which was concentrated near Springfield,
Missouri. The battle was fiercely contested, but finally won
by our troops. In this action General Lyon was killed while
gallantly endeavoring to rally his discomfited troops, and lead
them to the charge. While we can not forget the cruel wrongs
he had inflicted and sought still further to impose upon an unoffending
people, we must accord to him the redeeming virtue
of courage, and recognize his ability as a soldier. On this occasion
General Price exhibited in two instances the magnanimity,
self-denial, and humanity which ever characterized him.
General McCulloch claimed the right to command as an officer
of the Confederate States Army. General Price, though he
ranked him by a grade, replied that "he was not fighting for
distinction, but for the defense of the liberties of his countrymen,
and that it mattered but little what position he occupied.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page430" id="page430"></a>[pg 430]</span>
He said he was ready to surrender not only the command, but
his life, as a sacrifice to the cause."<a id="footnotetag188" name="footnotetag188"></a><a href="#footnote188"><sup>188</sup></a> He surrendered the command
and took a subordinate position, though "he felt assured
of victory."</p>

<p>The second instance was an act of humanity to his bitterest
enemy. General Lyon's "surgeon came in for his body, under
a flag of truce, after the close of the battle, and General Price
sent it in his own wagon.  But the enemy, in his flight, left
the body unshrouded in Springfield.  The next morning, August
11th, Lieutenant-Colonel Gustavus Elgin and Colonel R.
H. Musser, two members of Brigadier General Clarke's staff,
caused the body to be properly prepared for burial."<a id="footnotetag189" name="footnotetag189"></a><a href="#footnote189"><sup>189</sup></a></p>

<p>After the battle of Springfield, General McCulloch returned
with his brigade to his former position in Arkansas. John C.
Fremont had been appointed a general, and assigned to the
command made vacant by the death of General Lyon.  He
signalized his entrance upon the duty by a proclamation, confiscating
the estates and slave property of "rebels."</p>

<p>"On the 10th of September, when General Price was about
to go into camp, he learned that a detachment of Federal troops
was marching from Lexington to Warrensburg, to seize the
funds of the bank in that place, and to arrest and plunder the
citizens of Johnson County, in accordance with General Fremont's
proclamation and instructions."<a id="footnotetag190" name="footnotetag190"></a><a href="#footnote190"><sup>190</sup></a> General Price resumed
his march, and, pressing rapidly forward with his mounted
men, arrived about daybreak at Warrensburg, where he learned
that the enemy had hastily fled about midnight.  He then decided
to move with his whole force against Lexington.  He
found the enemy in strong intrenchments, and well supplied
with artillery.</p>

<p>The place was stubbornly defended. The siege proper
commenced on the 18th of September, 1861, and with varying
fortunes.  Fierce combats continued through that day and
the next.  On the morning of the 20th General Price ordered
a number of bales of hemp to be transported to the point
from which the advance of his troops had been repeatedly repulsed.
They were ranged in a line for a breastwork, and, when
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page431" id="page431"></a>[pg 431]</span>
rolled before the men as they advanced, formed a moving rampart
which was proof against shot, and only to be overcome by
a sortie in force, which the enemy did not dare to make. On
came the hempen breastworks, while Price's artillery continued
an effective fire. In the afternoon of the 20th the enemy hung
out a white flag, upon which General Price ordered a cessation
of firing, and sent to ascertain the object of the signal. The
Federal forces surrendered as prisoners of war, to the number
of thirty-five hundred; also, seven pieces of artillery, over
three thousand stand of muskets, a considerable number of sabres,
a valuable supply of ammunition, a number of horses,
a large amount of commissary's stores, and other property.
Here were also recovered the great seal of the State and the
public records, and about nine hundred thousand dollars of
which the Bank of Lexington had been robbed. General Price
caused the money to be at once returned to the bank.</p>

<p>After the first day of the siege of Lexington, General Price
learned that Lane and Montgomery, from Kansas, with about
four thousand men, and General Sturgis, with fifteen hundred
cavalry, were on the north side of the Missouri River, advancing
to re&euml;nforce the garrison at Lexington. At the same time,
and from the same direction, Colonel Saunders, with about
twenty-five hundred Missourians, was coming to the aid of
General Price. General D. R. Atchison, who had long been a
United States Senator from Missouri, and at the time of his
resignation was President <i>pro tem.</i> of the Senate, was sent by
General Price to meet the command of Colonel Saunders and
hasten them forward. He joined them on the north bank of
the river, and, after all but about five hundred had been ferried
over, General Atchison still remaining with these, they were
unexpectedly attacked by the force from Kansas. The ground
was densely wooded, and partially covered with water. The Missourians,
led and cheered by one they had so long and deservedly
honored, met the assault with such determination, and fighting
with the skill of woodsmen and hunters, that they put the
enemy to rout, pursuing him for a distance of ten miles, and inflicting
heavy loss upon him, while that of the Missourians was
but five killed and twenty wounded.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page432" id="page432"></a>[pg 432]</span>

<p>The expedient of the bales of hemp was a brilliant conception,
not unlike that which made Tarik, the Saracen warrior,
immortal, and gave his name to the northern pillar of Hercules.</p>

<p>The victories in Missouri which have been noticed, and
which so far exceeded what might have been expected from the
small forces by which they were achieved, had caused an augmentation
of the enemy's troops to an estimated number of
seventy thousand. Against these the army of General Price
could not hope successfully to contend; he therefore retired
toward the southwestern part of the State.</p>

<p>The want of supplies and transportation compelled him to
disband a portion of his troops; with the rest he continued his retreat
to Neosho. By proclamation of Governor Jackson, the
Legislature had assembled at this place, and had passed the ordinance
of secession.  If other evidence were wanting, the fact
that, without governmental aid, without a military chest, without
munitions of war, the campaign which has been described
had so far been carried on by the voluntary service of the
citizens, and the free-will offerings of the people, must be conclusive
that the ordinance of secession was the expression of the
popular will of Missouri.</p>

<p>The forces of Missouri again formed a junction with the
Confederate troops under General McCulloch, and together they
moved to Pineville, in McDonald County.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote182" name="footnote182"></a><b>Footnote 182:</b><a href="#footnotetag182"> (return) </a><p>See "Confederate First and Second Missouri Brigades," Bevier, pp. 24-26.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote183" name="footnote183"></a><b>Footnote 183:</b><a href="#footnotetag183"> (return) </a><p>See "Life of General Wm. S. Harney," by L. U. Reavis, p. 373.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote184" name="footnote184"></a><b>Footnote 184:</b><a href="#footnotetag184"> (return) </a><p>See Ibid., p. 373.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote185" name="footnote185"></a><b>Footnote 185:</b><a href="#footnotetag185"> (return) </a><p>See "Life of General Wm. S. Harney," by L. U. Reavis, p. 72</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote186" name="footnote186"></a><b>Footnote 186:</b><a href="#footnotetag186"> (return) </a><p>Bevier, pp. 35, 36.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote187" name="footnote187"></a><b>Footnote 187:</b><a href="#footnotetag187"> (return) </a><p>Bevier, pp. 86-88.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote188" name="footnote188"></a><b>Footnote 188:</b><a href="#footnotetag188"> (return) </a><p>Bevier, p. 41.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote189" name="footnote189"></a><b>Footnote 189:</b><a href="#footnotetag189"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., pp. 49, 50.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote190" name="footnote190"></a><b>Footnote 190:</b><a href="#footnotetag190"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 54.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-x" id="chap-iv-x"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Brigadier-General Henry A. Wise takes command in Western Virginia.&mdash;His
Movements.&mdash;Advance
of General John B. Floyd.&mdash;Defeats the Enemy.&mdash;Attacked
by Rosecrans.&mdash;Controversy between Wise and Floyd.&mdash;General R. E. Lee takes
the Command in West Virginia.&mdash;Movement on Cheat Mountain.&mdash;Its Failure.&mdash;Further
Operations.&mdash;Winter Quarters.&mdash;Lee sent to South Carolina.
</p></blockquote>


<p>In June, 1861, Brigadier-General Henry A. Wise, who was
well and favorably known to the people of the Kanawha Valley,
in his enthusiasm for their defence and confidence in his ability
to rally them to resist the threatened invasion of that region,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page433" id="page433"></a>[pg 433]</span>
offered his services for that purpose.  With a small command,
which was to serve as a nucleus to the force he hoped to raise,
he was sent thither. His success was as great as could have
been reasonably expected, and, after the small but brilliant affair
on Scary Creek, he prepared to give battle to the enemy then
advancing up the Kanawha Valley under General Cox; but the
defeat of our forces at Laurel Hill, which has been already noticed,
uncovered his right flank and endangered his rear, which
was open to approach by several roads; he therefore fell back
to Lewisburg.</p>

<p>Brigadier-General John B. Floyd had in the mean time
raised a brigade in southwestern Virginia, and advanced to the
support of General Wise. Unfortunately, there was a want
of concert between these two officers, which prevented their
entire co&ouml;peration. General Floyd engaged the enemy in several
brilliant skirmishes, when he found that his right was
threatened by a force which was approaching on that flank,
with the apparent purpose of crossing the Gauley River at the
Carnifex Ferry so as to strike his line of communication with
Lewisburg. He crossed the river with his brigade and a part
of Wise's cavalry, leaving that general to check any advance
which Cox might make. General Floyd's movement was as
successful as it was daring; he met the enemy's forces, defeated
and dispersed them, but the want of co&ouml;peration between Generals
Wise and Floyd prevented a movement against General
Cox.</p>

<p>Floyd intrenched himself on the Gauley, in a position of
great natural strength, but the small force under his command
and the fact that he was separated from that of General
Wise probably induced General Rosecrans, commanding the
enemy's forces in the Cheat Mountain, to advance and assail the
position. Though his numbers were vastly superior, the attack
was a failure; after a heavy loss on the part of the enemy, he
fell back after nightfall. During the night Floyd crossed the
river and withdrew to the camp of General Wise, to form a
junction of the two forces, and together they fell back toward
Sewell's Mountain. The unfortunate controversy between these
officers, which had prevented co&ouml;peration in the past, grew
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page434" id="page434"></a>[pg 434]</span>
more bitter, and each complained of the other in terms that left
little hope of future harmony; and this want of co&ouml;peration led
to confusion, and threatened further reverses.</p>

<p>General Loring had succeeded General Garnett, and was in
command of the remnant of the force defeated at Laurel Hill.
His headquarters were at Valley Mountain. General R. E.
Lee, on duty at Richmond, aiding the President in the general
direction of military affairs, was now ordered to proceed to
western Virginia. It was hoped that, by his military skill and
deserved influence over men, he would be able to retrieve the
disaster we had suffered at Laurel Hill, and, by combining all
our forces in western Virginia on one plan of operations, give
protection to that portion of our country. Such re&euml;nforcement
as could be furnished had been sent to Valley Mountain, the
headquarters of General Loring. Thither General Lee promptly
proceeded. The duty to which he was assigned was certainly
not attractive by the glory to be gained or the ease to be enjoyed,
but Lee made no question as to personal preference, and,
whatever were his wishes, they were subordinate to what was
believed to be the public interest.</p>

<p>The season had been one of extraordinary rains, rendering
the mountain-roads, ordinarily difficult, almost impassable.
With unfaltering purpose and energy, he crossed the Alleghany
Mountains, and, learning that the main encampment of the enemy
was in the valley of Tygart River and Elk Run, Randolph
County, he directed his march toward that position. The troops
under the immediate command of Brigadier-General H. R. Jackson,
together with those under Brigadier-General Loring, were
about thirty-five hundred men. The force of the enemy, as far
as it could be ascertained, was very much greater. In the detached
work at Cheat Mountain Pass, we learned by a provision-return,
found upon the person of a captured staff-officer, that
there were three thousand men, being but a fraction less than
our whole force. After a careful reconnaissance, and a full conference
with General Loring, Lee decided to attack the main
encampment of the enemy by a movement of his troops converging
upon the valley from three directions. The colonel of
one of his regiments, who had reconnoitered the position of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page435" id="page435"></a>[pg 435]</span>
works at Cheat Mountain Pass, reported that it was feasible to
turn it and carry it by assault, and he was assigned to that duty.
General Lee ordered other portions of his force to take position
on the spurs overlooking the enemy's main encampment, while
he led three regiments to the height below and nearest to the
position of the enemy. The instructions were that the officer
sent to turn the position at Cheat Mountain Pass should approach
it at early dawn, and immediately open fire, which was
to be the signal for the concerted attack by the rest of the force.
It rained heavily during the day, and, after a toilsome night-march,
the force led by General Lee, wet, weary, hungry, and
cold, gained their position close to and overlooking the enemy's
encampment. In their march they had surprised and captured
the picket, without a gun being fired, so that no notice had been
given of their approach.</p>

<p>The officer who had been sent to attack the work at Cheat
Mountain Pass found on closer examination that he had been
mistaken as to the practicability of taking it by assault, and that
the heavy abatis which covered it was advanced beyond the
range of his rifles. Not having understood that his firing was
to be the signal for the general attack, and should therefore be
opened, whether it would be effective or not, he withdrew without
firing a musket.</p>

<p>The height occupied by General Lee was shrouded in fog,
and, as morning had dawned without the expected signal, he concluded
that some mishap had befallen the force which was to
make it. By a tortuous path he went down the side of the
mountain low enough to have a distinct view of the camp. He
saw the men, unconscious of the near presence of an enemy,
engaged in cleaning their arms, cooking, and other morning
occupations; then returning to his command, he explained to
his senior officers what he had seen, and expressed his belief
that, though the plan of attack had failed, the troops there with
him could surprise and capture the camp. The officers withdrew,
conferred with their men, and reported to the General
that the troops were not in condition for the enterprise. As
the fog was then lifting, and they would soon be revealed to the
enemy below, whose numbers were vastly superior to his own,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page436" id="page436"></a>[pg 436]</span>
he withdrew his command by the route they had come, and without
observation returned to his camp. Beyond some skirmishes
with outposts and reconnoitering parties, our troops had not been
engaged, and in these affairs our reported loss was comparatively
small.</p>

<p>Colonel John A. Washington, aide-de-camp of General Lee,
was killed, while making a reconnaissance, by a party in ambuscade.
The loss of this valuable and accomplished officer was
much regretted by his general and all others who knew him.</p>

<p>The report that Rosecrans and Cox had united their commands
and were advancing upon Wise and Floyd caused General
Lee to move at once to their support.  He found General
Floyd at Meadow Bluff and General Wise at Sewell
Mountain. The latter position being very favorable for defense,
the troops were concentrated there to await the threatened
attack by Rosecrans, who advanced and took position in sight
of General Lee's intrenched camp, and, having remained there
for more than a week, withdrew in the night without attempting
the expected attack.</p>

<p>The weak condition of his artillery-horses and the bad state
of the roads, made worse by the retiring army, prevented General
Lee from attempting to pursue; and the approach of winter,
always rigorous in that mountain-region, closed the campaign
with a small but brilliant action in which General H. R. Jackson
repelled an attack of a greatly superior force, inflicting severe
loss on the assailants, and losing but six of his own command.</p>

<p>With the close of active operations, General Lee returned
to Richmond, and, though subjected to depreciatory criticism
by the carpet-knights who make campaigns on assumed hypotheses,
he with characteristic self-abnegation made no defense
of himself, not even presenting an official report of his night-march
in the Cheat Mountain, but orally he stated to me the
facts which have formed the basis of this sketch. My estimate
of General Lee, my confidence in his ability, zeal, and fidelity,
rested on a foundation not to be shaken by such criticism as I
have noticed.  I had no more doubt then, than after his fame
had been securely established, that, whenever he had the opportunity
to prove his worth, he would secure public appreciation.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page437" id="page437"></a>[pg 437]</span>
Therefore, as affairs on the coast of South Carolina and
Georgia were in an unsatisfactory condition, he was directed to
go there and take such measures for the defense, particularly
of Savannah and Charleston, as he should find needful.  Lest
the newspaper attack should have created unjust and unfavorable
impressions in regard to him, I thought it desirable to write
to Governor Pickens and tell him what manner of man he was
who had been sent to South Carolina.</p>

<p>After the withdrawal of the Confederate army from Fairfax
Court-House and the positions which had been occupied in
front of that place, a movement was made by the enemy to cross
the Potomac near Leesburg, where we had, under the command
of Brigadier General N. S. Evans, of South Carolina, four
regiments of infantry (i.e., the Thirteenth, Seventeenth, and
Eighteenth Mississippi, and the Eighth Virginia), commanded
respectively by Colonels Barksdale, Featherston, Burt, and Hunton,
a small detachment of cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel
Jenifer, and some pieces of artillery.</p>

<p>On the 21st of October the enemy commenced crossing the
river at Edwards's Ferry. A brigade was thrown over and met
by the Thirteenth Mississippi, which held them in check at the
point of crossing.  In the mean time another brigade was thrown
over at Ball's Bluff, and, as troops continued to cross at that point,
where the Eighth Virginia had engaged them, General Evans ordered
up the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Mississippi, and the
three regiments made such an impetuous attack as to drive back
the enemy to the bluff, and their leader, Colonel Baker, having
fallen, a panic seemed to seize the command, so that they rushed
headlong down the bluff, and crowded into the flat-boats, which
were their means of transportation, in such numbers that they
were sunk, and many of the foe were drowned in their attempt
to swim the river.  The loss of the enemy, prisoners included,
exceeded the number of our troops in the action.  The Confederate
loss was reported to be thirty-six killed, one hundred
and seventeen wounded, and two captured; total, one hundred
and fifty-five.  Among the killed was the gallant Colonel
Burt, a much-respected citizen of Mississippi, where he had held
high civil station, and where his death was long deplored.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page438" id="page438"></a>[pg 438]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-xi" id="chap-iv-xi"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
The Issue.&mdash;The American Idea of Government.&mdash;Who was responsible for the
War?&mdash;Situation of Virginia.&mdash;Concentration of the Enemy against Richmond.&mdash;Our
Difficulty.&mdash;Unjust Criticisms.&mdash;The Facts set forth.&mdash;Organization of
the Army.&mdash;Conference at Fairfax Court-House.&mdash;Inaction of the Army.&mdash;Capture
of Romney.&mdash;Troops ordered to retire to the Valley.&mdash;Discipline.&mdash;General
Johnston regards his Position as unsafe.&mdash;The First Policy.&mdash;Retreat of General
Johnston.&mdash;The Plans of the Enemy.&mdash;Our Strength magnified by the
Enemy.&mdash;Stores destroyed.&mdash;The Trent Affair.
</p></blockquote>


<p>It has been shown that the Southern States, by their representatives
in the two Houses of Congress, consistently endeavored
even to the last day, when they were by their constituents permitted
to remain in the halls of Federal legislation, to maintain
the Constitution, and preserve the Union which the States
had by their independent action ordained and established. On
the other hand, proof has been adduced to show that the Northern
States, by a majority of their representatives in the Congress,
had persisted in agitation injurious to the welfare and tranquillity
of the Southern States, and at the last moment had refused to
make any concessions, or to offer any guarantees to check the current
toward secession of the complaining States, whose love for
the Union rendered them willing to accept less than justice should
have readily accorded.  The issue was then presented between
submission to empire of the North, or the severance of those
ties consecrated by many memories, and strengthened by those
habits which render every people reluctant to sever long-existing
associations.</p>

<p>The authorities heretofore cited have, I must believe, conclusively
shown that the question of changing their government
was one that the States had the power to decide by virtue of
the unalienable right announced in the Declaration of Independence,
and which had been proudly denominated the American
idea of government. The hope and the wish of the people of
the South were that the disagreeable necessity of separation
would be peacefully met, and be followed by such commercial
regulations as would least disturb the prosperity and future
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page439" id="page439"></a>[pg 439]</span>
intercourse of the separated States.  Every step taken by the
Confederate Government was directed toward that end. The
separation of the States having been decided on, it was sought
to effect it in such manner as would be just to the parties concerned,
and preserve as far as possible, under separate governments,
the fraternal and mutually beneficial relations which
had existed between the States when united, and which it was
the object of their compact of union to secure. To all the
proofs heretofore offered I confidently refer for the establishment
of the fact that whatever of bloodshed, of devastation, or
shock to republican government has resulted from the war, is
to be charged to the Northern States.  The invasions of the
Southern States, for purposes of coercion, were in violation of
the written Constitution, and the attempt to subjugate sovereign
States, under the pretext of "preserving the Union," was
alike offensive to law, to good morals, and the proper use of language.
The Union was the voluntary junction of free and
independent States; to subjugate any of them was to destroy
constituent parts, and necessarily, therefore, must be the destruction
of the Union itself.</p>

<p>That the Southern States were satisfied with a Federal Government
such as their fathers had formed, was shown by their
adoption of a Constitution so little differing from the instrument
of 1787.  It was against the violations of that instrument, and
usurpations offensive to their pride and injurious to their interests,
that they remonstrated, argued, and finally appealed to the
inherent, undelegated power of the States to judge of their
wrongs, and of the "mode and measure of redress."</p>

<p>After many years of fruitless effort to secure from their
Northern associates a faithful observance of the compact of
union; after its conditions had been deliberately and persistently
broken, and the signs of the times indicated further and
more ruthless violations of their rights as equals in the Union,
the Southern States, preferring a peaceful separation to continuance
in a hostile Union, decided to exercise their sovereign right
to withdraw from an association which had failed to answer the
ends for which it was formed. It has been shown how they
endeavored to effect the change with strict regard to the principles
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page440" id="page440"></a>[pg 440]</span>
controlling a dissolution of partnership, and how earnestly
they desired to remain in friendly relations to the Northern
States, and how all their overtures were rejected. When they
pleaded for peace, the United States Government deceptively
delayed to answer, while making ready for war.  To the calm
judgment of mankind is submitted the question, Who was responsible
for the war between the States?</p>

<p>Virginia, whose history, from the beginning of the Revolution
of 1776, had been a long course of sacrifices for the benefit
of her sister States, and for the preservation of the Union she had
mainly contributed to establish, clung to it with the devotion of
a mother. It has been shown how her efforts to check dissolution
were persisted in when the aggrieved were hopeless and the
aggressors reckless, and how her mediations were rejected in the
"Peace Congress," which on her motion had been assembled.
Sorrowing over the failure of this, her blessed though unsuccessful
attempt to preserve the Union <i>of the Constitution</i>, she was
not permitted to mourn as a neutral, but was required by the
United States Government to choose between furnishing troops
to subjugate her Southern sisters or the reclamation of the
grants she had made to the Federal Government when she became
a member of the Union.  The first was a violation of
the letter and the spirit of the Constitution; the second was a
reserved right.  The voice of Henry called to her from the
ground; the spirits of Washington and Jefferson moved among
her people.</p>

<p>There was but one course consistent with her stainless reputation
and often-declared tenets, as to the liberties of her people,
which she could have adopted. As in 1776, reluctantly she
bowed to the necessity of separation from the Crown, so in 1861
the ordinance of secession was adopted. Having exhausted all
other means, she took the last resort, and, if for this she was
selected as the first object of assault, "methinks the punishment
exceedeth the offense."</p>

<p>The large resources and full preparation of the United
States Government enabled it to girt Virginia as with a wall of
fire. It has been shown that she was threatened from the east,
from the north, and from the west. The capital of the State
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page441" id="page441"></a>[pg 441]</span>
and of the Confederacy, Richmond, was the objective point, and
on this the march of three columns concentrated. On the east,
the advance of the enemy was on several occasions feasible,
when we consider the number of his forces at and about Fortress
Monroe, in comparison with the small means retained for the
defense of the capital.  On the north, the most formidable army
of the enemy was assembled; to oppose it we had the comparatively
small Army of the Potomac.  This being regarded as the
line on which the greatest danger was apprehended, our efforts
were mostly directed toward giving it the requisite strength.
Troops, as rapidly as they could be raised and armed, were sent
forward for that purpose.  From the beginning to the close of
the war, we mainly relied for the defense of the capital on its
aged citizens, boys too young for service, and the civil employees
of the executive departments. On several occasions
these were called out to resist an attack.  They answered with
alacrity, and always bore themselves gallantly, more than once
repelling the enemy in the open field.  Had it been practicable
to do so, it would surely have been proper to keep a large force
in reserve for the defense of the capital, so often and vauntingly
proclaimed to be the object of the enemy's campaign.  Perhaps
the propriety of such provision gave currency and credence to
rumors that we had a large force at Richmond. This even led
to the application for a detachment from it to re&euml;nforce our
Army of the Potomac, which caused me to write to General J. E.
Johnston at Manassas, Virginia, on September 5, 1861, as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"You have again been deceived as to the forces here.  We
never have had anything near to twenty thousand men, and have
now but little over one fourth of that number.... Since the date of
your glorious victory the enemy have grown weaker in numbers,
and far weaker in the character of their troops, so that I had felt it
remained with us to decide whether another battle should soon be
fought or not. Your remark indicates a different opinion.... I
wish I could send additional force to occupy Loudon, but my
means are short of the wants of each division I am laboring to
protect.  One ship-load of small-arms would enable me to answer
all demands, but vainly have I hoped and waited."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page442" id="page442"></a>[pg 442]</span>

<p>Then, there, and everywhere, our difficulty was the want of
arms and munitions of war. Lamentable cries came to us from
the West for the supplies which would enable patriotic citizens
to defend their homes. The resource upon which the people
had so confidently relied, the private arms in the hands of citizens,
proved a sad delusion, and elsewhere it has been shown
how deficient we were in ammunition, or the means of providing
it. The simple fact was, the country had gone to war without
counting the cost.</p>

<p>Undue elation over our victory at Manassas was followed
by dissatisfaction at what was termed the failure to reap the
fruits of victory; and rumors, for which there could be no better
excuse than partisan zeal, were circulated that the heroes of the
hour were prevented from reaping the fruits of the victory by
the interference of the President. Naturally there followed
another rumor, that the inaction of the victorious army, to
which re&euml;nforcements continued to be sent, was due to the
policy of the President; and he also was held responsible, and
with more apparent justice, for the failure to organize the
troops of the several States, as the law contemplated, into brigades
and divisions composed of the soldiers of each.</p>

<p>Though these unjust criticisms weakened the power of the
Government to meet its present and provide for its future necessities,
I bore them in silence, lest to vindicate myself should
injure the public service by turning the public censure to the
generals on whom the hopes of the country rested. That motive
no longer exists; and, to justify the faith of those who, without
a defense continued to uphold my hands, I propose to set forth
the facts by correspondence and otherwise. So far as, in doing
this, blame shall be transferred from me to others, it will be the
incident, not the design, as it would be most gratifying to me
only to notice for praise each and all who wore the gray.</p>

<p>The fiction of my having prevented the pursuit of the
enemy after the victory of Manassas was exploded after it had
acquired an authoritative and semi-official form in the manner
and for the reasons heretofore set forth. It only remains, therefore,
to notice the other points indicated above:</p>

<p>First, the organization of the army.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page443" id="page443"></a>[pg 443]</span>

<p>Disease and discontent are known to be the attendants of
armies lying unemployed in camps, especially, as in our case,
when the troops were composed of citizens called from their
homes under the idea of a pressing necessity, and with the hope
of soon returning to them.</p>

<p>Our citizen soldiers were a powerful political element, and
their correspondence, finding its way to the people through the
press and to the halls of Congress by direct communication with
the members, was felt, by its influence both upon public opinion
and general legislation. Members of Congress, and notably the
Vice-President, contended that men should be allowed to go
home and attend to their private affairs while there were no
active operations, and that there was no doubt but that they
would return whenever there was to be a battle. The experience
of war soon taught our people the absurdity of such
ideas, and before its close probably none would have uttered
them.</p>

<p>There were very many men out of the army who were anxious
to enter it, but for whom we had not arms. This gave
rise to the remark, more humorous than profound, that we
"stood around the camps with clubs to keep one set in and an
other set out." Had this been true, it was certainly justifiable
to refuse to exchange a trained man for a recruit. All who
have seen service know that one old soldier is, in campaign,
equal to several who have everything of military life to
learn.</p>

<p>A marked characteristic of the Southern people was individuality,
and time was needful to teach them that the terrible
machine, a disciplined army, must be made of men who had
surrendered their freedom of will. The most distinguished of
our citizens were not the slowest to learn the lesson, and perhaps
no army ever more thoroughly knew it than did that which
Lee led into Pennsylvania, and none ever had a leader who in
his own conduct better illustrated the lesson.</p>

<p>Our largest army in 1861 was that of the Potomac.  It had
been formed by the junction of the forces under General J. E.
Johnston with those under General P. G. T. Beauregard, with
such additions as could be hurriedly sent forward to meet the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page444" id="page444"></a>[pg 444]</span>
enemy on the field of Manassas. They were combined into
brigades and divisions as pressing exigencies required.</p>

<p>By the act of February 28, 1861, the President was authorized
to receive companies, battalions, and regiments to form a
part of the provisional army of the Confederate States, and,
with the advice and consent of Congress, to appoint general
officers for them; and by the act of March 6th the President
was to apportion the staff and general officers among the respective
States from which the volunteers were received. It will
thus be seen that the States generously surrendered their right
to preserve for those volunteers the character of State troops
and to appoint general officers when furnishing a sufficient number
of regiments to require such grade for their command; but,
in giving their volunteers to form the provisional army of the
Confederacy, it was distinctly suggested that the general officers
should be so appointed as to make a just apportionment among
the States furnishing the troops.</p>

<p>During the repose which followed the battle of Manassas,
it was deemed proper that the regiments of the different States
should be assembled in brigades together, and, as far as consistent
with the public service, that the spirit of the law should be
complied with by the assignment of brigadier-generals of the
same State from which the troops were drawn. Instructions to
that end were therefore given, and again and again repeated, but
were for a long time only partially complied with, until the
delay formed the basis of the argument that those who had by
association become thoroughly acquainted would more advantageously
be left united. In the mean time, frequent complaints
came to me from the army, of unjust discrimination, the law
being executed in regard to the troops of some States but not
of others, and of serious discontent arising therefrom.</p>

<p>The duty to obey the law was imperative, and neither the
Executive nor the officers of the army had any right to question
its propriety. I, however, considered the policy of that
law wise, and was not surprised when it was stated to me that
the persistent obstruction to its execution was repressing the
spirit to volunteer in places to which complaints of such supposed
favoritism had been transmitted.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page445" id="page445"></a>[pg 445]</span>

<p>About the 1st of October, at the request of General Johnston,
I went to his headquarters, at Fairfax Court-House, for
the purpose of conference.</p>

<p>At the time of this visit to the army, the attention of the
general officers, who then met me in conference, was called to
the obligation created by law to organize the troops, when the
numbers tendered by any State permitted it, into brigades and
divisions composed of the regiments, battalions, or companies
of such State, and to assign general and staff officers in the ratio
of the troops thus received. After my return to the capital,
the importance of the subject weighed so heavily upon me as
to lead to correspondence with the generals, which will be best
understood by the following extracts from my letters to them&mdash;which
are here appended:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>"Major-General <span class="sc">G. W. Smith</span>, <i>Army of Potomac</i>.</p>

<p>"... How have you progressed in the solution of the problem
I left&mdash;the organization of the troops with reference to the
States, and term of service? If the volunteers continue their complaints
that they are commanded by strangers and do not get justice,
and that they are kept in camp to die when reported for
hospital by the surgeon, we shall soon feel a reaction in the matter
of volunteering. Already I have been much pressed on both
subjects, and have answered by promising that the generals
would give due attention, and, I hoped, make satisfactory changes.
The authority to organize regiments into brigades and the latter
into divisions is by law conferred only on the President; and I
must be able to assume responsibility of the action taken by
whomsoever acts for me in that regard. By reference to the law,
you will see that, in surrendering the sole power to appoint general
officers, it was nevertheless designed, as far as should be
found consistent, to keep up the State relation of troops and generals.
Kentucky has a brigadier, but not a brigade; she has,
however, a regiment&mdash;that regiment and brigadier might be associated
together. Louisiana had regiments enough to form a brigade,
but no brigadier in either corps; all of the regiments were
sent to that corps commanded by a Louisiana general. Georgia
has regiments now organized into two brigades; she has on duty
with that army two brigadiers, but one of them serves with other
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page446" id="page446"></a>[pg 446]</span>
troops. Mississippi troops were scattered as if the State were
unknown. Brigadier-General Clark was sent to remove a growing
dissatisfaction, but, though the State had nine regiments
there, he (Clark) was put in command of a post and depot of supplies.
These nine regiments should form two brigades. Brigadiers
Clark and (as a native of Mississippi) Whiting should be
placed in command of them, and the regiments for the war put in
the army man's brigade. Both brigades should be put in the
division commanded by General Van Dorn, of Mississippi. Thus
would the spirit and intent of the law be complied with, disagreeable
complaint be spared me, and more of content be assured
under the trials to which you look forward. It is needless to
specify further. I have been able in writing to you to speak
freely, and you have no past associations to disturb the judgment
to be passed upon the views presented. I have made and am
making inquiries as to the practicability of getting a corps of negroes
for laborers to aid in the construction of an intrenched line
in rear of your present position.</p>

<p>"Your remarks on the want of efficient staff-officers are realized
in all their force, and I hope, among the elements which constitute
a staff-officer for volunteers, you have duly estimated the
qualities of forbearance and urbanity. Many of the privates are
men of high social position, of scholarship and fortune. Their
pride furnishes the motive for good conduct, and, if wounded, is
turned from an instrument of good to one of great power for
evil...."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>October 16, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">Beauregard</span>, <i>Manassas, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"... I have thought often upon the questions of reorganization
which were submitted to you, and it has seemed to me that,
whether in view of disease, or the disappointment and suffering
of a winter cantonment on a line of defense, or of a battle to be
fought in and near your position, it was desirable to combine the
troops, by a new distribution, with as little delay as practicable.
They will be stimulated to extraordinary effort when so organized,
in that the fame of their State will be in their keeping, and
that each will feel that his immediate commander will desire to
exalt rather than diminish his services. You pointed me to the
fact that you had observed that rule in the case of the Louisiana
and Carolina troops, and you will not fail to perceive that others
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page447" id="page447"></a>[pg 447]</span>
find in the fact a reason for the like disposal of them.  In the
hour of sickness, and the tedium of waiting for spring, men from
the same region will best console and relieve each other. The
maintenance of our cause rests on the sentiments of the people.
Letters from the camp, complaining of inequality and harshness
in the treatment of the men, have already dulled the enthusiasm
which filled our ranks with men who by birth, fortune, education,
and social position were the equals of any officer in the land. The
spirit of our military law is manifested in the fact that the State
organization was limited to the regiment. The volunteers come
in sufficient numbers to have brigadiers, but have only colonels.
It was not then intended (is the necessary conclusion) that those
troops should be under the immediate command of officers above
the grade of colonel. The spirit of the law, then, indicates that
brigades should be larger than customary, the general being
charged with the care, the direction, the preservation of the men,
rather than the internal police."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>October</i> 20, 1861.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">Beauregard</span>, <i>Manassas, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">My Dear General</span>:... Two rules have been applied in
the projected reorganization of the Army of the Potomac:</p>

<p>"1. As far as practicable, to keep regiments from the same State
together; 2. To assign generals to command the troops of their
own State. I have not overlooked the objections to each, but the
advantages are believed to outweigh the disadvantages of that
arrangement. In distributing the regiments of the several States
it would, I think, be better to place the regiments for the war in
the same brigade of the State, and assign to those brigades the
brigadiers whose services could least easily be dispensed with.
For this, among other reasons, I will mention but one: the commission
of a brigadier expires upon the breaking up of his brigade
(see the law for their appointment). Of course, I would not for
slight cause change the relations of troops and commanders, especially
where it has been long continued and endeared by the
trials of battle; but it is to be noted that the regiment was fixed
as the unit of organization, and made the connecting link between
the soldier and his home.  Above that, all was subject to the discretion
of the Confederate authorities, save the pregnant intimation
in relation to the distribution of generals among the several
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page448" id="page448"></a>[pg 448]</span>
States. It was generous and confiding to surrender entirely to
the Confederacy the appointment of generals, and it is the more
incumbent on me to carry out as well as may be the spirit of the
volunteer system."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond</span>, <i>May 10, 1862</i>.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>.</p>

<p>"... Your attention has been heretofore called to the law
in relation to the organization of brigades and divisions&mdash;orders
were long since given to bring the practice and the law into conformity.
Recently reports have been asked for from the commanders
of separate armies as to the composition of their respective
brigades and divisions. I have been much harassed, and
the public interest has certainly suffered, by the delay to place
the regiments of some of the States in brigades together, it being
deemed that unjust discrimination was made against them, and
also by the popular error which has existed as to the number of
brigadiers to which appointments could be specially urged on the
grounds of residence. While some have expressed surprise at my
patience when orders to you were not observed, I have at least
hoped that you would recognize the desire to aid and sustain you,
and that it would produce the corresponding action on your part.
The reasons formerly offered have one after another disappeared,
and I hope you will, as you can, proceed to organize your troops
as heretofore instructed, and that the returns will relieve us of the
uncertainty now felt as to the number and relations of the troops,
and the commands of the officers having brigades and divisions....
I will not dwell on the lost opportunity afforded along the
line of northern Virginia, but must call your attention to the
present condition of affairs and probable action of the enemy, if
not driven from his purpose to advance on the Fredericksburg
route....</p>

<p>"Very truly yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>On the 26th of May General Johnston's attention was again
called to the organization of the ten Mississippi regiments into
two brigades, and was reminded that the proposition had been
made to him in the previous autumn, with an expression of my
confidence that the regiments would be more effective in battle
if thus associated.</p>

<p>I will now proceed to notice the allegation that I was responsible
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page449" id="page449"></a>[pg 449]</span>
for inaction by the Army of the Potomac, in the latter
part of 1861 and in the early part of 1862. After the explosion
of the fallacy that I had prevented the pursuit of the
enemy from Manassas in July, 1861, my assailants have sought
to cover their exposure by a change of time and place, locating
their story at Fairfax Court-House, and dating it in the autumn
of 1861.</p>

<p>When at that time and place I met General Johnston for
conference, he called in the two generals next in rank to himself,
Beauregard and G. W. Smith. The question for consideration
was, What course should be adopted for the future action
of the army? and the preliminary inquiry by me was as to the
number of the troops there assembled. To my surprise and
disappointment, the effective strength was stated to be but little
greater than when it fought the battle of the 21st of the preceding
July. The frequent re&euml;nforcements which had been sent
to that army in nowise prepared me for such an announcement.
To my inquiry as to what force would be required for the contemplated
advance into Maryland, the lowest estimate made by
any of them was about twice the number there present for
duty. How little I was prepared for such a condition of things
will be realized from the fact that previous suggestions by the
generals in regard to a purpose to advance into Maryland had
induced me, when I went to that conference, to take with me
some drawings made by the veteran soldier and engineer, Colonel
Croz&ecirc;t, of the falls of the Potomac, to show the feasibility
of crossing the river at that point. Very little knowledge of
the condition and military resources of the country must have
sufficed to show that I had no power to make such an addition
to that army without a total disregard of the safety of other
threatened positions. It only remained for me to answer that
I had not power to furnish such a number of troops; and, unless
the militia bearing their private arms should be relied on, we
could not possibly fulfill such a requisition until after the receipt
of the small-arms which we had early and constantly
striven to procure from abroad, and had for some time expected.</p>

<p>After I had written the foregoing, and all the succeeding
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page450" id="page450"></a>[pg 450]</span>
chapters on kindred subjects, a friend, in October, 1880, furnished
me with a copy of a paper relating to the conference
at Fairfax Court-House, which seems to require notice at my
hands.</p>

<p>Therefore I break the chain of events to insert here some
remarks in regard to it.</p>

<p>The paper appears to have been written by General G. W.
Smith, and to have received the approval of Generals Beauregard
and J. E. Johnston, and to bear date the 31st of January,
1862.</p>

<p>It does not agree in some respects with my memory of
what occurred, and is not consistent with itself. It was not
necessary that I should learn in that interview the evil of inactivity.
My correspondence of anterior date might have
shown that I was fully aware of it, and my suggestions in the
interview certainly did not look as if it was necessary to impress
me with the advantage of action.</p>

<p>In one part of the paper it is stated that the re&euml;nforcements
asked for were to be "seasoned soldiers," such as were there
present, and who were said to be in the "finest fighting condition."
This, if such a proposition had been made, would have
exposed its absurdity, as well as the loophole it offered for escape,
by subsequently asserting that the troops furnished were
not up to the proposed standard.</p>

<p>In another part of the paper it is stated that there were
hope and expectation that, before the end of the winter, arms
would be introduced into the country, and that then we could
successfully invade that of the enemy; but this supply of arms,
however abundant, could not furnish "seasoned soldiers," and
the two propositions are therefore inconsistent. In one place it
is written that "it was felt it might be better to run the risk of
almost certain destruction fighting upon the other side of the
Potomac, rather than see the gradual dying out and deterioration
of this army during a winter," etc.; but, when it was proposed
to cross into eastern Maryland on a steamer in our possession
for a partial campaign, difficulties arose like the lion in the
path of the sluggard, so that the proposition was postponed and
never executed. In like manner the other expedition in the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page451" id="page451"></a>[pg 451]</span>
Valley of Virginia was achieved by an officer not of this council,
General T. J. Jackson.</p>

<p>In one place it is written that the President stated, "At that
time no re&euml;nforcements could be furnished to the army of the
character asked for." In another place he is made to say he
could not take any troops from the points named, and, "without
arms from abroad, could not re&euml;nforce that army." Here,
again, it is clear from the answer that the proposition had been
for such re&euml;nforcement as additional arms would enable him to
give. Those arms he expected to receive, barring the dangers
of the sea, and of the enemy, which obstacles alone prevented
the "positive assurance that they would be received at all."</p>

<p>It was, as stated, with deep regret and bitter disappointment
that I found, notwithstanding our diligent efforts to re&euml;nforce
this army before and after the battle of Manassas, that its
strength had but little increased, and that the arms of absentees
and discharged men were represented by only twenty-five hundred
on hand. I can not suppose that General Johnston could
have noticed the statement that his request for conference had
set forth the object of it to be to discuss the question of re&euml;nforcement.
He would have known that in Richmond, where
all the returns were to be found, any consideration of re&euml;nforcement,
by the withdrawal of troops from existing garrisons, could
best be decided. Very little experience or a fair amount of modesty
without any experience would serve to prevent one from
announcing his conclusion that troops could be withdrawn from
a place or places without knowing how many were there, and
what was the necessity for their presence.</p>

<p>I was at the conference by request; the confidence felt in
those officers is shown by the fact that I met them alone, and
did not require any minutes to be made of the meeting. About
four months afterward a paper was prepared to make a record
of the conversation; the fact was concealed from me, whereas,
both for accuracy and frankness, it should have been submitted
to me, even if there had been nothing due to our official relations.
Twenty years after the event, I learned of this secret
report, by one party, without notice having been given to the
other, of a conversation said to have lasted two hours.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page452" id="page452"></a>[pg 452]</span>

<p>I have noticed the improbabilities and inconsistencies of the
paper, and, without remark, I submit to honorable men the concealment
from me in which it was prepared, whereby they may
judge of the chances for such co-intelligence as needs must exist
between the Executive and the commanders of armies to insure
attainable success.</p>

<p>The position at Fairfax Court-House, though it would answer
very well as a point from which to advance, was quite
unfavorable for defense; and when I so remarked, the opinion
seemed to be that to which the generals had previously arrived.
It, therefore, only remained to consider what change of position
should be made in the event of the enemy threatening
soon to advance. But in the mean time I hoped that something
could be done by detachments from the army to effect
objects less difficult than an advance against his main force,
and particularly indicated the lower part of Maryland, where a
small force was said to be ravaging the country and oppressing
our friends. This, I thought, might be feasible by the establishment
of a battery near to Acquia Creek, where the channel
of the Potomac was said to be so narrow that our guns could
prevent the use of the river by the enemy's boats, and, by employing
a steamboat lying there, troops enough could be sent
over some night to defeat that force, and return before any
large body could be concentrated against them. The effect of
the battery and of the expedition, it was hoped, would be important
in relieving our friends and securing recruits from those
who wished to join us. Previously, General Johnston's attention
had been called to possibilities in the Valley of the Shenandoah,
and that these and other like things were not done, was
surely due to other causes than "the policy of the Administration,"
as will appear by the letters hereto annexed:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>August</i> 1, 1861.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>:</p>

<p>"... General Lee has gone to western Virginia, and I hope
may be able to strike a decisive blow in that quarter, or, failing
in that, will be able to organize and post our troops so as to check
the enemy, after which he will return to this place.</p>

<p>"The movement of Banks will require your attention. It may
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page453" id="page453"></a>[pg 453]</span>
be a <i>ruse</i>, but, if a real movement, when your army has the requisite
strength and mobility, you will probably find an opportunity,
by a rapid movement through the passes, to strike him in rear or
flank, and thus add another to your many claims to your country's
gratitude.... We must be prompt to avail ourselves of the weakness
resulting from the exchange of the new and less reliable forces
of the enemy, for those heretofore in service, as well as of the moral
effect produced by their late defeat....</p>

<p>"I am, as ever, your friend,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>From the correspondence which occurred after the conference
at Fairfax Court-House, I select a reply made to General
Smith, who had written to me in advocacy of the views he had
then expressed about large re&euml;nforcements to the Army of the
Potomac, for an advance into Maryland. Nothing is more
common than that a general, realizing the wants of the army
with which he is serving, and the ends that might be achieved
if those wants were supplied, should overlook the necessities of
others, and accept rumors of large forces which do not exist,
and assume the absence of danger elsewhere than in his own
front.</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>October</i> 10, 1861.</p>

<p>"Major-General <span class="sc">G. W. Smith</span>, <i>Army of the Potomac</i>.</p>

<p>"... Your remarks about the moral effect of repressing the
hope of the volunteers for an advance are in accordance with the
painful impression made on me when, in our council, it was revealed
to me that the Army of the Potomac had been reduced to about one
half the legalized strength, and that the arms to restore the numbers
were not in depot. As I there suggested, though you may
not be able to advance into Maryland and expel the enemy, it may
be possible to keep up the spirits of your troops by expeditions
such as that particularly spoken of against Sickles's brigade on the
lower Potomac, or Banks's above.  By destroying the canal and
making other rapid movements wherever opportunity presents, to
beat detachments or to destroy lines of communication....</p>

<p>"Very truly, your friend,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>".
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page454" id="page454"></a>[pg 454]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>November</i> 18, 1861.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>.</p>

<p>"... If a large force should be landed on the Potomac below
General Holmes, with the view to turn or to attack him, the value
of the position between Dumfries and Fredericksburg will be so
great that I wish you to give to that line your personal inspection.
With a sufficient force, the enemy may be prevented from leaving
his boats, should he be able to cross the river. To make our force
available at either of the points which he may select, it will be
necessary to improve the roads connecting the advance posts
with the armies of the Potomac and of the Acquia, as well as
with each other, and to have the requisite teams to move heavy
guns with celerity....</p>

<p>"Very respectfully yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>In November, 1861, reports became current that the enemy
were concentrating troops west of the Valley of the Shenandoah
with a view to a descent upon it. That vigilant, enterprising,
and patriotic soldier, General T. J. Jackson, whose
steadiness under fire at the first battle of Manassas had procured
for him the <i>sobriquet</i> of "Stonewall," was then on duty
as district commander of the Shenandoah Valley.</p>

<p>He was a West Virginian; and, though he had not acquired
the fame which subsequently shed such luster upon his name,
he possessed a well-deserved confidence among the people of
that region. Ever watchful and daring in the discharge of any
duty, he was intensely anxious to guard his beloved mountains
of Virginia. This, stimulating his devotion to the general welfare
of the Confederacy, induced him to desire to march against
the enemy, who had captured Romney. On the 20th of November,
1861, he wrote to the War Department, proposing an
expedition to Romney, in western Virginia. It was decided
to adopt his proposition, endorsed by the commander of the
department, and, further to insure success, though not recommended
in the endorsement, his old brigade, then in the Army
of the Potomac, was selected as a part of the command with
which he was to make the campaign. General Johnston remonstrated
against this transfer, and the correspondence is subjoined
for a fuller understanding of the matter:</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page455" id="page455"></a>[pg 455]</span>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Headquarters, Valley District</span>, <i>November</i> 20, 1861.</p>

<p>"Hon. <span class="sc">J. P. Benjamin</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I hope you will pardon me for requesting that, at once,
all the troops under General Loring be ordered to this point. Deeply
impressed with the importance of absolute secrecy respecting
military operations, I have made it a point to say but little respecting
my proposed movements in the event of sufficient re&euml;nforcements
arriving, but, since conversing with Lieutenant-Colonel
J. L. T. Preston upon his return from General Loring, and ascertaining
the disposition of the General's forces, I venture to respectfully
urge that, after concentrating all his troops here, an
attempt should be made to capture the Federal forces at Romney.
The attack on Romney would probably induce McClellan to believe
that the Army of the Potomac had been so weakened as to
justify him in making an advance on Centreville; but, should this
not induce him to advance, I do not believe anything will during
the present winter. Should the Army of the Potomac be attacked,
I would be at once prepared to re&euml;nforce it with my present volunteer
force, increased by General Loring's. After repulsing the
enemy at Manassas, let the troops that marched on Romney return
to the Valley and move rapidly westward to the waters of
the Monongahela and Little Kanawha.  Should General Kelley be
defeated, and especially should he be captured, I believe that, by
a judicious disposition of the militia, a few cavalry, and a small
number of field-pieces, no additional forces would be required for
some time in this district. I deem it of very great importance
that northwestern Virginia be occupied by Confederate troops
this winter. At present, it is to be presumed that the enemy are
not expecting an attack there, and the resources of that region
necessary for the subsistence of our troops are in greater abundance
than in almost any other season of the year. Postpone the
occupation of that section until spring, and we may expect to
find the enemy prepared for us, and the resources to which I have
referred greatly exhausted. I know that what I have proposed
will be an arduous undertaking, and can not be accomplished without
the sacrifice of much personal comfort, but I feel that the
troops will be prepared to make this sacrifice when animated by
the prospects of important results to our cause and distinction to
themselves. It may be urged, against this plan, that the enemy
will advance on Staunton or Huntersville.  I am well satisfied that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page456" id="page456"></a>[pg 456]</span>
such a step would but make their destruction more certain. Again,
it may be said that General Floyd will be cut off. To avoid this,
if necessary, the General has only to fall back toward the Virginia
and Tennessee Railroad.  When northwestern Virginia is occupied
in force, the Kanawha Valley, unless it be the lower part of
it, must be evacuated by the Federal forces, or otherwise their
safety will be endangered by forcing a column across from the
Little Kanawha between them and the Ohio River.  Admitting
that the season is too far advanced, or that from other causes all
can not be accomplished that has been named, yet, through the
blessing of God, who has thus far so wonderfully prospered our
cause, much more may be expected from General Loring's troops,
according to this programme, than can be expected from them
where they are.  If you decide to order them here, I trust that,
for the purpose of saving time, all the infantry, cavalry, and artillery
will be directed to move immediately upon the reception of
the order.  The enemy, about five thousand strong, have been for
some time slightly fortifying at Romney, and have completed their
telegraph from that place to Green Spring Depot. Their forces at
and near Williamsport are estimated as high as five thousand, but
as yet I have no reliable information of their strength beyond the
Potomac.  Your most obedient servant,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">T. J. Jackson</span>, <i>Major-General, P. A. C. S.</i>"
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Headquarters, Centreville</span>, <i>November</i> 21, 1861.</p>

<p>"Respectfully forwarded. I submit that the troops under
General Loring might render valuable services by taking the field
with General Jackson, instead of going into winter-quarters, as
now proposed.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>General</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Headquarters, Centreville</span>, <i>November</i> 22, 1861.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">Cooper</span>, <i>Adjutant and Inspector-General</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have received Major-General Jackson's plan of operations
in his district, for which he asks for re&euml;nforcements. It
seems to me that he proposes more than can well be accomplished
in that high, mountainous country at this season. If the means of
driving the enemy from Romney (preventing the reconstruction
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and incursions by marauders
into the counties of Jefferson, Berkeley, and Morgan) can be supplied
to General Jackson, and with them those objects, accomplished,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page457" id="page457"></a>[pg 457]</span>
we shall have reason to be satisfied, so far as the Valley
district is concerned. The wants of other portions of the frontier&mdash;Acquia
district, for instance&mdash;make it inexpedient, in my opinion,
to transfer to the Valley district so large a force as that asked
for by Major-General Jackson.  It seems to me to be now of especial
importance to strengthen Major-General Holmes, near Acquia
Creek.  The force there is very small, compared with the importance
of the position.  Your obedient servant,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>General</i>.</p>

<p>"[<span class="sc">Endorsement</span>.]</p>

<p>"Respectfully submitted to the Secretary of War:</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">S. Cooper</span>, <i>Adjutant and Inspector-General</i>.</p>

<p>"<i>November 25, 1861</i>."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>November</i> 10, 1861.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>Manassas, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>: The Secretary of War has this morning laid before me
yours of the 8th instant.  I fully sympathize with your anxiety
for the Army of the Potomac.  If indeed mine be less than yours,
it can only be so because the south, the west, and the east, presenting
like cause for solicitude, have in the same manner demanded
my care.  Our correspondence must have assured you that I fully
concur in your view of the necessity for unity in command, and I
hope by a statement of the case to convince you that there has
been no purpose to divide your authority by transferring the
troops specified in order No. 206 from the center to the left of
your department.  The active campaign in the Greenbrier region
was considered as closed for the season.  There is reason to believe
that the enemy is moving a portion of his forces from that mountain-region
toward the Valley of Virginia, and that he has sent
troops and munitions from the east by the way of the Potomac
Canal toward the same point. The failure to destroy his
communications by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and by the
Potomac Canal has left him in possession of great advantages for
that operation.  General Jackson, for reasons known to you, was
selected to command the division of the Valley, but we had only
the militia and one mounted regiment within the district assigned
to him.  The recent activity of the enemy, the capture of Romney,
etc., required that he should have for prompt service a body
of Confederate troops to co&ouml;perate with the militia of that district.
You suggest that such force should be drawn from the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page458" id="page458"></a>[pg 458]</span>
army at the Greenbrier; this was originally considered, and abandoned,
because they could not reach him in time to anticipate the
enemy's concentration, and also because General Jackson was a
stranger to them, and time was wanting for the growth of that
confidence between the commander and his troops, the value of
which need not be urged upon you. We could have sent to him
from this place an equal number of regiments, being about double
the numerical strength of those specified in the order referred to,
but they were parts of a brigade now in the Army of the Potomac,
or were southern troops, and were ignorant of the country in
which they were to serve, and all of them unknown to General
Jackson.  The troops sent were his old brigade, had served in the
Valley, and had acquired a reputation which would give confidence
to the people of that region upon whom the General had to rely
for his future success.  Though the troops sent to you are, as you
say, 'raw,' they have many able officers, and will, I doubt not, be
found reliable in the hour of danger.  Their greater numbers will
to you, I hope, more than compensate for the experience of those
transferred; while, in the Valley, the latter, by the moral effect
their presence will produce, will more than compensate for the
inferiority of their numbers.  I have labored to increase the Army
of the Potomac, and, so far from proposing a reduction of it, did
not intend to rest content with an exchange of equivalents.  In
addition to the troops recently sent to you, I expected soon to send
further re&euml;nforcements by withdrawing a part of the army from
the Greenbrier Mountains.  I have looked hopefully forward to
the time when our army could assume the offensive, and select the
time and place where battles were to be fought, so that ours
should be alternations of activity and repose, theirs the heavy
task of constant watching. When I last visited your headquarters,
my surprise was expressed at the little increase of your effective
force above that of the 21st of July last, notwithstanding the heavy
re&euml;nforcements which, in the mean time, had been sent to you.
Since that visit I have frequently heard of the improved health of
the troops, of the return of many who had been absent sick; and
some increase has been made by re&euml;nforcements.  You can, then,
imagine my disappointment at the information you give, that, on
the day before the date of your letter, the army at your position
was yet no stronger than on the 21st of July. I can only repeat what
has been said to you in our conference at Fairfax Court-House, that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page459" id="page459"></a>[pg 459]</span>
we are restricted in our capacity to re&euml;nforce by the want of arms.
Troops to bear the few arms you have in store have been ordered
forward. Your view of the magnitude of the calamity of defeat
of the Army of the Potomac is entirely concurred in, and every
advantage which is attainable should be seized to increase the
power of your present force.  I will do what I can to augment its
numbers, but you must remember that our wants greatly exceed
our resources.</p>

<p>"Banks's brigade, we learn, has left the position occupied when
I last saw you. Sickles is said to be yet in the lower Potomac,
and, when your means will enable you to reach him, I still hope he
may be crushed.</p>

<p>"I will show this reply to the Secretary of War, and hope there
will be no misunderstanding between you in future. The success
of the army requires harmonious co&ouml;peration.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully, etc.,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>After General Jackson commenced his march, the cold became
unexpectedly severe, and, as he ascended into the mountainous
region, the slopes were covered with ice, which impeded
his progress, the more because his horses were smooth-shod; but
his tenacity of purpose, fidelity, and daring, too well known
to need commendation, triumphed over every obstacle, and he
attained his object, drove the enemy from Romney and its
surroundings, took possession of the place, and prevented the
threatened concentration. Having accomplished this purpose,
and being assured that the enemy had abandoned that section
of country, he returned with his old brigade to the Valley of
the Shenandoah, leaving the balance of his command at Romney.
General Loring, the senior officer there present, and
many others of the command so left, appealed to the War Department
to be withdrawn.  Their arguments were, as well
as I remember, these: that the troops, being from the South,
were unaccustomed to, and unprepared for, the rigors of a
mountain winter; that they were strangers to the people of
that section; that the position had no military strength, and, at
the approach of spring, would be accessible to the enemy by
roads leading from various quarters.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page460" id="page460"></a>[pg 460]</span>

<p>After some preliminary action, an order was issued from the
War Office directing the troops to retire to the Valley. As
that order has been the subject of no little complaint, both by
civil and military functionaries, my letter to the General commanding
the department, in explanation of the act of the Secretary
of War, is hereto annexed:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>February</i> 14, 1862.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>commanding Department of Northern
Virginia, Centreville, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General</span>: I have received your letter of the 5th instant.
While I admit the propriety in all cases of transmitting orders
through you to those under your command, it is not surprising
that the Secretary of War should, in a case requiring prompt
action, have departed from this, the usual method, in view of the
fact that he had failed more than once in having his instructions
carried out when forwarded to you in the proper manner. You
will remember that you were directed, on account of the painful
reports received at the War Department in relation to the command
at Romney, to repair to that place, and, after the needful
examination, to give the orders proper in the case.  You sent your
adjutant- (inspector?) general, and I am informed that he went
no farther than Winchester, to which point the commander of the
expedition had withdrawn; leaving the troops, for whom anxiety
had been excited, at Romney. Had you given your personal
attention to the case, you must be assured that the confidence
reposed in you would have prevented the Secretary from taking
any action before your report had been received.  In the absence
of such security, he was further moved by what was deemed reliable
information, that a large force of the enemy was concentrating
to capture the troops at Romney, and by official report that place
had no natural strength and little strategic importance. To insure
concert of action in the defense of our Potomac frontier, it was
thought best to place all the forces for this object under one command.
The reasons which originally induced the adding of the
Valley district to your department exist in full force at present,
and I can not, therefore, agree to its separation from your command.</p>

<p>"I will visit the Army of the Potomac as soon as other engagements
will permit, although I can not realize your complimentary
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page461" id="page461"></a>[pg 461]</span>
assurance that great good to the army will result from it;
nor can I anticipate the precise time when it will be practicable to
leave my duties here.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully and truly yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>To complaints by General Johnston that the discipline of
his army was interfered with by irregular action of the Secretary
of War, and its numerical strength diminished by furloughs
granted directly by the War Department, I replied,
after making inquiry at the War Office, by a letter, a copy of
which is hereto annexed:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>March</i> 4, 1862.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>Centreville, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>: Yours of the 1st instant received prompt attention,
and I am led to the conclusion that some imposition has been
practiced upon you. The Secretary of War informs me that he
has not granted leaves of absence or furloughs to soldiers of your
command for a month past, and then only to divert the current
which threatened by legislation to destroy your army by a wholesale
system of furloughs.  Those which you inform me are daily
received must be spurious.  The authority to re&euml;nlist and change
from infantry to artillery, the Secretary informs me, has been
given but in four cases&mdash;three on the recommendation of General
Beauregard, and specially explained to you some time since;
the remaining case was that of a company from Wheeling, which
was regarded as an exceptional one.  I wish, therefore, that you
would send to the Adjutant-General the cases of recent date in
which the discipline of your troops has been interfered with in the
two methods stated, so that an inquiry may be made into the origin
of the papers presented.  The law in relation to re&euml;nlistment
provides for reorganization, and was under the policy of electing
the officers.</p>

<p>"The concession to army opinions was limited to the promotion
by seniority after the organization of the companies and
regiments had been completed. The reorganization was not to
occur before the expiration of the present term. A subsequent law
provides for filling up the twelve months' companies by recruits
for the war, but the organization ceases with the term of the
twelve months' men.  Be assured of readiness to protect your
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page462" id="page462"></a>[pg 462]</span>
proper authority, and I do but justice to the Secretary of War in
saying that he can not desire to interfere with the discipline and
organization of your troops. He has complained that his orders
are not executed, and I regret that he was able to present to me
so many instances to justify that complaint, which were in no wise
the invasion of your prerogative as a commander in the field.</p>

<p>"You can command my attention at all times to any matter
connected with your duties, and I hope that full co-intelligence
will secure full satisfaction.  Very truly yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>A fortnight after this letter, I received from General Johnston
notice that his position was considered unsafe. Many of
his letters to me have been lost, and I have thus far not been
able to find the one giving the notice referred to, but the reply
which is annexed clearly indicates the substance of the letter
which was answered.</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>February</i> 28, 1862.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General J. E. Johnston</span>: ... Your opinion that your position
may be turned whenever the enemy chooses to advance, and
that he will be ready to take the field before yourself, clearly indicates
prompt effort to disencumber yourself of everything which
would interfere with your rapid movement when necessary, and
such thorough examination of the country in your rear as would
give you exact knowledge of its roads and general topography,
and enable you to select a line of greater natural advantages than
that now occupied by your forces.</p>

<p>"The heavy guns at Manassas and Evansport, needed elsewhere,
and reported to be useless in their present position, would
necessarily be abandoned in any hasty retreat. I regret that you
find it impossible to move them.</p>

<p>"The subsistence stores should, when removed, be placed in
positions to answer your future wants. Those can not be determined
until you have furnished definite information as to your
plans, especially the line to which you would remove in the contingency
of retiring. The Commissary-General had previously
stopped further shipments to your army, and given satisfactory
reasons for the establishment at Thoroughfare.<a id="footnotetag191" name="footnotetag191"></a><a href="#footnote191"><sup>191</sup></a> ...</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page463" id="page463"></a>[pg 463]</span>

<p>"I need not urge on your consideration the value to our country
of arms and munitions of war: you know the difficulty with
which we have obtained our small supply; that, to furnish heavy artillery
to the advanced posts, we have exhausted the supplies here
which were designed for the armament of the city defenses. Whatever
can be, should be done to avoid the loss of these guns....</p>

<p>"As has been my custom, I have only sought to present general
purposes and views. I rely upon your special knowledge and
high ability to effect whatever is practicable in this our hour of
need. Recent disasters have depressed the weak, and are depriving
us of the aid of the wavering.  Traitors show the tendencies heretofore
concealed, and the selfish grow clamorous for local and personal
interests.  At such an hour, the wisdom of the trained and
the steadiness of the brave possess a double value.  The military
paradox that impossibilities must be rendered possible, had never
better occasion for its application.</p>

<p>"The engineers for whom you asked have been ordered to report
to you, and further additions will be made to your list of
brigadier-generals.  Let me hear from you often and fully.</p>

<p>"Very truly and respectfully yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>March</i> 6, 1862.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General J. E. Johnston</span>:... Notwithstanding the threatening
position of the enemy, I infer from your account of the roads and
streams that his active operations must be for some time delayed,
and thus I am permitted to hope that you will be able to mobilize
your army by the removal of your heavy ordnance and such stores
as are not required for active operations, so that, whenever you are
required to move, it may be without public loss and without impediment
to celerity.  I was fully impressed with the difficulties
which you presented when discussing the subject of a change of
position.  To preserve the efficiency of your army, you will, of
course, avoid all needless exposure; and, when your army has been
relieved of all useless encumbrance, you can have no occasion to
move it while the roads and the weather are such as would involve
serious suffering, because the same reasons must restrain the operations
of the enemy....</p>

<p>"Very respectfully yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page464" id="page464"></a>[pg 464]</span>

<p>At the conference at Fairfax Court-House, heretofore referred
to, I was sadly disappointed to find that the strength of that
army had been little increased, notwithstanding the re&euml;nforcements
sent to it since the 21st of July, and that to make an
advance the generals required an additional force, which it was
utterly impracticable for me to supply. Soon thereafter the
army withdrew to Centreville, a better position for defense but
not for attack, and thereby suggestive of the abandonment of
an intention to advance.  The subsequent correspondence with
General Johnston during the winter expressed an expectation
that the enemy would resume the offensive, and that the position
then held was geographically unfavorable.  There was a
general apprehension at Richmond that the northern frontier of
Virginia would be abandoned, and a corresponding earnestness
was exhibited to raise the requisite force to enable our army to
take the offensive. On the 10th of March I telegraphed to
General Johnston: "Further assurance given to me this day that
you shall be promptly and adequately re&euml;nforced, so as to enable
you to maintain your position, and resume first policy when
the roads will permit."  The first policy was to carry the war
beyond our own border.</p>

<p>Five days thereafter, I received notice that our army was in
retreat, and replied as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>March</i> 15, 1862.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>Headquarters Army of the Potomac</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">General</span>: I have received your letter of the 13th instant,
giving the first official account I have received of the retrograde
movement of your army.</p>

<p>"Your letter would lead me to infer that others had been sent
to apprise me of your plans and movements. If so, they have not
reached me; and, before the receipt of yours of the 13th, I was as
much in the dark as to your purposes, condition, and necessities as
at the time of our conversation on the subject about a month since.</p>

<p>"It is true I have had many and alarming reports of great destruction
of ammunition, camp-equipage, and provisions, indicating
precipitate retreat; but, having heard of no cause for such a sudden
movement, I was at a loss to believe it.</p>

<p>"I have not the requisite topographical knowledge for the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page465" id="page465"></a>[pg 465]</span>
selection of your new position. I had intended that you should
determine that question; and for this purpose a corps of engineers
was furnished to make a careful examination of the country to aid
you in your decision.</p>

<p>"The question of throwing troops into Richmond is contingent
upon reverses in the West and Southeast. The immediate necessity
for such a movement is not anticipated.</p>

<p>"Very respectfully yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>On the same day I sent the following telegram:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">Richmond, Virginia</span>, <i>March</i> 15, 1862.</p>

<p>"General <span class="sc">J. E. Johnston</span>, <i>Culpepper Court-House, Virginia</i>.</p>

<p>"Your letter of the 13th received this day, being the first information
of your retrograde movement. I have no report of
your reconnaissance, and can suggest nothing as to the position
you should take except it should be as far in advance as consistent
with your safety.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>To further inquiry from General Johnston as to where he
should take position, I replied that I would go to his headquarters
in the field, and found him on the south bank of the river,
to which he had retired, in a position possessing great natural
advantages. An elevated bank commanded the north side of
the river, overlooking the bridge, and an open field beyond it,
across which the enemy must pass to reach the bridge, which, if
left standing, was an invitation to seek that crossing. Upon inquiring
whether the south bank of the river continued to command
the other side down to Fredericksburg, General Johnston
answered that he did not know; that he had not been at Fredericksburg
since he passed there in a stage on his way to West
Point, when he was first appointed a cadet. I then proposed that
we should go to Fredericksburg, to inform ourselves upon that
point. On arriving at Fredericksburg, a reconnaissance soon
manifested that the hills on the opposite side commanded the
town and adjacent river-bank, and therefore Fredericksburg
could only be defended by an army occupying the opposite hills,
for which our force was inadequate. In returning to the house of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page466" id="page466"></a>[pg 466]</span>
Mr. Barton, where I was a guest, I found a number of ladies had
assembled there to welcome me, and who, with anxiety, inquired
as to the result of our reconnaissance. Upon learning that the
town was not considered defensible against an enemy occupying
the heights on the other side, and that our force was not sufficient
to hold those heights against such an attack as might be
anticipated, the general answer was, with a self-sacrificing patriotism
too much admired to be forgotten, "If the good of our
cause requires the defense of the town to be abandoned, let it
be done."  The purposes of the enemy were then unknown to
us. If General Johnston's expectation of a hostile advance in
great force should be realized, our course must depend partly
upon receiving the re&euml;nforcement we had reason to expect
from promises previously given and renewed, as was announced
to General Johnston in my telegram of 10th of March, 1862, in
these words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Further assurance given to me this day that you shall be
promptly and adequately re&euml;nforced, so as to enable you to maintain
your position, and resume first policy when the roads will
permit."
</p></blockquote>

<p>No immediate decision could therefore be made, and I returned
to Richmond, to wait the further development of the
enemy's plans, and to prepare as best we might to counteract
them.</p>

<p>The feeling heretofore noticed as arousing in Virginia a
determination to resist the abandonment of her northern frontier,
and which caused the assurance of re&euml;nforcements, bore
fruit in the addition of about thirty thousand men, by a draft
made by the Governor of the State. These, it is true, were not
the disciplined, seasoned troops which were asked for by the
generals in the conference at Fairfax Court-House, but they
were of such men as often during the war won battles for the
Confederacy. The development of the enemy's plans, for
which we had to wait, proved that, instead of advancing in
force against our position at Centreville, he had, before the retreat
of our army commenced, decided to move down the Potomac
for a campaign against Richmond, from the Peninsula as a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page467" id="page467"></a>[pg 467]</span>
base. The conflagration at Centreville gave notice of its evacuation,
and an advance was made as far as Manassas, but, as appears
by General McClellan's report, with no more important
design than to attack our rear guard, if it should be encountered.
In the report on the conduct of the war by a committee of the
United States Congress, evidence is found of much vacillation
before the conclusion was finally reached of abandoning the
idea of a direct advance upon Richmond for that of concentrating
their army at the mouth of the Chesapeake. Whatever
doubt or apprehension continued to exist about uncovering the
city of Washington by removing their main army from before
it, was of course dispelled by the retreat of our army, and the
burning of bridges behind it. In this last-mentioned fact, General
McClellan says he found the strongest reason to believe
that there was no immediate danger of our army returning.</p>

<p>There was an apparent advantage to the enemy in the new
base for his operations which was sufficiently illustrated by the
events of the last year of the war. Had we possessed an army
as large as the enemy supposed, it would have been possible for
us at the same time to check his advance from the East and to
march against his capital, with fair prospect of capturing it, before
the army he had sent against Yorktown could have been
brought back for the defense of Washington. On this as on
other occasions he greatly magnified the force we possessed, and
on this as on other occasions it required the concentration of
our troops successfully to resist a detachment of his. Accepting
as a necessity the withdrawal of the main portion of our
army from northern Virginia to meet the invasion from the
seaboard, it was regretted that earlier and more effective means
were not employed for the mobilization of the army, a desirable
measure in either contingency of advance or retreat, or at the
least that the withdrawal was not so deliberate as to secure the
removal of our ordnance, subsistence, and quartermasters' stores,
which had been collected on the line occupied in 1861 and the
early part of 1862.</p>

<p>A distinguished officer of our army, who has since the war
made valuable contributions to the history of its operations&mdash;especially
valuable as well for their accuracy as for their freedom
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page468" id="page468"></a>[pg 468]</span>
from personal or partisan bias&mdash;writes thus of the retreat
from Centreville:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"A very large amount of stores and provisions had been abandoned
for want of transportation, and among the stores was a
very large quantity of clothing, blankets etc., which had been
provided by the States south of Virginia for their own troops.
The pile of trunks along the railroad was appalling to behold.
All these stores, clothing, trunks, etc., were consigned to the
flames by a portion of our cavalry left to carry out the work of
their destruction. The loss of stores at this point and at White
Plains on the Manassas Gap Railroad, where a large amount of
meat had been salted and stored, was a very serious one to us, and
embarrassed us for the remainder of the war, as it put us at once
on a running stock."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The same officer&mdash;and the value of his opinion will be recognized
by all who know him, wherefore I give his name, General
J. A. Early&mdash;in a communication subsequent to that from which
I have just quoted, writes, in regard to the loss of supplies:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"I believe that all might have been carried off from Manassas
if the railroads had been energetically operated. The rolling-stock
of the Orange and Alexandria, Manassas Gap, and Virginia
Central Railroads ought to have been sufficient for the purpose
of removing everything in the two weeks allowed, if properly
used."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The enemy's plans, the development of which, as has been
already stated, was necessary for the determination of our own
movements, were soon thereafter found to be the invasion of
Virginia from the seaboard, and the principal portion of our
army was consequently ordered to the Peninsula, between the
York River and the James. Thus the northern frontier of Virginia,
which, in the first year of the war, had been the main field
of skirmishes, combats, and battles, of advance and retreat, and
the occupation and evacuation of fortified positions, ceased for
a time to tremble beneath the tread of contending armies.</p>

<p>To the foregoing narration of events immediately connected
with the efforts of the Confederate Government to maintain its
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page469" id="page469"></a>[pg 469]</span>
existence at home, may here be properly added an incident
bearing on its foreign relations in the first year of the war.</p>

<p>Our efforts for the recognition of the Confederate States by
the European powers, in 1861, served to make us better known
abroad, to awaken a kindly feeling in our favor, and cause a
respectful regard for the effort we were making to maintain the
independence of the States which Great Britain had recognized,
and her people knew to be our birthright.</p>

<p>On the 8th of November, 1861, an outrage was perpetrated
by an armed vessel of the United States, in the forcible detention,
on the high-seas, of a British mail steamer, making one of
her regular trips from one British port to another, and the seizure,
on that unarmed vessel, of our Commissioners, Mason and
Slidell, who with their secretaries were bound for Europe on
diplomatic service. The seizure was made by an armed force
against the protest of the Captain of the vessel, and of Commander
Williams, R.N., the latter speaking as the representative
of her Majesty's Government. The Commissioners only
yielded when force, which they could not resist, was used to
remove them from the mail-steamer, and convey them to the
United States vessel of war.</p>

<p>This outrage was the more marked because the United
States had been foremost in resisting the right of "visit and
search," and had made it the cause of the War of 1812 with
Great Britain.</p>

<p>When intelligence of the event was received in England,
it excited the greatest indignation among the people; and her
Majesty's Government, by naval and other preparations, unmistakably
exhibited the purpose to redress the wrong.</p>

<p>The Commissioners and their secretaries had been transported
to the harbor of Boston, and imprisoned in its main fortress.</p>

<p>Diplomatic correspondence resulted from this event.  The
British Government demanded the immediate and unconditional
release of the Commissioners, "in order that they may again
be placed under British protection, and a suitable apology for
the aggression which has been committed."</p>

<p>In the mean time, Captain Wilkes, commander of the vessel
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page470" id="page470"></a>[pg 470]</span>
which had made the visit and search of the Trent, returned
to the United States and was received with general plaudit,
both by the people and the Government. The House of Representatives
passed a vote of thanks, an honor not heretofore
bestowed except for some deed deserving well of the country.
In the midst of all this exultation at the seizure of our
Commissioners on board of a British merchant-ship, came the
indignant and stern demand for the restoration of those Commissioners
to the British protection from which they had been
taken, and an apology for the aggression. It was little to be
expected, after such explicit commendation of the act, that the
United States Government would accede to the demand; and
therefore the War and Navy Departments of the British Government
made active and extensive provision to enforce it.
The haughty temper displayed toward four gentlemen arrested
on an unarmed ship subsided in view of a demand to be enforced
by the army and navy of Great Britain, and the United
States Secretary of State, after a wordy and ingenious reply to
the Minister of Great Britain at Washington City, wrote: "The
four persons in question are now held in military custody at
Fort Warren, in the State of Massachusetts. They will be
cheerfully liberated. Your lordship will please indicate a time
and place for receiving them."</p>

<p>There was a time when the Government and the people
of the United States would not have sanctioned such aggression
on the right of friendly ships to pass unquestioned on the high
way of nations, and the right of a neutral flag to protect everything
not contraband of war; but that was a time when arrogance
and duplicity had not led them into false positions, and
when the roar of the British lion could not make Americans
retract what they had deliberately avowed.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote191" name="footnote191"></a><b>Footnote 191:</b><a href="#footnotetag191"> (return) </a><p> Thoroughfare Gap was the point at which the Commissary-General had placed
a meat-packing establishment</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page471" id="page471"></a>[pg 471]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-xii" id="chap-iv-xii"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Supply of Arms at the Beginning of the War; of Powder; of Batteries; of other
Articles.&mdash;Contents of Arsenals.&mdash;Other Stores, Mills, etc.&mdash;First Efforts to obtain
Powder, Niter, and Sulphur.&mdash;Construction of Mills commenced.&mdash;Efforts
to supply Arms, Machinery, Field-Artillery, Ammunition, Equipment, and Saltpeter.&mdash;Results
in 1862.&mdash;Government Powder-Mills; how organized.&mdash;Success.&mdash;Efforts
to obtain Lead.&mdash;Smelting-Works.&mdash;Troops, how armed.&mdash;Winter
of 1862.&mdash;Supplies.&mdash;Niter and Mining Bureau.&mdash;Equipment of First Armies.&mdash;Receipts
by Blockade-Runners.&mdash;Arsenal at Richmond.&mdash;Armories at Richmond
and Fayetteville.&mdash;A Central Laboratory built at Macon.&mdash;Statement of General
Gorgas.&mdash;Northern Charge against General Floyd answered.&mdash;Charge of
Slowness against the President answered.&mdash;Quantities of Arms purchased that
could not be shipped in 1861.&mdash;Letter of Mr. Huse.
</p></blockquote>


<p>At the beginning of the war the arms within the limits of
the Confederacy were distributed as follows:</p>

<table summary="Arms at beginning of war">
<tr><td></td><td></td><td>Rifles.</td><td>Muskets.</td></tr>
<tr><td>At Richmond (State)</td><td>about&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>4,000</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Fayetteville, North Carolina&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>about</td><td>2,000</td><td>25,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>Charleston, South Carolina&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>about</td><td>2,000</td><td>20,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>Augusta, Georgia</td><td>about</td><td>3,000</td><td>28,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>Mount Vernon, Alabama</td><td>about</td><td>2,000</td><td>20,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>Baton Rouge, Louisiana</td><td>about</td><td>2,000</td><td>27,000</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Total</td><td></td><td>15,000&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>120,000</td></tr>
</table>

<p>There were at Richmond about sixty thousand old flint-muskets,
and at Baton Rouge about ten thousand old Hall's rifles
and carbines. At Little Rock, Arkansas, there were a few
thousand stands, and a few at the Texas Arsenal, increasing the
aggregate of serviceable arms to about one hundred and forty-three
thousand. Add to these the arms owned by the several
States and by military organizations, and it would make a total
of one hundred and fifty thousand for the use of the armies of
the Confederacy.  The rifles were of the caliber .54, known as
Mississippi rifles, except those at Richmond taken from Harper's
Ferry, which were of the new-model caliber .58; the muskets
were the old flint lock, caliber .69, altered to percussion. There
were a few boxes of sabers at each arsenal, and some short artillery-swords.
A few hundred holster-pistols were scattered
about.  There were no revolvers.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page472" id="page472"></a>[pg 472]</span>

<p>There was before the war little powder or ammunition of
any kind stored in the Southern States, and this was a relic of
the war with Mexico. It is doubtful if there were a million of
rounds of small-arms cartridges. The chief store of powder
was that captured at Norfolk; there was, besides, a small quantity
at each of the Southern arsenals, in all sixty thousand pounds,
chiefly old cannon-powder. The percussion-caps did not exceed
one quarter of a million, and there was no lead on hand. There
were no batteries of serviceable field-artillery at the arsenals, but
a few old iron guns mounted on Gribeauval carriages fabricated
about 1812. The States and the volunteer companies did, however,
possess some serviceable batteries. But there were neither
harness, saddles, bridles, blankets, nor other artillery or cavalry
equipments.</p>

<p>To furnish one hundred and fifty thousand men, on both
sides of the Mississippi, in May, 1861, there were no infantry
accoutrements, no cavalry arms or equipments, no artillery and,
above all, no ammunition; nothing save arms, and these almost
wholly the old pattern smooth-bore muskets, altered to percussion
from flint locks.</p>

<p>Within the limits of the Confederate States the arsenals had
been used only as depots, and no one of them, except that at
Fayetteville, North Carolina, had a single machine above the
grade of a foot-lathe. Except at Harper's Ferry Armory, all
the work of preparation of material had been carried on at
the North; not an arm, not a gun, not a gun-carriage, and,
except during the Mexican War, scarcely a round of ammunition,
had for fifty years been prepared in the Confederate
States. There were consequently no workmen, or very few,
skilled in these arts. Powder, save perhaps for blasting, had
not been made at the South. No saltpeter was in store at any
Southern point; it was stored wholly at the North. There
were no worked mines of lead except in Virginia, and the situation
of those made them a precarious dependence. The only
cannon-foundry existing was at Richmond. Copper, so necessary
for field-artillery and for percussion-caps, was just being
obtained in East Tennessee. There was no rolling-mill for bar-iron
south of Richmond, and but few blast-furnaces and these,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page473" id="page473"></a>[pg 473]</span>
with trifling exceptions, were in the border States of Virginia
and Tennessee.</p>

<p>The first efforts made to obtain powder were by orders sent
to the North, which had been early done both by the Confederate
Government and by some of the States.  These were being
rapidly filled when the attack was made on Fort Sumter.
The shipments then ceased. Niter was contemporaneously
sought for in north Alabama and Tennessee. Between four
and five hundred tons of sulphur were obtained in New Orleans,
at which place it had been imported for use in the manufacture
of sugar.  Preparations for the construction of a large powder-mill
were promptly commenced by the Government, and two
small, private mills in East Tennessee were supervised and improved.
On June 1, 1861, there was probably two hundred and
fifty thousand pounds only, chiefly of cannon-powder, and about
as much niter, which had been imported by Georgia.  There
were the two powder-mills above mentioned, but we had no experience
in making powder, or in extracting niter from natural
deposits, or in obtaining it by artificial beds.</p>

<p>For the supply of arms an agent was sent to Europe, who
made contracts to the extent of nearly half a million dollars.
Some small-arms had been obtained from the North, and also
important machinery. The machinery at Harper's Ferry Armory
had been saved from the flames by the heroic conduct of the
operatives, headed by Mr. Armistead M. Ball, the master armorer.
Of the machinery so saved, that for making rifle-muskets
was transported to Richmond, and that for rifles with sword-bayonets
to Fayetteville, North Carolina.  In addition to the
injuries suffered by the machinery, the lack of skilled workmen
caused much embarrassment.  In the mean time the manufacture
of small-arms was undertaken at New Orleans and prosecuted
with energy, though with limited success.</p>

<p>In field-artillery the manufacture was confined almost entirely
to the Tredegar Works in Richmond. Some castings
were made in New Orleans, and attention was turned to the
manufacture of field and siege artillery at Nashville.  A small
foundry at Rome, Georgia, was induced to undertake the casting
of the three-inch iron rifle, but the progress was very slow.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page474" id="page474"></a>[pg 474]</span>
The State of Virginia possessed a number of old four-pounder
iron guns which were reamed out to get a good bore, and rifled
with three grooves, after the manner of Parrott. The army at
Harper's Ferry and that at Manassas were supplied with old batteries
of six-pounder guns and twelve-pounder howitzers. A
few Parrott guns, purchased by the State of Virginia, were
with General Magruder at Big Bethel.</p>

<p>For the ammunition and equipment required for the infantry
and artillery, a good laboratory and workshop had been
established at Richmond. The arsenals were making preparations
for furnishing ammunition and knapsacks; but generally,
what little was done in this regard was for local purposes.
Such was the general condition of ordnance and ordnance stores
in May, 1861.</p>

<p>The progress of development, however, was steady.  A refinery
of saltpeter was established near Nashville during the
summer, which received the niter from its vicinity, and from
the caves in East and Middle Tennessee.  Some inferior powder
was made at two small mills in South Carolina.  North Carolina
established a mill near Raleigh; and a stamping-mill was
put up near New Orleans, and powder made there before the
fall of the city.  Small quantities were also received through
the blockade.  It was estimated that on January 1, 1862, there
were fifteen hundred seacoast-guns of various caliber in position
from Evansport, on the Potomac, to Fort Brown, on the Rio
Grande.  If their caliber was averaged at thirty-two pounder,
and the charge at five pounds, it would, at forty rounds per gun,
require six hundred thousand pounds of powder for them. The
field-artillery&mdash;say three hundred guns, with two hundred rounds
to the piece&mdash;would require one hundred and twenty-five thousand
pounds; and the small-arm cartridges&mdash;say ten million&mdash;would
consume one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds
more, making in all eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Deducting two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, supposed
to be on hand in various shapes, and the increment is six hundred
thousand pounds for the year 1861.  Of this, perhaps two
hundred thousand pounds had been made at the Tennessee
and other mills, leaving four hundred thousand pounds to be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page475" id="page475"></a>[pg 475]</span>
supplied through the blockade, or before the beginning of hostilities.</p>

<p>The liability of powder to deteriorate in damp atmospheres
results from the impurity of the niter used in its manufacture,
and this it is not possible to detect by any of the usual tests.
Security, therefore, in the purchase, depends on the reliability of
the maker.  To us, who had to rely on foreign products and
the open market, this was equivalent to no security at all.  It
was, therefore, as well for this reason as because of the precariousness
of thus obtaining the requisite supply, necessary that
we should establish a Government powder-mill.  It was our
good fortune to have a valuable man whose military education
and scientific knowledge had been supplemented by practical
experience in a large manufactory of machinery.  He, General
G. W. Rains, was at the time resident in the State of New York;
but, when his native State, North Carolina, seceded from the
Union and joined the Confederacy, true to the highest instincts
of patriotism, he returned to the land of his birth, and only
asked where he could be most useful.  The expectations which
his reputation justified, caused him to be assigned to the task
of making a great powder-mill, which should alike furnish an
adequate supply, and give assurance of its possessing all the
requisite qualities.  This problem, which, under the existing
circumstances, seemed barely possible, was fully solved.  Not
only was powder made of every variety of grain and exact uniformity
in each, but the niter was so absolutely purified that
there was no danger of its deterioration in service.  Had Admiral
Semmes been supplied with such powder, it is demonstrated,
by the facts which have since been established, that the engagement
between the Alabama and the Kearsarge would have resulted
in a victory for the former.</p>

<p>These Government powder-mills were located at Augusta,
Georgia, and satisfactory progress was made in the construction
during the year.  All the machinery, including the very heavy
rollers, was made in the Confederate States.  Contracts were
made abroad for the delivery of niter through the blockade;
and, for obtaining it immediately, we resorted to caves, tobacco-houses,
cellars, etc.  The amount delivered from Tennessee was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page476" id="page476"></a>[pg 476]</span>
the largest item in the year's supply, but the whole was quite
inadequate to existing and prospective needs.</p>

<p>The consumption of lead was mainly met by the Virginia
lead-mines at Wytheville, the yield from which was from sixty
to eighty thousand pounds per month.  Lead was also collected
by agents in considerable quantities throughout the country,
and the battle-field of Manassas was closely gleaned, from which
much lead was collected. A laboratory for the smelting of
other ores was constructed at Petersburg, Virginia, and was in
operation before midsummer of 1862.</p>

<p>By the close of 1861, eight arsenals and four depots had
been supplied with materials and machinery, so as to be efficient
in producing the various munitions and equipments, the
want of which had caused early embarrassment.  Thus a good
deal had been done to produce the needed material of war, and
to refute the croakers who found in our poverty application for
the maxim, "<i>Ex nihilo nihil fit.</i>"</p>

<p>The troops were, however, still very poorly armed and
equipped. The old smooth-bore musket was the principal weapon
of the infantry; the artillery had mostly the six-pounder
gun and the twelve-pounder howitzer; and the cavalry were
armed with such various weapons as they could get&mdash;sabers,
horse-pistols, revolvers, Sharp's carbines, musketoons, short Enfield
rifles, Holt's carbines, muskets cut off, etc. Equipments
were in many cases made of stout cotton domestic, stitched in
triple folds and covered with paint or rubber varnish. But,
poor as were the arms, enough of them, such as they were, could
not be obtained to arm the troops pressing forward to defend
their homes and their political rights.</p>

<p>In December, 1861, arms purchased abroad began to come
in, and a good many Enfield rifles were in the hands of the
troops at the battle of Shiloh. The winter of 1862 was the
period when our ordnance deficiencies were most keenly felt.
Powder was called for on every hand; and the equipments
most needed were those we were least able to supply. The
abandonment of the line of the Potomac and the upper Mississippi
from Columbus to Memphis did somewhat, however,
the pressure for heavy artillery; and, after the fall of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page477" id="page477"></a>[pg 477]</span>
1862, when the powder-mills at Augusta had got into full operation,
there was no further inability to meet all requisitions
for ammunition. To provide the iron needed for cannon and
projectiles, it had been necessary to stimulate by contracts the
mining and smelting of its ores.</p>

<p>But it was obviously beyond the power of even the great
administrative capacity of the chief of ordnance, General J.
Gorgas, to whose monograph I am indebted for these details,
to add, to his already burdensome labors, the numerous and
increasing cares of obtaining the material from which ammunition,
arms, and equipments were to be manufactured. On
his recommendation a niter and mining bureau was organized,
and Colonel St. John, who had been hitherto assigned to duty
in connection with procuring supplies of niter and iron, was
appointed to be chief of this bureau. A large, difficult, and
most important field of operations was thus assigned to him,
and well did he fulfill its requirements. To his recent experience
was added scientific knowledge, and to both, untiring,
systematic industry, and his heart's thorough devotion to the
cause he served.  The tree is known by its fruit, and he may
confidently point to results as the evidence on which he is willing
to stand for judgment.  Briefly, they will be noticed.</p>

<p>Niter was to be obtained from caves and other like sources,
and by the formation of niter-beds, some of which had previously
been begun at Richmond. These beds were located at
Columbia, South Carolina, Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, Mobile,
Selma, and various other points.  At the close of 1864
there were two million eight hundred thousand feet of earth
collected, and in various stages of nitrification, of which a large
proportion was presumed to yield one and a half pound of niter
per foot of earth.  The whole country was laid off into districts,
each of which was under the charge of an officer, who obtained
details of workmen from the army, and made his monthly reports.
Thus the niter production, in the course of a year, was
brought up to something like half of the total consumption.
The district from which the most constant yield could be relied
on had its chief office at Greensboro, North Carolina, a region
which had no niter-caves in it.  The niter was obtained from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page478" id="page478"></a>[pg 478]</span>
lixiviation of nitrous earth found under old houses, barns, etc.
The supervision of the production of iron, lead, copper, and all
the minerals which needed development, as well as the manufacture
of sulphuric and nitric acids (the latter required for the
supply of the fulminate of mercury for percussion-caps), without
which the firearms of our day would have been useless, was
added to the niter bureau. Such was the progress that, in a
short time, the bureau was aiding or managing some twenty to
thirty furnaces with an annual yield of fifty thousand tons or
more of pig-iron.  The lead- and copper-smelting works erected
were sufficient for all wants, and the smelting of zinc of good
quality had been achieved.  The chemical works were placed at
Charlotte, North Carolina, to serve as a reserve when the supply
from abroad might be cut off.</p>

<p>In equipping the armies first sent into the field, the supply
of accessories was embarrassingly scant. There were arms, such
as they were, for over one hundred thousand men, but no accoutrements
nor equipments, and a meager supply of ammunition.
In time the knapsacks were supplanted by haversacks,
which the women could make.  But soldiers' shoes and cartridge-boxes
must be had; leather was also needed for artillery-harness
and for cavalry-saddles; and, as the amount of leather
which the country could furnish was quite insufficient for all
these purposes, it was perforce apportioned among them. Soldiers'
shoes were the prime necessity. Therefore, a scale was
established, by which first shoes and then cartridge-boxes had
the preference; after these, artillery-harness, and then saddles
and bridles.  To economize leather, the waist and cartridge-box
belts were made of prepared cotton cloth stitched in stitched in three
or four thicknesses.  Bridle-reins were likewise so made, and
then cartridge-boxes were thus covered, except the flap.  Saddle-skirts,
too, were made of heavy cotton cloth strongly stitched.
To get leather, each department procured its quota of hides,
made contracts with the tanners, obtained hands for them by
exemptions from the army, got transportation over the railroads
for the hides and for supplies.  To the varied functions of this
bureau was finally added that of assisting the tanners to procure
the necessary supplies for the tanneries. A fishery, even, was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page479" id="page479"></a>[pg 479]</span>
established on Cape Fear River to get oil for mechanical purposes,
and at the same time food for the workmen. In cavalry
equipments the main thing was to get a good saddle which
would not hurt the back of the horse. For this purpose various
patterns were tried, and reasonable success was obtained. One
of the most difficult wants to supply in this branch of the service
was the horseshoe for cavalry and artillery. The want of
iron and of skilled labor was strongly felt. Every wayside blacksmith-shop
accessible, especially those in and near the theatre
of operations, was employed.  These, again, had to be supplied
with material, and the employees exempted from service.</p>

<p>It early became manifest that great reliance must be placed
on the introduction of articles of prime necessity through the
blockaded ports.  A vessel, capable of stowing six hundred and
fifty bales of cotton, was purchased by the agent in England, and
kept running between Bermuda and Wilmington. Some fifteen
to eighteen successive trips were made before she was captured.
Another was added, which was equally successful.  These vessels
were long, low, rather narrow, and built for speed.  They
were mostly of pale sky-color, and, with their lights out and with
fuel that made little smoke, they ran to and from Wilmington
with considerable regularity.  Several others were added, and
devoted to bringing in ordnance, and finally general supplies.
Depots of stores were likewise made at Nassau and Havana.
Another organization was also necessary, that the vessels coming
in through the blockade might have their return cargoes
promptly on their arrival  These resources were also supplemented
by contracts for supplies brought through Texas from
Mexico.</p>

<p>The arsenal in Richmond soon grew into very large dimensions,
and produced all the ordnance stores that the army required,
except cannon and small-arms, in quantities sufficient to
supply the forces in the field.  The arsenal at Augusta was
very serviceable to the armies serving in the south and west,
and turned out a good deal of field-artillery complete. The
Government powder-mills were entirely successful. The arsenal
and workshops at Charleston were enlarged, steam introduced,
and good work done in various departments.  The arsenal at
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page480" id="page480"></a>[pg 480]</span>
Mount Vernon, Alabama, was moved to Selma, in that State,
where it grew into a large and well-ordered establishment of the
first class. Mount Vernon Arsenal was dismantled, and served to
furnish lumber and timber for use elsewhere. At Montgomery,
shops were kept up for the repair of small-arms and the manufacture
of articles of leather.  There were many other small
establishments and depots.</p>

<p>The chief armories were at Richmond and Fayetteville,
North Carolina. The former turned out about fifteen hundred
stands per month, and the latter only four hundred per month,
for want of operatives.  To meet the want of cavalry arms, a
contract was made for the construction in Richmond of a factory
for Sharp's carbines; this being built, it was then converted
into a manufactory of rifle-carbines, caliber .58. Smaller
establishments grew up at Asheville, North Carolina, and at
Tallahassee, Alabama.  A great part of the work of the armories
consisted in the repair of arms.  In this manner the gleanings
of the battle-fields were utilized.  Nearly ten thousand stands
were saved from the field of Manassas, and from those about
Richmond in 1862 about twenty-five thousand excellent arms.
All the stock of inferior arms disappeared from the armories
during the first two years of the war, and were replaced by a
better class of arms, rifled and percussioned.  Placing the good
arms lost previous to July, 1863, at one hundred thousand, there
must have been received from various sources four hundred
thousand stands of infantry arms in the first two years of the
war.</p>

<p>Among the obvious requirements of a well-regulated service
was one central laboratory of sufficient capacity to prepare all
ammunition, and thus to secure the vital advantage of absolute
uniformity. Authority was therefore granted to concentrate
this species of work at Macon, Georgia. Plans of the buildings
and of the machinery required were submitted and approved,
and the work was begun with energy. The pile of buildings had
a fa&ccedil;ade of six hundred feet, was designed with taste, and comprehended
every possible appliance for good and well-organized
work.  The buildings were nearly ready for occupation at the
close of the war, and some of the machinery had arrived at Bermuda.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page481" id="page481"></a>[pg 481]</span>
This project preceded that of a general armory for the
Confederacy, and was much nearer completion. These, with
the admirable powder-mills at Augusta, would have been completed,
and with them the Government would have been in a
condition to supply arms and ammunition to three hundred
thousand men. To these would have been added a foundry
for heavy guns at Selma or Brierfield, Alabama, where the
strongest cast iron in the country had been made.</p>

<p>Thus has been briefly sketched the development of the resources
from which our large armies were supplied with arms
and ammunition, while our country was invaded on land and
water by armies much larger than our own. It will be seen under
what disadvantages our people successfully prosecuted the
(to them) new pursuits of mining and manufacturing. The
chief of ordnance was General J. Gorgas, a man remarkable
for his scientific attainment, for the highest administrative
capacity and moral purity, all crowned by zeal and fidelity to
his trust, in which he achieved results greatly disproportioned
to the means at his command.  He closes his excellent monograph
in the following words:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"We began in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory, or
powder-mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling-mill,
except in Richmond, and, before the close of 1863, or within a little
over two years, we supplied them. During the harassments of war,
while holding our own in the field defiantly and successfully against
a powerful enemy; crippled by a depreciated currency; throttled
with a blockade that deprived us of nearly all the means of getting
material or workmen; obliged to send almost every able-bodied
man to the field; unable to use the slave-labor, with which we
were abundantly supplied, except in the most unskilled departments
of production; hampered by want of transportation even of
the commonest supplies of food; with no stock on hand even of
articles such as steel, copper, leather, iron, which we must have
to build up our establishments&mdash;against all these obstacles, in
spite of all these deficiencies, we persevered at home, as determinedly
as did our troops in the field, against a more tangible opposition;
and in that short period created, almost literally out
of the ground, foundries and rolling-mills at Selma, Richmond,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page482" id="page482"></a>[pg 482]</span>
Atlanta, and Macon; smelting-works at Petersburg, chemical
works at Charlotte, North Carolina; a powder-mill far superior to
any in the United States and unsurpassed by any across the ocean;
and a chain of arsenals, armories, and laboratories equal in their
capacity and their improved appointments to the best of those in
the United States, stretching link by link from Virginia to Alabama."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The same officer writes:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"It was a charge often repeated at the North against General
Floyd, that, as Secretary of War, he had with traitorous intent
abused his office by sending arms to the South just before the
secession of the States. The transactions which gave rise to this
accusation were in the ordinary course of an economical administration
of the War Department.  After it had been determined to
change the old flint-lock muskets which the United States possessed
to percussion, it was deemed cheaper to bring all the flint-lock
arms in store at Southern arsenals to the Northern arsenals
and armories for alteration, rather than to send the necessary machinery
and workmen to the South.  Consequently, the Southern
arsenals were stripped of their deposits, which were sent to Springfield,
Watervliet, Pittsburg, St. Louis, and other points.  After
the conversion had been effected, the denuded Southern arsenals
were again supplied with about the same number, perhaps slightly
augmented, that had formerly been stored there. The quota deposited
at the Charleston Arsenal, where I was stationed in 1860,
arrived there full a year before the opening of the war."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The charge was made early in the war that I was slow in
procuring arms and munitions of war from Europe. We were
not only in advance of the Government of the United States in
the markets of Europe, but the facts presented in the following
extracts from a letter of our agent, Caleb Huse, dated December
30, 1861, and addressed to Major C. C. Anderson, will serve to
place the matter in its proper light:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"<span class="sc">London</span>, <i>December</i> 30, 1861.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Dear Major</span>: We are all waiting with almost breathless
anxiety for the arrival of the answer from the United States to the
unqualified demand of England for the captured commissioners.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page483" id="page483"></a>[pg 483]</span>
Will Mr. Lincoln disregard the international writ of <i>habeas corpus</i>
served by Great Britain? We shall soon know. If the prisoners
are given up, the affair will result in great inconvenience to
us in the way of shipping goods.</p>

<p>"I have now more than enough to load three 'Bermudas,' and
can not ship a package, though I have a steamer off the wharf, all
ready to receive her cargo.  We are literally fighting two governments
here.  Government watchmen guard the wharf where our
goods are stowed and others in the neighborhood, night and day&mdash;and
the wharfinger has orders not to ship or deliver, by land
or water, any goods marked W. D., without first acquainting the
honorable Board of Customs.  I have applied myself to ship to
Bermuda, offering to give bonds to double the amount of value
of the goods, that they should be held in Bermuda, subject to
the direction of her Majesty's representative in Bermuda.  I ...
has applied for permission to ship to Cardenas, agreeing to hold
the goods subject to the order of the Spanish authorities&mdash;but
all without avail, and our army must suffer for the want of blankets,
overcoats, shoes, socks, field forges, arms, and ammunition,
which have been collected to an amount more than double that
I have yet received.</p>

<p>"It is miserable to have to look at the immense pile of packages
in the warehouse at St. Andrews Wharf, and not be able to send
anything&mdash;only read the following: twenty-five thousand rifles;
two thousand barrels of powder; five hundred thousand caps; ten
thousand friction-tubes; five hundred thousand cartridges; thirteen
thousand accoutrements; thirteen thousand knapsacks; thirteen
thousand gun-slings; forty-four thousand three hundred and
twenty-eight pairs of socks; sixteen thousand four hundred and
eighty-four blankets; two hundred and twenty-six saddles; saddlers'
tools; artillery-harness; leather, etc.  Very truly yours,</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Caleb Huse</span>."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page484" id="page484"></a>[pg 484]</span>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-xiii" id="chap-iv-xiii"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Extracts from my Inaugural.&mdash;Our Financial System: Receipts and Expenditures
of the First Year.&mdash;Resources, Loans, and Taxes.&mdash;Loans authorized.&mdash;Notes
and Bonds.&mdash;Funding Notes.&mdash;Treasury Notes guaranteed by the States.&mdash;Measure
to reduce the Currency.&mdash;Operation of the General System.&mdash;Currency
fundable.&mdash;Taxation.&mdash;Popular Aversion.&mdash;Compulsory Reduction of the Currency.&mdash;Tax
Law.&mdash;Successful Result.&mdash;Financial Condition of the Government
at its Close.&mdash;Sources whence Revenue was derived.&mdash;Total Public Debt.&mdash;System
of Direct Taxes and Revenue.&mdash;The Tariff.&mdash;War-Tax of Fifty Cents on a
Hundred Dollars.&mdash;Property subject to it.&mdash;Every Resource of the Country to
be reached.&mdash;Tax paid by the States mostly.&mdash;Obstacle to the taking of the
Census.&mdash;The Foreign Debt.&mdash;Terms of the Contract.&mdash;Premium.&mdash;False charge
against me of Repudiation.&mdash;Facts stated.
</p></blockquote>


<p>In my inaugural address in 1862 I said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"The first year of our history has been the most eventful in
the annals of this continent. A new Government has been established,
and its machinery put in operation over an area exceeding
seven hundred thousand square miles.  The great principles upon
which we have been willing to hazard everything that is dear to
man, have made conquests for us which could never have been
achieved by the sword.  Our Confederacy has grown from six to
thirteen States; and Maryland, already united to us by hallowed
memories and material interests, will, I believe, when enabled to
speak with unstifled voice, connect her destiny with the South.
Our people have rallied with unexampled unanimity to the support
of the great principles of constitutional government, with firm resolve
to perpetuate by arms the rights which they could not peacefully
secure. A million of men, it is estimated, are now standing
in hostile array and waging war along a frontier of thousands of
miles. Battles have been fought, sieges have been conducted, and,
although the contest is not ended, and the tide for the moment is
against us, the final result in our favor is not doubtful.... Fellow-citizens,
after the struggles of ages had consecrated the right
of the Englishman to constitutional representative government,
our colonial ancestors were forced to vindicate that birthright by
an appeal to arms. Success crowned their efforts, and they provided
for their posterity a peaceful remedy against future aggression.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page485" id="page485"></a>[pg 485]</span>

<p>"The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and
the least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the
right and the remedy. Therefore, we are in arms to renew such
sacrifices as our forefathers made to the holy cause of constitutional
liberty."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The financial system which had been adopted from necessity
proved adequate at this early period to supply all the wants of
the Government and of the people. An unexpected and very
large increase of expenditures had resulted from the great enlargement
of the necessary means of defense. Yet the Government
entered on its second year without a floating debt and
with its credit unimpaired. The total expenditures of the first
year, ending February 1, 1862, amounted to one hundred and
seventy million dollars. A statement of the Secretary of the
Treasury, comprising the period from the organization of the
Government to August 1, 1862, presents the following results:</p>

<table summary="Expenditures">
<tr><td>War Department Expenditures</td><td>$298,376,549</td></tr>
<tr><td>Navy Department Expenditures</td><td>$14,605,777</td></tr>
<tr><td>Civil and Miscellaneous</td><td>$15,766,503</td></tr>
<tr><td>Total</td><td>$328,748,830</td></tr>
<tr><td>Outstanding requisitions</td><td>$18,524,128</td></tr>
<tr><td>Total expenditures</td><td>$347,272,958</td></tr>
<tr><td>Total receipts</td><td>$302,482,096</td></tr>
<tr><td>Deficient Treasury notes authorized</td><td>$16,755,165</td></tr>
<tr><td>Deficient Treasury notes to be provided&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>$28,035,697</td></tr>
<tr><td>Total</td><td>$44,790,862</td></tr>
</table>

<p>The receipts were derived as follows:</p>

<table summary="Derived receipts">
<tr><td>Customs</td><td>$1,437,399</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>War-tax</td><td>10,539,910</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Miscellaneous</td><td>1,974,769&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>$13,952,079</td></tr>
<tr><td>Loans, bonds, February, 1861&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>15,000,000</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Bonds, August, 1861</td><td>22,613,346</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Call certificates, April, 1861</td><td>37,515,200</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Treasury notes, April, 1861</td><td>22,799,900</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Demand notes, August, 1861</td><td>187,130,670&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>One and two dollar notes</td><td>846,900</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Due banks</td><td>2,645,000</td><td>$288,551,016</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Total receipts</td><td></td><td>$302,503,096</td></tr>
</table>

<span class="pagenum"><a name="page486" id="page486"></a>[pg 486]</span>

<p>Such was the result presented by the Treasury of a Government
that had been in existence only eighteen months. It commenced
that existence without a treasury, and, without the sinews
and the munitions of war, was in less than two months invaded
on every side by an implacable foe. Its ways and means consisted
in loans and taxes, and to these it resorted. On February
28th I was authorized by Congress to borrow, at any time within
twelve months, fifteen million dollars, or less, as might be needed.
It was to be applied to the payment of appropriations for
the support of the Government, and for the public defense.
Certificates of stock or bonds, payable in ten years at eight per
cent. interest, were issued. For the payment of the interest and
principal of this loan a tax or duty of one eighth of one per
cent. per pound was laid on all cotton exported. On March 9th
an issue of one million dollars in Treasury notes of fifty dollars
and upward was authorized, payable in one year from date, at
3.65 per cent. interest, and receivable for all public debts except
the export duty on cotton. A reissue was authorized for a year.
On May 16th a loan of fifty million dollars in bonds, payable
after twenty years at eight per cent. interest, was authorized.
The bonds were "to be sold for specie, military stores, or for the
proceeds of sales of raw produce or manufactured articles, to be
paid in the form of specie or with foreign bills of exchange."
The bonds could not be issued in fractional parts of a hundred
dollars, or be exchanged for Treasury notes or the notes of
any bank, corporation, or individual. In lieu of any amount of
these bonds, not exceeding twenty million dollars, an equal
amount of Treasury notes, without interest, in denominations of
five dollars and upward, was authorized to be issued. These
notes were payable in two years in specie, and were receivable
for all debts or taxes except the export duty on cotton. They
were also convertible into bonds payable in ten years at eight
per cent. interest. On August 19th another issue of Treasury
notes, amounting with those then issued to one hundred million
dollars, was authorized. They were of the denominations of
five dollars and upward. They were receivable for the war-tax
and all other public dues except the export duty on cotton.
These notes were convertible into twenty-year bonds, bearing
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page487" id="page487"></a>[pg 487]</span>
eight per cent. interest, of which the issue was limited to one
hundred million dollars. Thirty millions were to be a substitute
for the same amount, authorized by the act of May 16, 1861.
These bonds could be exchanged for specie, military and naval
stores, or for the proceeds of raw produce and manufactured
articles. On December 19th ten million dollars in Treasury
notes were issued to pay the advance of the banks. On December
24th an additional issue of fifty millions of Treasury notes
like those of the act of August 19th was authorized. An additional
issue of thirty millions of bonds was also authorized. On
April 12, 1862, an issue of Treasury notes, certificates of stock
and bonds, as the public necessities might require, to the amount
of two hundred and fifteen millions, was authorized. Of these,
fifty millions in Treasury notes were issued without reserve, ten
millions in Treasury notes retained as a reserve fund to pay any
sudden or unexpected call for deposits, and one hundred and
sixty-five millions certificates of stock or bonds. Bonds to the
amount of fifty million dollars, payable in ten years at six per cent.
interest, were authorized and made exchangeable for any of the
above Treasury notes. All these notes and bonds were subject
to the same conditions as those of the acts of August 19 and
December 24, 1861.  On April 17th five millions of Treasury
notes were authorized to be issued in denominations of one and
two dollars, which were receivable for all public dues except
the cotton duty. An amount of Treasury notes bearing interest
at two cents per day on each hundred dollars, as a substitute for
as much of the one hundred and sixty-five millions of bonds
authorized, was also authorized to be issued. On September 19,
1862, three million five hundred thousand dollars in bonds was
authorized to be issued to meet a contract for six iron-clad vessels
of war. On September 23, 1862, the amount of Treasury
notes under the denomination of five dollars was increased from
five million to ten million dollars, and a further issue of bonds
or certificates of stock, to the amount of fifty million dollars, was
authorized.</p>

<p>On March 23, 1863, an effort was made to remove from circulation
some of the issues of Treasury notes by funding them.
For this purpose it was provided that all Treasury notes, not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page488" id="page488"></a>[pg 488]</span>
bearing interest, issued prior to December, 1862, should be
fundable in eight per cent. bonds or stock during the ensuing
thirty days, and during the succeeding three months in seven per
cent. bonds or stock, after which they ceased to be fundable.
All Treasury notes not bearing interest, and issued after December
1, 1862, until ten days after the passage of the act, were
made fundable in seven per cent. bonds or stock during the
ensuing four months, and afterward only in four per cent. thirty
years bonds. Call certificates were made fundable in thirty
years bonds at eight per cent., and all outstanding on the ensuing
July 1st were deemed bonds at six per cent., payable in
thirty years. A monthly issue of Treasury notes, without interest,
to the amount of fifty million dollars, was also authorized.
These were made fundable during the first year of their issue
in six per cent. thirty years bonds, and after the expiration
of the year in four per cent. thirty years bonds. The further
issue of call certificates was suspended; but Treasury notes fundable
in the six per cent. bonds might be converted, at the pleasure
of the holder, into such certificates at five per cent. interest,
which were reconvertible into like notes within six months,
or afterward exchanged for thirty years six per cent. bonds.
Treasury notes fundable in four per cent. bonds were convertible
in like manner at four per cent. All disposable means in
the Treasury were to be applied to the purchase of Treasury
notes, bearing no interest, until the amount in circulation did
not exceed one hundred and seventy-five millions. The issue
of five million dollars, in notes of two dollars, one dollar, and
fifty cents, was also authorized. It was further provided in
this act that six per cent. bonds, as above mentioned, might be
sold to any of the States for Treasury notes, and, being guaranteed
by any of the States, they might be used to purchase Treasury
notes. The whole amount of such bonds could not exceed
two hundred million dollars. Treasury notes so purchased were
not to be reissued. The issue of six per cent. coupon bonds to
the amount of one hundred million dollars, which were to be applied
only to the absorption of Treasury notes, was also authorized.
The coupons were payable either in the currency in
which interest on other bonds was paid, or in cotton certificates
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page489" id="page489"></a>[pg 489]</span>
pledging the Government to pay the same in cotton of
New Orleans middling quality, delivered at the rate of eight
pence sterling per pound.</p>

<p>An important measure was adopted on February 17, 1864,
the object of which was to reduce the currency and to authorize
a new issue of notes and bonds. All Treasury notes above
the denomination of five dollars, and not bearing interest, were,
if offered within a short period, made fundable in registered
twenty years bonds at four per cent. At the same time a new
issue of Treasury notes was authorized, and made receivable for
all public dues, except customs duties, at the rate of two dollars
for three of the old. The issue of other Treasury notes, after
the 1st of the ensuing April, was prohibited.</p>

<p>To pay the expenses of the Government an issue of five
hundred million dollars in six per cent. bonds was authorized.
For the payment of interest the receipts of the export
and import duties, payable in specie, were pledged.</p>

<p>A review of this statement of the legislation of Congress
will clearly present the financial system of the Government.
The first action of the Provisional Congress was confined to the
adoption of a tariff law, and an act for a loan of fifteen million
dollars, with a pledge of a small export duty on cotton, to provide
for the redemption of the debt. At the next session, after
the commencement of the war, provision was made for the
issue of twenty million dollars in Treasury notes, and for borrowing
thirty million dollars in bonds. At the same time the
tariff was revised, and preparatory measures taken for the levy
of internal taxes. After the purpose of subjugation became
manifest by the action of the Congress of the United States,
early in July, 1861, and the certainty of a long war was demonstrated,
there arose the necessity that a financial system should
be devised on a basis sufficiently large for the vast proportions
of the approaching contest. The plan then adopted was founded
on the theory of issuing Treasury notes, convertible at the pleasure
of the holder into eight per cent. bonds, with the interest
payable in coin. It was assumed that any tendency to depreciation,
which might arise from the over-issue of the currency,
would be checked by the constant exercise of the holder's right
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page490" id="page490"></a>[pg 490]</span>
to fund the notes at a liberal interest, payable in specie. The
success of this system depended on the ability of the Government
constantly to pay the interest in specie. The measures,
therefore, adopted to secure that payment consisted in the levy
of an internal tax, termed a war tax, and the appropriation of
the revenue from imports.</p>

<p>The first operation of this plan was quite successful. The
interest was paid from the reserve of coin existing in the country,
and experience sustained the expectations of those who devised
the system.</p>

<p>Wheat, in the beginning of the year 1862, was selling at
one dollar and thirty cents per bushel, thus but little exceeding
its average price in time of peace. The other agricultural
products of the country were at similarly moderate rates, thus
indicating that there was no excess of circulation. At the same
time the premium on coin had reached about twenty per cent.
But it had become apparent that the commerce of our country
was threatened with permanent suspension by reason of the
conduct of neutral nations, who virtually gave aid to the United
States Government by sanctioning its declaration of a blockade.
These neutral nations treated our invasion by our former
limited and special agent as though it were the attempt of
a sovereign to suppress a rebellion against lawful authority.
This exceptional cause heightened the premium on specie, because
it indicated the exhaustion of our reserve, without the
possibility of renewing the supply.</p>

<p>At the inauguration of the permanent Government, in February,
1862, a popular aversion to internal taxation had been so
strongly manifested as to indicate its partial failure. This will
be further explained presently in our statement of the system
of taxation.</p>

<p>Under all these circumstances the effort was made to avoid
the increase in the volume of notes in circulation, by offering
inducements to voluntary funding. The measures adopted for
that purpose were but partially successful. Meanwhile the intervening
exigencies from the fortunes of war permitted no
delay. The issues of Treasury notes were increased until, in
December, 1863, the currency in circulation amounted to more
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page491" id="page491"></a>[pg 491]</span>
than six hundred million dollars, or more than threefold the
amount required by the business of the country. The evil
effects of this financial condition were but too apparent. In
addition to the difficulty presented to the necessary operations
of the Government, and the efficient conduct of the war, the
most deplorable of all its results was, undoubtedly, its corrupting
influence on the morals of the people. The possession of
large amounts of Treasury notes led to a desire for investment;
and, with a constantly increasing volume of currency, there was
an equally constant increase of price in all objects of investment.
This effect stimulated purchase by the apparent certainty
of profit, and a spirit of speculation was thus fostered,
which had so debasing an influence and such ruinous consequences
that it became our highest duty to remove the cause
by prompt and stringent measures.</p>

<p>I therefore recommended to Congress, in December, 1863,
the compulsory reduction of the currency to the amount required
by the business of the country, accompanied by a pledge
that, under no stress of circumstances, would the amount be
increased. I stated that, if the currency was not greatly and
promptly reduced, the existing scale of inflated prices would
not only continue, but, by the very fact of the large amounts
thus made requisite in the conduct of the war, these prices
would reach rates still more extravagant, and the whole system
would fall under its own weight, rendering the redemption of
the debt impossible, and destroying its value in the hands of
the holder. If, on the contrary, a funded debt, with interest
secured by adequate taxation, could be substituted for the outstanding
currency, its entire amount would be made available
to the holder, and the Government would be in a condition, beyond
the reach of any probable contingency, to prosecute the
war to a successful issue.</p>

<p>This recommendation was followed by the passage of the
act of February 17, 1864, above mentioned. One of its features
is the tax levied on the circulation. Regarding the Government
when contracting a debt as the agent of the people, its
debt is their debt. As the currency was held exclusively by
ourselves, it was obvious that, if each person, held Treasury
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page492" id="page492"></a>[pg 492]</span>
notes in exact proportion to the valuation of his whole estate,
each would in fact owe himself the amount of the notes held
by him; and, were it possible to distribute the currency among
the people in this exact proportion, a tax levied on the currency
alone, to an amount sufficient to reduce it to its proper limits,
would afford the best of all remedies. Under such circumstances,
the notes remaining in the hands of each holder after
the payment of his tax would be worth quite as much as the
whole sum previously held, for it would have an equal purchasing
capacity.</p>

<p>After this law had been in operation for one year, it was
manifest that it had the desired effect of withdrawing from circulation
the large excess of Treasury notes which had been
issued. On July 1, 1864, the outstanding amount was estimated
at two hundred and thirty million dollars. The estimate
of the amount funded under this act, about this time, was three
hundred million dollars, while new notes were authorized to be
issued to the extent of two thirds of the sum received under
its provisions. The chief difficulty apprehended in connection
with our finances, up to the close of the war, resulted from the
depreciation of our Treasury notes, which was to be attributed
to the increasing redundancy in amount and the diminishing
confidence in their ultimate redemption.</p>

<p>The financial condition of the Government, near its close,
is very correctly represented in the report of the Treasury Department.
The total receipts of the Treasury for the two quarters
ending on September 30, 1864, amounted to $415,191,550,
which sum, added to the balance, $308,282,722, that remained
in the Treasury on April 1, 1864, formed a total of $723,474,272.
Of this total, not far from half, that is to say, $342,560,327,
were applied to the extinction of the public debt; while the
total expenditures were $272,378,505, leaving a balance in the
Treasury on October 1, 1864, of $108,435,440. The sources
from which this revenue was derived were as follows:</p>

<table summary="Revenue sources">
<tr><td>Four per cent. registered bonds, act of February 17, 1864</td><td>$13,363,500</td></tr>
<tr><td>Six per cent. bonds, $500,000,000 loan, act of February 17, 1864&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>14,481,050</td></tr>
<tr><td>Four per cent. call certificates, act of February 17, 1864</td><td>20,978,100</td></tr>
<tr><td>Tax on old issue of certificates redeemed</td><td>$14,440,566</td></tr>
<tr><td>Repayments by disbursing officers</td><td>20,115,830</td></tr>
<tr><td>Treasury notes, act of February 17, 1864</td><td>277,576,950</td></tr>
<tr><td>War-tax</td><td>42,294,314</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sequestrations</td><td>1,338,732</td></tr>
<tr><td>Customs</td><td>50,004</td></tr>
<tr><td>Export duty</td><td>4,320</td></tr>
<tr><td>Coin seized by the Secretary of War</td><td>1,653,200</td></tr>
<tr><td>Premium on loans</td><td>4,822,249</td></tr>
<tr><td>Soldiers' tax</td><td>908,622</td></tr>
</table>

<span class="pagenum"><a name="page493" id="page493"></a>[pg 493]</span>

<p>The total amount of the public debt on October 1, 1864, on
the books of the Register of the Treasury, was $1,147,970,208,
of which $530,340,090 were funded debt, bearing interest, and
$283,880,150 were Treasury notes of the new issue, and the remainder
consisted of the former issue of Treasury notes which
were converted into other forms of debt, and ceased to exist on
December 31st. In consequence, however, of the absence of
certain returns from distant officers, the true amount of the
debt was less by $21,500,000 than appeared on the books of the
Register; so that the total public debt, on October 1st, might
have been fairly considered to have been $1,126,381,095. Of
this amount, $541,340,090 consisted of funded debt, and the
balance unfunded debt, or Treasury notes. The foreign debt
is omitted in these statements. It amounted to &pound;2,200,000,
and was provided for by about two hundred and fifty thousand
bales of cotton collected by the Government.<a id="footnotetag192" name="footnotetag192"></a><a href="#footnote192"><sup>192</sup></a></p>

<p>The aggregate appropriations called for by the different departments
of the Government for the six months ending on
June 30, 1865, amounted to $438,416,504. It was estimated
that the remains of former appropriations would, on January
1, 1865, amount to a balance of $467,416,504. No additional
appropriations were therefore required for the ensuing six
months.</p>

<p>A system of measures by which to obtain a revenue from
direct taxes and duties was commenced at the first session of
Congress under the provisional Government. The officers who,
at the time of the adoption of the provisional Constitution, held
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page494" id="page494"></a>[pg 494]</span>
any office connected with the collection of the customs, duties,
and imposts in the several States of the Confederacy, or as
assistant treasurers intrusted with the keeping of moneys arising
therefrom, were continued in office with the same powers
and subject to the same duties. The tariff laws of the United
States were continued in force until they might be altered.
The free list was enlarged so as to embrace many articles of
necessity; additional ports and places of entry were established;
restrictive laws were repealed, and foreign vessels were admitted
to the coasting-trade.  A lighthouse bureau was organized;
a lower rate of duties was imposed on a number of enumerated
articles, and an export duty of one eighth of one cent
per pound was imposed on all cotton exported in the raw state.
At the second session, in May, a complete tariff law was enacted,
with a lower scale of duties than had previously existed.
On August 19, 1861, a war-tax of fifty cents on each hundred
dollars of certain classes of property was levied for the special
purpose of paying the principal and interest of the public debt,
and of supporting the Government.  The different classes of
property on which the tax was levied were as follows: real estate
of all kinds; slaves; merchandise; bank-stocks; railroad
and other corporation stocks; money at interest, or invested by
individuals in the purchase of bills, notes, and other securities
for money, except the bonds of the Confederate States, and
cash on hand, or on deposit; cattle, horses, and mules; gold
watches, gold and silver plate, pianos, and pleasure-carriages.
There were some exemptions, such as the property of educational,
charitable, and religious institutions, and of a head of a
family having property worth less than five hundred dollars.
An act was passed for the sequestration of the property of alien
enemies, as a retaliatory measure, to offset the confiscation act
of the United States.</p>

<p>On April 24, 1863, a new act was passed relative to internal
or direct taxes. It was designed to reach, as far as practicable,
every resource of the country except the capital invested in real
estate and slaves, and, by means of an income-tax and a tax in
kind on the produce of the soil, as well as by licenses on business
occupations and professions, to command resources sufficient
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page495" id="page495"></a>[pg 495]</span>
for the wants of the country.  On February 17, 1864, an
amendment to this last-mentioned act was passed. It levied
additional taxes on all business of individuals, of copartnerships
and corporations, also on trades, sales, liquor-dealers, hotel-keepers,
distillers, and a tax in kind on agriculturists.  On June 10,
1864, an act was passed which levied a tax equal to one fifth
of the amount of the existing tax upon all subjects of taxation
for the year.</p>

<p>Within six months after the passage of the war-tax of August
19, 1861, the popular aversion to internal taxation by the
General Government had so influenced the legislation of the
several States that only in South Carolina, Mississippi, and
Texas were the taxes actually collected from the people. The
quotas of the remaining States had been raised by the issue of
bonds and State Treasury notes.  The public debt of the country
was thus actually increased instead of being diminished by
the taxation imposed by Congress.</p>

<p>At the first and second sessions of Congress in 1862 no
means were provided by taxation for maintaining the Government.
The legislation was confined to authorizing further
sales of bonds and issues of Treasury notes.  An obstacle had
arisen against successful taxation. About two thirds of the
entire taxable property of the Confederate States consisted in
land and slaves. Under the provisional Constitution, which
ceased to be in force on February 22, 1862, the power of Congress
to levy taxes was not restricted by any other condition
than that "all duties, imposts, and excises should be uniform
throughout the States of the Confederacy."  But in the permanent
Constitution, which took effect on the same day (February
22d), it was specially provided that "representatives and
direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States according
to their respective numbers, which shall be determined
by adding to the whole number of free persons&mdash;including those
bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not
taxed&mdash;three fifths of all slaves."  According to the received
construction of the Constitution of the United States, which had
been acquiesced in for sixty years, taxes on lands and slaves
were direct taxes.  In repeating, without modification, in our
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page496" id="page496"></a>[pg 496]</span>
Constitution this language of the United States Constitution,
our Convention necessarily seems to have intended to attach to
it the meaning which had been sanctioned by long and uninterrupted
acquiescence&mdash;thus deciding that taxes on lands and
slaves were direct taxes. Our Constitution further ordered that
a census should be made within three years after the first meeting
of Congress, and that "no capitation or other direct tax
shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration
hereinbefore directed to be taken."</p>

<p>So long as there seemed to be a probability of being able to
carry out these provisions of the Constitution fully, and in conformity
with the intentions of its authors, there was an obvious
difficulty in framing any system of taxation. A law which
should exempt from the burden two thirds of the property of
the country would be as unfair to the owners of the remaining
third as it would be inadequate to meet the requirements of the
public service. The urgency of the need, however, was such
that, after great embarrassment, the law of April 24, 1863,
above mentioned, was framed.  Still, a very large proportion of
these resources was unavailable for some time, and, the intervening
exigencies permitting of no delay, a resort to further
issues of Treasury notes became unavoidable.</p>

<p>The foreign debt of the Confederate States at the close of
the war was twenty-two hundred thousand pounds. The earliest
proposals on which this debt was contracted were issued in London
and Paris in March, 1863.  The bonds bore interest at seven
per cent. per annum, in sterling, payable half-yearly. They
were exchangeable for cotton on application, at the option of the
holder, or redeemable at par in sterling, in twenty years, by half-yearly
drawings, commencing March 1, 1864.  The special security
of these bonds was the engagement of the Government
to deliver cotton to the holders.  Each bond, <i>at the option of
the holder</i>, was convertible at its nominal amount into cotton at
the rate of sixpence sterling for each pound of cotton&mdash;say four
thousand pounds of cotton for each bond of a hundred pounds,
or twenty-five hundred francs; and this could be done at any
time not later than six months after the ratification of a treaty
of peace between the belligerents.  Sixty days after the notice,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page497" id="page497"></a>[pg 497]</span>
the cotton was to be delivered, if in a state of peace, at the ports
of Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans; if at war,
at points in the interior of the country, within ten miles of a
railroad, or a stream navigable to the ocean. The delivery was
to be made free of all charges, except the export duty of one
eighth of one cent per pound.  The quality of the cotton was to
be the standard of New Orleans middling.  An annual sinking
fund of five per cent. was provided for, whereby two and a half
per cent. of the bonds unredeemed by cotton should be drawn
by lot half-yearly, so as finally to extinguish the loan in twenty
years from the first drawing.  The bonds were issued at ninety
per cent., payable in installments.  The loan soon stood in the
London market at five per cent. premium.  The amount asked
for was three million pounds.  The amount of applications in
London and Paris exceeded fifteen million pounds.</p>

<p>Great efforts had previously been made by agents of the
United States Government to reflect upon the credit of the Confederate
States, by resuscitating an almost forgotten accusation
of repudiation against the State of Mississippi, and especially by
an emissary sent to Great Britain, than whom no one knew
better how false were the attempts to implicate my name in
that charge.  The slanderous tongues of Northern hatred even
went so far as to style me "the father of repudiation."  How
unjust all such assertions were, will be manifest by a simple
statement of the case.<a id="footnotetag193" name="footnotetag193"></a><a href="#footnote193"><sup>193</sup></a></p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page498" id="page498"></a>[pg 498]</span>

<p>We should not omit to refer once more to the most prolific
source of sectional strife and alienation, which is believed to
have been the question of the tariff, or duties upon imports.
Its influence extended to and affected subjects with which it
was not visibly connected, and finally assumed a form surely
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page499" id="page499"></a>[pg 499]</span>
not contemplated in the original formation of the Union.  In
the Articles of Confederation, the first Constitution of the
United States, the theory was that of direct taxation, and the
manner was to impose upon the States an amount which each
was to furnish to the common Treasury to defray expenses for
the common defense and general welfare.</p>

<p>During the period of our colonial existence, the policy of
the British Government had been to suppress the growth of
manufacturing industry. It was forcibly expressed by Lord
North in the declaration that "not a hobnail should be made
in the American colonies." The consequence was that in the
War of the Revolution our armies and people suffered so much
from the want of the most necessary supplies that General
Washington, after we had achieved our independence, expressed
the opinion that the Government should by bounties, encourage
the manufacture of such materials as were necessary in time
of war.</p>

<p>In the Convention which framed the Constitution for a
"more perfect Union," one of the greatest difficulties in agreeing
upon its terms was found in the different interests of the States,
but, among the compromises which were made, there prominently
appears the purpose of a strict equality in the burdens to
be borne, as well as the blessings to be enjoyed, by the people
of the several States.  For a long time after the formation of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page500" id="page500"></a>[pg 500]</span>
the "more perfect Union," but little capital was invested in
manufacturing establishments; and, though in the early part of
the present century the amount had considerably increased, the
products were yet quite insufficient for the necessary supplies of
our armies in the War of 1812. Government contracts, high
prices, and to some extent, no doubt, patriotic impulses, led to
the investment of capital in the articles required for the prosecution
of the war. With the restoration of peace and the renewal
of commerce, prices naturally declined, and it was represented
that the investments made in manufacturing establishments
were so unprofitable as to involve the ruin of those
who had made them. The Congress of the United States, in
1816, from motives at least to be commended for their generosity,
enacted a law to protect from the threatened ruin those
of their countrymen who had employed their capital for purposes
demanded by the general welfare and common defense.
These good intentions, if it be conceded that the danger was
real which it was designed to avert, were most unfortunate as
the beginning of a policy the end of which was fraught with
the greatest evils that have ever befallen the Union. By the
Constitution of 1789 power was conferred upon Congress&mdash;</p>

<blockquote><p>
"To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the
debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of
the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform
throughout the United States."
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the exercise of this delegated trust, tariff laws were enacted,
and had been in operation to the satisfaction of all parts
of the Union, from the organization of the Government down
to 1816; but throughout that period all of those laws were
based upon the principle of duties for revenue. It was true,
and of course it was known, that such duties would give incidental
protection to any industry producing an article on which
the duty was levied; but, while the money was collected for
the purposes enumerated, and the rate kept down to the lowest
revenue standard, the consumer had no cause to complain of
the indirect benefit received by the manufacturer, and the history
of the time shows that it produced no discontent. Not so
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page501" id="page501"></a>[pg 501]</span>
with the tariff law of 1816: though sustained by men from all
sections of the Union, and notably by so strict a constructionist
as Mr. Calhoun, there were not wanting those who saw in it a
departure from the limitation of the Constitution, and sternly
opposed it as the usurpation of a power to legislate for the benefit
of a class. The law derived much of its support from the
assurance that it was only a temporary measure, and intended
to shield those whose patriotism had exposed them to danger,
thus presenting the not uncommon occurrence of a good case
making a bad precedent.  For the first time a tariff law had
protection for its object, and for the first time it produced discontent.
In the law there was nothing which necessarily gave
to it or in its terms violated the obligation that duties should
be uniform throughout the United States. The fact that it
affected the sections differently was due to physical causes&mdash;that
is, geographical differences.  The streams of the Southern
Atlantic States ran over wide plains into the sea; their last
falls were remote from ocean navigation; and their people, almost
exclusively agricultural, resided principally on this plain,
and as near to the seaboard as circumstances would permit.
In the Northern Atlantic States the highlands approached more
nearly to the sea, and the rivers made their last leap near to
harbors of commerce.  Water-power being relied on before the
steam-engine had been made, and ships the medium of commerce
before railroads and locomotives were introduced, it followed
that the staples of the Southern plains were economically
sent to the water-power of the North to be manufactured.  This
remark, of course, applies to such articles as were not exported
to foreign countries, and is intended to explain how the North
became the seat of manufactures, and the South remained
agricultural. From this it followed that legislation for the
benefit of manufacturers became a Northern policy. It was
not, as has been erroneously stated, because of the agricultural
character of the Southern people, that they were opposed to the
policy inaugurated by the tariff act of 1816.  This is shown by
the fact that anterior to that time they had been the friends of
manufacturing industry, without reference to its location.  As
long as duties were imposed for revenue, so that the object was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page502" id="page502"></a>[pg 502]</span>
to supply the common Treasury, it had been cheerfully borne,
and the agriculture of one section and the manufacturing of
another were properly regarded as handmaids, and not unfrequently
referred to as the means of strengthening and perpetuating
the bonds by which the States were united. When duties
were imposed, not for revenue, but as a bounty to a particular
industry, it was regarded both as unjust and without warrant,
expressed or implied, in the Constitution.</p>

<p>Then arose the controversy, quadrennially renewed and with
increasing provocation, in 1820, in 1824, and in 1828&mdash;each
stage intensifying the discontent, arising more from the injustice
than the weight of the burden borne.  It was not the
twenty-shilling ship-money tax, but the violation of Magna
Charta, which Hampden and his associates resisted. It was not
the stamp duty nor the tea-tax, but the principle involved
in taxation without representation, against which our colonial
fathers took up arms. So the tariff act in 1828, known at
the time as "the bill of abominations," was resisted by Southern
representatives, because it was the invasion of private rights
in violation of the compact by which the States were united.
In the last stage of the proceeding, after the friends of the
bill had advocated it as a measure for protecting capital invested
in manufactures, Mr. Drayton, of South Carolina, moved
to amend the title so that it should read, "An act to increase
the duties upon certain imports, for the purpose of increasing
the profits of certain manufacturers," and stated his purpose for
desiring to amend the title to be that, upon some case which
would arise under the execution of the law, an appeal might be
made to the Supreme Court of the United States to test its constitutionality.
Those who had passed the bill refused to allow
the opportunity to test the validity of a tax imposed for the
protection of a particular industry. Though the debates showed
clearly enough the purpose to be to impose duties for protection,
the phraseology of the law presented it as enacted to raise
revenue, and therefore the victims of the discrimination were
deprived of an appeal to the tribunal instituted to hear and decide
on the constitutionality of a law.</p>

<p>South Carolina, oppressed by onerous duties and stung by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page503" id="page503"></a>[pg 503]</span>
the injustice of a refusal to allow her the ordinary remedy
against unconstitutional legislation, asserted the right, as a sovereign
State, to nullify the law. This conflict between the
authority of the United States and one of the States threatened
for a time such disastrous consequences as to excite intense feeling
in all who loved the Union as the fraternal federation of
equal States.  Before an actual collision of arms occurred, Congress
wisely adopted the compromise act of 1833.  By that the
fact of protection remained, but the principle of duties for revenue
was recognized by a sliding scale of reduction, and it was
hoped the question had been placed upon a basis that promised
a permanent peace.  The party of protective duties, however,
came into power about the close of the period when the compromise
measure had reached the result it proposed, and the
contest was renewed with little faith on the part of the then
dominant party and with more than all of its former bitterness.
The cause of the departure from a sound principle of a tariff for
revenue, which had prevailed during the first quarter of a century,
and the adoption in 1816 of the rule imposing duties for
protection, was stated by Mr. McDuffie to be that politicians and
capitalists had seized upon the subject and used it for their own
purposes&mdash;the former for political advancement, the latter for
their own pecuniary profit&mdash;and that the question had become
one of partisan politics and sectional enrichment.  Contemporaneously
with this theory of protective duties, arose the policy of
making appropriations from the common Treasury for local improvements.
As the Southern representatives were mainly those
who denied the constitutional power to make such expenditures,
it naturally resulted that the mass of those appropriations were
made for Northern works.  Now that direct taxes had in practice
been so wholly abandoned as to be almost an obsolete idea,
and now that the Treasury was supplied by the collection of duties
upon imports, two golden streams flowed steadily to enrich
the Northern and manufacturing region by the impoverishment
of the Southern and agricultural section.  In the train of
wealth and demand for labor followed immigration and the more
rapid increase of population in the Northern than in the Southern
States.  I do not deny the existence of other causes, such
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page504" id="page504"></a>[pg 504]</span>
as the fertile region of the Northwest, the better harbors, the
greater amount of shipping of the Northeastern States, and the
prejudice of Europeans against contact with the negro race;
but the causes I have first stated were, I think, the chief, and
those only which are referable to the action of the General Government.
It was not found that the possession of power mitigated
the injustice of its use by the North, and discontent therefore
was steadily accumulating, and, as stated in the beginning
of this chapter, I think was due to class legislation in the form
of protective duties and its consequences more than to any or all
other causes combined.  Turning from the consideration of this
question in its sectional aspect, I now invite attention to its general
effect upon the character of our institutions.  If the common
Treasury of the States had, as under the Confederation,
been supplied by direct taxation, who can doubt that a rigid
economy would have been the rule of the Government; that
representatives would have returned to their tax-paying constituents
to justify appropriations for which they had voted by
showing that they were required for the general welfare, and
were authorized by the Constitution under which they were acting?
When the money was obtained by indirect taxation, so that
but few could see the source from which it was derived, it readily
followed that a constituency would ask, not why the representative
had voted for the expenditure of money, but how
much he had got for his own district, and perhaps he might have
to explain why he did not get more.  Is it doubtful that this
would lead to extravagance, if not to corruption? Nothing
could be more fatal to the independence of the people and the
liberties of the States than dependence for support upon the
public Treasury, whether it be in the form of subsidies, of
bounties, or restrictions on trade for the benefit of special interests.
In the decline of the Roman Empire, the epoch in which
the hopelessness of renovation was made manifest was that in
which the people accepted corn from the public granaries: it
preceded but a little the time when the post of emperor became
a matter of purchase. How far would it differ from this if
constituencies should choose their representatives, not for their
integrity, not for their capacity, not for their past services, but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page505" id="page505"></a>[pg 505]</span>
because of their ability to get money from the public Treasury
for the benefit of their local interests; and how far would it
differ from a purchase of the office if a President were chosen
because of the favor he would show to certain moneyed interests?</p>

<p>Now that fanaticism can no longer inflame the prejudices
of the uninformed, it may be hoped that our statesmen will
review the past, and give to our country a future in accordance
with its early history, and promotive of true liberty.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote192" name="footnote192"></a><b>Footnote 192:</b><a href="#footnotetag192"> (return) </a><p>
These bales were the security for the foreign cotton bonds, and were seized by
the United States Government. Was it not liable to the bondholders?</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote193" name="footnote193"></a><b>Footnote 193:</b><a href="#footnotetag193"> (return) </a><p> The facts with regard to the Mississippi "Union Bank" bonds may be briefly
stated as follows:</p>

<p>The Constitution of Mississippi required that no law should ever be passed "to
raise a loan of money on the credit of the State, or to pledge the faith of the State
for the payment or redemption of any loan or debt," unless such law should be proposed
and adopted by the Legislature, then published for three months previous
to the next regular election, and finally re&euml;nacted by the succeeding Legislature.
The object was to enable the people of the State to consider the question intelligently,
and to indicate and exercise their will upon it by the election of representatives
to the ensuing Legislature, whose views upon the subject would be known, and
with such instructions, express or implied, as they might think proper to give.</p>

<p>In 1837 a law was passed by the Legislature for incorporating the "Union Bank
of Mississippi," with a capital of fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars, "to
be raised by means of a loan to be obtained by the directors of the institution." In
order to secure this loan, the stockholders were required to give mortgages on productive
and unencumbered property, to be in all cases of value greater, by a fixed
ratio, than the amount of their stock.  When the stock had been thus secured, as a
further guarantee for the redemption of the loan, the Governor was directed to
issue bonds, in the name and behalf of the State, equal in amount to the stock secured
by mortgage on private property.  No bonds as thus directed were ever issued.</p>

<p>This act was duly promulgated to the people, and duly re&euml;nacted by the succeeding
Legislature on the 5th of February, 1838, in strict accordance with the Constitution.</p>

<p>Ten days afterward, however, viz., on the 15th of February, the Legislature
passed an act <i>supplemental</i> to the act chartering the Union Bank, which materially
changed or abolished the essential conditions for the pledge of the credit of the State.
By this supplemental act the Governor was instructed, as soon as the books of subscription
should be opened, to "<i>subscribe for</i>, in behalf of the State, fifty thousand
<i>shares of the stock of the original capital of said bank</i>,
to be paid for out of the proceeds
of the State bonds to be executed to the said bank, as already provided for in
the said charter."  This act was passed in the ordinary mode of legislation, and was
not referred, published, nor re&euml;nacted, as prescribed by the Constitution.  As soon
as the directory was organized and the books of subscription were opened, and before
the mortgages required by the charter were executed, the Governor, in behalf of the
State, subscribed for fifty thousand shares of the stock, and issued the bonds of
the State for five million dollars, payable to the order of the bank.</p>

<p>These bonds were sold to Nicholas Biddle, President of the United States Bank
of Pennsylvania, and by him sent to Great Britain as collateral security for a loan
previously made. None of the money received for them went into the Treasury
of the State of Mississippi, nor was any of it used for a public improvement.
All the consideration ever received by the State was its stock in the Union Bank.
The bank soon failed, and the stock became utterly worthless.</p>

<p>Before the bonds became due, the Governor of the State had declared them to
be null and void, among other causes, in consequence of the failure to sell them
at par, as required by the "supplemental act," under which they were issued.</p>

<p>It is not necessary here to discuss the question of the validity or nullity of the
bonds.  The object is merely to state the principal facts.</p>

<p>While these events were occurring, and until a period several years subsequent
to their consummation, I, who had just resigned my commission in the army, was
a private citizen, had never held any civil office, and took no part in political
affairs. Indeed, I have never at any time before, during, or since those events, held
any civil office under the State government, and neither had nor could have had
any part in shaping the policy of the State.  When brought out as a candidate for
office, my nomination was opposed by that section of my party which advocated
"repudiation," on account of my opinions in favor of the payment of the bonds.</p>

<p>As a private citizen, it may be stated that I held that the question of the validity
of the bonds should be decided by the courts.  The Constitution of Mississippi authorized
suit to be brought against the State in such cases in her own courts, and
this I regarded as the proper course to be pursued by the bondholders, holding that
the State would be bound by the judicial decision, if it should sustain the validity of
the claim. This course, however, was not adopted until long afterward, when the
question had become complicated with political issues, which rendered the effort to
obtain a settlement entirely nugatory.</p>

<p>When I was a member of the Senate of the United States, my official influence
was exerted to promote the objects of a citizen of Mississippi,
who, with quasi-credentials
from the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, went to London
to propose to the bondholders an arrangement by which the claim, or the greater
portion of it, might be paid by private subscription, on consideration of the cancellation
of the bonds. This effort failed, from a mistaken estimate on the part of some
of the principal bondholders, to whom the proposition was made, of the extent to
which State pride would induce our citizens to contribute, and to the belief in
a power to coerce payment.  The gentleman who bore the proposal, indignant at
the offensive manner of its rejection, and conscious of the disinterestedness of his
motives, abandoned the negotiation in disgust, and the opportunity was lost.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="chap-iv-xiv" id="chap-iv-xiv"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>

<blockquote><p>
Military Laws and Measures.&mdash;Agricultural Products diminished.&mdash;Manufactures
flourishing.&mdash;The Call for Volunteers.&mdash;The Term of Three Years.&mdash;Improved
Discipline.&mdash;The Law assailed.&mdash;Important Constitutional Question raised.&mdash;Its
Discussion at Length.&mdash;Power of the Government over its own Armies and
the Militia.&mdash;Object of Confederations.&mdash;The War-Powers granted.&mdash;Two
Modes of raising Armies in the Confederate States.&mdash;Is the Law necessary and
proper?&mdash;Congress is the Judge under the Grant of Specific Power.&mdash;What is
meant by Militia.&mdash;Whole Military Strength divided into Two Classes.&mdash;Powers
of Congress.&mdash;Objections answered.&mdash;Good Effects of the Law.&mdash;The Limitations
enlarged.&mdash;Results of the Operations of these Laws.&mdash;Act for the Employment
of Slaves.&mdash;Message to Congress.&mdash;"Died of a Theory."&mdash;Act to use Slaves as
Soldiers passed.&mdash;Not Time to put it in Operation.
</p></blockquote>


<p>The agricultural products were diminished every year during
the war. Its demands diminished the number of cultivators,
and their labors were more extensively devoted to grain-crops.
The amount of the cotton-crop was greatly reduced,
and numbers of bales were destroyed when in danger of falling
into the hands of the enemy.</p>

<p>The manufacturing industry became more extensive than
ever before, and in many branches more highly developed.
The results in the ordnance department of the Government,
stated elsewhere in these pages, serve as an illustration of the
achievements in many branches of industry.</p>

<p>During the first year of the war the authority granted to the
President to call for volunteers in the army for a short period
was sufficient to secure all the military force which we could
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page506" id="page506"></a>[pg 506]</span>
fit out and use advantageously. As it became evident that
the contest would be long and severe, better measures of preparation
were enacted. I was authorized to call out and place
in the military service for three years, unless the war should
sooner end, all white men residents of the Confederate States
between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five years, and to continue
those already in the field until three years from the date
of their enlistment. But those under eighteen years and over
thirty-five were required to remain ninety days. The existing
organization of companies, regiments, etc., was preserved, but
the former were filled up to the number of one hundred and
twenty-five men. This was the first step toward placing the
army in a permanent and efficient condition. The term of service
being lengthened, the changes by discharges and by receiving
recruits were diminished, so that, while additions were
made to the forces already in the field, the discipline was greatly
improved. At the same time, on March 13, 1862, General
Robert E. Lee was "charged with the conduct of the military
operations of the armies of the Confederacy" under my direction.
Nevertheless, the law upon which our success so greatly
depended was assailed with unexpected criticism in various
quarters. A constitutional question of high importance was
raised, which tended to involve the harmony of co&ouml;peration, so
essential in this crisis, between the General and the State governments.
It was advanced principally by the Governor of
Georgia, Hon. Joseph E. Brown, and the following extracts
are taken from my reply to him, dated</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Executive Department, Richmond</span>, <i>May</i> 29, 1862.</p>

<p>"I propose, from my high respect for yourself and for other
eminent citizens who entertain opinions similar to yours, to set
forth somewhat at length my own views on the power of the
Confederate Government over its own armies and the militia, and
will endeavor not to leave without answer any of the positions
maintained in your letters.</p>

<p>"The main, if not the only, purpose for which independent
states form unions, or confederations, is to combine the power of
the several members in such manner as to form one united force
in all relations with foreign powers, whether in peace or in war.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page507" id="page507"></a>[pg 507]</span>
Each state, amply competent to administer and control its own
domestic government, yet too feeble successfully to resist powerful
nations, seeks safety by uniting with other states in like condition,
and by delegating to some common agent the use of the
combined strength of all, in order to secure advantageous commercial
relations in peace, and to carry on hostilities with effect in war.</p>

<p>"Now, the powers delegated by the several States to the Confederate
Government, which is their common agent, are enumerated
in the eighth section of the Constitution; each power being
distinct, specific, and enumerated in paragraphs separately numbered.
The only exception is the eighteenth paragraph, which by
its own terms is made dependent on those previously enumerated,
as follows: '18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and
proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers,' etc.</p>

<p>"Now the <i>war-powers</i> granted to the Congress are conferred
in the following paragraphs: No. 1 'gives authority to raise revenue
necessary to pay the debts, provide for <i>the common defense</i>,
and carry on the Government,' etc.  No. 11, 'To declare war, grant
letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures
on land and water.'  No. 12, 'To raise and support armies,
but no appropriations of money to that use shall be for a longer
term than two years.'  No. 13, 'To provide and maintain a navy.'
No. 14, 'To make rules for the government and regulation of <i>the
land and naval forces</i>.'</p>

<p>"It is impossible to imagine a more broad, ample, and unqualified
delegation of the whole war power of each State than is here
contained, with the solitary limitation of the appropriations to
two years.  The States not only gave power to raise money for
the common defense, to declare war, to raise and support armies
(in the plural), to provide and maintain a navy, to govern and
regulate both land and naval forces, but they went further, and
covenanted, by the third paragraph of the tenth section, not 'to
engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger
as will not admit of delay.'</p>

<p>"I know of but two modes of raising armies within the Confederate
States, viz., voluntary enlistment and draft, or conscription.
I perceive, in the delegation of power to raise armies, no
restriction as to the mode of procuring troops.  I see nothing
which confines Congress to one class of men, nor any greater
power to receive volunteers than conscripts into its service.  I see
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page508" id="page508"></a>[pg 508]</span>
no limitation by which enlistments are to be received of individuals
only, but not of companies, or battalions, or squadrons, or
regiments.  I find no limitation of time of service, but only of
duration of appropriation.  I discover nothing to confine Congress
to waging war within the limits of the Confederacy, nor to
prohibit offensive war.  In a word, when Congress desires to raise
an army, and passes a law for that purpose, the solitary question
is under the eighteenth paragraph, viz., 'Is the law one that is
necessary and proper to execute the power to raise armies?'</p>

<p>"On this point you say: `But did the necessity exist in this
case? The conscription act can not aid the Government in increasing
its supply of <i>arms</i> or <i>provisions</i>, but can only enable it
to call a larger number of men into the field.  The difficulty has
never been to get <i>men</i>.  The States have already furnished the
Government more than it can arm,' etc.</p>

<p>"I would have very little difficulty in establishing to your entire
satisfaction that the passage of the law was not only necessary,
but that it was absolutely indispensable; that numerous
regiments of twelve months' men were on the eve of being disbanded,
whose places could not be supplied by raw levies in the
face of superior numbers of the foe, without entailing the most
disastrous results; that the position of our armies was so critical
as to fill the bosom of every patriot with the liveliest apprehension;
and that the provisions of this law were effective in warding
off a pressing danger. But I prefer to answer your objection
on other and broader grounds.</p>

<p>"I hold that, when a specific power is granted by the Constitution,
like that now in question, 'to raise armies,' Congress is the
judge whether the law passed for the purpose of executing that
power is 'necessary and proper.' It is not enough to say that armies
might be raised in other ways, and that, therefore, this particular
way is not 'necessary.' The same argument might be used
against <i>every</i> mode of raising armies.  To each successive mode
suggested, the objection would be that other modes were practicable,
and that, therefore, the particular mode used was not 'necessary.'
The true and only test is to inquire whether the law is
intended and calculated to carry out the object; whether it devises
and creates an instrumentality for executing the specific
power granted; and, if the answer be in the affirmative, the law
is constitutional. None can doubt that the conscription law is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page509" id="page509"></a>[pg 509]</span>
calculated and intended to 'raise armies'; it is, therefore, 'necessary
and proper' for the execution of that power, and is constitutional,
unless it comes in conflict with some other provision of
our Confederate compact.</p>

<p>"You express the opinion that this conflict exists, and support
your argument by the citation of those clauses which refer to the
militia.  There are certain provisions not cited by you, which are
not without influence on my judgment, and to which I call your
attention. They will aid in defining what is meant by 'militia,'
and in determining the respective powers of the States and the
Confederacy over them.</p>

<p>"The several States agree 'not to keep troops or ships of war
in time of peace.'<a id="footnotetag194" name="footnotetag194"></a><a href="#footnote194"><sup>194</sup></a> They further stipulate that, 'a well-regulated
militia being necessary for the security of a free State, the right
of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'<a id="footnotetag195" name="footnotetag195"></a><a href="#footnote195"><sup>195</sup></a></p>

<p>"'That no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a
grand jury, except in cases arising in the <i>land</i> or <i>naval forces</i>, or
in <i>the militia</i> when in actual service in times of war or public
danger.'<a id="footnotetag196" name="footnotetag196"></a><a href="#footnote196"><sup>196</sup></a></p>

<p>"What, then, are militia?  They can only be created by law.
The arms-bearing inhabitants of a State are liable to become its
militia, if the law so order; but, in the absence of a law to that
effect, the men of a State capable of bearing arms are no more
militia than they are seamen.</p>

<p>"The Constitution also tells us that militia are not <i>troops</i>, nor
are they any part of the <i>land</i> or <i>naval forces</i>; for militia exist in
time of peace, and the Constitution forbids the States to keep
troops in time of peace, and they are expressly distinguished and
placed in a separate category from land or naval forces in the sixteenth
paragraph above quoted; and the words <i>land</i> and <i>naval
forces</i> are shown by paragraphs 12, 13, and 14, to mean the Army
and Navy of the Confederate States.</p>

<p>"Now, if militia are not the citizens taken singly, but a body
created by law; if they are not troops; if they are no part of the
Army and Navy of the Confederacy, we are led directly to the
definition, quoted by the Attorney-General, that militia are 'a
body of soldiers in a State enrolled for discipline.'  In other
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page510" id="page510"></a>[pg 510]</span>
words, the term 'militia' is a collective term meaning a body of
men organized, and can not be applied to the separate individuals
who compose the organization.</p>

<p>"The Constitution divides the whole military strength of the
States into only two classes of organized bodies: one, the armies
of the Confederacy; the other, the militia of the States.</p>

<p>"In the delegation of power to the Confederacy, after exhausting
the subject of declaring war, raising and supporting armies,
and providing a navy, in relation to all which the grant of authority
to Congress is <i>exclusive</i>, the Constitution proceeds to deal with
the other organized body, the militia; and, instead of delegating
power to Congress alone, or reserving it to the States alone, the
power is divided as follows, viz.: Congress is to have power 'to
provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the
<i>Confederate</i> States, suppress insurrections, and <i>repel invasions</i>.'<a id="footnotetag197" name="footnotetag197"></a><a href="#footnote197"><sup>197</sup></a></p>

<p>"'To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the
militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed
in the service of the Confederate States; <i>reserving</i> to <i>the States
respectively the appointment of the officers</i>, and the <i>authority of
training the militia</i>, according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.'<a id="footnotetag198" name="footnotetag198"></a><a href="#footnote198"><sup>198</sup></a></p>

<p>"Congress, then, has the power to provide for <i>organizing</i> the
arms-bearing people of the State into militia. Each <i>State</i> has the
power to officer and <i>train</i> them when organized.</p>

<p>"<i>Congress</i> may call forth the militia to execute Confederate
laws; the <i>State</i> has not surrendered the power to call them forth
to execute State laws.</p>

<p>"Congress may call them forth to repel invasion; so may the
State, for the power is impliedly reserved of governing all the
militia, except the part in actual service of the Confederacy.</p>

<p>"I confess myself at a loss to perceive in what manner these
careful and well-defined provisions of the Constitution, regulating
the organization and government of the militia, can be understood
as applying in the remotest degree to the armies of the Confederacy,
nor can I conceive how the grant of <i>exclusive</i> power to
declare and carry on war by armies raised and supported by the
Confederacy is to be restricted or diminished by the clauses which
grant a <i>divided</i> power over the militia. On the contrary, the
delegation of authority over the militia, so far as granted, appears
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page511" id="page511"></a>[pg 511]</span>
to me to be plainly an <i>additional</i> enumerated power intended to
strengthen the hands of the Confederate Government in the discharge
of its paramount duty, the common defense of the States.</p>

<p>"You state, after quoting the twelfth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
grants of power to Congress, that 'these grants of power all relate
to the same subject-matter, and are all contained in the same section
of the Constitution, and, by a well-known rule of construction,
must be taken as a whole and construed together.'</p>

<p>"This argument appears to me unsound.  <i>All</i> the powers of
Congress are enumerated in one section, and the three paragraphs
quoted can no more control each other by reason of their location
in the same section than they can control any of the other paragraphs
preceding, intervening, or succeeding. So far as the subject-matter
is concerned, I have already endeavored to show that
the armies mentioned in the twelfth paragraph are a subject-matter
as distinct from the militia mentioned in the fifteenth and
sixteenth as they are from the navy mentioned in the thirteenth.
Nothing can so mislead as to construe together, and as a whole,
the carefully separated clauses which define the different powers
to be exercised over distinct subjects by the Congress.</p>

<p>"But you add that, 'by the grant of power to Congress to
raise and support armies without qualification, the framers of the
Constitution intended the regular armies of the Confederacy, and
not armies composed of the whole militia of all the States.'</p>

<p>"I must confess myself somewhat at a loss to understand this
position. If I am right that the militia is a body of enrolled State
soldiers, it is not possible in the nature of things that armies raised
by the Confederacy can 'be composed of the whole militia of all
the States.' The militia may be called forth in whole or in part
into the Confederate service, but do not thereby become part of
the 'armies raised' by Congress.  They remain militia, and go
home when the emergency which provoked their call has ceased.
Armies raised by Congress are of course raised out of the <i>same
population</i> as the militia organized by the States, and to deny to
Congress the power to draft a citizen into the army, or to receive
his voluntary offer of services, because he is a member of the State
militia, is to deny the power to raise an army at all; for, practically,
all men fit for service in the army may be embraced in the
militia organization of the several States.  You seem, however, to
suggest, rather than directly to assert, that the conscript law may
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page512" id="page512"></a>[pg 512]</span>
be unconstitutional, because it comprehends all arms-bearing men
between eighteen and thirty-five years; at least, this is an inference
which I draw from your expression, 'armies composed of the
<i>whole</i> militia of <i>all</i> the States.' But it is obvious that, if Congress
have power to draft into the armies raised by it any citizens at all
(without regard to the fact whether they are, or not, members of
militia organizations), the power must be coextensive with the
exigencies of the occasion, or it becomes illusory; and the extent
of the exigency must be determined by Congress; for the Constitution
has left the power without any other check or restriction
than the Executive veto. Under ordinary circumstances, the power
thus delegated to Congress is scarcely felt by the States.  At the
present moment, when our very existence is threatened by armies
vastly superior in numbers to ours, the necessity for defense has
induced a call, not for 'the whole militia of all the States,' not for
any militia, but for men to compose <i>armies</i> for the Confederate
States.</p>

<p>"Surely there is no mystery in this subject.  During our whole
past history, as well as during our recent one year's experience as
a new Confederacy, the militia 'have been called forth to repel
invasion' in numerous instances, and they never came otherwise
than as bodies organized by the States with their company, field,
and <i>general officers</i>; and, when the emergency had passed, they
went home again.  I can not perceive how any one can interpret
the conscription law as taking away from the States the power to
appoint officers to their militia. You observe on this point in
your letter that, unless your construction is adopted, 'the very
object of the States in reserving the power of appointing the officers
is defeated, and that portion of the Constitution is not only a
nullity, but the whole military power of the States, and the entire
control of the militia, with the appointment of the officers, is
vested in the Confederate Government, whenever it chooses to
call its own action "raising an army," and not "calling forth the
militia."'</p>

<p>"I can only say, in reply to this, that the power of Congress
depends on the real nature of the act it proposes to perform, not
on the name given to it; and I have endeavored to show that
its action is really that of 'raising an army,' and bears no semblance
to 'calling forth the militia.' I think I may safely venture
the assertion that there is not one man out of a thousand of those
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page513" id="page513"></a>[pg 513]</span>
who will do service under the conscription act that will describe
himself while in the Confederate service as being a militiaman;
and, if I am right in this assumption, the popular understanding
concurs entirely with my own deductions from the Constitution as
to the meaning of the word 'militia.'</p>

<p>"My answer has grown to such a length, that I must confine
myself to one more quotation from your letter. You proceed:
'Congress shall have power to <i>raise armies</i>. How shall it be done?
The answer is clear.  In conformity to the provisions of the Constitution,
which expressly provides that, when the militia of the
States are called forth to <i>repel invasion</i>, and employed in the service
of the Confederate States, which is now the case, the State
shall appoint the officers.</p>

<p>"I beg you to observe that the answer which you say is clear
is not an answer to the question put.  The question is, How are
armies to be raised?  The answer given is, that, when militia are
called upon to repel invasion, the State shall appoint the officers.</p>

<p>"There seems to me to be a conclusive test on this whole subject.
By our Constitution, Congress may declare war, <i>offensive</i>
as well as <i>defensive</i>. It may acquire territory. Now, suppose
that, for good cause and to right unprovoked injuries, Congress
should declare war against Mexico and invade Sonora. The militia
could not be called forth in such a case, the right to call it being
limited 'to repel invasions.'  Is it not plain that the law now
under discussion, if passed under such circumstances, could by no
possibility be aught else than a law to 'raise an army'?  Can one
and the same law be construed into a 'calling forth the militia,' if
the war be defensive, and a 'raising of armies,' if the war be offensive?</p>

<p>"At some future day, after our independence shall have been
established, it is no improbable supposition that our present enemy
may be tempted to abuse his naval power by depredations on our
commerce, and that we may be compelled to assert our rights by
offensive war.  How is it to be carried on?  Of what is the army
to be composed?  If this Government can not call on its arms-bearing
population otherwise than as militia, and if the militia can
only be called forth to repel invasion, we should be utterly helpless
to vindicate our honor or protect our rights.  War has been
well styled 'the terrible litigation  of nations.'  Have we  so
formed our Government that in this litigation we must never be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page514" id="page514"></a>[pg 514]</span>
plaintiffs? Surely this can not have been the intention of the
framers of our compact.</p>

<p>"In no respect in which I can view this law can I find just
reason to distrust the propriety of my action in approving and
signing it; and the question presented involves consequences,
both immediate and remote, too momentous to permit me to leave
your objections unanswered.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Jefferson Davis</span>."
</p></blockquote>

<p>The operation of this law was suspended in the States of
Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, because of their occupation
by the armies of the Federal Government. The opposition to
it, where its execution was continued, soon became limited,
and before June 1st its good effects were seen in the increased
strength and efficiency of our armies. At the same time I
was authorized to commission officers to form bands of "Partisan
Rangers," either of infantry or cavalry, which were subsequently
confined to cavalry alone. On September 27, 1862, all
white men between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five were
placed in the military service for three years. All persons subject
to enrollment might be enrolled wherever found, and were
made subject to the provisions of the law. Authority was also
given for the reception of volunteers from the States in which
the law was suspended. On February 11, 1864, it was enacted
by Congress that all white men between the ages of seventeen
and fifty should be in the military service for the war; also, that
all then in the service between the ages of eighteen and forty-five
should be retained during the war. An enrollment was
also ordered of all persons between the ages of seventeen and
eighteen and between forty-five and fifty years, who should
constitute a reserve for State defense and detail duty. On February
17th all male free negroes between the ages of eighteen
and fifty years were made liable to perform duties with the
army, or in connection with the military defenses of the country
in the way of work upon the fortifications, or in Government
works for the production or preparation of materials of
war, or in military hospitals. The Secretary of War was also
authorized to employ for the same duties any number of negro
slaves not exceeding twenty thousand.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page515" id="page515"></a>[pg 515]</span>

<p>In the operation of the military laws we found the exemption
from military duty accorded by the law to all persons engaged
in certain specified pursuits or professions to be unwise.
Indeed, it seems to be indefensible in theory.  The defense of
home, family, and country is universally recognized as the paramount
political duty of every member of society; and, in a
form of government where each citizen enjoys an equality of
rights and privileges, nothing can be more invidious than an
unequal distribution of duties or obligations.  No pursuit nor
position should relieve any one who is able to do active duty
from enrollment in the army, unless his functions or services are
more useful to the defense of his country in another sphere.
But the exemption from service of entire classes should be
wholly abandoned.</p>

<p>The act of February 17, 1864 (above mentioned), which authorized
the employment of slaves, produced less results than
had been anticipated.  It, however, brought forward the question
of the employment of the negroes as soldiers in the army,
which was warmly advocated by some and as ardently opposed
by others. My own views upon it were expressed freely and
frequently in intercourse with members of Congress, and emphatically
in my message of November 7, 1864, when, urging
upon Congress the consideration of the propriety of a radical
modification of the theory of the law, I said:</p>

<blockquote><p>
"Viewed merely as property, and therefore as the subject of
impressment, the service or labor of the slave has been frequently
claimed for short periods in the construction of defensive works.
The slave, however, bears another relation to the state&mdash;that of a
person. The law of last February contemplates only the relation
of the slave to the master, and limits the impressment to a certain
term of service.</p>

<p>"But, for the purposes enumerated in the act, instruction in
the manner of camping, marching, and packing trains is needful,
so that even in this limited employment length of service adds
greatly to the value of the negro's labor. Hazard is also encountered
in all the positions to which negroes can be assigned for
service with the army, and the duties required of them demand
loyalty and zeal.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page516" id="page516"></a>[pg 516]</span>

<p>"In this aspect the relation of person predominates so far as
to render it doubtful whether the private right of property can
consistently and beneficially be continued, and it would seem
proper to acquire for the public service the entire property in the
labor of the slave, and to pay therefor due compensation, rather
than to impress his labor for short terms; and this the more especially
as the effect of the present law would vest this entire property
in all cases where the slave might be recaptured after compensation
for his loss had been paid to the private owner. Whenever
the entire property in the service of a slave is thus acquired
by the Government, the question is presented by what tenure he
should be held. Should he be retained in servitude, or should his
emancipation be held out to him as a reward for faithful service,
or should it be granted at once on the promise of such service;
and if emancipated what action should be taken to secure for the
freed man the permission of the State from which he was drawn
to reside within its limits after the close of his public service?
The permission would doubtless be more readily accorded as a
reward for past faithful service, and a double motive for zealous
discharge of duty would thus be offered to those employed by the
Government&mdash;their freedom and the gratification of the local attachment
which is so marked a characteristic of the negro and
forms so powerful an incentive to his action.  The policy of engaging
to liberate the negro on his discharge after service faithfully
rendered seems to me preferable to that of granting immediate
manumission, or that of retaining him in servitude.  If this
policy should commend itself to the judgment of Congress, it is
suggested that, in addition to the duties heretofore performed by
the slave, he might be advantageously employed as a pioneer and
engineer laborer, and, in that event, that the number should be
augmented to forty thousand.</p>

<p>"Beyond this limit and these employments it does not seem
to me desirable under existing circumstances to go.</p>

<p>"A broad, moral distinction exists between the use of slaves as
soldiers in defense of their homes and the incitement of the same
persons to insurrection against their masters. The one is justifiable,
if necessary, the other is iniquitous and unworthy of civilized
people; and such is the judgment of all writers on public law, as
well as that expressed and insisted on by our enemies in all wars
prior to that now waged against us.  By none have the practices
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page517" id="page517"></a>[pg 517]</span>
of which they are now guilty been denounced with greater severity
than by themselves in the two wars with Great Britain, in the
last and in the present century, and in the Declaration of Independence
in 1776, when an enumeration was made of the wrongs
which justified the revolt from Great Britain. The climax of
atrocity was deemed to be reached only when the English monarch
was denounced as having 'excited domestic insurrection
among us.'</p>

<p>"The subject is to be viewed by us, therefore, solely in the
light of policy and our social economy. When so regarded, I
must dissent from those who advise a general levy and arming of
the slaves for the duty of soldiers. Until our white population
shall prove insufficient for the armies we require and can afford
to keep in the field, to employ as a soldier the negro, who has
merely been trained to labor, and, as a laborer, the white man
accustomed from his youth to the use of arms, would scarcely be
deemed wise or advantageous by any; and this is the question
now before us. But should the alternative ever be presented of
subjugation, or of the employment of the slave as a soldier, there
seems no reason to doubt what should then be our decision.
Whether our view embraces what would, in so extreme a case, be
the sum of misery entailed by the dominion of the enemy, or be
restricted solely to the effect upon the welfare and happiness of
the negro population themselves, the result would be the same.
The appalling demoralization, suffering, disease, and death, which
have been caused by partially substituting the invaders' system of
police for the kind relation previously subsisting between the
master and slave, have been a sufficient demonstration that external
interference with our institution of domestic slavery is productive
of evil only. If the subject involved no other consideration
than the mere right of property, the sacrifices heretofore
made by our people have been such as to permit no doubt of their
readiness to surrender every possession in order to secure independence.
But the social and political question which is exclusively
under the control of the several States has a far wider and more
enduring importance than that of pecuniary interest. In its manifold
phases it embraces the stability of our republican institutions,
resting on the actual political equality of all its citizens, and
includes the fulfillment of the task which has been so happily begun&mdash;that
of Christianizing and improving the condition of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page518" id="page518"></a>[pg 518]</span>
Africans who have by the will of Providence been placed in our
charge. Comparing the results of our own experience with those
of the experiments of others who have borne similar relations to
the African race, the people of the several States of the Confederacy
have abundant reason to be satisfied with the past, and to use
the greatest circumspection in determining their course.  These
considerations, however, are rather applicable to the improbable
contingency of our need of resorting to this element of assistance
than to our present condition.  If the recommendation above,
made for the training of forty thousand negroes for the service
indicated, shall meet your approval, it is certain that even this limited
number, by their preparatory training in intermediate duties,
would form a more valuable reserve force in case of urgency
than threefold their number suddenly called from field-labor,
while a fresh levy could to a certain extent supply their places in
the special service for which they are now employed."
</p></blockquote>

<p>Subsequent events advanced my views from a prospective
to a present need for the enrollment of negroes to take their
place in the ranks.  Strenuously I argued the question with
members of Congress who called to confer with me.  To a
member of the Senate (the House in which we most needed a
vote) I stated, as I had done to many others, the fact of having
led negroes against a lawless body of armed white men, and
the assurance which the experiment gave me that they might,
under proper conditions, be relied on in battle, and finally used
to him the expression which I believe I can repeat exactly: "If
the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone,
'Died of a theory.'"  General Lee was brought before a committee
to state his opinion as to the probable efficiency of negroes
as soldiers, and disappointed the probable expectation by
his unqualified advocacy of the proposed measure.</p>

<p>After much discussion in Congress, a bill authorizing the
President to ask for and accept from their owners such a number
of able-bodied negro men as he might deem expedient subsequently
passed the House, but was lost in the Senate by one
vote. The Senators of Virginia opposed the measure so strongly
that only legislative instruction could secure their support of
it.  Their Legislature did so instruct them, and they voted for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page519" id="page519"></a>[pg 519]</span>
it.  Finally, the bill passed, with an amendment providing that
not more than twenty-five per cent. of the male slaves between
the ages of eighteen and forty-five should be called out.  But
the passage of the act had been so long delayed that the opportunity
was lost.  There did not remain time enough to obtain
any result from its provisions.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote194" name="footnote194"></a><b>Footnote 194:</b><a href="#footnotetag194"> (return) </a><p>Article I, section 10, paragraph 3.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote195" name="footnote195"></a><b>Footnote 195:</b><a href="#footnotetag195"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 9, Part XIII.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote196" name="footnote196"></a><b>Footnote 196:</b><a href="#footnotetag196"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., section 9, paragraph 16.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote197" name="footnote197"></a><b>Footnote 197:</b><a href="#footnotetag197"> (return) </a><p>Section 8, paragraph 15.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote198" name="footnote198"></a><b>Footnote 198:</b><a href="#footnotetag198"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., paragraph 16.</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page520" id="page520"></a>[pg 520]</span>




<h2><a name="appendixes" id="appendixes"></a>APPENDIXES.</h2>

<p>[Transcriber's Note: There is no Appendix A.]</p>

<h2><a name="appendix-b" id="appendix-b"></a>APPENDIX B.</h2>

<h3>THE OREGON QUESTION.</h3>


<p>Extracts from speech of Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, in
the House of Representatives, February 6, 1846, on the resolution
to terminate the joint occupation of the Oregon Territory.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Mr. Chairman</span>: In negotiations between governments, in attempts to
modify existing policies, the circumstances of the time most frequently
decide between success and failure.</p>

<p>How far the introduction of this question may affect our foreign intercourse,
the future only can determine; but I invite attention to the present
posture of affairs.  Amicable relations, after a serious interruption, have
been but recently restored between the United States and Mexico.  The
most delicate and difficult of questions, the adjustment of a boundary between
us, remains unsettled; and many eyes are fixed upon our minister at
Mexico, with the hope that he may negotiate a treaty which will remove
all causes of dispute, and give to us territorial limits, the ultimate advantages
of which it would be difficult to over-estimate.</p>

<p>If, sir, hereafter we shall find that, by this excited discussion, portentous
of a war with England, unreasonable demands upon the part of Mexico
should be encouraged, the acquisition of California be defeated, that key to
Asiatic commerce be passed from our hands for ever&mdash;what will we have
gained to compensate so great a loss? We know the influence which Great
Britain exercises over Mexico; we should not expect her to be passive, nor
doubt that the prospect of a war between England and the United States
would serve to revive the former hopes and to renew the recent enmity of
Mexico.</p>

<p>Sir, I have another hope, for the fulfillment of which the signs of the
times seem most propitious. An unusually long exemption from a general
war has permitted the bonds of commerce to extend themselves around the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page521" id="page521"></a>[pg 521]</span>
civilized world, and nations from remote quarters of the globe have been
drawn into that close and mutual dependence which foretold unshackled
trade and a lasting peace. In the East, there appeared a rainbow which
promised that the waters of national jealousy and proscription were about
to recede from the earth for ever, and the spirit of free trade to move over
the face thereof.</p>

<p>In perspective, we saw the ports of California united to the ports and
forests of Oregon, and our countrymen commanding the trade of the Pacific.
The day seemed at hand when the overcharged granaries of the West should
be emptied to the starving millions of Europe and Asia; when the canvas-winged
doves of our commerce should freely fly forth from the ark, and
return across every sea with the olive of every land. Shall objects like
these be endangered by the impatience of petty ambition, the promptings of
sectional interest, or the goadings of fanatic hate? Shall the good of the
whole be surrendered to the voracious demands of the few?  Shall class
interests control the great policy of our country, and the voice of reason be
drowned in the clamor of causeless excitement?  If so, not otherwise, we
may agree with him who would reconcile us to the evils of war by the
promise of "emancipation from the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham";
or leave unanswered the heresy boldly announced, though by
history condemned, that war is the purifier, blood is the aliment, of free
institutions.  Sir, it is true that republics have often been cradled in war,
but more often they have met with a grave in that cradle.  Peace is the
interest, the policy, the nature of a popular government.  War may bring
benefits to a few, but privation and loss are the lot of the many.  An appeal
to arms should be the last resort, and only by national rights or national
honor can it be justified.</p>

<p>To those who have treated this as a case involving the national honor,
I reply that, whenever that question shall justly be raised, I trust an American
Congress will not delay for weeks to discuss the chances, or estimate
the sacrifices, which its maintenance may cost. But, sir, instead of rights
invaded or honor violated, the question before us is, the expediency of
terminating an ancient treaty, which, if it be unwise, it can not be dishonorable,
to continue.  Yet, throughout this long discussion, the recesses and
vaulted dome of this hall have re&euml;choed to inflammatory appeals and violent
declamations on the sanctity of national honor; and then, as if to justify
them, followed reflections most discreditable to the conduct of our Government.
The charge made elsewhere has been repeated here, that we have
trodden upon Mexico, but cowered under England.</p>

<p>Sir, it has been my pride to believe that our history was unstained by an
act of injustice or of perfidy; that we stood recorded before the world as a
people haughty to the strong, generous to the weak; and nowhere has
this character been more exemplified than in our intercourse with Mexico.
We have been referred to the treaty of peace that closed our last war with
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page522" id="page522"></a>[pg 522]</span>
Great Britain, and told that our injuries were unredressed, because the
question of impressment was not decided. There are other decisions than
those made by commissioners, and sometimes they outlast the letter of a
treaty.  On sea and land we settled the question of impressment before
negotiations were commenced at Ghent. Further, it should be remembered
that there was involved within that question a cardinal principle of
each Government.  The power of expatriation, and its sequence, naturalization,
were denied by Great Britain; and hence a right asserted to impress
native-born Britons, though naturalized as citizens of the United States.
This violated a principle which lies at the foundation of our institutions,
and could never be permitted; but, not being propagandists, we could afford
to leave the political opinion unnoticed, after having taught a lesson which
would probably prevent any future attempt to exercise it to our injury.
Let the wisdom of that policy be judged by subsequent events....
</p></blockquote>

<p>Mr. Davis then proceeded to state and argue at length the
historical questions involved, making copious citations from original
authorities.  He continued:</p>

<blockquote><p>
Waiving the consideration of any sinister motive or sectional hate which
may have brought allies to the support of the resolution now before us, I
will treat it as simply aiming at the object which in common we desire&mdash;to
secure the whole of Oregon to the United States.</p>

<p>Thus considered, the dissolution of the Oregon convention becomes a
mere question of time. As a friend to the extension of our Union, and
therefore prone to insist upon its territorial claims, I have thought this
movement premature; that we should have put ourselves in the strongest
attitude for the enforcement of our claims before we fixed a day on which
negotiations should be terminated.  That nation negotiates to most advantage
which is best prepared for war.  Gentlemen have treated the idea of
preparation for war as synonymous with the raising of an army.  It is not
so; indeed, that is the last measure, and should only be resorted to when
war has become inevitable; and then a very short time will always be, I
trust, sufficient.  But, sir, there are preparations which require years, and
can only be made in a state of peace.  Such are the fortifications of the
salient points and main entrances of our coast.  For twenty-odd years
Southern men have urged the occupation of the Tortugas.  Are those who
have so long opposed appropriations for that purpose ready to grant them
now in such profusion that the labor of three years may be done in one?
No, sir; the occasion, by increasing the demand for money elsewhere, must
increase the opposition.  That rock, which Nature placed like a sentinel to
guard the entrance into the Mediterranean of our continent, and which
should be Argus-eyed to watch it, will stand without an embrasure to look
through.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page523" id="page523"></a>[pg 523]</span>

<p>How is the case in Oregon?  Our settlements there must be protected,
and under present circumstances an army of operations in that country
must draw its food from this; but we have not a sufficient navy to keep
open a line of communication by sea around Cape Horn; and the rugged
route and the great distance forbid the idea of supplying it by transportation
across the mountains.  Now, let us see what time and the measures more
pointedly recommended by the President would effect.  Our jurisdiction
extended into Oregon, the route guarded by stockades and troops, a new
impulse would be given to immigration: and in two or three years the settlement
on the Willamette might grow into a colony, whose flocks and
herds and granaries would sustain an army, whenever one should be required.</p>

<p>By agencies among the Indian tribes, that effective ally of Great Britain,
which formerly she has not scrupled to employ, would be rendered
friendly to our people.  In the mean time, roads could be constructed for
the transportation of munitions of war.  Then we should be prepared to
assert, and effectively maintain, our claims to their ultimate limits.</p>

<p>I could not depreciate my countrymen; I would not vaunt the prowess
of an enemy; but, sir, I tell those gentlemen who, in this debate, have
found it so easy to drive British troops out of Oregon, that, between England
and the United States, if hostilities occur in that remote territory, the
party must succeed which has bread within the country....</p>

<p>Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the opinion has gone forth that no politician
dares to be the advocate of peace when the question of war is
mooted. That will be an evil hour&mdash;the sand of our republic will be nearly
run&mdash;when it shall be in the power of any demagogue, or fanatic, to raise
a war-clamor, and control the legislation of the country.  The evils of war
must fall upon the people, and with them the war-feeling should originate.
We, their representatives, are but a mirror to reflect the light, and never
should become a torch to fire the pile. But, sir, though gentlemen go,
torch in hand, among combustible materials, they still declare there is no
danger of a fire.  War-speeches and measures threatening war are mingled
with profuse assurances of peace.  Sir, we can not expect, we should not
require, our adversary to submit to more than we would bear; and I ask,
after the notice has been given and the twelve months have expired, who
would allow Great Britain to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over Oregon?
If we would resist such act by force of arms, before ourselves performing
it we should prepare for war.</p>

<p>Some advocates of this immediate notice have urged their policy by
reference to a resolution of the Democratic Baltimore Convention, and
contended that the question was thereby closed to members of the Democratic
party. That resolution does not recommend immediate notice, but
recommends "the reannexation of Texas" and the "reoccupation of Oregon"
at the "earliest practicable period."  The claim is strongly made to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page524" id="page524"></a>[pg 524]</span>
the "whole of Oregon"; and the resolution seems directed more pointedly
to space than time. Texas and Oregon were united in the resolution;
and, had there been a third question involving our territorial extension, I
doubt not it would have been united with the other two. The addition
of territory to our Union is part of the Democratic faith, and properly
was placed in the declaration of our policy at that time.  To determine
whether that practicable period has arrived is now the question; and
those who cordially agree upon the principle of territorial enlargement
have differed, and may continue still to differ, on that question. Sir,
though it is demonstrable that haste may diminish but can not increase our
chances to secure the whole of Oregon, yet, because Southern men have
urged the wisdom of delay, we have had injurious comparisons instituted
between our conduct on Texas annexation and Oregon occupation.  Is
there such equality between the cases that the same policy must apply
to each?  Texas was peopled, the time was present when it must be acquired,
or the influences active to defeat our annexation purpose would
probably succeed, and the country be lost to us for ever.  Oregon is, with
a small exception, still a wilderness; our claim to ultimate sovereignty can
not be weakened during the continuance of the Oregon convention.  That
ill-starred partnership has robbed us of the advantages which an early occupation
would have given to our people in the fur-trade of the country,
and we are now rapidly advancing to a position from which we can command
the entire Territory.  In Texas annexation we were prompted by
other and higher considerations than mere interest. Texas had been a
member of our family: in her infancy had been driven from the paternal
roof, surrendered to the government of harsh, inquisitorial Spain; but, true
to her lineage, preserved the faith of opposition to monarchical oppression.
She now returned, and asked to be admitted to the hearth of the homestead.
She pointed to the band of noble sons who stood around her and
said: "Here is the remnant of my family; the rest I gave a sacrifice at the
altar of our fathers' God&mdash;the God of Liberty."  One, two, three, of the
elder sisters strove hard to close the door upon her; but the generous sympathy,
the justice of the family, threw it wide open, and welcomed her
return.  Such was the case of Texas; is there a parallel in Oregon?</p>

<p>But who are those that arraign the South, imputing to us motives of sectional
aggrandizement? Generally, the same who resisted Texas annexation,
and now most eagerly press on the immediate occupation of the whole of
Oregon.  The source is worthy the suspicion.  These were the men whose
constitutional scruples resisted the admission of a country gratuitously
offered to us, but who now look forward to gaining Canada by conquest.
These, the same who claim a weight to balance Texas, while they attack
others as governed by sectional considerations.</p>

<p>Sir, this doctrine of a political balance between different sections of our
Union is not of Southern growth.  We advocated the annexation of Texas
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page525" id="page525"></a>[pg 525]</span>
as a "great national measure"; we saw in it the extension of the principles
intrusted to our care; and, if in the progress of the question it assumed a
sectional hue, the coloring came from the opposition that it met&mdash;an opposition
based, not upon a showing of the injury it would bring to them,
but upon the supposition that benefits would be obtained by us.</p>

<p>Why is it that Texas is referred to, and treated as a Southern measure
merely, though its northern latitude is 42&deg;?  And why has the West so
often been reminded of its services upon Texas annexation?  Is it to divide
the South and West?  If so, let those who seek this object cease from their
travail, for their end can never be obtained.  A common agricultural interest
unites us in a common policy, and the hand that sows seeds of dissension
between us will find, if they spring from the ground, that the foot
of fraternal intercourse will tread them back to earth.</p>

<p>The streams that rise in the West flow on and are accumulated into the
rivers of the South; they bear the products of one to the other, and bind
the interests of the whole indissolubly together.  The wishes of the one
wake the sympathies of the other.  On Texas annexation the voice of
Mississippi found an echo in the West, and Mississippi re&euml;choes the call of
the West on the question of Oregon. Though this Government has done
nothing adequate to the defense of Mississippi, though by war she has much
to lose and nothing to gain, yet she is willing to encounter it, if necessary
to maintain our rights in Oregon.  Her Legislature has recently so resolved,
and her Governor, in a late message, says, "If war comes, to us it will
bring blight and desolation, yet we are ready for the crisis."  Sir, could
there be a higher obligation on the representative of such a people than to
restrain excitement&mdash;than to oppose a policy that threatens an unnecessary
war?...</p>

<p>Mr. Chairman, why have such repeated calls been made upon the South
to rally to the rescue? When, where, or how, has she been laggard or
deserter?</p>

<p>In 1776 the rights of man were violated in the outrages upon the
Northern colonies, and the South united in a war for their defense. In
1812 the flag of our Union was insulted, our sailors' rights invaded; and,
though the interests infringed were mainly Northern, war was declared,
and the opposition to its vigorous prosecution came not from the South.
We entered it for the common cause, and for the common cause we freely
met its sacrifices. If, sir, we have not been the "war party in peace,"
neither have we been the "peace party in war," and I will leave the past to
answer for the future.</p>

<p>If we have not sought the acquisition of provinces by conquest, neither
have we desired to exclude from our Union such as, drawn by the magnet
of free institutions, have peacefully sought for admission. From sire to
son has descended our federative creed, opposed to the idea of sectional
conflict for private advantage, and favoring the wider expanse of our
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page526" id="page526"></a>[pg 526]</span>
union.  If envy and jealousy and sectional strife are eating like rust into the
bonds our fathers expected to bind us, they come from causes which our
Southern atmosphere has never furnished.  As we have shared in the toils,
so we have gloried in the triumphs, of our country.  In our hearts, as in our
history, are mingled the names of Concord, and Camden, and Saratoga, and
Lexington, and Plattsburg, and Chippewa, and Erie, and Moultrie, and New
Orleans, and Yorktown, and Bunker Hill.  Grouped together, they form a
record of the triumphs of our cause, a monument of the common glory of
our Union.  What Southern man would wish it less by one of the Northern
names of which it is composed?  Or where is he who, gazing on the obelisk
that rises from the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, would feel
his patriot's pride suppressed by local jealousy?  Type of the men, the
event, the purpose, it commemorates, that column rises, stern, even severe
in its simplicity; neither niche nor molding for parasite or creeping thing
to rest on; composed of material that defies the waves of time, and pointing
like a finger to the source of noblest thought.  Beacon of freedom,
it guides the present generation to retrace the fountain of our years and
stand beside its source; to contemplate the scene where Massachusetts and
Virginia, as stronger brothers of the family, stood foremost to defend our
common rights; and remembrance of the petty jarrings of to-day are
buried in the nobler friendship of an earlier time.</p>

<p>Yes, sir, and when ignorance, led by fanatic hate, and armed by all uncharitableness,
assails a domestic institution of the South, I try to forgive,
for the sake of the righteous among the wicked&mdash;our natural allies, the
Democracy of the North.  Thus, sir, I leave to silent contempt the malign
predictions of the member from Ohio, who spoke in the early stage of this
discussion, while it pleases me to remember the manly and patriotic sentiments
of the gentleman who sits near me [Mr. <span class="sc">McDowell</span>], and who represents
another portion of that State. In him I recognize the feelings of
our Western brethren; his were the sentiments that accord with their acts
in the past, and which, with a few ignoble exceptions, I doubt not they
will emulate, if again the necessity should exist.  Yes, sir, if ever they hear
that the invader's foot has been pressed upon our soil, they will descend to
the plain like an avalanche, rushing to bury the foe.</p>

<p>In conclusion, I will say that, free from any forebodings of evil, above
the influence of taunts, beyond the reach of treasonable threats, and confiding
securely in the wisdom and patriotism of the Executive, I shrink from
the assertion of no right, and will consent to no restrictions on the discretion
of the treaty-making power of our Government.
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page527" id="page527"></a>[pg 527]</span>




<h2><a name="appendix-c" id="appendix-c"></a>APPENDIX C.</h2>

<h3><span class="sc">SPEECHES, AND EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES, OF THE AUTHOR IN
THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE FIRST SESSION
OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS, 1849-1850.</span></h3>


<p>Speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the United
States, on the resolutions of compromise proposed by Mr. Clay,
January 29, 1850:</p>

<blockquote><p>
I do not rise to continue the discussion, but, as it has been made an historical
question as to what the position of the Senate was twelve years ago,
and, as with great regret I see this, the conservative branch of the Government,
tending toward that fanaticism which seems to prevail with the
majority in the United States, I wish to read from the journals of that date
the resolutions then adopted, and to show that they went further than the
honorable Senator from Kentucky has stated. I take it for granted, from
the date to which the honorable Senator has alluded, he means the resolutions
introduced by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. <span class="sc">Calhoun</span>],
not now in his seat, and to which the Senator from Kentucky proposed
certain amendments.  Of the resolutions introduced by the Senator
from South Carolina, I will read the fifth in the series, that to which the
honorable Senator from Kentucky must have alluded. It is in these words:</p>

<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That the intermeddling of any State or States, or their citizens,
to abolish slavery in the District, or any of the Territories, on the
ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful, or the passage of
any act or measure of Congress with that view, would be a direct and dangerous
attack on the institutions of all the slaveholding States."</p>

<p>Such is the general form of the proposition.  It was variously modified,
but never, in my opinion, improved. On the 27th, the fifth resolution being
again under consideration, Mr. <span class="sc">Clay</span>, of Kentucky, moved to amend the
amendment by striking out all after the word "resolved," and insert:</p>

<p>"That the interference, by the citizens of any of the States, with a view
to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the rights and
security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress
designed to abolish slavery in this District would be a violation of the
faith implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia and Maryland; a just
cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding States, and have a direct
and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union.</p>

<p>"<i>And, resolved</i>, That it would be highly inexpedient to abolish slavery
within any district of country set apart for the Indian tribes, where it now
exists, or in Florida, the only Territory of the United States in which it now
exists, because of the serious alarm and just apprehensions which would be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page528" id="page528"></a>[pg 528]</span>
thereby excited in the States sustaining that domestic institution; because
the people of that Territory have not asked it to be done, and, when
admitted into the Union, will be exclusively entitled to decide that question
for themselves; because it would be in violation of the stipulations of the
treaty between the United States and Spain of the 22d of February, 1819;
and, also, because it would be in violation of a solemn compromise, made at
a memorable and critical period in the history of this country, by which,
while slavery was prohibited north, it was admitted south, of the line of
thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude."</p>

<p>But this resolution was not finally adopted.  Upon the motion of Mr.
<span class="sc">Buchanan</span> to amend said amendment, by striking out the second clause
thereof, commencing with the word "resolved," it was determined in the
affirmative, and finally the resolution which here follows was substituted in
place of the second clause:</p>

<p>"That the interference by the citizens of any of the States, with a view
to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the rights and security
of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress
designed to abolish slavery in this district, would be a violation of the faith
implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia and Maryland; a just cause
of alarm to the people of the slaveholding States, and have a direct and
inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union."</p>

<p>This was the form in which the resolution was finally adopted, passing
by a vote of thirty-six to eight. Here, then, was fully and broadly asserted
the danger resulting from the interference in the question of slavery in the
District of Columbia, as trenching upon the rights of the slaveholding
States. Twelve years only have elapsed, yet this brief period has swept
away even the remembrance of principles then deemed sacred and necessary
to secure the safety of the Union. Now, an honorable and distinguished
Senator, to whom the country has been induced to look for something
that would heal the existing dissensions, instead of raising new barriers
against encroachment, dashes down those heretofore erected and augments
the existing danger.  A representative from one of the slaveholding States
raises his voice for the first time in disregard of this admitted right.  Nor,
Mr. President, did he stop here.  The boundary of a State, with which we
have no more right to interfere than with the boundary of the State of
Kentucky, is encroached upon. The United States, sir, as the agent for
Texas, had a right to settle the question of boundary between Texas and
Mexico. Texas was not annexed as a Territory, but was admitted as a State,
and, at the period of her admission, her boundaries were established by
her Congress.  She, by the terms of annexation, gave to the United States
the right to define her boundary by treaty with Mexico; but the United
States, in the treaty made with Mexico subsequent to the war with that
country, received from Mexico not merely a cession of the territory that
was claimed by Texas, but much that lay beyond the asserted limits.  Shall
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page529" id="page529"></a>[pg 529]</span>
we, then, acting simply as the cogent of Texas in the settlement of this question
of boundary, take from the principal for whom we act that territory
which belongs to her, to which we asserted her title against Mexico, and
appropriate it to ourselves? Why, sir, it would be a violation of justice,
and of a principle of law which is so plain that it does not require one to
have been bred to the profession of law to understand it. The principle I
refer to is, that an agent can not take for his own benefit anything resulting
from the matter in controversy, after having acquired it as belonging to
the principal for whom he acts. The agent can not appropriate to himself
rights acquired for his client. The right of Texas, therefore, to that boundary
was made complete by the treaty of peace, which silenced the only
rival claim to the territory. It was distinctly defined by the acts of her
Congress, before the time of annexation; and I have only to refer to those
acts to show that the boundary of Texas was the Rio Bravo del Norte,
from its mouth to its source. What justice, or even decent regard for fairness,
can there be, now that Texas has acceded to annexation upon certain
terms, to propose a change of boundary, in violation of those terms, and by
the power we hold over her as a part of the Union? Can this power extend
so far as to take from her a portion of her territory, or to assert that
there is a portion to which she is not entitled?</p>

<p>These constitute with me two great objections to the propositions of
the honorable Senator from Kentucky; but, without stating all the objections
that I have, and they are very many, I will merely point out a few of
the prominent points to which I object in the argument of the Senator. He
assumes as facts things which are mere matters of opinion, and, I think, of
erroneous and injurious opinion. But, deferring the discussion to another
occasion, I desire at present merely to notice the assertion of the honorable
Senator, that slavery would never under any circumstances be established
in California. This, though stated as a fact, is but a mere opinion&mdash;an
opinion with which I do not accord. It was to work the gold-mines on
this continent that the Spaniards first brought Africans to the country.
The European races now engaged in working the mines of California sink
under the burning heat and sudden changes of the climate to which the
African race are altogether better adapted. The production of rice, sugar,
and cotton, is no better adapted to slave-labor than the digging, washing,
and quarrying of the gold-mines.</p>

<p>We, sir, have not asked that slavery should be established in California.
We have only asked that there should be no restriction; that climate and
soil should be left free to establish the institution or not, as experience
should determine. Sir, after the agitation of the subject within these halls
and elsewhere has prevented the introduction of slavery&mdash;by preventing the
emigration of slaveholders with their property&mdash;are we now to be told that
the question is settled? More than that: when we have acquired territory
over which the Constitution of the United States is thereby extended, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page530" id="page530"></a>[pg 530]</span>
which the citizens of the United States have a right to occupy, and to establish
therein what laws they please, in accordance with the principles of the
Constitution&mdash;in which they have a right to establish what institutions they
please&mdash;it is now claimed that the municipal regulations which previously
existed shall still govern the people, and that a portion of the citizens of the
United States shall thus be precluded from going there with their property.
This rule has, however, in discussion here, only been applied to the property
of slaveholders; as though slaves were the only property under the
laws of Mexico prohibited from entering California. It is to be remembered
that the late Secretary of the Treasury, in a report to Congress, stated
that the Mexican law prohibited the entrance of some sixty articles of commerce;
this was prohibition by law of Congress, and slavery has never been
so prohibited.  It never has been prohibited by the Mexican Congress in
California; and the only prohibition ever issued was that contained in the
edict of a usurper, under the specious pretext that it was necessary, in
order to oppose the invasion of the country by Spain.  This decree was
recognized by a subsequent Congress, so far as to pass a law authorizing
payment for slaves so liberated.  It was the emancipation of all the slaves
in Mexico; an act, if you please, of abolition, not of prohibition; not,
whatever construction may be placed upon it, done in the forms of law and
requirements of their Constitution.  But we have not proposed to inquire
into the legality of the abolition, neither has any Southern man asked that
that decree should be repealed, or that those liberated under its provisions
should be returned to slavery.  We only claim that there shall be an equality
of immunities and privileges among citizens of all parts of the United States;
that Mexican law shall not be applied so as to create inequality between
citizens, by preventing the immigration of any.</p>

<p>But, sir, we are called on to receive this as a measure of compromise!
Is a measure in which we of the minority are to receive nothing a compromise?
I look upon it as but a modest mode of taking that, the claim to
which has been more boldly asserted by others; and, that I may be understood
upon this question, and that my position may go forth to the country
in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the Senator from Kentucky,
I here assert that never will I take less than the Missouri compromise
line extended to the Pacific Ocean, with the specific recognition of the
right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such
Territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken
there from any of the United States at the option of their owners. I
can never consent to give additional power to a majority to commit further
aggressions upon the minority in this Union; and will never consent
to any proposition which will have such a tendency, without a full guarantee
or counteracting measure is connected with it.  I forbear commenting
at any further length upon the propositions embraced in the resolutions
at this time.
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page531" id="page531"></a>[pg 531]</span>

<p>Remarks of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the
United States, on the question of the reception of a memorial
from inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Delaware, presented by Mr.
Hale, of New Hampshire, praying that Congress would adopt
measures for an immediate and peaceful dissolution of the Union.
February 8, 1850.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Mr. President</span>: I rise merely to make a few remarks upon the right of
petition, and to notice the error which I think has pervaded the comparisons
that have been instituted between certain resolutions which were presented
by the Senator from North Carolina and the petition which it is
now proposed shall be received. The resolutions which were presented
from North Carolina were published in yesterday's paper, and, after reading
them, I think they refer to a state of case which the people of North Carolina
might properly present as their grievance. They were resolutions for
preserving the Union, calling upon Congress to take all measures in its
power for that purpose. This was all legitimate. They had a right to
petition Congress for a redress of grievances; and, if it were in our power
to redress those grievances, if it were within the legitimate functions of our
legislation, we were bound to receive the petition and respectfully consider
it. This case is exactly the reverse. Here is no grievance, unless the
Union is a grievance to those who petition. And they call upon Congress
to do that which every one must admit Congress has no power to do&mdash;to
dissolve peaceably the union of the States. Then, sir, in the first place,
there is no grievance; in the next place, there is no power; and, beyond
all that, it is offensive to the Senate. It is offensive to recommend legislation
for the dissolution of the Union&mdash;offensive to the Senate and to the
whole country.  If this Union is ever to be dissolved, it must be by the
action of the States and their people.  Whatever power Congress holds, it
bolds under the Constitution, and that power is but a part of the Union.
Congress has no power to legislate upon that which will be the destruction
of the whole foundation upon which its authority rests.</p>

<p>I recollect, a good many years ago, that the Senator from Massachusetts
[Mr. <span class="sc">John Davis</span>], who addressed the Senate this morning, very pointedly
described the right of petition as a very humble right&mdash;as the mere right to
beg. This is my own view. The right peaceably to assemble, I hold as the
right which it was intended to grant to the people; that was the only right
which had ever been denied in our colonial condition. The right of petition
had never been denied by Parliament. It was intended only to secure
to the people, I say, the right peaceably to assemble, whenever they choose
to do so, with intent to petition for a redress of grievances.</p>

<p>But, sir, the right of petition, though but a poor right&mdash;the mere right
to beg&mdash;may yet be carried to such an extent that we are bound to abate it
as a nuisance.  If the avenues to the Capitol were to be obstructed, so that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page532" id="page532"></a>[pg 532]</span>
members would find themselves unable to reach the halls of legislation, because
hordes of beggars presented themselves in the way calling for relief,
it would be a nuisance that would require to be abated, and Congress, in
self-defense, would be compelled to remove them. But such a collection of
beggars would not be half so great an evil as the petitions presented here on
the subject of slavery. They disturb the peace of the country; they impede
and pervert legislation by the excitement they create; they do more to prevent
rational investigation and proper action in this body than any, if not
all, other causes. Good, if ever designed, has never resulted, and it would
be difficult to suppose that good is expected ever to flow from them. Why,
then, should we be bound to receive such petitions to the detriment of the
public business; or, rather, why are they presented? I am not of those
who believe we should be turned from the path of duty by out-of-door
clamor, or that the evil can be removed by partial concession. To receive
is to give cause for further demands, and our direct and safe course is rejection.</p>

<p>Yes, sir, their reception would serve only to embarrass Congress, to disturb
the tranquillity of the country, and to peril the Union of the States.
By every obligation, therefore, that rests upon us under the Constitution,
upon every great principle upon which the Constitution is founded, we are
bound to abate this as a great and growing evil. This petition, sir, was
well described by the Senator from Pennsylvania as being spurious; and
I have been assured of the fact, from other sources of information, that
petitions are sent round in reference to other subjects&mdash;of temperance, generally&mdash;and,
after a long list of names has been obtained, the caption is
cut off, and the list of signatures attached to an abolition caption and sent
here to excite one section of the Union against the other, to disturb the
country, and distract the legislation of Congress, to execute which we have
our seats in this Chamber. For the reasons first stated, I voted to receive
the resolutions that were presented by the Senator from North Carolina,
and for the reasons I have just given shall vote to reject this petition.
</p></blockquote>

<p>Conclusion of speech of Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, in the
Senate of the United States, on the resolutions of Mr. Clay, relative
to slavery in the Territories, etc., February 13 and 14, 1850.</p>

<blockquote><p>
... Sir, it has been asked on several occasions during the present session,
What ground of complaint has the South? Is this agitation in the
two halls of Congress, in relation to the domestic institutions of the South,
no subject for complaint?  Is the denunciation heaped upon us by the press
of the North, and the attempts to degrade us in the eyes of Christendom&mdash;to
arraign the character of our people and the character of our fathers,
from whom our institutions are derived&mdash;no subject for complaint?  Is this
sectional organization, for the purpose of hostility to our portion of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page533" id="page533"></a>[pg 533]</span>
Union, no subject for complaint? Would it not, between foreign nations&mdash;nations
not bound together and restrained as we are by compact&mdash;would
it not, I say, be just cause for war? What difference is there between organizations
for circulating incendiary documents and promoting the escape
of fugitives from a neighboring State and the organization of an armed
force for the purpose of invasion? Sir, a State relying securely on its own
strength would rather court the open invasion than the insidious attack.
And for what end, sir, is all this aggression? They see that the slaves in their
present condition in the South are comfortable and happy; they see them
advancing in intelligence; they see the kindest relations existing between
them and their masters; they see them provided for in age and sickness, in
infancy and in disability; they see them in useful employment, restrained
from the vicious indulgences to which their inferior nature inclines them;
they see our penitentiaries never filled, and our poor-houses usually empty.
Let them turn to the other hand, and they see the same race in a state of
freedom at the North; but, instead of the comfort and kindness they receive
at the South, instead of being happy and useful, they are, with few
exceptions, miserable, degraded, filling the penitentiaries and poor-houses,
objects of scorn, excluded in some places from the schools, and deprived
of many other privileges and benefits which attach to the white men among
whom they live. And yet they insist that elsewhere an institution which
has proved beneficial to this race shall be abolished, that it may be substituted
by a state of things which is fraught with so many evils to the race
which they claim to be the object of their solicitude! Do they find in the
history of St. Domingo, and in the present condition of Jamaica, under the
recent experiments which have been made upon the institution of slavery
in the liberation of the blacks, before God, in his wisdom, designed it
should be done&mdash;do they there find anything to stimulate them to future
exertion in the cause of abolition? Or should they not find there satisfactory
evidence that their past course was founded in error? And is it not
the part of integrity and wisdom, as soon as they can, to retrace their
steps? Should they not immediately cease from a course mischievous in
every stage, and finally tending to the greatest catastrophe? We may dispute
about measures, but, as long as parties have nationality, as long as it
is a difference of opinion between individuals passing into every section of
the country, it threatens no danger to the Union. If the conflicts of party
were the only cause of apprehension, this Government might last for ever&mdash;the
last page of human history might contain a discussion in the American
Congress upon the meaning of some phrase, the extent of the power conferred
by some grant of the Constitution. It is, sir, these sectional divisions
which weaken the bonds of union and threaten their final rupture.
It is not differences of opinion&mdash;it is geographical lines, rivers and mountains&mdash;which
divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page534" id="page534"></a>[pg 534]</span>

<p>Are these no subjects of complaint for us? And do they furnish no
cause for repentance to you? Have we not a right to appeal to you as
brethren of this Union? Have we not a right to appeal to you, as brethren
bound by the compact of our fathers, that you should, with due regard to
your own rights and interests and constitutional obligations, do all that is
necessary to preserve our peace and promote our prosperity?</p>

<p>If, sir, the seeds of disunion have been sown broadcast over this land, I
ask by whose hand they have been scattered? If, sir, we are now reduced
to a condition when the powers of this Government are held subservient to
faction; if we can not and dare not legislate for the organization of territorial
governments&mdash;I ask, sir, who is responsible for it? And I can with
proud reliance say, it is not the South&mdash;it is not the South! Sir, every
charge of disunion which is made on that part of the South which I in part
represent, and whose sentiments I well understand, I here pronounce to be
grossly calumnious. The conduct of the State of Mississippi in calling a
convention has already been introduced before the Senate; and on that
occasion I stated, and now repeat, that it was the result of patriotism, and
a high resolve to preserve, if possible, our constitutional Union; that all its
proceedings were conducted with deliberation, and it was composed of the
first men of the State.</p>

<p>The Chief-Justice&mdash;a man well known for his high integrity, for his powerful
intellect, for his great legal attainments, and his ability in questions of
constitutional law-presided over that Convention. After calm and mature
deliberation, resolutions were adopted, not in the spirit of disunion, but
announcing, in the first resolution of the series, their attachment to the
Union. They call on their brethren of the South to unite with them in
their holy purpose of preserving the Constitution, which is its only bond
and reliable hope. This was their object; and for this and for no other
purpose do they propose to meet in general convention at Nashville. As I
stated on a former occasion, this was not a party movement in Mississippi.
The presiding officer belongs to the political minority in the State; the two
parties in the State were equally represented in the numbers of the Convention,
and its deliberations assumed no partisan or political character whatever.
It was the result of primary meetings in the counties; an assemblage
of men known throughout the State, having first met and intimated to those
counties a time when the State Convention should, if deemed proper, be
held. Every movement was taken with deliberation, and every movement
then taken was wholly independent of the action of anybody else; unless it
be intended, by the remarks made here, to refer its action to the great principles
of those who have gone before us, and who have left us the rich
legacy of the free institutions under which we live. If it be attempted to
assign the movement to the nullification tenets of South Carolina, as my
friend near me seemed to understand, then I say you must go further back,
and impute it to the State rights and strict-construction doctrines of Madison
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page535" id="page535"></a>[pg 535]</span>
and Jefferson.  You must refer these in their turn to the principles in
which originated the Revolution and separation of these then colonies from
England. You must not stop there, but go back still further, to the bold
spirit of the ancient barons of England. That spirit has come down to us,
and in that spirit has all the action since been taken. We will not permit
aggressions. We will defend our rights; and, if it be necessary, we will
claim from this Government, as the barons of England claimed from John,
the grant of another <i>Magna Charta</i> for our protection.</p>

<p>Sir, I can but consider it as a tribute of respect to the character for candor
and sincerity which the South maintains, that every movement which
occurs in the Southern States is closely scrutinized, and the assertion of a
determination to maintain their constitutional rights is denounced as a movement
of disunion; while violent denunciations against the Union are now
made, and for years have been made, at the North by associations, by
presses and conventions, yet are allowed to pass unnoticed as the idle wind&mdash;I
suppose for the simple reason that nobody believed there was any
danger in them. It is, then, I say, a tribute paid to the sincerity of the
South, that every movement of hers is watched with such jealousy; but
what shall we think of the love for the Union of those in whom this brings
us corresponding change of conduct, who continue the wanton aggravations
which have produced and justify the action they deprecate? Is it well, is
it wise, is it safe, to disregard these manifestations of public displeasure,
though it be the displeasure of a minority? Is it proper, or prudent, or respectful,
when a representative, in accordance with the known will of his
constituents, addresses you the language of solemn warning, in conformity
to his duty to the Constitution, the Union, and to his own conscience, that
his course should be arraigned as the declaration of ultra and dangerous opinions?
If these warnings were received in the spirit in which they are given,
it would augur better for the country. It would give hopes which are now
denied us, if the press of the country, that great lever of public opinion, would
enforce these warnings, and bear them to every cottage, instead of heaping
abuse upon those whose love of ease would prompt them to silence&mdash;whose
speech, therefore, is evidence of sincerity. Lightly and loosely, representatives
of Southern people have been denounced as disunionists by that portion
of the Northern press which most disturbs the harmony and endangers
the perpetuity of the Union. Such, even, has been my own case, though the
man does not breathe at whose door the charge of disunion might not as well
be laid as at mine. The son of a Revolutionary soldier, attachment to this
Union was among the first lessons of my childhood; bred to the service of
my country, from boyhood to mature age, I wore its uniform. Through the
brightest portion of my life I was accustomed to see our flag, historic emblem
of the Union, rise with the rising and fall with the setting sun. I look upon
it now with the affection of early love, and seek to preserve it by a strict
adherence to the Constitution, from which it had its birth, and by the nurture
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page536" id="page536"></a>[pg 536]</span>
of which its stars have come so much to outnumber its original stripes.
Shall that flag, which has gathered fresh glory in every war, and become
more radiant still by the conquest of peace&mdash;shall that flag now be torn by
domestic faction, and trodden in the dust by sectional rivalry? Shall we
of the South, who have shared equally with you all your toils, all your
dangers, all your adversities, and who equally rejoice in your prosperity and
your fame&mdash;shall we be denied those benefits guaranteed by our compact,
or gathered as the common fruits of a common country? If so, self-respect
requires that we should assert them; and, as best we may, maintain that
which we could not surrender without losing your respect as well as our
own.</p>

<p>If, sir, this spirit of sectional aggrandizement&mdash;or, if gentlemen prefer,
this love they bear the African race&mdash;shall cause the disunion of these
States, the last chapter of our history will be a sad commentary upon the
justice and the wisdom of our people. That this Union, replete with blessings
to its own citizens, and diffusive of hope to the rest of mankind, should
fall a victim to a selfish aggrandizement and a pseudo-philanthropy,
prompting one portion of the Union to war upon the domestic rights and
peace of another, would be a deep reflection on the good sense and patriotism
of our day and generation. But, sir, if this last chapter in our history
shall ever be written, the reflective reader will ask, Whence proceeded this
hostility of the North against the South? He will find it there recorded
that the South, in opposition to her own immediate interests, engaged with
the North in the unequal struggle of the Revolution. He will find again,
that, when Northern seamen were impressed, their brethren of the South
considered it cause for war, and entered warmly into the contest with the
haughty power then claiming to be mistress of the seas. He will find that
the South, afar off, unseen and unheard, toiling in the pursuits of agriculture,
had filled the shipping and supplied the staple for manufactures, which
enriched the North.  He will find that she was the great consumer of
Northern fabrics&mdash;that she not only paid for these their fair value in the
markets of the world, but that she also paid their increased value, derived
from the imposition of revenue duties. And, if, still further, he seeks for
the cause of this hostility, it at last is to be found in the fact that the South
held the African race in bondage, being the descendants of those who were
mainly purchased from the people of the North. And this was the great
cause. For this the North claimed that the South should be restricted from
future growth&mdash;that around her should be drawn, as it were, a sanitary
cordon to prevent the extension of a "moral leprosy"; and, if for that it
shall be written that the South resisted, it would be but in keeping with
every page she has added to the history of our country.</p>

<p>It depends on those in the majority to say whether this last chapter in
our history shall be written or not. It depends on them now to decide
whether the strife between the different sections shall be arrested before
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page537" id="page537"></a>[pg 537]</span>
it has become impossible, or whether it shall proceed to a final catastrophe.
I, sir&mdash;and I only speak for myself&mdash;am willing to meet any fair proposition&mdash;to
settle upon anything which promises security for the future; anything
which assures me of permanent peace, and I am willing to make whatever
sacrifice I may properly be called on to render for that purpose. Nor,
sir, is it a light responsibility. If I strictly measured my conduct by the
late message of the Governor, and the recent expressions of opinion in my
State, I should have no power to accept any terms save the unqualified admission
of the equal rights of the citizens of the South to go into any of the
Territories of the United States with any and every species of property held
among us. I am willing, however, to take my share of the responsibility
which the crisis of our country demands. I am willing to rely on the
known love of the people I represent for the whole country, and the abiding
respect which I know they entertain for the Union of these States. If,
sir, I distrusted their attachment to our Government, and if I believed that
they had that restless spirit of disunion which has been ascribed to the
South, I should know full well that I had no such foundation as this to rely
upon&mdash;no such great reserve in the heart of the people to fall back upon in
the hour of accountability.</p>

<p>Mr. President, is there such incompatibility of interest between the two
sections of this country that they can not profitably live together? Does
the agriculture of the South injure the manufactures of the North? On the
other hand, are they not their life-blood? And think you, if one portion of
the Union, however great it might be in commerce and manufactures, was
separated from all the agricultural districts, that it would long maintain its
supremacy? If any one so believes, let him turn to the written history of
commercial states: let him look upon the moldering palaces of Venice;
let him ask for the faded purple of Tyre, and visit the ruins of Carthage;
there he will see written the fate of every country which rests its prosperity
on commerce and manufactures alone. United we have grown to our
present dignity and power&mdash;united we may go on to a destiny which the
human mind cannot measure. Separated, I feel that it requires no prophetic
eye to see that the portion of the country which is now scattering the seeds
of disunion to which I have referred will be that which will suffer most.
Grass will grow on the pavements now worn by the constant tread of the
human throng which waits on commerce, and the shipping will abandon
your ports for those which now furnish the staples of trade. And we who
produce the great staples upon which your commerce and manufactures rest,
we will produce those staples still; shipping will fill our harbors; and why
may we not found the Tyre of modern commerce within our own limits?
Why may we not bring the manufacturers to the side of agriculture, and
commerce, too, the ready servant of both?</p>

<p>But, sir, I have no disposition to follow this subject.  I certainly can
derive no pleasure from the contemplation of anything which can impair the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page538" id="page538"></a>[pg 538]</span>
prosperity of any portion of this Union; and I only refer to it that those
who suppose we are tied by interest or fear should look the question in the
face and understand that it is mainly a feeling of attachment to the Union
which has long bound, and now binds, the South. But, Mr. President, I
ask Senators to consider how long affection can be proof against such trial,
and injury, and provocation, as the South is continually receiving.</p>

<p>The case in which this discrimination against the South is attempted, the
circumstances under which it was introduced, render it especially offensive.
It will not be difficult to imagine the feeling with which a Southern soldier
during the Mexican war received the announcement that the House of Representatives
had passed that odious measure, the Wilmot Proviso; and that
he, although then periling his life, abandoning all the comforts of home,
and sacrificing his interests, was, by the Legislature of his country, marked
as coming from a portion of the Union which was not entitled to the equal
benefits of whatever might result from the service to which he was contributing
whatever power he possessed. Nor will it be difficult to conceive,
of the many sons of the South whose blood has stained those battle-fields,
whose ashes now mingle with Mexican earth, that some, when they last
looked on the flag of their country, may have felt their dying moments embittered
by the recollection that that flag cast not an equal shadow of protection
over the land of their birth, the graves of their parents, and the
homes of their children, so soon to be orphans. Sir, I ask Northern Senators
to make the case their own&mdash;to carry to their own firesides the idea of such
intrusion and offensive discrimination as is offered to us&mdash;realize these
irritations, so galling to the humble, so intolerable to the haughty, and wake,
before it is too late, from the dream that the South will tamely submit.
Measure the consequences to us of your assumption, and ask yourselves
whether, as a free, honorable, and brave people, you would submit to it?</p>

<p>It is essentially the characteristic of the chivalrous that they never speculate
upon the fears of any man, and I trust that no such speculations will
be made upon the idea that may be entertained in any quarter that the
South, from fear of her slaves, is necessarily opposed to a dissolution of the
Union. She has no such fear; her slaves would be to her now, as they were
in the Revolution, an element of military strength. I trust that no speculations
will be made upon either the condition or the supposed weakness of
the South. They will bring sad disappointments to those who indulge
them. Rely upon her devotion to the Union, rely upon the feeling of fraternity
she inherited and has never failed to manifest; rely upon the
nationality and freedom from sedition which have in all ages characterized
an agricultural people; give her justice, sheer justice, and the reliance will
never fail you.</p>

<p>Then, Mr. President, I ask that some substantial proposition may be made
by the majority in regard to this question. It is for those who have the
power to pass it to propose one. It is for those who are threatening us
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page539" id="page539"></a>[pg 539]</span>
with the loss of that which we are entitled to enjoy, to state, if there be
any compromise, what that compromise is. We are unable to pass any
measure, if we propose it; therefore I have none to suggest. We are unable
to bend you to any terms which we may offer; we are under the ban of
your purpose: therefore from you, if from anywhere, the proposition must
come. I trust that we shall meet it, and bear the responsibility as becomes
us; that we shall not seek to escape from it; that we shall not seek
to transfer to other places, or other times, or other persons, that responsibility
which devolves upon us; and I hope the earnestness which the occasion
justifies will not be mistaken for the ebullition of passion, nor the
language of warning be construed as a threat. We cannot, without the most
humiliating confession of the supremacy of faction, evade our constitutional
obligations, and our obligations under the treaty with Mexico to organize
governments in the Territories of California and New Mexico. I trust that
we will not seek to escape from the responsibility, and leave the country
unprovided for, unless by an irregular admission of new States; that we
will act upon the good example of Washington in the case of Tennessee, and
of Jefferson in the case of Louisiana; that we will not, if we abandon those
high standards, do more than come down to modern examples; that we will
not go further than to permit those who have the forms of government,
under the Constitution, to assume sovereignty over territory of the United
States; that we may at least, I say, assert the right to know who they are,
how many they are&mdash;where they voted, how they voted&mdash;and whose certificate
is presented to us of the fact, before it is conceded to them to determine
the fundamental law of the country, and to prescribe the conditions
on which other citizens of the United States may enter it. To reach all
this knowledge, we must go through the intermediate stage of territorial
government.</p>

<p>How will you determine what is the seal, and who are the officers, of a
community unknown as an organized body to the Congress of the United
States? Can the right be admitted in that community to usurp the sovereignty
over territory which belongs to the States of the Union? All these
questions must be answered before I can consent to any such irregular proceeding
as that which is now presented in the case of California.</p>

<p>Mr. President, thanking the Senate for the patience they have shown
toward me, I again express the hope that those who have the power to
settle this distracting question&mdash;those who have the ability to restore peace,
concord, and lasting harmony to the United States&mdash;will give us some substantial
proposition, such as magnanimity can offer, and such as we can
honorably accept. I, being one of the minority in the Senate and the
Union, have nothing to offer, except an assurance of co&ouml;peration in anything
which my principles will allow me to adopt, and which promises permanent,
substantial security.
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page540" id="page540"></a>[pg 540]</span>




<h2><a name="appendix-d" id="appendix-d"></a>APPENDIX D.</h2>


<p>Speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the
United States (chiefly in answer to Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, on
the message of the President of the United States transmitting
to Congress the "Lecompton Constitution" of Kansas), February
8, 1858:</p>

<blockquote><p>
I wish to express not only my concurrence with the message of the
President, but my hearty approbation of the high motive which actuated
him when he wrote it. In that paper breathes the sentiment of a patriot,
and it stands out in bold contrast with the miserable slang by which he was
pursued this morning. It may serve the purposes of a man who little
regards the Union to perpetrate a joke on the hazard of its dissolution. It
may serve the purpose of a man who never looks to his own heart to find
there any impulses of honor, to arraign everybody, the President and the
Supreme Court, and to have them impeached and vilified on his mere suspicion.
It ill becomes such a man to point to Southern institutions as to
him a moral leprosy, which he is to pursue to the end of extermination,
and, perverting everything, ancient and modern, to bring it tributary to his
own malignant purposes. Not even could that clause of the Constitution
which refers to the importation or migration of persons be held up to public
consideration by the Senator [Mr. <span class="sc">Fessenden</span>] in a studied argument, save
as a permission for the slave-trade. Then, everything that is most prominent
in relation to the protection of property in that instrument he holds to
have been swept away by a statute which prohibited the further importation
of Africans. The language of that clause of the Constitution is far
broader than the importation of Africans. It is not confined or limited at
all to that subject. It says:</p>

<p>"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress
prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation,
not exceeding ten dollars for each person."</p>

<p>That was a power given to Congress far broader than the slave-trade;
and yet the Senator gravely argues that, when that prohibition against the
further importation of Africans took place by act of Congress, thenceforward
the constitutional shield, which had been thrown over slave property,
fell. Sir, it is the only private property in the United States which is specifically
recognized in the Constitution and protected by it.</p>

<p>There was a time when there was a higher and holier sentiment among
the men who represented the people of this country. As far back as the
time of the Confederation, when no narrow, miserable prejudice between
Northern and Southern men governed those who ruled the States, a committee
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page541" id="page541"></a>[pg 541]</span>
of three, two of whom were Northern men, reporting upon what
they considered the bad faith of Spain in Florida, in relation to fugitive
slaves, proposed that negotiations should be instituted to require Spain to
surrender, as the States did then surrender, all fugitives escaped into their
limits. Hamilton and Sedgwick from the North, and Madison from the
South, made that report&mdash;men, the loftiness of whose purpose and genius
might put to shame the puny efforts now made to disturb that which lies
at the very foundation of the Government under which we live.</p>

<p>A man not knowing into what presence he was introduced, coming into
this Chamber, might, for a large part of this session, have supposed that
here stood the representatives of belligerent States, and that, instead of
men assembled here to confer together for the common welfare, for the
general good, he saw here ministers from States preparing to make war
upon each other; and then he would have felt that vain, indeed, was the
vaunting of the prowess of one to destroy another. Or if, sir, he had
known more&mdash;if he had recognized the representatives of the States of the
Union&mdash;still he would have traced through this same eternal, petty agitation
about sectional success, that limit which can not fail, however the
Senator from New York (Mr. <span class="sc">Seward</span>) may regret it, to bring about a
result which every man should, from his own sense of honor, feel, when he
takes his seat in this Chamber, that he is morally bound to avoid as long
as he retains possession of his seat.</p>

<p>To express myself more distinctly: I hold that a Senator, while he sits
here as the representative of a State in the Federal Government, is in the
relation of a minister to a friendly court, and that the moment he sees this
Government in hostility to his own, the day he resolves to make war on this
Government, his honor and the honor of his State compel him to vacate
the seat he holds.</p>

<p>It is a poor evasion for any man to say: "I make war on the rights of
one whole section; I make war on the principles of the Constitution; and
yet, I uphold the Union, and I desire to see it protected." Undermine the
foundation, and still pretend that he desires the fabric to stand! Common
sense rejects it. No one will believe the man who makes the assertion,
unless he believes him under the charitable supposition that he knows not
what he is doing.</p>

<p>Sir, we are arraigned, day after day, as the aggressive power. What
Southern Senator, during this whole session, has attacked any portion, or
any interest, of the North? In what have we now, or ever, back to the
earliest period of our history, sought to deprive the North of any advantage
it possessed? The whole charge is, and has been, that we seek to
extend our own institutions into the common territory of the United
States. Well and wisely has the President of the United States pointed to
that common territory as the joint possession of the country. Jointly we
held it, jointly we enjoyed it in the earlier period of our country; but when,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page542" id="page542"></a>[pg 542]</span>
in the progress of years, it became apparent that it could not longer 
be enjoyed in peace, the men of that day took upon themselves, wisely 
or unwisely, a power which the Constitution did not confer, and, by a 
geographical line, determined to divide the Territories, so that the 
common field, which brothers could not cultivate in peace, should be 
held severally for the benefit of each. Wisely or unwisely, that law 
was denied extension to the Pacific Ocean.

I was struck, in the course of these debates, to which I have not 
been in the habit of replying, to hear the Senator from New Hampshire 
[Mr. Hale], who so very ardently opposed the extension of that line 
to the Pacific Ocean, who held it to be a political stain upon the 
history of our country, and who would not even allow the southern 
boundary of Utah to be the parallel of 36° 30', because of the 
political implication which was contained in it (the historical 
character of the line), plead, as he did a few days ago, for the 
constitutionality and legality and for the sacred character of that 
so-called Missouri Compromise.

I, for one, never believed Congress had the power to pass that law; 
yet, as one who was willing to lay down much then, as I am now, to 
the peace, the harmony, and the welfare of our common country, I 
desired to see that line extended to the Pacific Ocean, and that 
strife which now agitates the country never renewed; but with a 
distinct declaration: "Go ye to the right, and we will go to the 
left; and we go in peace and good-will toward each other." Those 
who refused then to allow the extension of that line, those who 
declared then that it was a violation of principle, and insisted 
on what they termed non-intervention, must have stood with very 
poor grace in the same Chamber when, at a subsequent period, the 
Senator from Illinois [Mr. Docoias], bound by his honor on account 
of his previous course, moved the repeal of that line to throw open 
Kansas; they must have stood with very bad grace, in this presence, 
to argue that that line was now sacred, and must be kept for ever.

The Senator from Illinois stood foremost as one who was willing, at 
an early period, to sacrifice his own prejudices and his own interests 
(if, in deed, his interests be girt and bounded by the limits of a 
State) by proposing to extend that line of pacification to the 
Pacific Ocean; and, failing in that, then became foremost in the 
advocacy of the doctrine of non-intervention; and upon that, I say, 
he was in honor bound to wipe out that line and throw Kansas open, 
like any other Territory. But, sir, was it then understood by the 
Senator from Illinois, or anybody else, that throwing open the 
Territory of Kansas to free emigration was to be the signal for the 
marching of cohorts from one section or another to fight on that 
battle field for mastery? Or, did he not rather think that 
emigration was to be allowed to take its course, and soil and 
climate be permitted to decide the great question? We were willing 
to abide by it. We were willing to leave natural causes to decide 
the question. Though I differed from the
Senator from New York [Mr. <span class="sc">Seward</span>], though I did not believe that
natural causes, if permitted to flow in their own channel, would have produced
any other result than the introduction of slave property into the
Territory of Kansas, I am free to admit that I have not yet reached the
conclusion that that property would have permanently remained there.
That is a question which interest decides. Vermont would not keep
African slaves, because they were not valuable to her; neither will any
population, whose density is so great as to trade rapidly on the supply of
bread, be willing to keep and maintain an improvident population, to feed
them in infancy, to care for them in sickness, to protect them in age. And
thus it will be found in the history of nations, that, whenever population
has reached that density in the temperate zones, serfdom, villenage, or
slavery, whatever it has been called, has disappeared.</p>

<p>Ours presents a new problem, one not stated by those who wrote on it
in the earlier period of our history. It is the problem of a semi-tropical
climate, the problem of malarial districts, of staple products. This produces
a result different from that which would be found in the farming districts
and cooler climates. A race suited to our labor exists there. Why should
we care whether they go into other Territories or not? Simply because of
the war which is made against our institutions; simply because of the want
of security which results from the action of our opponents in the Northern
States. Had you made no political war upon us, had you observed the
principles of our confederacy as States, that the people of each State were
to take care of their domestic affairs, or, in the language of the Kansas bill,
to be left perfectly free to form and regulate their institutions in their own
way, then, I say, within the limits of each State the population there would
have gone on to attend to their own affairs, and would have had little regard
to whether this species of property, or any other, was held in any other
portion of the Union. You have made it a political war. We are on the
defensive.  How far are you to push us?</p>

<p>The Senator from Alabama [Mr. <span class="sc">Clay</span>] has been compelled to notice the
resolutions of his State; nor does that State stand alone. To what issue
are you now pressing us? To the conclusion that, because within the limits
of a Territory slaves are held as property, a State is to be excluded from
the Union. I am not in the habit of paying lip-service to the Union. The
Union is strong enough to confer favors; it is strong enough to command
service. Under these circumstances, the man deserves but little credit who
sings p&aelig;ans to its glory. If, through a life, now not a short one, a large
portion of which has been spent in the public service, I have given no better
proof of my affection for this Union than by declarations, I have lived to
little purpose, indeed. I think I have given evidence, in every form in which
patriotism is ever subjected to a test, and I trust, whatever evil may be in
store for us by those who wage war on the Constitution and our rights under
it, that I shall be able to turn at least to the past and say, "Up to that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page545" id="page545"></a>[pg 545]</span>
period when I was declining into the grave, I served a Government I loved,
and served it with my whole heart." Nor will I stop to compare services
with those gentlemen who have fair phrases, while they undermine the very
foundation of the temple our fathers built.  If, however, there be those here
who do really love the Union, and the Constitution, which is the life-blood
of the Union, the time has come when we should look calmly, though steadily,
the danger which besets us in the face.</p>

<p>Violent speeches, denunciatory of people in any particular section of the
Union, the arraignment of institutions which they inherited and intend to
transmit, as leprous spots on the body-politic, are not the means by which
fraternity is to be preserved, or this Union rendered perpetual. These were
not the arguments which our fathers made when, through the struggles of
the Revolutionary War, they laid the foundation of the Union.  These are
not the principles on which our Constitution, a bundle of compromises, was
made.  Then the navigating and the agricultural States did not war to see
which could most injure the other; but each conceded something from that
which it believed to be its own interest to promote the welfare of the other.
Those debates, while they brought up all that straggle which belongs to
opposite interests and opposite localities, show none of that bitterness
which, so unfortunately, characterizes every debate in which this body is
involved.</p>

<p>The meanest thing&mdash;I do not mean otherwise than the smallest thing&mdash;which
can arise among us, incidentally, runs into this sectional agitation, as
though it were an epidemic and gave its type to every disease. Not even
could the committees of this body, when we first assembled, before any one
had the excuse of excitement to plead, be organized without sectional agitation
springing up. Forcibly, I suppose gravely and sincerely, it was contended
here that a great wrong was done because New York, the great
commercial State, and the emporium of commerce within her limits, was
not represented upon the Committee of Commerce.  This will go forth to
remote corners, and descend, perhaps, to after-times, as an instance in which
the Democratic party of the Senate behaved with unfairness toward its
opponents; for with it will not descend the fact that the Democratic party
only arranged for itself its own portion of the committees, taking the control
of them, and left blanks on the committees to be filled by the Opposition;
that the Opposition did fill the blanks; that the Opposition had both
the Senators from New York, but did not choose to put either of them on
that committee, though it afterward formed the basis and staple of their
complaint.</p>

<p>Mr. President, I concur with my friend from Virginia [Mr. <span class="sc">Hunter</span>], and
when I rose I did not intend to consume anything like so much time as I
have occupied. I think there are points, which have been sprung upon the
Senate to-day and heretofore, that require to be answered and to be met.
Like my friend from Virginia, I shall feel that it devolves on me, as a representative
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page546" id="page546"></a>[pg 546]</span>
in part of that constituency which is peculiarly assailed, on
another occasion to meet, and, if I am able, to answer, the allegations and
accusations which have been heaped, as well on the section in which I live
as upon every man who has performed his duty by extending over them the
protection for which our Constitution and Government were formed.
</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="appendix-e" id="appendix-e"></a>APPENDIX E.</h2>


<p>In the summer of 1858, Mr. Davis being in Portland, Maine,
a vast concourse of its citizens assembled in front of his hotel to
offer him a welcome to their city, whereupon he made to them
an address, from which the following extracts are given:</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Fellow-Citizens</span>: Accept my sincere thanks for this manifestation of
your kindness. Vanity does not lead me so far to misconceive your purpose
as to appropriate the demonstration to myself; but it is not the less
gratifying to me to be made the medium through which Maine tenders an
expression of regard to her sister, Mississippi.  It is, moreover, with feelings
of profound gratification that I witness this indication of that national
sentiment and fraternity which made us, and which alone can keep us, one
people.  At a period but as yesterday, when compared with the life of
nations, these States were separate, and in some respects opposing colonies;
their only relation to each other was that of a common allegiance to the
Government of Great Britain.  So separate, indeed almost hostile, was
their attitude, that when General Stark, of Bennington memory, was captured
by savages on the head-waters of the Kennebec, he was subsequently
taken by them to Albany, where they went to sell furs, and again led away
a captive, without interference on the part of the inhabitants of that neighboring
colony to demand or obtain his release.  United as we now are, were a
citizen of the United States, as an act of hostility to our country, imprisoned
or slain in any quarter of the world, whether on land or sea, the people
of each and every State of the Union, with one heart and with one
voice, would demand redress, and woe be to him against whom a brother's
blood cried to as from the ground!  Such is the fruit of the wisdom and
the justice with which our fathers bound contending colonies into confederation,
and blended different habits and rival interests into an harmonious
whole, so that, shoulder to shoulder, they entered on the trial of the Revolution,
and step with step trod its thorny paths until they reached the
height of national independence, and founded the constitutional representative
liberty which is our birthright....</p>

<p>By such men, thus trained and ennobled, our Constitution was framed.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page547" id="page547"></a>[pg 547]</span>
It stands a monument of principle, of forecast, and, above all, of that liberality
which made each willing to sacrifice local interest, individual prejudice,
or temporary good to the general welfare and the perpetuity of the
republican institutions which they had passed through fire and blood to
secure. The grants were as broad as were necessary for the functions of
the general agent, and the mutual concessions were twice blessed, blessing
him who gave and him who received. Whatever was necessary for domestic
government&mdash;requisite in the social organization of each community&mdash;was
retained by the States and the people thereof; and these it was made
the duty of all to defend and maintain.  Such, in very general terms, is the
rich political legacy our fathers bequeathed to us.  Shall we preserve and
transmit it to posterity?  Yes, yes, the heart responds; and the judgment
answers, the task is easily performed. It but requires that each should
attend to that which most concerns him, and on which alone he has rightful
power to decide and to act; that each should adhere to the terms of a
written compact, and that all should co&ouml;perate for that which interest,
duty, and honor demand.</p>

<p>For the general affairs of our country, both foreign and domestic, we
have a national Executive and a national Legislature. Representatives and
Senators are chosen by districts and by States, but their acts affect the
whole country, and their obligations are to the whole people.  He, who,
holding either seat, would confine his investigations to the mere interests
of his immediate constituents, would be derelict to his plain duty; and he
who would legislate in hostility to any section would be morally unfit for
the station, and surely an unsafe depositary, if not a treacherous guardian,
of the inheritance with which we are blessed.  No one more than myself
recognizes the binding force of the allegiance which the citizen owes to the
State of his citizenship, but, that State being a party to our compact, a
member of the Union, fealty to the Federal Constitution is not in opposition
to, but flows from the allegiance due to, one of the United States.
Washington was not less a Virginian when he commanded at Boston, nor
did Gates or Greene weaken the bonds which bound them to their several
States by their campaigns in the South.  In proportion as a citizen loves
his own State will he strive to honor her by preserving her name and her
fame, free from the tarnish of having failed to observe her obligations and
to fulfill her duties to her sister States. Each page of our history is illustrated
by the names and deeds of those who have well understood and discharged
the obligation. Have we so degenerated that we can no longer
emulate their virtues? Have the purposes for which our Union was formed
lost their value?  Has patriotism ceased to be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism
no longer to be counted a crime?  Shall the North not rejoice
that the progress of agriculture in the South has given to her great staple
the controlling influence of the commerce of the world, and put manufacturing
nations under bond to keep the peace with the United States?</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page548" id="page548"></a>[pg 548]</span>

<p>Shall the South not exult in the fact that the industry and persevering intelligence
of the North have placed her mechanical skill in the front ranks
of the civilized world; that our mother-country, whose haughty minister,
some eighty-odd years ago, declared that not a hobnail should be made in
the colonies which are now the United States, was brought, some four
years ago, to recognize our pre&euml;minence by sending a commission to examine
our workshops and our machinery, to perfect their own manufacture
of the arms requisite for their defense? Do not our whole people, interior
and seaboard, North, South, East, and West, alike feel proud of the hardihood,
the enterprise, the skill, and the courage of the Yankee sailor, who
has borne our flag far as the ocean bears its foam, and caused the name and
character of the United States to be known and respected wherever there
is wealth enough to woo commerce, and intelligence to honor merit?  So
long as we preserve and appreciate the achievements of Jefferson and
Adams, of Franklin and Madison, of Hamilton, of Hancock, and of Rutledge,
men who labored for the whole country, and lived for mankind, we
can not sink to the petty strife which would sap the foundations and destroy
the political fabric our fathers erected and bequeathed as an inheritance
to our posterity for ever.</p>

<p>Since the formation of the Constitution, a vast extension of territory
and the varied relations arising therefrom have presented problems which
could not have been foreseen. It is just cause for admiration, even wonder,
that the provisions of the fundamental law should have been so fully
adequate to all the wants of a government, new in its organization, and
new in many of the principles on which it was founded.  Whatever fears
may have once existed as to the consequences of territorial expansion must
give way before the evidence which the past affords.  The General Government,
strictly confined to its delegated functions, and the State left in
the undisturbed exercise of all else, we have a theory and practice which
fit our Government for immeasurable domain, and might, under a millennium
of nations, embrace mankind.</p>

<p>From the slope of the Atlantic our population, with ceaseless tide, has
poured into the wide and fertile valley of the Mississippi, with eddying
whirl has passed to the coast of the Pacific; from the West and the East
the tides are rushing toward each other, and the mind is carried to the day
when all the cultivable land will be inhabited, and the American people
will sigh for more wilderness to conquer.  But there is here a physico-political
problem presented for our solution.  Were it purely physical, your
past triumphs would leave but little doubt of your capacity to solve it.  A
community which, when less than twenty thousand, conceived the grand
project of crossing the White Mountains, and unaided, save by the stimulus
which jeers and prophecies of failure gave, successfully executed the herculean
work, might well be impatient if it were suggested that a physical
problem was before us too difficult for mastery. The history of man
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page549" id="page549"></a>[pg 549]</span>
teaches that high mountains and wide deserts have resisted the permanent
extension of empire, and have formed the immutable boundaries of
states. From time to time, under some able leader, have the hordes of the
upper plains of Asia swept over the adjacent country, and rolled their
conquering columns over Southern Europe. Yet, after the lapse of a few
generations, the physical law to which I have referred has asserted its
supremacy, and the boundaries of those states differ little now from those
which were obtained three thousand years ago.</p>

<p>Rome flew her conquering eagles over the then known world, and has
now subsided into the little territory on which the great city was originally
built. The Alps and the Pyrenees have been unable to restrain imperial
France; but her expansion was a feverish action, her advance and her
retreat were tracked with blood, and those mountain-ridges are the re&euml;stablished
limits of her empire. Shall the Rocky Mountains prove a dividing
barrier to us? Were ours a central, consolidated Government, instead
of a Union of sovereign States, our fate might be learned from the history
of other nations. Thanks to the wisdom and independent spirit of our
forefathers, this is not the case. Each State having sole charge of its
local interests and domestic affairs, the problem, which to others has been
insoluble, to us is made easy. Rapid, safe, and easy communication between
the Atlantic and the Pacific will give cointelligence, unity of interest, and
co&ouml;peration among all parts of our continent-wide republic. The network
of railroads which bind the North and the South, the slope of the Atlantic
and the valley of the Mississippi, together, testifies that our people have the
power to perform, in that regard, whatever it is their will to achieve.</p>

<p>We require a railroad to the States of the Pacific for present uses; the
time no doubt will come when we shall have need of two or three, it may
be more. Because of the desert character of the interior country, the
work will be difficult and expensive. It will require the efforts of a united
people. The bickerings of little politicians, the jealousies of sections, must
give way to dignity of purpose and zeal for the common good. If the object
be obstructed by contention and division as to whether the route shall
be Northern, Southern, or central, the handwriting is on the wall, and it
requires little skill to see that failure is the interpretation of the inscription.
You are practical people, and may ask, How is that contest to be
avoided? By taking the question out of the hands of politicians altogether.
Let the Government give such aid as it is proper for it to render to the
company which shall propose the most feasible plan; then leave to capitalists,
with judgments sharpened by interest, the selection of the route, and
the difficulties will diminish, as did those which you overcame when you
connected your harbor with the Canadian provinces.</p>

<p>It would be to trespass on your kindness, and to violate the proprieties
of the occasion, were I to detain the vast concourse which stands before
me, by entering on the discussion of controverted topics, or by further
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page550" id="page550"></a>[pg 550]</span>
indulging in the expression of such reflections as circumstances suggest. I
came to your city in quest of health and repose. From the moment I
entered it you have showered upon me kindness and hospitality. Though
my experience has taught me to anticipate good rather than evil from my
fellow-man, it had not prepared me to expect such unremitting attentions
as have here been bestowed. I have been jocularly asked in relation to my
coming here, whether I had secured a guarantee for my safety, and lo! I
have found it. I stand in the midst of thousands of my fellow-citizens.
But, my friends, I came neither distrusting nor apprehensive....
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the autumn of 1858 Mr. Davis visited Boston, and was invited
to address a public meeting at Faneuil Hall. He was introduced
by the Hon. Caleb Cushing, with whom he had been four
years associated in the Cabinet of President Pierce. Mr. Cushing's
speech, on account of its great merit, is inserted here, except some
complimentary portions of it.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Mr. President&mdash;Fellow Citizens</span>: I present myself before you at the
instance of your chairman, not so much in order to occupy your time with
observations of my own, as to prepare you for that higher gratification
which you are to receive from the remarks of the eminent man here present
to address you in the course of the evening. I will briefly and only suggest
to you such reflections as are appropriate to that duty.</p>

<p>We are assembled here, my friends, at the call of the Democratic ward
and county committee of Suffolk, for the purpose of ratifying the nominations
made at the late Democratic State Convention&mdash;the nomination of our
distinguished and honored fellow-citizen [Hon. <span class="sc">Erasmus D. Beach</span>] who
has already addressed to you the words of wisdom and of patriotism; as
also the nomination of others of our fellow-citizens, whom&mdash;if we may&mdash;we
ought, whom the welfare and the honor of our Commonwealth demand of
us, to place in power in the stead of the existing authorities of the Commonwealth.
I would to God it were in our power to say with confidence that
shall be done! ["It can be done."] We do say that it shall not depend
upon us that it shall not be done. We do say that in so far as depends
upon us it shall be done; and whatsoever devoted love of our country and
our Commonwealth; whatsoever of our noble and holy principles; whatsoever
desire to vindicate our Commonwealth from the stain that has so long
rested upon the name may prompt us to do, that we will do, leaving the
result to the good providence of God.</p>

<p>I say we are invited here by the ward and county committee to ratify
these nominations, and we do ratify them with our whole heart. And we
pledge our most earnest efforts at the polls to give success to these nominations.
That call is comprehensive; it is addressed not only to Democrats,
but to all national men, and so it should be. We know full well that there
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page551" id="page551"></a>[pg 551]</span>
are multitudes of men in this Commonwealth who oppose the Democratic
party, but who are yet impelled toward us by sympathy for the principles
we profess, and by the repulsion they have toward the opinions and purposes
of the leaders of the Republican party. They sympathize with our
principles, and we invite them to co&ouml;perate with us in the maintenance of
the principles of the Constitution and in the vindication of the Commonwealth&mdash;all
national men, whatsoever may have been their past party affinities.
But, while we do so, we declare that it is our belief that the Democratic
party is now recognized as that only existing national party in the
United States&mdash;the only constitutional party&mdash;the only party which by its
present principles is competent to govern these United States, whose principles
are based upon the Constitution&mdash;the only party with a platform coextensive
with this great Union&mdash;this is the great Democratic party. I have
heard again and again, remonstrances have been addressed to me more than
once, because of the condemnation which Democratic speakers so continually
utter about the unnationality as well as the unconstitutionality of the
Republican party.</p>

<p>Let us reflect a moment; let us recall to mind that the honor of the existing
organization of this Federal Administration was by the votes of the
people of these United States sustained when James Buchanan was nominated
for the Presidency, and that he is a worthy representative of the Democratic
party. Let us reflect also that John C. Fremont was nominated as
the candidate of the Republican party. I pray you, gentlemen, to reflect
upon the different methods by which these nominations were presented to
the people of the United States. On the one hand, there assembled at the
Democratic Convention, at Cincinnati, the delegates of every one of the
States in the Union. That Convention was national in its constitution,
national in its character, national in its purpose, and cordially presented to
the suffrages of the people of the United States a national candidate, a candidate
of the whole United States; and that candidate was elected not by
the votes of one section of the Union alone, or another section of the Union
alone, but by the concurrent votes of the South and the North.</p>

<p>How was it on the other side? On the other side there assembled a
convention which, by the very tenor of its call, was confined to sixteen of
the thirty-one States of the Union, which, by the very tenor of its call, excluded
from its councils fifteen of the thirty-one States of the Union, a convention
in which appeared the representatives of only sixteen of the States
of the Union&mdash;nay, I mistake&mdash;as to the remaining fifteen States of the
Union, in their name, pretendedly in their name and their behalf, there appeared
one man&mdash;one man only&mdash;and he a self-appointed delegate by pretension
from the State of Maryland. That was the Convention which
presented John C. Fremont to the people of the United States. I say that
was a sectional Convention, a sectional nomination, a sectional party; and
no reasoning, no remonstrances, no protestations, can discharge the Republican
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page552" id="page552"></a>[pg 552]</span>
party from the ineffaceable stigma of that sectional Convention, that
sectional nomination, and that sectional candidate for the suffrages of the
United States.  That party itself has placed upon its back that shirt of
Nessus which clings to it and stings it to death. I repeat, then, and I say
it in confidence and vindication, in so far as regards my own belief, I say it
in all good spirit toward multitudes of men in this Commonwealth of the
Whig and American parties in their heretofore organization; I say it to
multitudes of men who have been betrayed by the passions of the hour into
joining the sectional combinations of the Republican party; I say that in
the Democratic party and in that alone is the tower of strength for the
liberties, the position, and the honor of the United States.  But why need
I indulge in these reflections in proof of my proposition? Gentlemen, we
have here this evening the living proof, the visible, tangible, audible, incontestable,
immortal proof, that the position of the Democratic party, in the
existing organization of parties, is the national, constitutional party of the
United States. Gentlemen, I ask you to challenge your memories, and look
upon the history of the past four years of the United States, and can you
point me to a Republican assembly here, in the city of Boston, or anywhere
else; can you point me in the last four years of our history to any occasion
on which Faneuil Hall has been crowded to its utmost capability with a
Republican assembly in which appeared any one of those pre&euml;minent statesmen
of the Southern States to honor not merely their States, but these
United States? When, sir, did that ever happen? When, sir, was that a
possible fact, morally speaking, that any eminent Southern statesman appeared
in a Republican assembly in any one of the States of this Union?
There never was a Republican assembly&mdash;an assembly of the Republican
party in fifteen of these States&mdash;and I again ask, when, in the remaining
sixteen States, was there ever convened an assembly of the Republican
party which, by reason of bigotry, proscriptive bigotry, of unnational hatred
of the South, and of determined insult of all Southern statesmen, did not
render it an impossible fact that any Southern statesman should thus make
his appearance as a member in such Republican Convention? You know it
is so, gentlemen; and yet, have we not a common country? Did those
thirteen colonies which, commencing with that combat at Concord, and following
it with that battle at Bunker's Hill, and pursuing it in every battlefield
of this continent, did those thirteen colonies form one country or thirteen
countries? Nay, did they form two countries, or one country? I
would imagine when I listen to a Republican speech here in the State of
Massachusetts, when I read a Republican address in Massachusetts, I would
imagine fifteen States of this Union&mdash;our fellow-citizens or fellow-sufferers,
our fellow-heroes of the Revolution&mdash;I would imagine not that they are our
countrymen endeared to us by ties of consanguinity, but that they are from
some foreign country, that they belong to some French or British or Mexican
enemies. There never was a day in which the forces of war were marshaled
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page553" id="page553"></a>[pg 553]</span>
against the most flagrant abuses toward these United States; there
never was a war in which these United States have been engaged, never
even in the death-struggle of the Revolution, never in our war for maritime
independence, never in our war with France and Mexico, never was there a
time when any party in these United States expressed, avowed, proclaimed,
ostentatiously proclaimed more intense hostility to the British, French,
Mexican enemy, than I have heard uttered or proclaimed concerning our
fellow-citizens&mdash;brothers in the fifteen States of this Union. It is the glory
of the Democratic party that we can assume the burden of our nationality
for the Union; that we can make all due sacrifices in order to show our
reprobation of sectionalism, that we of the North can sacrifice to the South,
from dear attachment to our fellow-citizens of the South, and they in the
South in like manner meet with us upon that ground, in order to show their
love for the Federal Union, and at the risk of encountering local prejudices.
In the Democratic party alone, as parties are now organized, is this catholic,
generous, universal spirit to be found. I say, then, the Democratic party
has such a character of constitutionality and of nationality.</p>

<p>And now, gentlemen, I have allowed myself unthinkingly to be carried
beyond my original purpose. I return to it to remind you that here among
us is a citizen of one of the Southern States, eloquent among the most eloquent
in debate, wise among the wisest in council, and brave among the
bravest in the battle-field. A citizen of a Southern State who knows that
he can associate with you, the representatives of the Democracy and the
nationality of Massachusetts, that he can associate with you on equal footing
with the fellow-citizens and common members of these United States.</p>

<p>My friends, there are those here present, and in fact there is no one here
present of whom it can not be said that, in memory and admiration at least,
and if not in the actual fact, yet in proud and bounding memory, they have
been able to tread the glorious tracks of the victorious achievements of
Jefferson Davis on the fields of Monterey and Buena Vista, and all have
heard or have read the accents of eloquence addressed by him to the Senate
of the United States; and there is one at least who, from his own personal
observation, can bear witness to the fact of the surpassing wisdom of Jefferson
Davis in the administration of the Government of the United States.
Such a man, fellow-citizens, you are this evening to hear, and to hear as a
beautiful illustration of the working of our republican institutions of these
United States; of the republican institutions which in our own country, our
own republic, as in the old republics of Athens and of Rome, exhibit the
same combinations of the highest military and civic qualities in the same
person. It must naturally be so, for in a republic every citizen is a soldier,
and every soldier a citizen. Not in these United States on the occurrence
of foreign war is that spectacle exhibited which we have so recently seen in
our mother-country, of the administration of the country going abroad
begging and stealing soldiers throughout Europe and America. No! And
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page554" id="page554"></a>[pg 554]</span>
while I ask you, my friends, to ponder this fact in relation to that disastrous
struggle of giants which so recently occurred in our day&mdash;the Crimean War&mdash;I
ask you whether any English gentleman, any member of the British
House of Commons, any member of the British House of Peers, abandoned
the ease of home, abandoned his easy hours at home, and went into the
country among his friends, tenants, and fellow-countrymen, volunteering
there to raise troops for the service of England in that hour of her peril;
did any such fact occur? No! But here in these United States we had
examples, and illustrious ones, of the fact that men, eminent in their place
in Congress, abandoned their stations and their honors to go among fellow-citizens
of their own States, and there raise troops with which to vindicate
the honor and the flag of their country.  Of such men was Jefferson Davis.</p>

<p>There is now living one military man of prominent distinction in the
public eye of England and the United States&mdash;I mean Sir Colin Campbell,
now Lord Clyde of Clydesdale.  He deserves the distinction he enjoys, for
he has redeemed the British flag on the ensanguined, burning plains of
India.  He has restored the glory of the British name in Asia.  I honor
him.  Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland are open, for their counties,
as well as their countries, and their poets, orators, and statesmen, and their
generals, belong to our history as well as theirs.  I will never disavow Henry
V on the plains of Agincourt; never Oliver Cromwell on the fields of Marston
Moor and Naseby; never Sarsfield on the banks of the Boyne.  The
glories and honors of Sir Colin Campbell are the glories of the British race,
and the races of Great Britain and Ireland, from whom we are descended.</p>

<p>But what gained Sir Colin Campbell the opportunity to achieve those
glorious results in India? Remember that, and let us see what it was. On
one of those bloody battles fought by the British before the fortress of Sebastopol,
in the midst of the perils, the most perilous of all the battle-fields
England ever encountered in Europe, in one of the bloody charges of the
Russian cavalry, there was an officer&mdash;a man who felt and who possessed
sufficient confidence in the troops he commanded, and in the authority of
his own voice and example&mdash;received that charge not in the ordinary, commonplace,
and accustomed manner, by forming his troops into a hollow
square, and thus arresting the charge, but by forming into two diverging
lines, and thus receiving upon the rifles of his Highlandmen the charge of
the Russian cavalry and repelling it.  How all England rang with the glory
of that achievement! How the general voice of England placed upon the
brows of Sir Colin Campbell the laurels of the future mastership of victory
for the arms of England! And well they might do so.  But who originated
that movement; who set the example of that gallant operation&mdash;who but
Colonel Jefferson Davis, of the First Mississippi Regiment, on the field of
Buena Vista?  He was justly entitled to the applause of the restorer of
victory to the arms of the Union.  Gentlemen, in our country, in this day,
such a man, such a master of the art of war, so daring in the field, such a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page555" id="page555"></a>[pg 555]</span>
man may not only aspire to the highest places in the executive government
of the Union, but such a man may acquire what nowhere else, since the
days of Cimon and Miltiades, of the Cincinnati and the Cornelii of Athens
and of Rome, has been done by the human race, the combination of eminent
powers, of intellectual cultivation, and of eloquence with the practical,
qualities of a statesman and general.</p>

<p>But, gentlemen, I am again betrayed beyond my purpose.  Sir [addressing
General Davis], we welcome you to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
You may not find here the ardent skies of your own sunny South, but you
will find as ardent hearts, as warm and generous hands to welcome you to
our Commonwealth.  We welcome you to the city of Boston, and you have
already experienced how open-hearted, how generous, how free from all
possible taint of sectional thought are the hospitality and cordiality of the
city of Boston. We welcome you to Faneuil Hall. Many an eloquent
voice has in all times resounded from the walls of Faneuil Hall.  It is said
that no voice is uttered by man in this air we breathe but enters into that
air. It continues there immortal as the portion of the universe into which
it has passed.  If it be so, how instinct is Faneuil Hall with the voice of the
great, good, and glorious of past generations, and of our own, whose voices
have echoed through its walls, whose eloquent words have thrilled the
hearts of hearers, as if a pointed sword were passing them through and
through. Here Adams aroused his countrymen in the War of Independence,
and Webster invoked them almost with the dying breath of his body&mdash;invoked
with that voice of majesty and power which he alone possessed&mdash;invoked
them to a union between the North and South.  Ay, sir, and who,
if he were here present, who from those blest abodes on high from which
he looks down upon us would congratulate us for this scene.  First, and
above all, because his large heart would have appreciated the spectacle of a
statesman eminent among the most eminent of the Southern States here
addressing an assembly of the people in the city of Boston.  Because, in the
second place, he would have remembered that, though divided from you by
party relations, in one of the critical hours of his fame and his honor, your
voice was not wanting for his vindication in the Congress of the United
States.  Sir, again, I say we welcome you to Faneuil Hall.</p>

<p>And now, my fellow-citizens, I will withdraw myself and present to you
the Hon. Jefferson Davis.
</p></blockquote>

<p>Address of Jefferson Davis, at Faneuil Hall, Boston, October
12, 1858.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Countrymen, Brethren, Democrats</span>: Most happy am I to meet you, and
to have received here renewed assurance&mdash;of that which I have so long believed&mdash;that
the pulsation of the Democratic heart is the same in every
parallel of latitude, on every meridian of longitude, throughout the United
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page556" id="page556"></a>[pg 556]</span>
States.  It required not this to confirm me in a belief I have so long and so
happily enjoyed.  Your own great statesman [the Hon. <span class="sc">Caleb Cushing</span>],
who has introduced me to this assembly, has been too long associated with
me, too nearly connected, we have labored too many hours, until one day
ran into another, in the cause of our country, for me to fail to understand
that a Massachusetts Democrat has a heart as wide as the Union, and that
its pulsations always beat for the liberty and happiness of his country.
Neither could I be unaware that such was the sentiment of the Democracy
of New England.  For it was my fortune lately to serve under a President
drawn from the neighboring State of New Hampshire, and I know that he
spoke the language of his heart, for I learned it in four years of intimate
relations with him, when he said he knew "no North, no South, no East,
no West, but sacred maintenance of the common bond and true devotion to
the common brotherhood."  Never, sir, in the past history of our country,
never, I add, in its future destiny, however bright it may be, did or will a
man of higher and purer patriotism, a man more devoted to the common
weal of his country, hold the helm of our great ship of state, than Franklin
Pierce.</p>

<p>I have heard the resolutions read and approved by this meeting; I have
heard the address of your candidate for Governor; and these, added to the
address of my old and intimate friend, General Cushing, bear to me fresh
testimony, which I shall be happy to carry away with me, that the Democracy,
in the language of your own glorious Webster, "still lives"; lives, not
as his great spirit did, when it hung 'twixt life and death, like a star upon
the horizon's verge, but lives like the germ that is shooting upward; like
the sapling that is growing to a mighty tree, and I trust it may redeem
Massachusetts to her glorious place in the Union, when she led the van of
the defenders of State rights.</p>

<p>When I see Faneuil Hall thus thronged it reminds me of another meeting,
when it was found too small to contain the assembly that met here, on
the call of the people, to know what should be done in relation to the tea-tax,
and when, Faneuil Hall being too small, they went to the old South
Church, which still stands a monument of your early day. I hope the time
will soon come when many Democratic meetings in Boston will be too large
for Faneuil Hall.  I am welcomed to this hall, so venerable for all the
associations of our early history; to this hall of which you are so justly
proud, and the memories of which are part of the inheritance of every
American citizen; and I felt, as I looked upon it, and remembered how
many voices of patriotic fervor have filled it&mdash;how here the first movement
originated from which the Revolution sprang; how here began the system
of town meetings and free discussion&mdash;that, though my theme was more
humble than theirs, as befitted my humbler powers, I had enough to warn
me that I was assuming much to speak in this sacred chamber.  But, when
I heard your distinguished orator say that words uttered here could never
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page557" id="page557"></a>[pg 557]</span>
die, that they lived and became a part of the circumambient air, I feel a
hesitation which increases upon me with the remembrance of his expressions.
But, if those voices which breathed the first impulse into the colonies&mdash;now
the United States&mdash;to proclaim independence, and to unite for
resistance against the power of the mother-country&mdash;if those voices live here
still, how must they fare who come here to preach treason to the Constitution
and to assail the union of these States? It would seem that their
criminal hearts would fear that those voices, so long slumbering, would
break silence, that those forms which hang upon these walls behind me
might come forth, and that the sabers so long sheathed would leap from
their scabbards to drive from this sacred temple those who desecrate it as
did the money-changers who sold doves in the temple of the living God.</p>

<p>Here you have, to remind you, and to remind all who enter this hall, the
portraits of those men who are dear to every lover of liberty, and part and
parcel of the memory of every American citizen; and highest among them
all I see you have placed Samuel Adams and John Hancock. You have
placed them the highest, and properly; for they were two, the only two,
excepted from the proclamation of mercy, when Governor Gage issued his
anathema against them and against their fellow-patriots.  These men, thus
excepted from the saving grace of the crown, now occupy the highest places
in Faneuil Hall, and thus seem to be the highest in the reverence of the
people of Boston.  This is one of the instances in which we find tradition
so much more reliable than history; for tradition has borne the name of
Samuel Adams to the remotest of the colonies, and the new States formed
out of what was territory of the old colonies; and there it is a name as
sacred among us as it is among you.</p>

<p>We all remember how early he saw the necessity of <span class="sc">community independence</span>.
How, through the dim mists of the future, and in advance of
his day, he looked forward to the proclamation of the independence of
Massachusetts; how he steadily strove, through good report and evil report,
with a great, unwavering heart, whether in the midst of his fellow-citizens,
cheered by their voices, or communing with his own heart, when driven
from his home, his eyes were still fixed upon his first, last hope, the community
independence of Massachusetts!  Always a commanding figure, we
see him, at a later period, the leader in the correspondence which waked
the feelings of the other colonies to united fraternal association&mdash;the people
of Massachusetts with the people of the other colonies&mdash;there we see his
letters acknowledging the receipt of rice of South Carolina, and the money
of New York and Pennsylvania&mdash;all these poured in to relieve Boston of the
sufferings inflicted upon her when the port was closed by the despotism of
the British crown&mdash;we see the beginning of that which insured the co&ouml;peration
of the colonies throughout the desperate struggle of the Revolution.
And we there see that which, if the present generation be true to the
memory of their sires, to the memory of the noble men from whom they
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page558" id="page558"></a>[pg 558]</span>
descended, will perpetuate for them that spirit of fraternity in which the
Union began. But it is not here alone, nor in reminiscences connected with
the objects which present themselves within this hall, that the people of
Boston have much to excite their patriotism and carry them back to the
great principles of the Revolutionary struggle.  Where will you go and not
meet some monument to inspire such sentiments?  Go to Lexington and
Concord, where sixty brave countrymen came with their fowling-pieces to
oppose six hundred veterans&mdash;where they forced those veterans back, pursuing
them on the road, fighting from every barn, and bush, and stock, and
stone, till they drove them, retreating, to the ships from which they went
forth!  And there stand those monuments of your early patriotism, Breed's
and Bunker's Hills, whose soil drank the martyr-blood of men who lived
for their country and died for mankind!  Can it be that any of you should
tread that soil and forget the great purposes for which those men died?
While, on the other side, rise the heights of Dorchester, where once stood
the encampment of the Virginian, the man who came here, and did not ask,
Is this a town of Virginia? but, Is this a town of my brethren?  The
steady courage and cautious wisdom of Washington availed to drive the
British troops out from the city which they had so confidently held.  Here,
too, you find where once the old Liberty Tree, connected with so many of
your memories, grew.  You ask your legend, and learn that it was cut down
for firewood by British soldiers, as some of your meeting-houses were destroyed;
they burned the old tree, and it warmed the soldiers long enough
to leave town, and, had they burned it a little longer, its light would have
shown Washington and his followers where their enemies were.</p>

<p>But they are gone, and never again shall a hostile foot set its imprint
upon your soil.  Your harbor is being fortified, to prevent an unexpected
attack on your city by a hostile fleet.  But woe to the enemy whose fleet
shall bear him to your shores to set his footprint upon your soil; he goes
to a prison or to a grave!  American fortifications are not built from any
fear of invasion, they are intended to guard points where marine attacks
can be made; and, for the rest, the hearts of Americans are our ramparts.</p>

<p>But, my friends, it is not merely in these associations, so connected with
the honorable pride of Massachusetts, that one who visits Boston finds
much for gratification, hope, and instruction. If I were selecting a place
where the advocate of strict construction, the extreme expounder of democratic
State-rights doctrine should go for his texts, I would send him into
the collections of your historical associations.  Instead of going to Boston
as a place where only consolidation would be found, he would find written,
in letters of living light, that sacred creed of State rights which has been
miscalled the ultra opinions of the South; he could find among your early
records that this Faneuil Hall, the property of the town at the time when
Massachusetts was under a colonial government, administered by a man
appointed by the British crown, guarded by British soldiers, was refused to a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page559" id="page559"></a>[pg 559]</span>
British Governor in which to hold a British festival, because he was going to
bring with him the agents for collecting, and naval officers sent here to enforce,
an oppressive tax upon your Commonwealth.  Such was the proud
spirit of independence manifested even in your colonial history.  Such is
the great foundation-stone on which may be erected an eternal monument
of State rights. And so, in an early period of our country, you find Massachusetts
leading the movements, prominent of all the States, in the assertion
of that doctrine which has been recently so much belied.  Having achieved
your independence, having passed through the Confederation, you assented
to the formation of our present constitutional Union.  You did not surrender
your sovereignty.  Your fathers had sacrificed too much to claim, as
a reward of their toil, merely that they should have a change of masters;
and a change of masters it would have been had Massachusetts surrendered
her State sovereignty to the central Government, and consented that that
central Government should have the power to coerce a State.  But, if this
power does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then,
who can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your candidate
this evening, when he has pleaded to you the cause of State independence,
and the right of every community to be judge of its own domestic affairs?
This is all we have ever asked&mdash;we of the South, I mean&mdash;for I stand before
you as one of those who have always been called the ultra men of the South,
and I speak, therefore, for that class; and I tell you that your candidate
for Governor has uttered to-night everything which we have claimed as
a principle for our protection.  And I have found the same condition of
things in the neighboring State of Maine.  I have found that the Democrats
there asserted the same broad constitutional principle for which we have
been contending, by which we are willing to live, for which we are willing
to die!</p>

<p>In this state of the case, my friends, why is the country agitated?  The
old controversies have passed away, or they have subsided, and have been
covered up by one dark pall of somber hue, which increases with every
passing year.  Why is it, then, I say, that you are thus agitated in relation
to the domestic affairs of other communities?  Why is it that the peace of
the country is disturbed in order that one people may judge of what another
people may do?  Is there any political power to authorize such interference?
If so, where is it?  You did not surrender your sovereignty.  You
gave to the Federal Government certain functions. It was your agent,
created for specified purposes.  It can do nothing save that which you have
given it power to perform.  Where is the grant?  Has it a right to determine
what shall be property?  Surely not; that belongs to every community
to decide for itself; you judge in your case&mdash;every other State must
judge in its case.  The Federal Government has no power to destroy property.
Do you pay taxes, then, to an agent, that he may destroy your property?
Do you support him for that purpose?  It is an absurdity on the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page560" id="page560"></a>[pg 560]</span>
face of it. To ask the question is to answer it. The Government is instituted
to protect, not to destroy, property. And, in abundance of caution,
your fathers provided that the Federal Government should not take private
property for its own use unless by making due compensation therefor.  It
is prohibited from attempting to destroy property.  One of its great purposes
was protection to the States.  Whenever that power is made a source
of danger, we destroy the purpose for which the Government was formed.</p>

<p>Why, then, have you agitators? With Pharisaical pretension it is
sometimes said it is a moral obligation to agitate, and I suppose they are
going through a sort of vicarious repentance for other men's sins.  With
all due allowance for their zeal, we ask, how do they decide that it is a sin?
By what standard do they measure it?  Not the Constitution; the Constitution
recognizes the property in slaves in many forms, and imposes obligations
in connection with that recognition.  Not the Bible; that justifies it.
Not the good of society; for, if they go where it exists, they find that
society recognizes it as good.  What, then, is their standard?  The good
of mankind?  Is that seen in the diminished resources of the country?  Is
that seen in the diminished comfort of the world?  Or is not the reverse
exhibited?  Is there, in the cause of Christianity, a motive for the prohibition
of the system which is the only agency through which Christianity
has reached that inferior race, the only means by which they have been
civilized and elevated? Or is their piety manifested in denunciation of
their brethren, who are deterred from answering their denunciation only
by the contempt which they feel for a mere brawler, who intends to end
his brawling only in empty words?</p>

<p>What, my friends, must be the consequences? Good or evil? They
have been evil, and evil they must be only to the end.  Not one particle of
good has been done to any man, of any color, by this agitation.  It has been
insidiously working the purpose of sedition, for the destruction of that
Union on which our hopes of future greatness depend.</p>

<p>On the one side, then, you see agitation tending slowly and steadily to
that separation of States, which, if you have any hope connected with the
liberty of mankind; if you have any national pride connected with making
your country the greatest on the face of the earth; if you have any sacred
regard for the obligations which the deeds and the blood of your fathers
entailed upon you, that hope should prompt you to reject anything that
would tend to destroy the result of that experiment which they left it to
you to conclude and perpetuate. On the other hand, if each community,
in accordance with the principles of our Government, should regard its domestic
interests as a part of the common whole, and struggle for the benefit
of all, this would steadily lead us to fraternity, to unity, to co&ouml;peration, to
the increase of our happiness and the extension of the benefits of our useful
example over mankind.  The flag of the Union, whose stars have already
more than doubled their original number, with its ample folds may wave,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page561" id="page561"></a>[pg 561]</span>
the recognized flag of every State or the recognized protector of every State
upon the Continent of America.</p>

<p>In connection with the view which I have presented of the early idea of
community independence, I will add the very striking fact that one of the
colonies, about the time they had resolved to unite for the purpose of
achieving their independence, addressed the Colonial Congress to know in
what condition it would be in the interval between its separation from the
Government of Great Britain and the establishment of a government on this
continent. The answer of the Colonial Congress was exactly what might
have been expected&mdash;exactly what State-rights Democracy would answer
to-day to such an inquiry&mdash;that they "had nothing to do with it."  If such
sentiment had continued, if it had governed in every State, if representatives
had been chosen upon it, then your halls of Federal legislation would
not have been disturbed about the question of the domestic institutions of
the different States.  The peace of the country would not be hazarded by
the arraignment of the family relations of people over whom the Government
has no control.  If in harmony working together, with co-intelligence
for the conservation of the interests of the country&mdash;if protection to the
States and the other great ends for which the Government was established,
had been the aim and united effort of all&mdash;what effects would not have been
produced?  As our Government increases in expansion it would increase
in its beneficent effect upon the people; we should, as we grow in power
and prosperity, also grow in fraternity, and it would be no longer a wonder
to see a man coming from a Southern State to address a Democratic audience
in Boston.</p>

<p>But I have referred to the fact that Massachusetts stood pre&euml;minently
forward among those who asserted community independence: and this reminds
me of another incident. President Washington visited Boston when
John Hancock was Governor, and Hancock refused to call upon the President,
because he contended that any man who came within the limits of
Massachusetts must yield rank and precedence to the Governor of the State.
He eventually only surrendered the point on account of his personal regard
and respect for the character of George Washington.  I honor him for this,
and value it as one of the early testimonies in favor of State rights.  I wish
all our Governors had the same regard for the dignity of the State as had
the great and glorious John Hancock.</p>

<p>In the beginning the founders of this Government were true democratic
State-rights men.  Democracy was State rights, and State rights was democracy,
and it is so to-day.  Your resolutions breathe it.  The Declaration of
Independence embodied the sentiments which had lived in the hearts of the
country for many years before its formal assertion.  Our fathers asserted
the great principle&mdash;the right of the people to choose their own government&mdash;and
that government rested upon the consent of the governed.  In every
form of expression it uttered the same idea, community independence and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page562" id="page562"></a>[pg 562]</span>
the dependence of the Union upon the communities of which it consisted.
It was an American declaration of the unalienable right of man; it was a
general truth, and I wish it were accepted by all men. But I have said
that this State sovereignty&mdash;this community independence&mdash;has never been
surrendered, and that there is no power in the Federal Government to coerce
a State.  Will any one ask me, then, how a State is to be held to the
fulfillment of its obligations? My answer is, by its honor. The obligation
is the more sacred to observe every feature of the compact, because there
is no power to enforce it. The great error of the Confederation was, that
it attempted to act upon the States. It was found impracticable, and our
present form of government was adopted, which acts upon individuals, and
is not designed to act upon States. The question of State coercion was
raised in the Convention which framed the Constitution, and, after discussion,
the proposition to give power to the General Government to enforce
against any State obedience to the laws was rejected. It is upon the
ground that a State can not be coerced that observance of the compact is a
sacred obligation. It was upon this principle that our fathers depended for
the perpetuity of a fraternal Union, and for the security of the rights that
the Constitution was designed to preserve. The fugitive slave compact in
the Constitution of the United States implied that the States should fulfill
it voluntarily. They expected the States to legislate so as to secure the
rendition of fugitives; and in 1778 it was a matter of complaint that the
Spanish colony of Florida did not restore fugitive negroes from the United
States who escaped into that colony, and a committee, composed of Hamilton,
of New York, Sedgwick, of Massachusetts, and Mason, of Virginia,
reported resolutions in the Congress, instructing the Secretary of Foreign
Affairs to address the <i>charg&eacute; d'affaires</i> at Madrid to apply to his Majesty
of Spain to issue orders to his governor to compel them to secure the rendition
of fugitive negroes. This was the sentiment of the committee, and
they added, also, that the States would return any slaves from Florida who
might escape into their limits.</p>

<p>When the constitutional obligation was imposed, who could have doubted
that every State, faithful to its obligations, would comply with the requirements
of the Constitution, and waive all questions as to whether the
institution should or should not exist in another community over which
they had no control? Congress was at last forced to legislate on the subject,
and they have continued, up to a recent period, to legislate, and this
has been one of the causes by which you have been disturbed.  You have
been called upon to make war against a law which need never to have been
enacted, if each State had done the duty which she was called upon by the
Constitution to perform.</p>

<p>Gentlemen, this presents one phase of agitation&mdash;negro agitation: there
is another and graver question, it is in relation to the prohibition by Congress
of the introduction of slave property into the Territories. What
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page563" id="page563"></a>[pg 563]</span>
power does Congress possess in this connection? Has it the right to say
what shall be property anywhere? If it has, from what clause of the Constitution
does it derive that power? Have other States the power to prescribe
the condition upon which a citizen of another State shall enter upon
and enjoy territory&mdash;common property of all? Clearly not. Shall the
inhabitants who first go into the Territory deprive any citizen of the United
States of those rights which belong to him as an equal owner of the soil?
Certainly not. Sovereign jurisdiction can only pass to these inhabitants
when the States, the owners of that Territory shall recognize their right
to become an equal member of the Union. Until then, the Constitution
and the laws of the Union must be the rule governing within the limits of
a Territory.</p>

<p>The Constitution recognizes all property, and gives equal privileges to
every citizen of the States; and it would be a violation of its fundamental
principles to attempt any discrimination.</p>

<p>There is nothing of truth or justice with which to sustain this agitation,
or ground for it, unless it be that it is a very good bridge over which to pass
into office; a little stock of trade in politics built up to aid men who are
missionaries staying at home; reformers of things which they do not go to
learn; preachers without a congregation; overseers without laborers and
without wages; war-horses who snuff the battle afar off and cry: "Aha!
aha! I am afar off."</p>

<p>Thus it is that the peace of the Union is disturbed; thus it is that brother
is arrayed against brother; thus it is that the people come to consider
not how they can promote each other's interests, but how they may successfully
war upon them. And among the things most odious to my mind is to
find a man who enters upon a public office, under the sanction of the Constitution,
and taking an oath to support the Constitution&mdash;the compact between
the States binding each for the common defense and general welfare
of the other&mdash;and retaining to himself a mental reservation that he will
war upon the institutions and the property of any of the States of the
Union. It is a crime too low to characterize as it deserves before this
assembly. It is one which would disgrace a gentleman&mdash;one which a man
with self-respect would never commit. To swear that he will support the
Constitution, to take an office which belongs in many of its relations to all
the States, and to use it as a means of injuring a portion of the States of
whom he is thus an agent, is treason to everything that is honorable in man.
It is the base and cowardly attack of him who gains the confidence of another
in order that he may wound him. But I have often heard it argued,
and I have seen it published: I have seen a petition that was circulated for
signers, announcing that there was an incompatibility between the different
sections of the Union; that it had been tried long enough, and that they
must get rid of those sections in which the curse of slavery existed. Ah!
those sages, so much wiser than our fathers, have found out that there is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page564" id="page564"></a>[pg 564]</span>
incompatibility in that which existed when the Union was formed. They
have found an incompatibility inconsistent with union, in that which existed
when South Carolina sent her rice to Boston, and Maryland and
Pennsylvania and New York brought in their funds for her relief. The
fact is that, from that day to this, the difference between the people of the
colonies has been steadily diminishing, and the possible advantages of
union in no small degree augmented. The variety of product of soil and of
climate has been multiplied, both by the expansion of our country and by
the introduction of new tropical products not cultivated at that time; so
that every motive to union which your fathers had, in a diversity which
should give prosperity to the country, exists in a higher degree to-day than
when this Union was formed, and this diversity is fundamental to the prosperity
of the people of the several sections of the country.</p>

<p>It is, however, to-day, in sentiment and interest, less than on the day
when the Declaration of Independence was made. Diversity there is&mdash;diversity
of character&mdash;but it is not of that extreme kind which proves incompatibility;
for your Massachusetts man, when he comes into Mississippi,
adopts our opinions and our institutions, and frequently becomes the
most extreme man among us. As our country has extended, as new products
have been introduced into it, this Union and the free trade that belongs
to it have been of increasing value. And I say, moreover, that it is
not an unfortunate circumstance that this diversity of pursuit and character
still remains. Originally it sprang in no small degree from natural causes.
Massachusetts became a manufacturing and commercial State because of
her fine harbors&mdash;because of her water-power, making its last leap into the
sea, so that the ship of commerce brought the staple to the manufacturing
power. This made you a commercial and a manufacturing people. In the
Southern States great plains interpose between the last leaps of the streams
and the sea. Those plains were cultivated in staple crops, and the sea
brought their products to your streams to be manufactured. This was the
first beginning of the differences.</p>

<p>Then your longer and more severe winters, your soil not so favorable for
agriculture, in a degree kept you a manufacturing and a commercial people.
Even after the cause had passed away&mdash;after railroads had been built&mdash;after
the steam-engine had become a motive power for a large part of manufacturing
machinery, the natural causes from which your people obtained a manufacturing
ascendancy and ours became chiefly agriculturists continued to act
in a considerable measure to preserve that relation. Your interest is to remain
a manufacturing, and ours to remain an agricultural people. Your
prosperity, then, is to receive our staple and to manufacture it, and ours to
sell it to you and buy the manufactured goods.  This is an interweaving of
interests which makes us all the richer and happier.</p>

<p>But this accursed agitation, this intermeddling with the affairs of other
people, is that alone which will promote a desire in the mind of any one to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page565" id="page565"></a>[pg 565]</span>
separate these great and glorious States.  The seeds of dissension may be
sown by invidious reflections.  Men may be goaded by the constant attempts
to infringe upon rights and to disturb tranquillity, and in the resentment
which follows it is not possible to tell how far the wave may rush.  I
therefore plead to you now to arrest a fanaticism which has been evil in the
beginning and must be evil in the end. You may not have the numerical
power requisite; and those at a distance may not understand how many of
you there are desirous to put a stop to the course of this agitation. For
me, I have learned since I have been in New England the vast mass of true
State-rights Democrats to be found within its limits&mdash;though not represented
in the halls of Congress. And if it comes to the worst&mdash;if, availing
themselves of a majority in the two Houses of Congress, they should attempt
to trample upon the Constitution; if they should attempt to violate
the rights of the States; if they should attempt to infringe upon our equality
in the Union&mdash;I believe that even in Massachusetts, though it has not had a
representative in Congress for many a day, the State-rights Democracy, in
whose breasts beats the spirit of the Revolution, can and will whip the black
Republicans. I trust we shall never be thus purified, as it were, by fire;
but that the peaceful, progressive revolution of the ballot-box will answer
all the glorious purposes of the Constitution and the Union. And I marked
that the distinguished orator and statesman who preceded me, in addressing
you, used the words "national" and "constitutional" in such relation to
each other as to show that in his mind the one was a synonym of the other.
I say so: we became national by the Constitution, the bond for uniting
the States, and national and constitutional are convertible terms.</p>

<p>Your candidate for the high office of Governor&mdash;whom I have been once
or twice on the point of calling Governor, and whom I hope I may be able
soon to call so&mdash;in his remarks to you has presented the same idea in another
form. And well may Massachusetts orators, without even perceiving what
they are saying, utter sentiments which lie at the foundation of your
colonial as well as your subsequent political history, which existed in Massachusetts
before the Revolution, and have existed ever since, whenever
the true spirit which comes down from the Revolutionary sires has swelled
and found utterance within her limits.</p>

<p>It has been not only, my friends, in this increasing and mutual dependence
of interest that we have found new ties to you. Those bonds are
both material and mental. Every improvement or invention, every construction
of a railroad, has formed a new reason for our being one. Every
new achievement, whether it has been in arts or science, in war or in manufactures,
has constituted for us a new bond and a new sentiment holding us
together.</p>

<p>Why, then, I would ask, do we see these lengthened shadows which
follow in the course of our political history?  Is it because our sun is declining
to the horizon? Are they the shadows of evening, or are they, as
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page566" id="page566"></a>[pg 566]</span>
I hopefully believe, but the mists which are exhaled by the sun as it rises,
but which are to be dispersed by its meridian glory? Are they but the
little evanishing clouds that flit between the people and the great objects
for which the Constitution was established? I hopefully look toward the
reaction which will establish the fact that our sun is still in the ascendant&mdash;that
that cloud which has so long covered our political horizon is to be
dispersed&mdash;that we are not again to be divided on parallels of latitude and
about the domestic institutions of States&mdash;a sectional attack on the prosperity
and tranquillity of a nation&mdash;but only by differences in opinion upon
measures of expediency, upon questions of relative interest, by discussions as
to the powers of the States and the rights of the States, and the powers
of the Federal Government&mdash;such discussion as is commemorated in this
picture of your own great and glorious Webster, when he specially addressed
our best, most tried, and greatest man, the pure and incorruptible Calhoun,
represented as intently listening to catch the accents of eloquence that fell
from his lips. Those giants strove each for his conviction, not against a
section&mdash;not against each other; they stood to each other in the relation of
personal affection and esteem, and never did I see Mr. Webster so agitated,
never did I hear his voice falter, as when he delivered the eulogy on John
C. Calhoun.</p>

<p>But allusion was made to my own connection with your great and favorite
departed statesman. Of that I will only say, on this occasion, that
very early in my Congressional life Mr. Webster was arraigned for an offense
which affected him most deeply. He was no accountant, and all knew
that. He was arraigned on a pecuniary charge&mdash;the misapplication of
what is known as the secret-service fund&mdash;and I was one of the committee
that had to investigate the charge. I endeavored to do justice. I endeavored
to examine the evidence with a view to ascertain the truth. It is
true I remembered that he was an eminent American statesman. It is true
that as an American I hoped he would come out without a stain upon his
garments. But I entered upon the investigation to find the truth and to do
justice. The result was, he was acquitted of every charge that was made
against him, and it was equally my pride and my pleasure to vindicate him
in every form which lay within my power. No one that knew Daniel
Webster could have believed that he would ever ask whether a charge was
made against a Massachusetts man or a Mississippian. No! It belonged to
a lower, to a later, and I trust a shorter-lived race of statesmen, who measure
all facts by considerations of latitude and longitude.</p>

<p>I honor that sentiment which makes us oftentimes too confident, and to
despise too much the danger of that agitation which disturbs the peace of
the country. I respect that feeling which regards the Union as too strong
to be broken. But, at the same time, in sober judgment, it will not do
to treat too lightly the danger which has existed and still exists. I have
heard our Constitution and Union compared to the granite shores which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page567" id="page567"></a>[pg 567]</span>
face the sea, and, dashing back the foam of the waves, stand unmoved by
their fury. Now I accept the simile: and I have stood upon the shore,
and I have seen the waves of the sea dash upon the granite of your own
shores which frowns over the ocean, have seen the spray thrown back
from the cliffs. But, when the tide had ebbed, I saw that the rock was
seamed and worn; and, when the tide was low, the pieces that had been
riven from the granite rock were lying at its base.</p>

<p>And thus the waves of sectional agitation are dashing themselves
against the granite patriotism of the land. But even that must show the
seams and scars of the conflict. Sectional hostility will follow. The danger
lies at your door, and it is time to arrest it. Too long have we allowed
this influence to progress. It is time that men should go back to the first
foundation of our institutions. They should drink the waters of the fountain
at the source of our colonial and early history.</p>

<p>You, men of Boston, go to the street where the massacre occurred in
1770. There you should learn how your fathers strove for community
rights. And near the same spot you should learn how proudly the delegation
of democracy came to demand the removal of the troops from Boston,
and how the venerable Samuel Adams stood asserting the rights of democracy,
dauntless as Hampden, clear and eloquent as Sidney; and how they
drove out the myrmidons who had trampled on the rights of the people.</p>

<p>All over our country, these monuments, instructive to the present
generation, of what our fathers did, are to be found. In the library of
your association for the collection of your early history, I found a letter
descriptive of the reading of the church service to his army by General
Washington, during one of those winters when the army was ill-clad and
without shoes, when he built a little log-cabin for a meeting-house, and
there, reading the service to them his sight failed him, he put on his glasses
and, with emotion which manifested the reality of his feelings, said, "I
have grown gray in serving my country, and now I am growing blind."</p>

<p>By the aid of your records you may call before you the day when the
delegation of the army of the democracy of Boston demanded compliance
with its requirements for the removal of the troops. A painfully thrilling
case will be found in the heroic conduct of your fathers' friends, the patriots
in Charleston, South Carolina. The prisoners were put upon the hulks,
where the small-pox existed, and where they were brought on shore to stay
the progress of the infection, and were offered, if they would enlist in his
Majesty's service, release from all their sufferings, present and prospective;
while, if they would not, the rations would be taken from their families,
and they would be sent back to the hulks and again exposed to the infection.
Emaciated as they were, with the prospect of being returned to confinement,
and their families turned out into the streets, the spirit of independence,
the devotion to liberty, was so supreme in their breasts, that they
gave one loud huzza for General Washington, and went to meet death in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page568" id="page568"></a>[pg 568]</span>
their loathsome prison. From these glorious recollections, from the emotions
which they create, when the sacrifices of those who gave you the
heritage of liberty are read in your early history, the eye is directed to our
present condition. Mark the prosperity, the growth, the honorable career
of your country under the voluntary union of independent States. I do not
envy the heart of that American whose pulse does not beat quicker, and who
does not feel within him a high exultation and pride, in the past glory and
future prospects of his country. With these prospects are associated&mdash;if
we are only wise, true, and faithful, if we shun sectional dissension&mdash;all that
man can conceive of the progression of the American people. And the
only danger which threatens those high prospects is that miserable spirit
which, disregarding the obligations of honor, makes war upon the Constitution;
which induces men to assume powers they do not possess, trampling
as well upon the great principles which lie at the foundation of the
Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the Union, as upon
the honorable obligations which were fixed upon them by their fathers.
They with internecine strife would sacrifice themselves and their brethren
to a spirit which is a disgrace to our common country. With these views,
it will not be surprising, to those who most differ from me, that I feel an
ardent desire for the success of this State-rights Democracy; that, convinced
as I am of the ill consequences of the described heresies unless they be corrected;
of the evils upon which they would precipitate the country unless
they are restrained&mdash;I say, none need be surprised if, prompted by such
aspirations, and impressed by such forebodings as now open themselves
before me, I have spoken freely, yielding to motives I would suppress and
can not avoid. I have often, elsewhere than in the State of which I am a
citizen, spoken in favor of that party which alone is national, in which
alone lies the hope of preserving the Constitution and the perpetuation of
the Government and of the blessings which it was ordained and established
to secure.</p>

<p>My friends, my brethren, my countrymen, I thank you for the patient
attention you have given me. It is the first time it has ever befallen me to
address an audience here. It will probably be the last. Residing in a remote
section of the country, with private as well as public duties to occupy
the whole of my time, it would only be for a very hurried visit, or under
some such necessity for a restoration to health as brought me here this
season, that I could ever expect to remain long among you, or in any other
portion of the Union than the State of which I am a citizen.</p>

<p>I have staid long enough to feel that generous hospitality which evinces
itself to-night, which has evinced itself in Boston since I have been here,
and showed itself in every town and village of New England where I have
gone. I have staid here, too, long enough to learn that, though not represented
in Congress, there is a large mass of as true Democrats as are to be
found in any portion of the Union within the limits of New England. Their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page569" id="page569"></a>[pg 569]</span>
purposes, their construction of the Constitution, their hopes for the future,
their respect for the past, is the same as that which exists among my beloved
brethren in Mississippi....</p>

<p>In the hour of apprehension I shall turn back to my observations here,
in this consecrated hall, where men so early devoted themselves to liberty
and community independence; and I shall endeavor to impress upon others,
who know you only as you are represented in the two Houses of Congress,
how true and how many are the hearts that beat for constitutional liberty,
and faithfully respect every clause and guarantee which the Constitution
contains for any and every portion of the Union.
</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="appendix-f" id="appendix-f"></a>APPENDIX F.</h2>


<p>Speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the United
States, on the resolutions offered by him relative to the relations
of the States, the Federal Government, and the Territories, May 7,
1860.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Mr. President</span>: Among the many blessings for which we are indebted
to our ancestry is that of transmitting to us a written Constitution; a fixed
standard to which, in the progress of events, every case may be referred,
and by which it may be measured. But for this, the wise men who formed
our Government dared not have hoped for its perpetuity; for they saw,
floating down the tide of time, wreck after wreck, marking the short life of
every republic which had preceded them. With this, however, to check,
to restrain, and to direct their posterity, they might reasonably hope the
Government they founded should last for ever; that it should secure the
great purposes for which it was ordained and established; that it would be
the shield of their posterity equally in every part of the country, and equally
in all time to come. It was this which mainly distinguished the formation
of our Government from those confederacies or republics which had preceded
it; and this is the best foundation for our hope to-day. The resolutions
which have been read, and which I had the honor to present to the
Senate, are little more than the announcement of what I hold to be the
clearly-expressed declarations of the Constitution itself. To that fixed
standard it is sought, at this time, when we are drifting far from the initial
point, and when clouds and darkness hover over us, to bring back the Government,
and to test our condition to-day by the rules which our fathers
laid down for us in the beginning.</p>

<p>The differences which exist between different portions of the country,
the rivalries and the jealousies of to-day, though differing in degree, are
exactly of the nature of those which preceded the formation of the Constitution.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page570" id="page570"></a>[pg 570]</span>
Our fathers were aware of the different interests of the navigating
and planting States, as they were then regarded.  They sought to compose
those difficulties, and, by compensating advantages given by one to the
other, to form a Government equal and just in its operation, and which,
like the gentle showers of heaven, should fall twice blessed, blessing him
that gives and him that receives.  This beneficial action and reaction between
the different interests of the country constituted the bond of union
and the motive of its formation.  They constitute it to-day, if we are sufficiently
wise to appreciate our interests, and sufficiently faithful to observe
our trust.  Indeed, with the extension of territory, with the multiplication
of interests, with the varieties, increasing from time to time, of the products
of this great country, the bonds which bind the Union together should have
increased.  Rationally considered, they have increased, because the free
trade which was established in the beginning has now become more valuable
to the people of the United States than their trade with all the rest of the
world.</p>

<p>I do not propose to argue questions of natural rights and inherent
powers. I plant my reliance upon the Constitution; that Constitution
which you have all sworn to support; that Constitution which you have
solemnly pledged yourself to maintain while you hold the seat you now
occupy in the Senate; to which you are bound in its spirit and in its letter,
not grudgingly, but willingly, to render your obedience and support as long
as you hold office under the Federal Government.</p>

<p>When the tempter entered the garden of Eden and induced our common
mother to offend against the law which God had given to her through
Adam, he was the first teacher of that "higher law" which sets the will of
the individual above the solemn rule which he is bound, as a part of
every community, to observe. From the effect of the introduction of that
higher law in the garden of Eden, and the fall consequent upon it, came
sin into the world; and from sin came death and banishment and subjugation,
as the punishment of sin; the loss of life, unfettered liberty, and
perfect happiness followed from that first great law which was given by
God to fallen man.</p>

<p>Why, then, shall we talk about natural rights? Who is to define them?
Where is the judge who is to sit over the court to try natural rights? What
is the era at which you will fix the date by which you will determine the
breadth, the length, and the depth of those called the rights of nature?
Shall it be after the fall, when the earth was covered with thorns, and man
had to earn his bread in the sweat of his brow? Or shall it be when
there was equality between the sexes, when he lived in the garden, when
all his wants were supplied, and when thorns and thistles were unknown
on the face of the earth?  Shall it be then?  Shall it be after the flood,
when, for the first sin committed after the waters retired from the face of
the earth, the doom of slavery was fixed upon the mongrel descendants of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page571" id="page571"></a>[pg 571]</span>
Ham?  If after the flood, and after that decree, how idle is all this prating
about natural rights as standing above the obligations of civil government!
The Constitution is the law supreme to every American.  It is the plighted
faith of our fathers; it is the hope of our posterity.  I say, then, I come
not to argue questions outside of or above the Constitution, but to plead
the cause of right, of law and order, under the Constitution and to plead it
to those who have sworn to abide by that obligation.</p>

<p>One of the fruitful sources, as I hold it, of the errors which prevail in
our country, is the theory that this is a Government of one people; that
the Government of the United States was formed by a mass. The Government
of the United States is a compact between the sovereign members
who formed it; and, if there be one feature common to all the colonies
planted upon the shores of America, it is desire for community independence.
It was for this the Puritan, the Huguenot, the Catholic, the Quaker,
the Protestant, left the land of their nativity, and, guided by the shadows
thrown by the fires of European persecution, they sought and found the
American refuge of civil and religious freedom. While they existed as
separate and distinct colonies they were not forbearing toward each other.
They oppressed opposite religions.  They did not come here with the enlarged
idea of no established religion.  The Puritans drove out the Quakers;
the Church-of-England men drove out the Catholics.  Persecution reigned
through the colonies, except, perhaps, that of the Catholic colony of Maryland;
but the rule was&mdash;persecution.  Therefore, I say the common idea,
and the only common idea, was community independence&mdash;the right of
each independent people to do as they pleased in their domestic affairs.</p>

<p>The Declaration of Independence was made by the colonies, each for
itself. The recognition of their independence was not for the colonies
united, but for each of the colonies which had maintained its independence;
and so, when the Constitution was formed, the delegates were not elected
by the people <i>en masse</i>, but they came from each one of the States;
and when the Constitution was formed it was referred, not to the people
<i>en masse</i>, but to the States severally, and severally by them ratified and
approved.  But, if there be anything which enforces this idea more than
another, it is the unequal dates at which it received this approval.  From
first to last, nearly two years and a half elapsed; and the Government
went into operation something like a year&mdash;I believe more than a year&mdash;before
the last ratification was made.  Is it then contended that, by this
ratification and adoption of the Constitution, the States surrendered that
sovereignty which they had previously gained?  Can it be that men who
braved the perils of the ocean, the privations of the wilderness, who fought
the war of the Revolution, in the hour of their success, when all was sunshine
and peace around them, came voluntarily forward to lay down that
community independence for which they had suffered so much and so
long?  Reason forbids it; but, if reason did not furnish a sufficient answer,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page572" id="page572"></a>[pg 572]</span>
the action of the States themselves forbids it.  The great State of New
York&mdash;great, relatively, then, as she is now&mdash;manifested her wisdom in
not receiving merely that implication which belongs to the occasion, which
was accepted by the other States, but she required the positive assertion of
that retention of her sovereignty and power over all her affairs as the condition
on which she ratified the Constitution itself.  I read from Elliott's
"Debates" (page 327).  Among her resolutions of ratification is the following:</p>

<p>"That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people
whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power,
jurisdiction, and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated
to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the
Government thereof, remain to the people of the several States, or to their
respective State governments to which they may have granted the same."</p>

<p>North Carolina, with the Scotch caution which subsequent events have
so well justified, in 1788 passed this resolution:</p>

<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That a declaration of rights, asserting and securing from
encroachments the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and the
unalienable rights of the people, together with amendments to the most
ambiguous and exceptionable parts of the said Constitution of Government,
ought to be laid before Congress and the convention of the States that shall
or may be called for the purpose of amending the said Constitution, for
their consideration, previous to the ratification of the Constitution aforesaid,
on the part of the State of North Carolina."</p>

<p>And in keeping with this North Carolina withheld her ratification; she
allowed the Government to be formed with the number of States which
was required to put it in operation, and still she remained out of the Union,
asserting and recognized in the independence which she had maintained
against Great Britain, and which she had no idea of surrendering to any
other power; and the last State which ratified the Constitution long after
it had in fact gone into effect, Rhode Island, in the third of her resolutions,
says:</p>

<p>"III. That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people
whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness. That the rights
of the States respectively to nominate and appoint all State officers, and
every other power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution
clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments
of Government thereof, remain to the people of the several States, or
their respective State governments to whom they may have granted the
same."</p>

<p>Here the use of the phrase "State governments" shows how utterly
unwarrantable the construction has been, to say that the reference here was
to the whole people of the States&mdash;to the people of all the States&mdash;and not
to the people of each of the States severally.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page573" id="page573"></a>[pg 573]</span>

<p>I spoke, however, Mr. President, but a moment ago, of the difference of
politics, products, population, constituting the great motive for the Union.
It was, indeed, its necessity. Had all the people been alike&mdash;had their institutions
all been the same&mdash;there would have been no interest to bring
them together; there would have been no cause or necessity for any restraint
being imposed upon them.  It was the fact that they differed which rendered
it necessary to have some law governing their intercourse.  It was
the fact that their products were opposite&mdash;that their pursuits were various&mdash;that
rendered it the great interest of the people that they should have
free trade existing among each other; that free trade which Franklin
characterized as being between the States such as existed between the
counties of England.</p>

<p>Since that era, however, a fiber then unknown in the United States, and
the production of which is dependent upon the domestic institution of
African slavery, has come to be cultivated in such amounts, to enter so into
the wearing apparel of the world, so greatly to add to the comfort of the
poor, that it may be said to-day that that little fiber, cotton, wraps the commercial
world and binds it to the United States in bonds to keep the peace
with us which no Government dare break.  It has built up the Northern
States.  It is their great manufacturing interest to-day.  It supports their
shipping abroad. It enables them to purchase in the markets of China,
when the high premium to be paid on the milled dollar would otherwise
exclude them from that market.  These are a part of the blessings resulting
from that increase and variety of product which could not have existed if
we had all been alike; which would have been lost to-day unless free trade
between the United States was still preserved.</p>

<p>And here it strikes me as somewhat strange that a book recently issued
has received the commendation of a large number of the representatives of
the manufacturing and commercial States, though, apart from its falsification
of statistics and low abuse of Southern States, institutions, and interests,
the great feature which stands prominently out from it is the arraignment
of the South for using their surplus money in buying the manufactures of
the North. How a manufacturing and commercial people can be truly represented
by those who would inculcate such doctrines as these, is to me
passing strange.  Is it vain boasting which renders you anxious to proclaim
to the world that we buy our buckets, our rakes, and our shovels from you?
No, there is too much good sense in the people for that; and, therefore, I
am left at a loss to understand the motive, unless it be that deep-rooted
hate which makes you blind to your own interest when that interest is
weighed in the balance with the denunciation and detraction of your
brethren of the South.</p>

<p>The great principle which lay at the foundation of this fixed standard,
the Constitution of the United States, was the equality of rights between
the States.  This was essential; it was necessary; it was a step which had
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page574" id="page574"></a>[pg 574]</span>
to be taken first, before any progress could be made.  It was the essential
requisite of the very idea of sovereignty in the State; of a compact voluntarily
entered into between sovereigns; and it is that equality of right under
the Constitution on which we now insist.  But more: when the States
united they transferred their forts, their armament, their ships, and their
right to maintain armies and navies, to the Federal Government.  It was
the disarmament of the States, under the operation of a league which made
the warlike operations, the powers of defense, common to them all.  Then,
with this equality of the States, with this disarmament of the States, if
there had been nothing in the Constitution to express it, I say the protection
of every constitutional right would follow as a necessary incident, and
could not be denied by any one who could understand and would admit the
true theory of such a Government.</p>

<p>We claim protection, first, because it is our right; secondly, because it
is the duty of the General Government; and, thirdly, because we have
entered into a compact together, which deprives each State of the power
of using all the means which it might employ for its own defense.  This is
the general theory of the right of protection.  What is the exception to it?
Is there an exception? If so, who made it?  Does the Constitution discriminate
between different kinds of property? Did the Constitution
attempt to assimilate the institutions of the different States confederated
together? Was there a single State in this Union that would have been so
unfaithful to the principles which had prompted them in their colonial
position, and which had prompted them, at a still earlier period, to seek and
try the temptations of the wilderness; is there one which would have consented
to allow the Federal Government to control or to discriminate between
her institutions and those of her confederate States?</p>

<p>But, if it be contended that this is argument, and that you need authority,
I will draw it from the fountain; from the spring before it had been
polluted; from the debates in the formation of the Constitution; from the
views of those who at least it will be admitted understood what they were
doing.</p>

<p>Mr. Randolph, it will be recollected, introduced a <i>projet</i> for a Government,
consisting of a series of resolutions. Among them was one which
proposed to give Congress the power "to call forth the force of the Union
against any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles
thereof."  That was, to give Congress the power to coerce the States;
to bring the States into subjection to the Federal Government.  Now, sir,
let us see how that was treated; and first I will refer to one whose wisdom,
as we take a retrospective view, seems to me marvelous.  Not conspicuous
in debate, at least not among the names which first occur when
we think of that bright galaxy of patriots and statesmen, he was the man
who, above all others, it seems to me, laid his finger upon every danger, and
indicated the course which that danger was to take.  I refer to Mr. Mason.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page575" id="page575"></a>[pg 575]</span>

<p>"Mr. Mason observed, not only that the present Confederation was
deficient in not providing for coercion and punishment against delinquent
States, but argued very cogently that punishment could not, in the nature
of things, be executed on the States collectively; and, therefore, that such
a Government was necessary as could directly operate on individuals, and
would punish those only whose guilt required it."<a id="footnotetag199" name="footnotetag199"></a><a href="#footnote199"><sup>199</sup></a></p>

<p>Mr. Madison, who has been called sometimes the father of the Constitution,
upon the same question, said:</p>

<p>"A union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide
for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more
like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would
probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous
compacts by which it might be bound."</p>

<p>Mr. Hamilton, who, if I were to express a judgment by way of comparison,
I would say was the master intellect of the age in which he lived,
whose mind seemed to penetrate profoundly every question with which he
grappled, and who seldom failed to exhaust the subject which he treated&mdash;Mr.
Hamilton, in speaking of the various powers necessary to maintain a
Government, came to clause four:</p>

<p>"4. Force, by which may be understood a <i>coercion of laws, or coercion
of arms</i>. Congress have not the former, except in few cases. In particular
States, this coercion is nearly sufficient; though he held it, in most cases,
not entirely so.  A certain portion of military force is absolutely necessary
in large communities.  Massachusetts is now feeling this necessity, and
making provision for it.  But how can this force be exerted on the States
collectively?  It is impossible.  It amounts to a war between the parties.
Foreign powers, also, will not be idle spectators.  They will interpose; the
confusion will increase; and a dissolution of the Union will ensue."</p>

<p>The consequence was, the proposition was lost.  In support of this same
idea of community independence, which I have suggested, the argument
upon the proposition least likely to have exhibited it, that to give power to
restrain the slave-trade, shows the Northern and Southern men all arguing
and presenting different views, yet concurred in this, that there could be no
power to restrain a State from importing what she pleased.  As the Senator
from Vermont [Mr. <span class="sc">Collamer</span>] looks somewhat surprised at my statement,
I will refer to the authority.  Mr. Rutledge said:</p>

<p>"Religion and humanity had nothing to do with this question.  Interest
alone is the governing principle with nations.  The true question at present
is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union.
If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the
increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will
become the carriers."<a id="footnotetag200" name="footnotetag200"></a><a href="#footnote200"><sup>200</sup></a></p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Pinckney</span>: "South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page576" id="page576"></a>[pg 576]</span>
the slave-trade.  In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress,
that State has expressly and watchfully excepted that of meddling
with the importation of negroes.  If the States be all left at liberty on this
subject, South Carolina may, perhaps, by degrees, do of herself what is
wished, as Virginia and Maryland already have done."<a id="footnotetag201" name="footnotetag201"></a><a href="#footnote201"><sup>201</sup></a></p>

<p>"Mr. <span class="sc">Sherman</span> was for leaving the clause as it stands.  He disapproved
of the slave-trade; yet, as the States were now possessed of the right to
import slaves, as the public good did not require it to be taken from them,
and as it was expedient to have as few objections as possible to the proposed
scheme of government, he thought it best to leave the matter as we
find it."<a id="footnotetag202" name="footnotetag202"></a><a href="#footnote202"><sup>202</sup></a></p>

<p>"Mr. <span class="sc">Baldwin</span> had conceived national objects alone to be before the
Convention: not such as, like the present, were of a local nature.  Georgia
was decided on this point.  That State has always hitherto supposed a General
Government to be the pursuit of the central States, who wished to have
a vortex for everything; that her distance would preclude her from equal
advantage; and that she could not prudently purchase it by yielding national
powers.  From this, it might be understood in what light she would
view an attempt to abridge one of her favorite prerogatives.</p>

<p>"If left to herself, she may probably put a stop to the evil.  As one
ground for this conjecture, he took notice of the sect of &mdash;&mdash;, which,
he said was a respectable class of people who carried their ethics beyond the
mere <i>equality of men</i>, extending their humanity to the claims of the whole
animal creation."<a id="footnotetag203" name="footnotetag203"></a><a href="#footnote203"><sup>203</sup></a></p>

<p>"Mr. <span class="sc">Gerry</span> thought we had nothing to do with the conduct of the
States as to slaves, but ought to be careful not to give any sanction to it."<a id="footnotetag204" name="footnotetag204"></a><a href="#footnote204"><sup>204</sup></a></p>

<p>"Mr. <span class="sc">King</span> thought the subject should be considered in a political light
only.  If two States will not agree to the Constitution, as stated on one side,
he could affirm with equal belief, on the other, that great and equal opposition
would be experienced from the other States.  He remarked on the
exemption of slaves from duty, while every other import was subjected to
it, as an inequality that could not fail to strike the commercial sagacity of
the Northern and Middle States."<a id="footnotetag205" name="footnotetag205"></a><a href="#footnote205"><sup>205</sup></a></p>

<p>Here, as will be observed, everywhere was recognized and admitted the
doctrine of community independence and State equality&mdash;no interference
with the institutions of a State&mdash;no interference even prospectively save and
except with their consent; and thus it followed that at one time it was
proposed to except, from the power to prohibit the further introduction of
Africans, those States which insisted upon retaining the power; and finally
it was agreed that a date should be fixed beyond which, probably, none of
them desired to retain it.  These were States acting in their sovereign capacity;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page577" id="page577"></a>[pg 577]</span>
they possessed power to do as they pleased; and that was the view
which they took of it. I ask, then, how are we, their descendants, those holding
under their authority, to assume a power which they refused to admit,
upon principles eternal and lying at the foundation of the Constitution
itself?</p>

<p>If, then, there be no such distinction or discrimination; if protection be
the duty (and who will deny it?) with which this Government is charged,
and for which the States pay taxes, because of which they surrendered their
armies and their navies; if general protection be the general duty, I ask, in
the name of reason and constitutional right&mdash;I ask you to point me to authority
by which a discrimination is made between slave-property and any
other. Yet this is the question now fraught with evil to our country. It is
this which has raised the hurricane threatening to sweep our political institutions
before it. This is the dark spot which some already begin to fear
may blot out the constellation of the Union from the political firmament of
mankind.  Does it not become us, then, calmly to consider it, justly to
weigh it; to hold it in balances from which the dust has been blown, in
order that we may see where truth, right, and the obligations of the Constitution
require us to go?</p>

<p>It may be pardoned to one who, from his earliest youth up, has been
connected with a particular party, who has always believed that the welfare
and the safety of the country most securely rested with that party, who
has seen in the triumph of Democracy the triumph of the Union, and who
has believed for years past that the downfall of Democracy would be its destruction&mdash;it
may be pardoned, I say, under such circumstances as these,
to such a person as that, to refer even in this connection to that feature of
the particular point which I am discussing, which has been brought forward
by the recent action of that party. States met together to consult as brethren,
to see whether they could agree as well upon the candidate as upon
the creed, and it was apparent that division had entered into our ranks.
After days of discussion, we saw that party convention broken.  We saw
the enemies of Democracy waiting to be invited to its funeral, and jestingly
looking into the blank faces of those of us to whom the telegraph brought
the sad intelligence.  I hope this is, however, but the mist of the morning.
I have faith in the Democracy, and that it still lives.  I have faith in the
patriotism and in the good sense of the Democracy, that they will assert the
truth, boldly pronounce it, meet the issue, and I trust in the good sense and
patriotism of the people for their success.</p>

<p>In this connection, it may be permissible to review our present party
condition.  For a long time two parties divided the people of the United
States.  The controversy was mainly upon questions of expediency; sometimes
of constitutionality. They divided men in all of the States. The
contest was sometimes won by one, and sometimes by the other.  The
Whig party lives now but in history, yet it has a history of which any of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page578" id="page578"></a>[pg 578]</span>
its members may be proud. It bore the high but not successful part of
stemming the tide of popular impulse, and thus failed to attain the highest
power. Differing from them upon the points at issue, I offer the homage
of my respect to those who, adhering to what they believed to be true, go
down sooner than find success in the abandonment of principle. With the
disappearance of that party&mdash;and perhaps for the very reasons that caused
its disappearance&mdash;up rose radical organizations who strode so far beyond
progressive Democracy that Democracy took the place now left vacant by
the old Whig party, and became the reservoir into which all conservatism
was poured. Therefore it is that so many of those men, eminent in their
day, eminent for their services, eminent in their history, have approved of
the Democratic party in the present condition of the country as the only
conservative element which remains in our politics. In the midst of this
radicalism, of this revolutionary tendency, it becomes not the regret of a
partisan merely; it is the sadness of an American citizen, that the party on
which the conservative hopes of the country hang has been threatened
with division, and possibly may not hereafter be united. Thanks to a sanguine
temperament, thanks to an abiding faith, thanks to a confidence in
the Providence which has so long ruled for good the destiny of my country,
I believe it will reunite, and reunite upon sound and acceptable principles.
At least, I hope so.</p>

<p>From the postulates which I have laid down result the fourth and fifth
resolutions. They are the two which I expect to be opposed. They contain
the assertion of the equality of rights of all the people of the United
States in the Territories, and they declare the obligation of the Congress to
see these rights protected. I admit that the United States may acquire
eminent domain. I admit that the United States may have sovereignty
over territory; otherwise the sovereign jurisdiction which we obtained by
conquest or treaty would not pass to us. I deny that their agent, the
Federal Government, under the existing Constitution, can have eminent
domain; I deny that it can have sovereignty. I consider it as the mere
agent of the States&mdash;an agent of limited power; and that it can do nothing
save that which the Constitution empowers it to perform; and that,
though the treaty or the deed of cession may direct or control, it can not
enlarge or expand the powers of the Congress; that it is not sovereign in
any essential particular. It has functions to perform, and those functions I
propose now to consider.</p>

<p>The power of Congress over the Territories&mdash;a subject not well defined
in the Constitution of the United States&mdash;has been drawn from various
sources by different advocates of that power. One has found it in the
grant of power to dispose of the Territory and other public property. That
is to say, because the agent was authorized to sell a particular thing, or to
dispose of it by grant or barter, therefore he has sovereign power over that
and all else which the principal, constituting him an agent, may hereafter
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page579" id="page579"></a>[pg 579]</span>
acquire! The property, besides the land, consisted of forts, of ships, of
armaments, and other things which had belonged to the States in their
separate capacity, and were turned over to the Government of the Confederation,
and transferred to the Government of the United States, and of
this, together with the land so transferred, the Federal Government had
the power to dispose; and of territory thereafter acquired, of arms thereafter
made or purchased, of forts thereafter constructed, or custom-houses,
or docks, or lights, or buoys; of all these, of course, it had power to dispose.
It had the power to create them; it must, of necessity, have had
the power to dispose of them. It was only necessary to confer the power
to dispose of those things which the Federal Government did not create, of
those things which came to it from the States, and over which they might
signify their will for its control.</p>

<p>I look upon it as the mere power to dispose of, for considerations and
objects defined in the trust, the land held in the United States, none of
which then was within the limits of the States, and the other public property
which the United States received from the States after the formation
of the Union. I do not agree with those who say the Government has no
power to establish a temporary and civil government within a Territory.
I stand half-way between the extremes of squatter sovereignty and of Congressional
sovereignty. I hold that the Congress has power to establish a
civil government; that it derives it from the grants of the Constitution&mdash;not
the one which is referred to; and I hold that that power is limited
and restrained, first, by the Constitution itself, and then by every rule of
popular liberty and sound discretion, to the narrowest limits which the
necessities of the case require. The Congress has power to defend the
territory, to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection; the Congress has
power to see the laws executed. For this it may have a civil magistracy&mdash;territorial
courts. It has the power to establish a Federal judiciary. To
that Federal judiciary, from these local courts, may come up to be decided
questions with regard to the laws of the United States and the Constitution
of the United States. These, combined, give power to establish a
temporary government, sufficient, perhaps, for the simple wants of the
inhabitants of a Territory, until they shall acquire the population, until
they shall have the resources and the interests which justify them in becoming
a State. I am sustained in this view of the case by an opinion of
the Supreme Court of the United States in 1845, in the case of Pollard's
Lessee <i>vs</i>. P. Hagan (3 Howard, 222, 223), in which the Court say:</p>

<p>"Taking the legislative acts of the United States, and the States of
Virginia and Georgia, and their deeds of cession to the United States, and
giving to each separately, and to all jointly, a fair interpretation, we must
come to the conclusion that it was the intention of the parties to invest the
United States with the eminent domain of the country ceded, both national
and municipal, for the purposes of temporary government; and to hold it in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page580" id="page580"></a>[pg 580]</span>
trust for the performance of the stipulations and conditions expressed in the
deeds of cession and the legislative acts connected with them."</p>

<p>This was a question of land. It was land lying between high and low
water, over which the United States claimed to have and to exercise authority,
because of the terms on which Alabama had been admitted into the
Union. In that connection the Court say, in the same case:</p>

<p>"When Alabama was admitted into the Union, on an equal footing with
the original States, she succeeded to all the rights of sovereignty, jurisdiction,
and eminent domain which Georgia possessed at the date of the cession, except
so far as this right was diminished by the public lands remaining in
the possession and under the control of the United States for the temporary
purpose provided for in the deeds of cession and the legislative acts connected
with it. Nothing remained in the United States, according to the
terms of the agreement, but the public lands; and if an express stipulation
had been inserted in the agreement, granting the municipal right of sovereignty
and eminent domain to the United States, such stipulation would
have been void and inoperative; because the United States has no constitutional
capacity to exercise municipal jurisdiction, sovereignty, or eminent
domain within the limits of a State or elsewhere, except in the cases in
which it is expressly granted."</p>

<p>Another case arose not long afterward, in which not land, but religion,
was involved, where suit was brought against the municipality of New
Orleans because they would not allow a dead body to be exposed at a place
where, according to the religious rites of those interested, it was deemed
they had a right thus to expose it. On that the Supreme Court say, speaking
of the ordinance for the government of Louisiana:</p>

<p>"So far as they conferred political rights and secured civil and religious
liberties (which are political rights) the laws of Congress were all suspended
by the State Constitution; nor is any part of them in force, unless they
were adopted by the Constitution of Louisiana, as laws of the State."<a id="footnotetag206" name="footnotetag206"></a><a href="#footnote206"><sup>206</sup></a></p>

<p>Thus we find the Supreme Court sustaining the proposition that the
Federal Government has power to establish a temporary civil government
within the limits of a Territory, but that it can enact no law which will
endure beyond the temporary purposes for which such government was
established. In other cases the decisions of the Court run in the same
line; and in 1855 the then Attorney-General, most learned in his profession&mdash;and
in what else is he not learned, for he may be said to be a man of universal
acquirements?&mdash;Attorney-General Cushing then foretold what must
have been the decision of the Supreme Court on the Missouri Compromise,
anticipating the decision subsequently made in the case of Dred Scott; that
decision for which the venerable justices have been so often and so violently
arraigned. He foretold it as the necessary consequence from the line of precedents
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page581" id="page581"></a>[pg 581]</span>
descending from 1842, affirmed and reaffirmed in different cases,
and now bearing on a case similar in principle, and only different in the
mere reference to the subject involved from those which had gone before.
As connected with the decision which had agitated the peace of the country;
as the anticipation of that decision before it was made, viewing it as the
necessary consequence of the decisions which the court had made before;
if it be the pleasure of the Senate, I ask my friend from South Carolina
[Mr. <span class="sc">Chesnut</span>] to read for me a letter of the Attorney-General, being an
official answer made by him in relation to the military reservation which
was involved in the question before him.</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Chesnut</span> read from the "Opinions of the Attorneys-General," vol.
vii, page 575:</p>

<p>"The Supreme Court has determined that the United States never held
any municipal sovereignty, jurisdiction, or right of soil in the territory of
which any of the new States have been formed, except for temporary
purposes, and to execute the trusts created by the deeds of cession....</p>

<p>"By the force of the same principle, and in the same line of adjudications,
the Supreme Court would have had to decide that the provision of the
act of March 6, 1820, which undertakes to determine in advance the municipal
law of all that portion of the original province of Louisiana which lies
north of the parallel 36&deg; 30' north latitude, was null and void <i>ab incepto</i>, if it
had not been repealed by a recent act of Congress.  (Compare iv, Statutes at
Large, p. 848, and x, Statutes at Large, p. 289.)  For an act of Congress which
pretends of right, and without consent or compact, to impose on the
municipal power of any new State or States limitations and restrictions not
imposed on all, is contrary to the fundamental condition of the Confederation,
according to which there is to be equality of right between the old and
new States 'in all respects whatsoever.'"</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Davis</span>: It was not long after this official opinion of the Attorney-General
before the case arose on which the decision was made which has
so agitated the country. Fortunate indeed was it for the public peace that
land and religion had been decided&mdash;those questions on which men might
reason had been the foundation of judicial decision&mdash;before that which
drives all reason, it seems, from the mind of man, came to be presented
the question whether Cuffee should be kept in his normal condition or not;
the question whether the Congress of the United States could decide what
might or might not be property in a Territory&mdash;the case being that of an
officer of the army sent into a Territory to perform his public duty, having
taken with him his negro slave.  The court, however, in giving their decision
in this case&mdash;or their opinion, if it suits gentlemen better&mdash;have gone
into the question with such clearness, such precision, and such amplitude,
that it will relieve me from the necessity of arguing it any further than to
make a reference to some sentences contained in that opinion. And here let
me say, I can not see how those who agreed on a former occasion that the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page582" id="page582"></a>[pg 582]</span>
constitutional right of the slaveholder to take his property into the Territory&mdash;the
constitutional power of the Congress and the constitutional
power of the Territory to legislate upon that subject&mdash;should be a judicial
question, can now attempt to escape the operation of an opinion which
covers the exact political question which, it was known beforehand, the
Court would be called upon to decide. Decided in strictness of technical
language, it was known it could not be. Hundreds, thousands, a vast variety
of cases may arise, and centuries elapse, and leave that Court, if our
Union still exists, deciding questions in relation to that character of property
in the Territories; but the great and fundamental idea was that, after
thirty years of angry controversy, dividing the people and paralyzing the
arm of the Federal Government, some umpire should be sought which
would compose the difficulty and set it upon a footing to leave us in future
to proceed in peace; and that umpire was selected which the Constitution
had provided to decide questions of law. I ask my friend to read some
extracts from the decision.</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Chesnut</span> read as follows, from the case of Dred Scott <i>vs.</i> Sandford,
pp. 55-57:</p>

<p>"The Territory being a part of the United States, the Government and
the citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constitution, with their
respective rights defined and marked out; and the Federal Government can
exercise no power over his person or property beyond what that instrument
confers, nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved....</p>

<p>"The powers over person and property, of which we speak, are not only
not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are
forbidden to exercise them. And this prohibition is not confined to the
States, but the words are general, and extend to the whole territory over
which the Constitution gives it power to legislate, including those portions
of it remaining under territorial government, as well as that covered by
States. It is a total absence of power everywhere within the dominion of
the United States, and places the citizens of a Territory, so far as these
rights are concerned, on the same footing with citizens of the States, and
guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads which the General
Government might attempt under the plea of implied or incidental powers.
And if Congress itself can not do this&mdash;if it is beyond the powers conferred
on the Federal Government&mdash;it will be admitted, we presume, that it could
not authorize a territorial government to exercise them. It could confer
no power on any local government, established by its authority, to violate
the provisions of the Constitution....</p>

<p>"And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master
in the slave, and makes no distinction between that description of property
and other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting under the authority
of the United States, whether it be legislative, executive, or judicial,
has a right to draw such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the provisions
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page583" id="page583"></a>[pg 583]</span>
and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of
private property against the encroachments of the Government....</p>

<p>"This is done in plain words&mdash;too plain to be misunderstood. And no
word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater
power over slave-property, or which entitles property of that kind to less
protection than property of any other description. The only power conferred
is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the
owner in his rights.</p>

<p>"Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the act
of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property
of this kind, in the territory of the United States north of the line therein
mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void;
and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free
by being carried into this territory, even if they had been carried there by
the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident."</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Davis</span>: Here, then, Mr. President, I say the umpire selected as the
referee in the controversy has decided that neither the Congress nor its
agent, the territorial government, has the power to invade or impair the
right of property within the limits of a Territory. I will not inquire
whether it be technically a decision or not. It was obligatory on those who
selected the umpire and agreed to abide by the award.</p>

<p>It is well known to those who have been associated with me in the two
Houses of Congress that, from the commencement of the question, I have
been the determined opponent of what is called squatter sovereignty. I
never gave it countenance, and I am now least of all disposed to give it
quarter. In 1848 it made its appearance for good purposes. It was ushered
in by a great and good man. He brought it forward because of that distrust
which he had in the capacity of the Government to bear the rude
shock to which it was exposed. His apprehension, no doubt, to some extent
sharpened and directed his patriotism, and his reflection led him to a
conclusion to which, I doubt not, to-day he adheres as tenaciously as ever;
but from which it was my fortune, good or ill, to dissent when his letter
was read to me in manuscript&mdash;I being, together with some other persons,
asked, though not by the writer, whether or not it should be sent. At the
first blush I believed it to be a fallacy&mdash;a fallacy fraught with mischief;
that it escaped an issue which was upon us which it was our duty to meet;
that it escaped it by a side path, which led to a greater danger. I thought
it a fallacy which would surely be exploded. I doubted then, and still more
for some time afterward, when held to a dread responsibility for the position
which I occupied. I doubted whether I should live to see that fallacy
exploded. It has been more speedily, and, to the country, more injuriously
than I anticipated. In the mean time, what has been its operation? Let
Kansas speak&mdash;the first great field on which the trial was made. What
was then the consequence? The Federal Government withdrawing control,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page584" id="page584"></a>[pg 584]</span>
leaving the contending sections, excited to the highest point upon this
question, each to send forth its army, Kansas became the battle-field, and
Kansas the cry, which wellnigh led to civil war. This was the first fruit.
More deadly than the fatal upas, its effect was not limited to the mere spot
of ground on which the dew fell from its leaves, but it spread throughout
the United States; it kindled all which had been collected for years of inflammable
material. It was owing to the strength of our Government and
the good sense of the quiet masses of the people that it did not wrap our
country in one widespread conflagration.</p>

<p>What right had Congress then, or what right has it now, to abdicate any
power conferred upon it as trustee of the States? What right had Congress
then, or has it now, to shrink from the performance of a duty because
the mere counters spread on the table may be swept off, when they have
not answered the purposes for which they were placed? What is it to you,
or me, or any one, when we weigh our own continuation in place against
the great interests of which we are conservators; against the welfare of
the country, and the liberty of our posterity to the remotest ages? What is
it, I say, which can be counted in the balance on our side against the performance
of that duty which is imposed upon us? If any one believes
Congress has not the constitutional power, he acts conscientiously in insisting
upon Congress not usurping it. If any one believes that the squatters
upon the lands of the United States within a Territory are invested with
sovereignty, having won it by some of those processes unknown to history,
without grant, or without revolution, without money and without price, he,
adhering to the theory, may pursue it to its conclusion. To the first class,
those who claim sovereign power over the Territories for Congress, I say,
lay your hand upon the Constitution, and find there the warrant of your
authority. Of the second, those of whom I have last spoken, I ask, in
the Constitution, reason, right, or justice, what is there to sustain your
theory?</p>

<p>The phraseology which has been employed on this question seems to
me to betray a strange confusion of ideas&mdash;to speak of a sovereignty, a
plenary legislative power deriving its power from an agent; a sovereignty,
held subject to articles with the formation of which that sovereignty had
nothing to do; a compact to which it was not a party! You say to a sovereign:
"A and B have agreed on certain terms between themselves, and
you must govern your conduct according to them; yet I do not deny your
sovereignty!" That is, the power to do as they please, provided it conforms
to the rule which others chose to lay down! Can this be a definition
of sovereignty?</p>

<p>But again, sir, nothing seems to me more illogical than the argument
that this power is acquired by a grant from the Congress, connected with
the other argument that Congress have not got the power to do the act
themselves; that is to say, that the recipient takes more than the giver
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page585" id="page585"></a>[pg 585]</span>
possessed; that a Territorial Legislature can do anything which a State
Legislature can do, and that "subject to the Constitution" means merely
the restraints imposed upon both. This is confounding the whole theory
and the history of our Government. The States were the grantors; they
made the compact; they gave the Federal agent its powers; they inhibited
themselves from doing certain things, and all else they retained to themselves.
This Federal agent got just so much as the States chose to give&mdash;no
more. It could do nothing save by warrant of the authority of the grant
made by the States. Therefore its powers are not comparable to the powers
of the State Legislature, because one is the creature of grant, and the other
the exponent of sovereign power. The Supreme Court have covered the
whole ground of the relation of the Congress to the Territorial Legislatures&mdash;the
agent of the States and the agent of the Congress&mdash;and the restrictions
put upon the one are those put upon the other, in language so clear as
to render it needless further to labor the subject.</p>

<p>In 1850, following the promulgation of this notion of squatter sovereignty,
we had the idea of non-intervention introduced into the Senate of
the United States, and it is strange to me how that idea has expanded. It
seems to have been more malleable than gold; to have been hammered out
to an extent that covers boundless regions undiscovered by those who proclaimed
the doctrine. Non-intervention then meant, as the debates show,
that Congress should neither prohibit nor establish slavery in the Territories.
That I hold to now. Will any one suppose that Congress then meant
by non-intervention that Congress should legislate in no regard in respect
to property in slaves? Why, sir, the very acts which they passed at the
time refute it. There is the fugitive slave law, and that abomination of
laws which assumed to confiscate the property of a citizen who should
attempt to bring it into this District with intent to remove it to sell it at
some other time and at some other place. Congress acted then upon the
subject&mdash;acted beyond the limit of its authority, as I believed, confidently
believed; and, if ever that act comes before the Supreme Court, I feel satisfied
they will declare it null and void. Are we to understand that those
men, thus acting at the very moment, intended by non-intervention to deny
and repudiate the laws they were then creating? The man who stood most
prominently the advocate of the measures of that year, who, great in many
periods of our history, perhaps shone then with the brightest light his
genius ever emitted&mdash;I refer to <span class="sc">Henry Clay</span>&mdash;has given his own view on
this subject; and I suppose he may be considered as the highest authority.
On June 18, 1850, I had introduced an amendment to the compromise bill,
providing:</p>

<p>"And that all laws, or parts of laws, usages, or customs, pre&euml;xisting in
the Territories acquired by the United States from Mexico, and which in
said Territories restrict, abridge, or obstruct, the full enjoyment of any
right of person or property of a citizen of the United States, as recognized
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page586" id="page586"></a>[pg 586]</span>
or guaranteed by the Constitution or laws of the United States, are hereby
declared and shall be held as repealed."</p>

<p>Upon that, Mr. <span class="sc">Clay</span> said:</p>

<p>"Mr. <span class="sc">President</span>: I thought that upon this subject there had been a clear
understanding in the Senate that the Senate would not decide itself upon
the <i>lex loci</i> as it respects slavery; that the Senate would not allow the
Territorial Legislature to pass any law upon that question. In other words,
that it would leave the operation of the local law, or of the Constitution of
the United States upon that local law, to be decided by the proper and
competent tribunal&mdash;the Supreme Court of the United States."&mdash;(<i>Appendix
to Congressional Globe</i>, Thirty-first Congress, first session, p. 916.)</p>

<p>That was the position taken by Mr. <span class="sc">Clay</span>, the leader. A mere sentence
will show with what view I regarded the dogma of non-intervention when
that amendment was offered. I said:</p>

<p>"But what is non-intervention seems to vary as often as the light and
shade of every fleeting cloud. It has different meanings in every State, in
every county, in every town. If non-intervention means that we shall
not have protection for our property in slaves, then I always was, and
always shall be, opposed to it. If it means that we shall not have the protection
of the law because it would favor slaveholders, that Congress shall
not legislate so as to secure to us the benefits of the Constitution, then I am
opposed to non-intervention, and shall always be opposed to it."&mdash;(<i>Appendix
to Congressional Globe</i>, Thirty-first Congress, first session, p. 919.)</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Downs</span>, one of the Committee of Thirteen, and an advocate of the
measures, said:</p>

<p>"What I understand by non-intervention is, an interposition of Congress
prohibiting, or establishing, or interfering with slavery."&mdash;(<i>Appendix
to Congressional Globe</i>, Thirty-first Congress, first session, p. 99.)</p>

<p>By what species of legerdemain this doctrine of non-intervention has
come to extend to a paralysis of the Government on the whole subject, to
exclude the Congress from any kind of legislation whatever, I am at a loss
to conceive. Certain it is, it was not the theory of that period, and it was
not contended for in all the controversies we had then. I had no faith in
it then; I considered it an evasion; I held that the duty of Congress ought
to be performed; that the issue was before us, and ought to be met, the
sooner the better; that truth would prevail if presented to the people;
borne down to-day, it would rise up to-morrow; and I stood then on the
same general plea which I am making now. The Senator from Illinois
[Mr. <span class="sc">Douglas</span>] and myself differed at that time, as I presume we do now.
We differed radically then.  He opposed every proposition which I made,
voting against propositions to give power to a Territorial Legislature to
protect slave-property which should be taken there; to remove the obstructions
of the Mexican laws; voting for a proposition to exclude the conclusion
that slavery might be taken there; voting for the proposition expressly
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page587" id="page587"></a>[pg 587]</span>
to prohibit its introduction; voting for the proposition to keep in force
the laws of Mexico which prohibited it. Some of these votes, it is but
just to him I should say, I think he gave perforce of his instructions; but
others of them, I think it is equally fair to suppose, were outside of the
limits of any instructions which could have been given before the fact.</p>

<p>In 1854, advancing in this same general line of thought, the Congress,
in enacting territorial bills, left out a provision which had before been
usually contained in them, requiring the Legislature of the Territory to
submit its laws to the Congress of the United States. It has been sometimes
assumed that this was the recognition of the power of the Territorial
Legislature to exercise plenary legislation, as might that of a State.  It will
be remembered that, when our present form of government was instituted,
there were those who believed the Federal Government should have the
power of revision over the laws of a State. It was long and ably contended
for in the Convention which formed the Constitution; and one of
the compromises which was made was an appellate power&mdash;to lodge power
in the Supreme Court to decide all questions of constitutional law.</p>

<p>But did this omission of the obligation to send here the laws of the Territories
work this grant of power to the Territorial Legislature? Certainly
not; it could not; and that it did not is evinced by the fact that, at a subsequent
period, the organic act was revised because the legislation of the
Territory of Kansas was offensive to the Congress of the United States.
Congress could not abdicate its authority; it could not abandon its trust;
and, when it omitted the requirement that the laws should be sent back, it
created a <i>casus</i> which required it to act without the official records being
laid before it, as they would have been if the obligation had existed. That
was all the difference. It was not enforcing upon the agent the obligation
to send the information. It left Congress, as to its power, just where
it was. I find myself physically unable to go as fully into the subject as I
intended, and therefore, omitting a reference to those acts, suffice it to
say that here was the recognition of the obligation of Congress to interpose
against a Territorial Legislature for the protection of personal right.
That is what we ask of Congress now. I am not disposed to ask this Congress
to go into speculative legislation. I am not one of those who would
willingly see this Congress enact a code to be applied to all Territories and
for all time to come. I only ask that cases, as they arise, may be met according
to the exigency. I ask that when personal and property rights in
the Territories are not protected, then the Congress, by existing laws and
governmental machinery, shall intervene and provide such means as will
secure in each case, as far as may be, an adequate remedy. I ask no slave
code, nor horse code, nor machine code. I ask that the Territorial Legislature
be made to understand beforehand that the Congress of the United
States does not concede to them the power to interfere with the rights of
person or property guaranteed by the Constitution, and that it will apply
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page588" id="page588"></a>[pg 588]</span>
the remedy, if the Territorial Legislature should so far forget its duty, so
far transcend its power, as to commit that violation of right. That is the
announcement of the fifth resolution.</p>

<hr />

<p>These are the general views which I entertain of our right of protection
and the duty of the Government. They are those which are entertained
by the constituency I have the honor to represent, whose delegation
has recently announced those principles at Charleston. I honor them, and
I approve their conduct. I think their bearing was worthy of the mother-State
which sent them there; and I doubt not she will receive them with
joy and gratitude. They have asserted and vindicated her equality of
right. By that asserted equality of right I doubt not she will stand. For
weal or for woe, for prosperity or adversity, for the preservation of the
great blessings which we enjoy, or the trial of a new and separate condition,
I trust Mississippi never will surrender the smallest atom of the sovereignty,
independence, and equality, to which she was born, to avoid any
danger or any sacrifice to which she may hereby be exposed.</p>

<p>The sixth resolution of the series declares at what time a State may
form a Constitution and decide upon her domestic institutions. I deny
this right to the territorial condition, because the Territory belongs in common
to the States. Every citizen of the United States, as a joint owner of
that Territory, has a right to go into it with any property which he may
possess. These territorial inhabitants require municipal law, police, and
government. They should have them, but they should be restricted to their
own necessities. They have no right within their municipal power to attempt
to decide the rights of the people of the States. They have no right to
exclude any citizen of the United States from owning and equally enjoying
this common possession; it is for the purpose of preserving order, and giving
protection to rights of person and property, that a municipal territorial
government should be instituted.</p>

<p>The last resolution refers to a law founded on a provision of the Constitution,
which contains an obligation of faith to every State of the Union;
and that obligation of faith has been violated by thirteen States of the Confederacy&mdash;as
many as originally fought the battles of the Revolution and established
the Confederation. Is it to be expected that a compact thus broken
in part, violated in its important features, will be regarded as binding in all
else? Is the free trade which the North sought in the formation of the
Union, and for which the States generally agreed to give Congress the power
to regulate commerce, to be trampled under foot by laws of obstruction, not
giving to the citizens of the South that free transit across the territory of
the Northern States which we might claim from any friendly state under
Christendom; and is Congress to stand powerless by, on the doctrine of non-intervention?
We have a right to claim abstinence from interference with
our rights from any Government on the earth. Shall we claim no more
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page589" id="page589"></a>[pg 589]</span>
from that which we have constituted for our own purposes, and which we
support by draining our own means for its support?</p>

<p>We have had agitation, changing in its form, and gathering intensity,
for the last forty years. It was first for political power, and directed
against new States; now it has assumed a social form, is all-prevailing, and
has reached the point of revolution and civil war. For it was only last fall
that an overt act was committed by men who were sustained by arms and
money, raised by extensive combination among the non-slaveholding States,
to carry treasonable war against the State of Virginia, because now, as before
the Revolution, and ever since, she held the African in bondage. This
is part of the history and marks the necessity of the times. It warns us to
stop and reflect, to go back to the original standard, to measure our acts by
the obligation of our fathers, by the pledges they made one to the other, to
see whether we are conforming to our plighted faith, and to ask seriously,
solemnly, looking each other inquiringly in the face, what we should do to
save our country.</p>

<p>This agitation being at first one of sectional pride for political power, has
at last degenerated or grown up to (as you please) a trade. There are men
who habitually set aside a portion of money which they are annually to apply
to what are called "charitable purposes"&mdash;that is to say, so far as I
understand it, to support some vagrant lecturer, whose purpose is agitation
and mischief wherever he goes. This constitutes, therefore, a trade; a
class of people are thus employed&mdash;employed for mischief, for incendiary
purposes, perhaps not always understood by those who furnish the money;
but such is the effect; such is the result of their action; and in this state of
the case I call upon the Senate to affirm the great principles on which our
institutions rest. In no spirit of crimination have I stated the reasons why
I present it. For these reasons I call upon them now to restrain the growth
of evil passion, and to bring back the public sense as far as in them lies, by
earnest and united effort, if it may be, to crown our country with peace,
and start it once more in its primal channel on a career of progressive
prosperity and justice.</p>

<p>The majority section can not be struggling for additional power in order
to preserve their rights. If any of them ever believed in what is called
Southern aggression, they know now they have the majority in the representative
districts and in the electoral college. They can not, therefore,
fear an invasion of their rights. They need no additional political power to
protect them from that. The argument, then, or the reason on which this
agitation commenced, has passed away; and yet we are asked, if a party
hostile to our institutions shall gain possession of the Government, that we
shall stand quietly by, and wait for an overt act. Overt act! Is not a
declaration of war an overt act? What would be thought of a country
that, after a declaration of war, and while the enemy's fleets were upon the
sea, should wait until a city had been sacked before it would say that war
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page590" id="page590"></a>[pg 590]</span>
existed, or resistance should be made? The power of resistance consists, in
no small degree, in meeting the evil at the outer gate. I can speak for myself&mdash;and
I have no right to speak for others&mdash;when I say, that, if I belonged
to a party organized on the basis of making war on any section or interest
in the United States, if I know myself, I would instantly quit it. We have
made no war against you. We have asked no discrimination in our favor.
We claim to have but the Constitution fairly and equally administered. To
consent to less than this would be to sink in the scale of manhood; would
be to make our posterity so degraded that they would curse this generation
for robbing them of the rights their Revolutionary fathers bequeathed
them....</p>

<p>Among the great purposes declared in the preamble of the Constitution
is one to provide for the general welfare. Provision for the general welfare
implies general fraternity. This Union was not expected to be held together
by coercion; the power of force as a means was denied. They
sought, however, to bind it perpetually together with that which was
stronger than triple bars of brass and steel&mdash;the ceaseless current of kind
offices, renewing and renewed in an eternal flow, and gathering volume and
velocity as it rolled. It was a function intended not for the injury of any.
It declared its purpose to be the benefit of all. Concessions which were
made between the different States in the Convention prove the motive.
Each gave to the other what was necessary to it; what each could afford to
spare. Young as a nation, our triumphs under this system have had no
parallel in human history. We have tamed a wilderness; we have spanned
a continent. We have built up a granary that secures the commercial world
against the fear of famine. Higher than all this, we have achieved a moral
triumph. We have received, by hundreds of thousands, a constant tide of
immigrants&mdash;energetic, if not well educated, fleeing, some from want, some
from oppression, some from the penalties of violated law&mdash;received them
into our society; and by the gentle suasion of a Government which exhibits
no force, by removing want and giving employment, they have subsided
into peaceful citizens, and have increased the wealth and power of our
country.</p>

<p>If, then, this temple so blessed, and to the roof of which we were about
to look to see it extended over the continent, giving a protecting arm to infant
republics that need it&mdash;if this temple is tottering on its pillars, what, I
ask, can be a higher or nobler duty for the Senate to perform than to rush
to its pillars and uphold them, or be crushed in the attempt? We have
tampered with a question which has grown in magnitude by each year's
delay. It requires to be plainly met&mdash;the truth to be told. The patriotism
and the sound sense of the people, whenever the Federal Government from
its high places of authority shall proclaim the truth in unequivocal language,
will, in my firm belief, receive and approve it. But so long as we deal,
like the Delphic oracle, in words of double meaning, so long as we attempt
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page591" id="page591"></a>[pg 591]</span>
to escape from responsibility, and exhibit our fear to declare the truth by
the fact that we do not act upon it, we must expect speculative theory to
occupy the mind of the public, and error to increase as time rolls on. But,
if the sad fate should be ours, for this most minute cause, to destroy our
Government, the historian who shall attempt philosophically to examine
the question will, after he has put on his microscopic glasses and discovered
it, be compelled to cry out, "Veritably so the unseen insect in the course of
time destroys the mighty oak!" Now, I believe&mdash;may I not say I believe?
if not, then I hope&mdash;there is yet time, by the full, explicit declaration of the
truth, to disabuse the popular mind, to arouse the popular heart, to expose
the danger from lurking treason and ill-concealed hostility; to rally a
virtuous people to their country's rescue, who, circling closer and deeper as
the storm gathers fury, around the ark of their fathers' covenant, will place
it in security, there happily to remain a sign of fraternity, justice, and
equality, to our remotest posterity.
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote199" name="footnote199"></a><b>Footnote 199:</b><a href="#footnotetag199"> (return) </a><p>Elliott's "Debates," vol. v, p. 133.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote200" name="footnote200"></a><b>Footnote 200:</b><a href="#footnotetag200"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 457.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote201" name="footnote201"></a><b>Footnote 201:</b><a href="#footnotetag201"> (return) </a><p>Elliot's "Debates," vol. v, p. 457.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote202" name="footnote202"></a><b>Footnote 202:</b><a href="#footnotetag202"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote203" name="footnote203"></a><b>Footnote 203:</b><a href="#footnotetag203"> (return) </a><p>Ibid, p. 459.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote204" name="footnote204"></a><b>Footnote 204:</b><a href="#footnotetag204"> (return) </a><p>Ibid.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote205" name="footnote205"></a><b>Footnote 205:</b><a href="#footnotetag205"> (return) </a><p>Ibid., p. 460.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote206" name="footnote206"></a><b>Footnote 206:</b><a href="#footnotetag206"> (return) </a><p>Permoli <i>vs</i>. First Municipality, 3 Howard, 610.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="appendix-g" id="appendix-g"></a>APPENDIX G.</h2>


<p>Correspondence between the Commissioners of South Carolina
and the President of the United States (Mr. Buchanan) relative to
the forts in the harbor of Charleston.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Letter of the Commissioners to the President</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>December</i> 28, 1860.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: We have the honor to transmit to you a copy of the full powers
from the Convention of the People of South Carolina, under which we are
"authorized and empowered to treat with the Government of the United
States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, lighthouses, and other real
estate, with their appurtenances, within the limits of South Carolina, and
also for an apportionment of the public debt, and for a division of all other
property held by the Government of the United States as agent of the confederated
States of which South Carolina was recently a member; and
generally to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to
be made and adopted in the existing relation of the parties, and for the
continuance of peace and amity between this Commonwealth and the Government
at Washington."</p>

<p>In the execution of this trust, it is our duty to furnish you, as we now
do, with an official copy of the ordinance of secession, by which the State
of South Carolina has resumed the powers she delegated to the Government
of the United States, and has declared her perfect sovereignty and independence.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page592" id="page592"></a>[pg 592]</span>

<p>It would also have been our duty to have informed you that we were
ready to negotiate with you upon all such questions as are necessarily raised
by the adoption of this ordinance, and that we were prepared to enter upon
this negotiation with the earnest desire to avoid all unnecessary and hostile
collision, and so to inaugurate our new relations as to secure mutual respect,
general advantage, and a future of good-will and harmony beneficial
to all the parties concerned.</p>

<p>But the events of the last twenty-four hours render such an assurance
impossible. We came here the representatives of an authority which could,
at any time within the past sixty days, have taken possession of the forts in
Charleston Harbor, but which, upon pledges given in a manner that, we can
not doubt, determined to trust to your honor rather than to its own power.
Since our arrival here an officer of the United States, acting, as we are assured,
not only without but against your orders, has dismantled one fort
and occupied another, thus altering, to a most important extent, the condition
of affairs under which we came.</p>

<p>Until these circumstances are explained in a manner which relieves us
of all doubt as to the spirit in which these negotiations shall be conducted,
we are forced to suspend all discussion as to any arrangements by which our
mutual interests might be amicably adjusted.</p>

<p>And, in conclusion, we would urge upon you the immediate withdrawal
of the troops from the harbor of Charleston. Under present circumstances,
they are a standing menace which renders negotiation impossible, and, as
our recent experience shows, threatens speedily to bring to a bloody issue
questions which ought to be settled with temperance and judgment.</p>

<p>We have the honor, sir, to be, very respectfully, your obedient servants,</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>R. W. BARNWELL,}</p>
<p>J. H. ADAMS,   } <i>Commissioners</i>.</p>
<p>JAMES L. ORR,  }</p>
  </div><div class="stanza">
<p>To the <span class="sc">President</span> of the United States.</p>
  </div>  </div>
</blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Reply of the President to the Commissioners</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington City</span>, <i>December</i> 30, 1860.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Gentlemen</span>: I have the honor to receive your communication of 28th inst.,
together with a copy of your "full powers from the Convention of the People
of South Carolina," authorizing you to treat with the Government of the
United States on various important subjects therein mentioned, and also a
copy of the ordinance bearing date on the 20th inst., declaring that "the
union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the
name of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved."</p>

<p>In answer to this communication, I have to say that my position as
President of the United States was clearly defined in the message to Congress
of the 3d instant. In that I stated that, "apart from the execution
of the laws, so far as this may be practicable, the Executive has no authority
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page593" id="page593"></a>[pg 593]</span>
to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal Government
and South Carolina. He has been invested with no such discretion. He
possesses no power to change the relations heretofore existing between
them, much less to acknowledge the independence of that State. This
would be to invest a mere executive officer with the power of recognizing
the dissolution of the confederacy among our thirty-three sovereign States.
It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign <i>de facto</i>
government&mdash;involving
no such responsibility. Any attempt to do this would, on
his part, be a naked act of usurpation. It is, therefore, my duty to submit
to Congress the whole question, in all its bearings."</p>

<p>Such is my opinion still. I could, therefore, meet you only as private
gentlemen of the highest character, and was entirely willing to communicate
to Congress any proposition you might have to make to that body
upon the subject. Of this you were well aware. It was my earnest desire
that such a disposition might be made of the whole subject by Congress,
who alone possess the power, as to prevent the inauguration of a civil war
between the parties in regard to the possession of the Federal forts in the
harbor of Charleston; and I therefore deeply regret that, in your opinion,
"the events of the last twenty-four hours render this impossible." In conclusion,
you urge upon me "the immediate withdrawal of the troops from
the harbor of Charleston," stating that, "under present circumstances, they
are a standing menace, which renders negotiation impossible, and, as our
present experience shows, threatens speedily to bring to a bloody issue
questions which ought to be settled with temperance and judgment."</p>

<p>The reason for this change in your position is that, since your arrival
in Washington, "an officer of the United States, acting as we (you) are
assured, not only without your (my) orders, has dismantled one fort and
occupied another, thus altering, to a most important extent, the condition
of affairs under which we (you) came." You also allege that you came here
"the representatives of an authority which could at any time within the
past sixty days have taken possession of the forts in Charleston Harbor, but
which, upon pledges given in a manner that we (you) can not doubt, determined
to trust to your (my) honor rather than to its own power."</p>

<p>This brings me to a consideration of the nature of those alleged pledges,
and in what manner they have been observed. In my message of the 3d
of December last, I stated, in regard to the property of the United States in
South Carolina, that it "has been purchased for a fair equivalent 'by the
consent of the Legislature of the State, for the erection of forts, magazines,
arsenals,' etc., and over these the authority 'to exercise exclusive legislation'
has been expressly granted by the Constitution to Congress. It is not believed
that any attempt will be made to expel the United States from this
property by force; but, if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer
in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive.
In such a contingency, the responsibility for consequences would rightfully
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page594" id="page594"></a>[pg 594]</span>
rest upon the heads of the assailants."  This being the condition of the
parties on Saturday, 8th December, four of the representatives from South
Carolina called upon me and requested an interview. We had an earnest
conversation on the subject of these forts, and the best means of preventing
a collision between the parties, for the purpose of sparing the effusion of
blood. I suggested, for prudential reasons, that it would be best to put in
writing what they said to me verbally. They did so accordingly, and on
Monday morning, the 10th instant, three of them presented to me a paper
signed by all the representatives from South Carolina, with a single exception,
of which the following is a copy:
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"To his Excellency <span class="sc">James Buchanan</span>, <i>President of the United States</i>:</p>

<p>"In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express
to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authorities, nor
any body of the people of the State of South Carolina, will either attack or
molest the United States forts in the harbor of Charleston, previously to
the action of the Convention, and, we hope and believe, not until an offer
has been made, through an accredited representative, to negotiate for an
amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and the Federal
Government, provided that no re&euml;nforcements shall be sent into those forts,
and their relative military <i>status</i> shall remain as at present.</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>"<span class="sc">John McQueen</span>,</p>
<p>"<span class="sc">William Porcher Miles</span>,</p>
<p>"<span class="sc">M. L. Bonham</span>,</p>
<p>"<span class="sc">W. W. Boyce</span>,</p>
<p>"<span class="sc">Lawrence M. Keitt</span>.</p>
  </div><div class="stanza">
<p>"<span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>December 9, 1860</i>."</p>
  </div>  </div>
</blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
And here I must, in justice to myself, remark that, at the time the paper
was presented to me, I objected to the word "provided," as it might
be construed into an agreement, on my part, which I never would make.
They said that nothing was further from their intention; they did not so
understand it, and I should not so consider it. It is evident they could
enter into no reciprocal agreement with me on the subject. They did not
profess to have authority to do this, and were acting in their individual
character. I considered it as nothing more, in effect, than the promise of
highly honorable gentlemen to exert their influence for the purpose expressed.
The event has proved that they have faithfully kept this promise,
although I have never since received a line from any one of them, or from
any member of the Convention on the subject. It is well known that it
was my determination, and this I freely expressed, not to re&euml;nforce the
forts in the harbor, and thus produce a collision, until they had been actually
attacked, or until I had certain evidence that they were about to be
attacked. This paper I received most cordially, and considered it as a happy
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page595" id="page595"></a>[pg 595]</span>
omen that peace might still be preserved, and that time might thus be
gained for reflection.  This is the whole foundation for the alleged pledge.</p>

<p>But I acted in the same manner I would have done had I entered into a
positive and formal agreement with parties capable of contracting, although
such an agreement would have been, on my part, from the nature of my
official duties, impossible.</p>

<p>The world knows that I have never sent any re&euml;nforcements to the forts
in Charleston Harbor, and I have certainly never authorized any change to
be made "in their relative military <i>status</i>."</p>

<p>Bearing upon this subject, I refer you to an order issued by the Secretary
of War, on the 11th instant, to Major Anderson, but not brought to
my notice until the 21st instant. It is as follows:
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
"<i>Memorandum of verbal instructions to Major</i> <span class="sc">Anderson</span>, <i>First Artillery,
commanding Fort Moultrie, South Carolina</i>:</p>

<p>"You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a
collision of the troops with the people of this State shall be avoided, and of
his studied determination to pursue a course, with reference to the military
force and forts in this harbor, which shall guard against such a collision.
He has, therefore, carefully abstained from increasing the force at this
point, or taking any measures which might add to the present excited state
of the public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he
feels that South Carolina will not attempt by violence to obtain possession
of the public works, or to interfere with their occupancy. But, as the
counsel of rash and impulsive persons may possibly disappoint these expectations
of the Government, he deems it proper that you should be prepared
with instructions to meet so unhappy a contingency. He has, therefore,
directed me, verbally, to give you such instructions.</p>

<p>"You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly tend to
provoke aggression; and, for that reason, you are not, without evident and
imminent necessity, to take up any position which could be construed into
the assumption of a hostile attitude; but you are to hold possession of the
forts in this harbor, and, if attacked, you are to defend yourself to the last
extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy
more than one of the three forts; but an attack on or attempt to take
possession of either of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you
may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most
proper, to increase its power of resistance.  You are also authorized to take
similar defensive steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to
proceed to a hostile act.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">D. P. Butler</span>, <i>Assistant Adjutant-General</i>.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">Fort Moultrie, South Carolina</span>, <i>December 11, 1860</i>.</p>

<p>"This is in conformity to my instructions to Major Buel.</p>

<p>"<span class="sc">John B. Floyd</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>."
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page596" id="page596"></a>[pg 596]</span>

<blockquote><p>
These were the last instructions transmitted to Major Anderson before
his removal to Fort Sumter, with a single exception in regard to a particular
which does not, in any degree, affect the present question. Under these
circumstances it is clear that Major Anderson acted upon his own responsibility,
and without authority, unless, indeed, he had "tangible evidence of a
design to proceed to a hostile act" on the part of the authorities of South
Carolina, which has not yet been alleged. Still he is a brave and honorable
officer, and justice requires that he should not be condemned without a fair
hearing.</p>

<p>Be this as it may, when I learned that Major Anderson had left Fort
Moultrie, and proceeded to Fort Sumter, my first promptings were to command
him to return to his former position, and there to await the contingencies
presented in his instructions. This could only have been done, with
any degree of safety to the command, by the concurrence of the South Carolina
authorities. But, before any steps could possibly have been taken in
this direction, we received information, dated on the 28th instant, that "the
Palmetto flag floated out to the breeze at Castle Pinckney, and a large military
force went over last night (the 27th) to Fort Moultrie." Thus the authorities
of South Carolina, without waiting or asking for any explanation,
and doubtless believing, as you have expressed it, that the officer had acted
not only without, but against my orders, on the very next day after the
night when the removal was made, seized, by a military force, two of the
three Federal forts in the harbor of Charleston, and have covered them under
their own flag, instead of that of the United States. At this gloomy period
of our history, startling events succeed each other rapidly. On the very
day (the 27th instant) that possession of these two forts was taken, the
Palmetto flag was raised over the Federal Custom-House and Post-Office in
Charleston; and on the same day every officer of the customs&mdash;collector,
naval officers, surveyor, and appraisers&mdash;resigned their offices. And this,
although it was well known, from the language of my message, that as an
executive officer I felt myself bound to collect the revenue at the port of
Charleston under the existing laws. In the harbor of Charleston we now
find three forts confronting each other, over all of which the Federal flag
floated only four days ago; but now over two of them this flag has been
supplanted, and the Palmetto flag has been substituted in its stead. It is
under all these circumstances that I am urged immediately to withdraw the
troops from the harbor of Charleston, and am informed that, without this,
negotiation is impossible. This I can not do; this I will not do. Such an
idea was never thought of by me in any possible contingency. No allusion
to it had ever been made in any communication between myself and any
human being. But the inference is, that I am bound to withdraw the
troops from the only fort remaining in the possession of the United States
in the harbor of Charleston, because the officer then in command of
all the forts thought proper, without instructions, to change his position
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page597" id="page597"></a>[pg 597]</span>
from one of them to another.  I can not admit the justice of any such
inference.</p>

<p>At this point of writing I have received information, by telegram, from
Captain Humphreys, in command of the arsenal at Charleston, that "it
has to-day (Sunday, the 30th) been taken by force of arms." It is estimated
that the munitions of war belonging to the United States in this
arsenal are worth half a million of dollars.</p>

<p>Comment is needless. After this information, I have only to add that,
while it is my duty to defend Fort Sumter, as a portion of the public property
of the United States, against hostile attacks from whatever quarter
they may come, by such means as I may possess for this purpose, I do not
perceive how such a defense can be construed into a menace against the
city of Charleston.</p>

<p>With great personal regard, I remain</p>

<p>Yours, very respectfully,</p>

<p><span class="sc">JAMES BUCHANAN</span>.</p>

<p>To Honorable <span class="sc">Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, James L. Orr</span>.
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Reply of the Commissioners to the President</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington, D.C.</span>, <i>January</i> 1, 1861.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
the 30th December, in reply to a note addressed by us to you on the 28th
of the same month, as commissioners from South Carolina.</p>

<p>In reference to the declaration with which your reply commences, that
"your position as President of the United States was clearly defined in the
message to Congress of the 3d instant," that you possess "no power to
change the relations heretofore existing between South Carolina and the
United States, much less to acknowledge the independence of that State";
and that, consequently, you could meet us only as private gentlemen of the
highest character, with an entire willingness to communicate to Congress
any proposition we might have to make, we deem it only necessary to say
that, the State of South Carolina having, in the exercise of that great right
of self-government which underlies all our political organizations, declared
herself sovereign and independent, we, as her representatives, felt no special
solicitude as to the character in which you might recognize us. Satisfied
that the State had simply exercised her unquestionable right, we were
prepared, in order to reach substantial good, to waive the formal considerations
which your constitutional scruples might have prevented you from
extending. We came here, therefore, expecting to be received as you did
receive us, and perfectly content with that entire willingness of which you
assured us, to submit any proposition to Congress which we might have to
make upon the subject of the independence of the State. That willingness
was ample recognition of the condition of public affairs which rendered our
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page598" id="page598"></a>[pg 598]</span>
presence necessary. In this position, however, it is our duty, both to the
State which we represent and to ourselves, to correct several important
misconceptions of our letter into which you have fallen.</p>

<p>You say, "It was my earnest desire that such a disposition might be
made of the whole subject by Congress, who alone possesses the power to
prevent the inauguration of a civil war between the parties in regard to
the possession of the Federal forts in the harbor of Charleston; and I,
therefore, deeply regret that, in your opinion, 'the events of the last
twenty-four hours render this impossible.'" We expressed no such opinion,
and the language which you quote as ours is altered in its sense by
the omission of a most important part of the sentence. What we did say
was, "But the events of the last twenty-four hours render <i>such an assurance</i>
impossible." Place that "assurance," as contained in our letter,
in the sentence, and we are prepared to repeat it.</p>

<p>Again, professing to quote our language, you say: "Thus the authorities
of South Carolina, without waiting or asking for any explanation, and
doubtless believing, as you have expressed it, that the officer had acted not
only without, but against my orders," etc. We expressed no such opinion
in reference to the belief of the people of South Carolina. The language
which you have quoted was applied solely and entirely to <i>our assurance</i>,
obtained here, and based, as you well know, upon your own declaration&mdash;a
declaration which, at that time, it was impossible for the authorities of
South Carolina to have known. But, without following this letter into all
its details, we propose only to meet the chief points of the argument.</p>

<p>Some weeks ago, the State of South Carolina declared her intention, in
the existing condition of public affairs, to secede from the United States.
She called a convention of her people to put her declaration in force. The
Convention met and passed the ordinance of secession. All this you anticipated,
and your course of action was thoroughly considered. In your
annual message you declared that you had no right, and would not attempt,
to coerce a seceding State, but that you were bound by your constitutional
oath, and would defend the property of the United States within the borders
of South Carolina, if an attempt was made to take it by force. Seeing
very early that this question of property was a difficult and delicate one,
you manifested a desire to settle it without collision. You did not re&euml;nforce
the garrisons in the harbor of Charleston. You removed a distinguished
and veteran officer from the command of Fort Moultrie, because
he attempted to increase his supply of ammunition. You refused to send
additional troops to the same garrison when applied for by the officer appointed
to succeed him. You accepted the resignation of the oldest and
most eminent member of your Cabinet, rather than allow these garrisons
to be strengthened. You compelled an officer stationed at Fort Sumter to
return immediately to the arsenal forty muskets which he had taken to
arm his men. You expressed, not to one, but to many, of the most distinguished
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page599" id="page599"></a>[pg 599]</span>
of our public characters, whose testimony will be placed upon
the record whenever it is necessary, your anxiety for a peaceful termination
of this controversy, and your willingness not to disturb the military
<i>status</i> of the forts, if commissioners should be sent to the Government,
whose communications you promised to submit to Congress. You received
and acted on assurances from the highest official authorities of South Carolina,
that no attempt would be made to disturb your possession of the forts
and property of the United States, if you would not disturb their existing
condition until commissioners had been sent, and the attempt to negotiate
had failed. You took from the members of the House of Representatives a
written memorandum that no such attempt should be made, "provided that
no re&euml;nforcements shall be sent into those forts, and their relative military
<i>status</i> shall remain as at present." And, although you attach no force to
the acceptance of such a paper, although you "considered it as nothing
more in effect than the promise of highly honorable gentlemen," as an obligation
on one side without corresponding obligation on the other, it must
be remembered (if we are rightly informed) that you were pledged, if you
ever did send re&euml;nforcements, to return it to those from whom you had received
it before you executed your resolution. You sent orders to your
officers, commanding them strictly to follow a line of conduct in conformity
with such an understanding.</p>

<p>Besides all this, you had received formal and official notice, from the
Governor of South Carolina, that we had been appointed commissioners
and were on our way to Washington. You knew the implied condition
under which we came; our arrival was notified to you, and an hour appointed
for an interview. We arrived in Washington on Wednesday, at
three o'clock, and you appointed an interview with us at one the next day.
Early on that day, Thursday, the news was received here of the movement
of Major Anderson. That news was communicated to you immediately,
and you postponed our meeting until half-past two o'clock on Friday,
in order that you might consult your Cabinet. On Friday we saw you, and
we called upon you then to redeem your pledge. You could not deny it.
With the facts we have stated, and in the face of the crowning and conclusive
fact that your Secretary of War had resigned his seat in the Cabinet,
upon the publicly avowed ground that the action of Major Anderson had
violated the pledged faith of the Government, and that unless the pledge
was instantly redeemed he was dishonored, denial was impossible; you did
not deny it. You do not deny it now, but you seek to escape from its obligations
on two grounds: 1. That <i>we</i> terminated all negotiation by demanding,
as a preliminary, the withdrawal of the United States troops from the
harbor of Charleston; and, 2. That the authorities of South Carolina, instead
of asking explanation and giving you the opportunity to vindicate
yourself, took possession of other property of the United States. We will
examine both.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page600" id="page600"></a>[pg 600]</span>

<p>In the first place, we deny positively that we have ever, in any way,
made any such demand. Our letter is in your possession; it will stand by
this on the record. In it we inform you of the objects of our mission.
We say that it would have been our duty to assure you of our readiness
to commence negotiations with the most earnest and anxious desire to
settle all questions between us amicably, and to our mutual advantage, but
that events had rendered that assurance impossible. We stated the events,
and we said that, until some satisfactory explanation of these events was
given us, we could not proceed; and then, having made this request for explanation,
we added: "And, in conclusion, we would urge upon you the immediate
withdrawal of the troops from the harbor of Charleston. Under present
circumstances they are a standing menace, which renders negotiation
impossible," etc. "Under present circumstances!"  What circumstances?
Why, clearly the occupation of Fort Sumter, and the dismantling of Fort
Moultrie by Major Anderson, in the face of your pledges, and without explanation
or practical disavowal. And there is nothing in the letter which
would or could have prevented you from declining to withdraw the troops,
and offering the restoration of the <i>status</i> to which you were pledged, if
such had been your desire. It would have been wiser and better, in our
opinion, to have withdrawn the troops, and this opinion we urged upon
you, but we <i>demanded</i> nothing but such an explanation of the events of the
last twenty-four hours as would restore our confidence in the spirit with
which the negotiation should be conducted. In relation to this withdrawal
of the troops from the harbor, we are compelled, however, to notice one
passage of your letter. Referring to it, you say: "This I can not do; this
I will not do. Such an idea was never thought of by me in any possible
contingency. No allusion to it had ever been made in any communication
between myself and any human being."</p>

<p>In reply to this statement, we are compelled to say that your conversation
with us left upon our minds the distinct impression that you did seriously
contemplate the withdrawal of the troops from Charleston Harbor.
And, in support of this impression, we would add that we have the positive
assurance of gentlemen of the highest possible public reputation and the
most unsullied integrity&mdash;men whose name and fame, secured by long
service and patriotic achievement, place their testimony beyond cavil&mdash;that
such suggestions had been made to and urged upon you by them, and
had formed the subject of more than one earnest discussion with you. And
it was this knowledge that induced us to urge upon you a policy which had
to recommend it its own wisdom and the weight of such authority. As
to the second point, that the authorities of South Carolina, instead of asking
explanations, and giving you the opportunity to vindicate yourself, took
possession of other property of the United States, we would observe, first,
that, even if this were so, it does not avail you for defense, for the opportunity
for decision was afforded you before these facts occurred. We
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page601" id="page601"></a>[pg 601]</span>
arrived in Washington on Wednesday.  The news from Major Anderson
reached here early on Thursday, and was immediately communicated to
you. All that day, men of the highest consideration&mdash;men who had striven
successfully to lift you to your great office&mdash;who had been your tried and
true friends through the troubles of your Administration&mdash;sought you and
entreated you to act&mdash;to act at once.  They told you that every hour complicated
your position. They only asked you to give the assurance that, if
the facts were so&mdash;if the commander had acted without and against your
orders, and in violation of your pledges&mdash;you would restore the <i>status</i> you
had pledged your honor to maintain.</p>

<p>You refused to decide.  Your Secretary of War&mdash;your immediate and
proper adviser in this whole matter&mdash;waited anxiously for your decision,
until he felt that delay was becoming dishonor. More than twelve hours
passed, and two Cabinet meetings had adjourned before you knew what
the authorities of South Carolina had done, and your prompt decision at
any moment of that time would have avoided the subsequent complications.
But, if you had known the acts of the authorities of South Carolina, should
that have prevented your keeping your faith?  What was the condition of
things? For the last sixty days, you have had in Charleston Harbor not
force enough to hold the forts against an equal enemy. Two of them
were empty; one of those two, the most important in the harbor.  It
could have been taken at any time. You ought to know, better than any
man, that it would have been taken, but for the efforts of those who put
their trust in your honor. Believing that they were threatened by
Fort Sumter especially, the people were, with difficulty, restrained from
securing, without blood, the possession of this important fortress. After
many and reiterated assurances given on your behalf, which we can not
believe unauthorized, they determined to forbear, and in good faith sent
on their commissioners to negotiate with you.  They meant you no harm,
wished you no ill. They thought of you kindly, believed you true, and
were willing, as far as was consistent with duty, to spare you unnecessary
and hostile collision. Scarcely had their commissioners left, than
Major Anderson waged war. No other words will describe his action. It
was not a peaceful change from one fort to another; it was a hostile act in
the highest sense&mdash;one only justified in the presence of a superior enemy
and in imminent peril. He abandoned his position, spiked his guns, burned
his gun-carriages, made preparations for the destruction of his post, and
withdrew under cover of the night to a safer position. This was war. No
man could have believed (without your assurance) that any officer could
have taken such a step, "not only without orders, but against orders."
What the State did was in simple self-defense; for this act, with all its
attending circumstances, was as much war as firing a volley; and, war
being thus begun, until those commencing it explained their action, and
disavowed their intention, there was no room for delay; and, even at this
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page602" id="page602"></a>[pg 602]</span>
moment, while we are writing, it is more than probable, from the tenor of
your letter, that re&euml;nforcements are hurrying on to the conflict, so that,
when the first gun shall be fired, there will have been, on your part, one
continuous consistent series of actions commencing in a demonstration
essentially warlike, supported by regular re&euml;nforcement, and terminating in
defeat or victory. And all this without the slightest provocation; for,
among the many things which you have said, there is one thing you can not
say&mdash;you have waited anxiously for news from the seat of war, in hopes
that delay would furnish some excuse for this precipitation. But this "tangible
evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act, on the part of the
authorities of South Carolina" (which is the only justification of Major
Anderson), you are forced to admit "has not <i>yet</i> been alleged."  But you
have decided. You have resolved to hold by force what you have obtained
through our misplaced confidence, and, by refusing to disavow the action of
Major Anderson, have converted his violation of orders into a legitimate
act of your Executive authority. Be the issue what it may, of this we are
assured, that, if Fort Moultrie has been recorded in history as a memorial
of Carolina gallantry, Fort Sumter will live upon the succeeding page as an
imperishable testimony of Carolina faith.</p>

<p>By your course you have probably rendered civil war inevitable.  Be
it so.  If you choose to force this issue upon us, the State of South Carolina
will accept it, and, relying upon Him who is the God of justice as well as
the God of hosts, will endeavor to perform the great duty which lies before
her, hopefully, bravely, and thoroughly.</p>

<p>Our mission being one for negotiation and peace, and your note leaving
us without hope of a withdrawal of the troops from Fort Sumter, or of
the restoration of the <i>status quo</i> existing at the time of our arrival, and
intimating, as we think, your determination to re&euml;nforce the garrison in the
harbor of Charleston, we respectfully inform you that we propose returning
to Charleston on to-morrow afternoon.</p>

<p>We have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servants,</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>R. W. BARNWELL,    }</p>
<p>J. H. ADAMS,       } <i>Commissioners</i>.</p>
<p>JAMES L. ORR,      }</p>
  </div><div class="stanza">
<p>To his Excellency the <span class="sc">President</span> of the United States.</p>
  </div>  </div>
</blockquote>

<p>The last communication is endorsed as follows:</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Executive Mansion</span>, 3-1/2 <i>o'clock, Wednesday</i>.</p>

<p>This paper, just presented to the President, is of such a character that
he declines to receive it.
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page603" id="page603"></a>[pg 603]</span>




<h2><a name="appendix-h" id="appendix-h"></a>APPENDIX H.</h2>


<p>Speech on the state of the country, by Mr. Davis, of Mississippi,
in the Senate of the United States, January 10, 1861&mdash;a motion
to print the special message of the President of the United States,
of January 9th, being under consideration.</p>

<blockquote><p>
Mr. <span class="sc">Davis</span>: Mr. President, when I took the floor yesterday, I intended
to engage somewhat in the argument which has heretofore prevailed in the
Senate upon the great questions of constitutional right, which have divided
the country from the beginning of the Government. I intended to adduce
some evidences, which I thought were conclusive, in favor of the opinions
which I entertain; but events, with a current hurrying on as it progresses,
have borne me past the point where it would be useful for me to argue, by
the citing of authorities, the question of rights.  To-day, therefore, it is my
purpose to deal with events.  Abstract argument has become among the
things that are past.  We have to deal now with facts; and, in order that
we may meet those facts and apply them to our present condition, it is well
to inquire what is the state of the country.  The Constitution provides that
the President shall, from time to time, communicate information on the
state of the Union.  The message which is now under consideration gives
us very little, indeed, beyond that which the world&mdash;less, indeed, than reading
men generally&mdash;knew before it was communicated.</p>

<p>What, Senators, to-day is the condition of the country?  From every
corner of it comes the wailing cry of patriotism, pleading for the preservation
of the great inheritance we derived from our fathers.  Is there a Senator
who does not daily receive letters appealing to him to use even the
small power which one man here possesses to save the rich inheritance our
fathers gave us?  Tears are trickling down the stern faces of men who
have bled for the flag of their country, and are willing now to die for it;
but patriotism stands powerless before the plea that the party about to come
into power laid down a platform, and that come what will, though ruin
stare us in the face, consistency must be adhered to, even though the Government
be lost.</p>

<p>In this state of the case, then, we turn and ask, What is the character
of the Administration?  What is the Executive department doing?  What
assurance have we there for the safety of the country?  But we come back
from that inquiry with a mournful conviction that feeble hands now hold
the reins of state; that drivelers are taken in as counselors, not provided by
the Constitution; that vacillation is the law; and the policy of this great
Government is changed with every changing rumor of the day; nay, more,
it is changing with every new phase of causeless fear.  In this state of the
case, after complications have been introduced into the question, after we
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page604" id="page604"></a>[pg 604]</span>
were brought to the verge of war, after we were hourly expecting by telegraph
to learn that the conflict had commenced, after nothing had been
done to insure the peace of the land, we are told in this last hour that the
question is thrown at the door of Congress, and here rests the responsibility.</p>

<p>Had the garrison at Charleston, representing the claim of the Government
to hold the property in a fort there, been called away thirty days, nay,
ten days ago, peace would have spread its pinions over this land, and calm
negotiation would have been the order of the day. Why was it not recalled?
No reason yet has been offered, save that the Government is
bound to preserve its property; and yet look from North to South, from
East to West, wherever we have constructed forts to defend States against a
foreign foe, and everywhere you find them without a garrison, except at a
few points where troops are kept for special purposes; not to coerce or to
threaten a State, but stationed in seacoast fortifications, there merely for
the purposes of discipline and instruction as artillerists.  You find all the
other forts in the hands of fort-keepers and ordnance-sergeants, and, before
a moral and patriotic people, standing safely there as the property of the
country.</p>

<p>I asked in this Senate, weeks ago: "What causes the peril that is now
imminent at Fort Moultrie; is it the weakness of the garrison?" and then
I answered, "No, it is its presence, not its weakness." Had an ordnance-sergeant
there represented the Federal Government, had there been no
troops, no physical power to protect it, I would have pledged my life upon
the issue that no question ever would have been made as to its seizure.
Now, not only there, but elsewhere, we find movements of troops further
to complicate this question, and probably to precipitate us upon the issue of
civil war; and, worse than all, this Government, reposing on the consent
of the governed; this Government, strong in the affections of the people;
this Government (I describe it as our fathers made it) is now furtively sending
troops to occupy positions lest "the mob" should seize them.  When
before in the history of our land was it that a mob could resist the sound
public opinion of the country? When before was it that an unarmed
magistrate had not the power, by crying, "I command the peace," to quell
a mob in any portion of the land?  Yet now we find, under cover of night,
troops detached from one position to occupy another.  Fort Washington,
standing in its lonely grandeur, and overlooking the home of the Father of
his Country, near by the place where the ashes of Washington repose, built
there to prevent a foreign foe from coming up the Potomac with armed
ships to take the capital&mdash;Fort Washington is garrisoned by marines sent
secretly away from the navy yard at Washington.  And Fort McHenry,
memorable in our history as the place where, under bombardment, the
star-spangled banner floated through the darkness of night, the point which
was consecrated by our national song&mdash;Fort McHenry, too, has been garrisoned
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page605" id="page605"></a>[pg 605]</span>
by a detachment of marines, sent from this place in an extra train,
and sent under cover of the night, so that even the mob should not know it.</p>

<p>Senators, the responsibility is thrown at the door of Congress.  Let us
take it.  It is our duty in this last hour to seize the pillars of our Government
and uphold them, though we be crushed in the fall.  Then what is
our policy?  Are we to drift into war?  Are we to stand idly by, and allow
war to be precipitated upon the country?  Allow an officer of the army to
make war?  Allow an unconfirmed head of a department to make war?
Allow a general of the army to make war?  Allow a President to make
war? No, sir. Our fathers gave to Congress the power to declare war,
and even to Congress they gave no power to make war upon a State of the
Union. It could not have been given, except as a power to dissolve the
Union. When, then, we see, as is evident to the whole country, that we
are drifting into a war between the United States and an individual State,
does it become the Senate to sit listlessly by and discuss abstract questions,
and read patchwork from the opinions of men now mingled with the dust?
Are we not bound to meet events as they come before us, manfully and
patriotically to struggle with the difficulties which now oppress the country?</p>

<p>In the message yesterday, we were even told that the District of Columbia
was in danger. In danger of what? From whom comes the danger?
Is there a man here who dreads that the deliberations of this body are to
be interrupted by an armed force?  Is there one who would not prefer to
fall with dignity at his station, the representative of a great and peaceful
Government, rather than to be protected by armed bands?  And yet the
rumor is&mdash;and rumors seem now to be so authentic that we credit them
rather than other means of information&mdash;that companies of artillery are to
be quartered in this city to preserve peace, where the laws have heretofore
been supreme, and that this District is to become a camp by calling out
every able-bodied man within its limits to bear arms under the militia law.
Are we invaded?  Is there an insurrection?  Are there two Senators here
who would not be willing to go forth as a file, and put down any resistance
which showed itself in this District against the Government of the United
States?  Is the reproach meant against these, my friends from the South,
who advocate Southern rights and State rights?  If so, it is a base slander.
We claim our rights under the Constitution; we claim our rights reserved
to the States; and we seek by no brute force to gain any advantage which
the law and the Constitution do not give us.  We have never appealed to
mobs.  We have never asked for the army and the navy to protect us.  On
the soil of Mississippi, not the foot of a Federal soldier has been impressed
since 1819, when, flying from the yellow fever, they sought refuge within
the limits of our State; and on the soil of Mississippi there breathes not a
man who asks for any other protection than that which our Constitution
gives us, that which our strong arms afford, and the brave hearts of our
people will insure in every contingency.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page606" id="page606"></a>[pg 606]</span>

<p>Senators, we are rapidly drifting into a position in which this is to
become a government of the army and navy; in which the authority of the
United States is to be maintained, not by law, not by constitutional agreement
between the States, but by physical force; and will you stand still
and see this policy consummated? Will you fold your arms, the degenerate
descendants of those men who proclaimed the eternal principle that government
rests on the consent of the governed; and that every people have a
right to change, modify, or abolish a government when it ceases to answer
the ends for which it was established, and permit this Government imperceptibly
to slide from the moorings where it was originally anchored, and
become a military despotism? It was well said by the Senator from New
York [Mr. <span class="sc">Seward</span>], whom I do not now see in his seat&mdash;well said in a speech
wherein I found but little to commend&mdash;that this Union could not be maintained
by force, and that a Union of force was a despotism.  It was a great
truth, come from what quarter it may.  That was not the Government instituted
by our fathers; and against it, so long as I live, with heart and
hand, I will rebel.</p>

<p>This brings me to a passage in the message which says:</p>

<p>"I certainly had no right to make aggressive war upon any State; and
I am perfectly satisfied that the Constitution has wisely withheld that
power even from Congress"&mdash;very good&mdash;"but the right and the duty to
use military force defensively against those who resist the Federal officers
in the exercise of their legal functions, and against those who assail the
power of the Federal Government, are clear and undeniable."</p>

<p>Is it so?  Where does he get it?  Our fathers were so jealous of a
standing army, that they scarcely would permit the organization and maintenance
of any army!  Where does he get the "clear and undeniable"
power to use the force of the United States in the manner he there proposes?
To execute a process, troops may be summoned in a <span class="sc">posse comitatus</span>;
and here, in the history of our Government, it is not to be forgotten
that in the earlier and, as it is frequently said, the better days of the republic&mdash;and
painfully we feel that they were better indeed&mdash;a President of
the United States did not recur to the army; he went to the people of the
United States. Vaguely and confusedly, indeed, did the Senator from
Tennessee [Mr. <span class="sc">Johnson</span>] bring forward the case of the great man, Washington,
as one in which he had used a means which, he argued, was equivalent
to the coercion of a State; for he said that Washington used the
military power against a portion of a people of the State; and why might
he not as well have used it against the whole State?  Let me tell that
Senator that the case of General Washington has no such application as he
supposes.  It was a case of insurrection in the State of Pennsylvania; and
the very message from which he read communicated the fact that Governor
Mifflin thought it was necessary to call the militia of the adjoining States
to aid him.  President Washington co&ouml;perated with Governor Mifflin; he
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page607" id="page607"></a>[pg 607]</span>
called the militia of adjoining States to co&ouml;perate with those of Pennsylvania.
He used the militia, not as a standing army. It was by the consent
of the Governor; it was by his advice. It was not the invasion of the
State; it was not the coercion of the State; but it was aiding the State to
put down insurrection, and in the very manner provided for in the Constitution
itself.</p>

<p>But, I ask again, what power has the President to use the army and
navy except to execute process?  Are we to have drum-head courts substituted
for those which the Constitution and laws provide?  Are we to have
sergeants sent over the land instead of civil magistrates?  Not so thought
the elder Adams; and here, in passing, I will pay him a tribute he deserves,
as the one to whom, more than any other man among the early founders of
this Government, credit is due for the military principles which prevail in
its organization. Associated with Mr. Jefferson originally, in preparing the
rules and articles of war, Mr. Adams reverted through the long pages of
history back to the empire of Rome, and drew from that foundation the
very rules and articles of war which govern in our country to-day, and
drew them thence because he said they had brought two nations to the
pinnacle of glory&mdash;referring to the Romans and the Britons, whose military
law was borrowed from them. Mr. Adams, however, when an insurrection
occurred in the same State of Pennsylvania, not only relied upon the
militia, but his orders, through Secretary McHenry, required that the
militia of the vicinage should be employed; and, though he did order troops
from Philadelphia, he required the militia of the northern counties to be
employed as long as they were able to execute the laws; and the orders
given to Colonel McPherson, then in New Jersey, were, that Federal troops
should not go across the Jersey line except in the last resort. I say, then,
when we trace our history to its early foundation, under the first two
Presidents of the United States, we find that this idea of using the army
and the navy to execute the laws at the discretion of the President was one
not even entertained, still less acted upon, in any case.</p>

<p>Then, Senators, we are brought to consider passing events. A little garrison
in the harbor of Charleston now occupies a post which, I am sorry to
say, it gained by the perfidious breach of an understanding between the
parties concerned; and here, that I may do justice to one who had not the
power, on this floor at least, to right himself&mdash;who has no friend here to
represent him&mdash;let me say that remark does not apply to Major Anderson;
for I hold that, though his orders were not so designed, as I am assured,
they did empower him to go from one post to another, and to take his
choice of the posts in the harbor of Charleston; but in so doing he committed
an act of hostility. When he dismantled Fort Moultrie, when he
burned the carriages and spiked the guns bearing upon Fort Sumter, he put
Carolina in the attitude of an enemy of the United States; and yet he has
not shown that there was any just cause for apprehension. Vague rumors
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page608" id="page608"></a>[pg 608]</span>
had reached him&mdash;and causeless fear seems now to be the impelling motive
of every public act&mdash;vague rumors of an intention to take Fort Moultrie.
But, sir, a soldier should be confronted by an overpowering force before he
spikes his guns and burns his carriages. A soldier should be confronted by
a public enemy before he destroys the property of the United States lest it
should fall into the hands of such an enemy. Was that fort built to make
war upon Carolina? Was an armament put into it for such a purpose?
Or was it built for the protection of Charleston Harbor; and was it armed
to make that protection effective? If so, what right had any soldier to destroy
that armament lest it should fall into the hands of Carolina?</p>

<p>Some time since I presented to the Senate resolutions which embodied
my views upon this subject, drawing from the Constitution itself the data
on which I based those resolutions. I then invoked the attention of the
Senate in that form to the question as to whether garrisons should be kept
within a State against the consent of that State. Clear was I then, as I am
now, in my conclusion. No garrison should be kept within a State, during
a time of peace, if the State believes the presence of that garrison to be
either offensive or dangerous. Our army is maintained for common defense;
our forts are built out of the common Treasury, to which every State
contributes; and they are perverted from the purpose for which they were
erected whenever they are garrisoned with a view to threaten, to intimidate,
or to control a State in any respect.</p>

<p>Yet, we are told this is no purpose to coerce a State; we are told that
the power does not exist to coerce a State; but the Senator from Tennessee
[Mr. <span class="sc">Johnson</span>] says it is only a power to coerce individuals; and
the Senator from Ohio [Mr. <span class="sc">Wade</span>] seems to look upon this latter power
as a very harmless power in the hands of the President, though the results
of such coercion might be to destroy the State. What is a State? Is it
land and houses? Is it taxable property? Is it the organization of the
local government? Or is it all these combined with the people who possess
them? Destroy the people, and yet not make war upon the State!
To state the proposition is to answer it, by reason of its very absurdity.
It is like making desolation, and calling it peace. There being, as it is admitted
on every hand, no power to coerce a State, I ask what is the use of
a garrison within a State where it needs no defense? The answer from
every candid mind must be, there is none. The answer from every patriotic
breast must be, peace requires under all such circumstances that the garrison
should be withdrawn. Let the Senate to-day, as the responsibility is
thrown at our door, pass those resolutions, or others which better express
the idea contained in them, and you have taken one long step toward
peace, one long stride toward the preservation of the Government of our
fathers.</p>

<p>The President's message of December, however, has all the characteristics
of a diplomatic paper, for diplomacy is said to abhor certainty as Nature
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page609" id="page609"></a>[pg 609]</span>
abhors a vacuum; and it was not within the power of man to reach any
fixed conclusion from that message. When the country was agitated, when
opinions were being formed, when we were drifting beyond the power ever
to return, this was not what we had a right to expect from the Chief Magistrate.
One policy or the other he ought to have taken. If believing this
to be a government of force, if believing it to be a consolidated mass, and
not a confederation of States, he should have said: "No State has a right
to secede; every State is subordinate to the Federal Government, and the
Federal Government must empower me with physical means to reduce to
subjugation the State asserting such a right." If not, if a State-rights man
and a Democrat&mdash;as for many years it has been my pride to acknowledge
our venerable Chief Magistrate to be&mdash;then another line of policy should
have been taken. The Constitution gave no power to the Federal Government
to coerce a State; the Constitution gave an army for the purposes of
common defense, and to preserve domestic tranquillity; but the Constitution
never contemplated using that army against a State. A State exercising
the sovereign function of secession is beyond the reach of the Federal Government,
unless we woo her with the voice of fraternity, and bring her
back to the enticements of affection. One policy or the other should have
been taken; and it is not for me to say which, though my opinion is well
known; but one policy or the other should have been pursued. He should
have brought his opinion to one conclusion or another, and to-day our
country would have been safer than it is.</p>

<p>What is the message before us? Does it benefit the case? Is there a
solution offered here? We are informed in it of propositions made by commissioners
from South Carolina. We are not informed even as to how they
terminated. No countervailing proposition is presented; no suggestion is
made. We are left drifting loosely, without chart or compass.</p>

<p>There is in our recent history, however, an event which might have suggested
a policy to be pursued. When foreigners having no citizenship within
the United States declared war against it and made war upon it; when the
inhabitants of a Territory, disgraced by institutions offensive to the laws of
every State of the Union, held this attitude of rebellion; when the Executive
there had power to use troops, he first sent commissioners of peace to
win them back to their duty. When South Carolina, a sovereign State,
resumes the grants she had delegated; when South Carolina stands in an
attitude which threatens within a short period to involve the country in a
civil war unless the policy of the Government be changed, no suggestion is
made to us that this Government might send commissioners to her; no suggestion
is made to us that better information should be sought; there is no
policy of peace, but we are told the army and navy are in the hands of the
President of the United States, to be used against those who assail the power
of the Federal Government.</p>

<p>Then, my friends, are we to allow events to drift onward to this fatal
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page610" id="page610"></a>[pg 610]</span>
consummation? Are we to do nothing to restore peace? Shall we not, in
addition to the proposition I have already made, to withdraw the force
which complicates the question, send commissioners there in order that we
may learn what this community desire, what this community will do, and
put the two Governments upon friendly relations?</p>

<p>I will not weary the Senate by going over the argument of coercion.
My friend from Ohio [Mr. <span class="sc">Pugh</span>], I may say, has exhausted the subject. I
thank him, because it came appropriately from one not identified by his
position with South Carolina. It came more effectively from him than it
would have done from me, had I (as I have not) a power to present it as
forcibly as he has done. Sirs, let me say, among the painful reflections
which have crowded upon me by day and by night, none have weighed
more heavily upon my heart than the reflection that our separation severs
the ties which have so long bound us to our Northern friends, of whom we
are glad to recognize the Senator as a type.</p>

<p>Now let us return a moment to consider what would have been the state
of the case if the garrison at Charleston had been withdrawn. The fort
would have stood there, not dismantled, but unoccupied. It would have
stood there in the hands of an ordnance-sergeant. Commissioners would
have come to treat of all questions with the Federal Government, of these
forts as well as others. They would have remained there to answer the
ends for which they were constructed&mdash;the ends of defense. If South Carolina
was an independent State, then she might hold to us such a relation as
Rhode Island held after the dissolution of the Confederation and before the
formation of the Union, when Rhode Island appealed to the sympathies existing
between the States connected in the struggles of the Revolution, and
asked that a commercial war should not be waged upon her. These forts
would have stood there then to cover the harbor of a friendly State; and, if
the feeling which once existed among the people of the States had subsisted
still, and that fort had been attacked, brave men from every section would
have rushed to the rescue, and there imperiled their lives in the defense of a
State identified with their early history, and still associated in their breasts
with affectionate memories; the first act of this kind would have been one
appealing to every generous motive of those people, again to reconsider the
question of how we could live together, and through that bloody ordeal to
have brought us into the position in which our fathers left us. There need
have been no collision, as there could have been no question of property
which that State was not ready to meet. If it was a question of dollars
and cents, they came here to adjust it. If it was a question of covering an
interior State, their interests were identical. In whatever way the question
could have been presented, the consequence would have been to relieve the
Government of the charge of maintaining the fort, and to throw it upon the
State which had resolved to be independent.</p>

<p>Thus we see that no evil could have resulted. We have yet to learn
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page611" id="page611"></a>[pg 611]</span>
what evil the opposite policy may bring.  Telegraphic intelligence, by the
man who occupied the seat on the right of me in the old Chamber, was
never relied on. He was the wisest statesman I ever knew&mdash;a man whose
prophetic vision foretold all the trials through which we are now passing;
whose clear intellect, elaborating everything, borrowing nothing from anybody,
seemed to dive into the future, and to unveil those things which are
hidden to other eyes. Need I say I mean Calhoun? No other man than
he would have answered this description. I say, then, not relying upon
telegraphic dispatches, we still have information enough to notify us that
we are on the verge of civil war; that civil war is in the hands of men
irresponsible, as it seems to us; their acts unknown to us; their discretion
not covered by any existing law or usage; and we now have the responsibility
thrown upon us, which justifies us in demanding information to meet
an emergency in which the country is involved.</p>

<p>Is there any point of pride which prevents us from withdrawing that
garrison? I have heard it said by a gallant gentleman, to whom I make no
special reference, that the great objection was an unwillingness to lower
the flag. To lower the flags! Under what circumstances? Does any
man's courage impel him to stand boldly forth to take the life of his brethren?
Does any man insist upon going upon the open field with deadly
weapons to fight his brother on a question of courage? There is no point
of pride. These are your brethren; and they have shed as much glory
upon that flag as any equal number of men in the Union. They are the
men, and that is the locality, where the first Union flag was unfurled, and
where was fought a gallant battle before our independence was declared&mdash;not
the flag with thirteen stripes and thirty-three stars, but a flag with a
cross of St. George, and the long stripes running through it. When the
gallant Moultrie took the British Fort Johnson and carried it, for the first
time, I believe, did the Union flag fly in the air; and that was in October,
1775. When he took the position and threw up a temporary battery with
palmetto-logs and sand, upon the site called Fort Moultrie, that fort was
assailed by the British fleet, and bombarded until the old logs, clinging
with stern tenacity, were filled with balls, but the flag still floated there,
and, though many bled, the garrison conquered.  Those old logs are gone;
the eroding current is even taking away the site where Fort Moultrie stood;
the gallant men who held it now mingle with the earth; but their memories
live in the hearts of a brave people, and their sons yet live, and they,
like their fathers, are ready to bleed and to die for the cause in which their
fathers triumphed. Glorious are the memories clinging around that old
fort which now, for the first time, has been abandoned&mdash;abandoned not
even in the presence of a foe, but under the imaginings that a foe might
come; and guns spiked and carriages burned where the band of Moultrie
bled, and, with an insufficient armament, repelled the common foe of all
the colonies. Her ancient history compares proudly with the present.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page612" id="page612"></a>[pg 612]</span>

<p>Can there, then, be a point of pride upon so sacred a soil as this, where
the blood of the fathers cries to heaven against civil war? Can there be
a point of pride against laying upon that sacred soil to-day the flag for
which our fathers died? My pride, Senators, is different. My pride is
that that flag shall not set between contending brothers; and that, when it
shall no longer be the common flag of the country, it shall be folded up and
laid away like a vesture no longer used; that it shall be kept as a sacred
memento of the past, to which each of us can make a pilgrimage and remember
the glorious days in which we were born.</p>

<p>In the answer of the commissioners which I caused to be read yesterday,
I observed that they referred to Fort Sumter as remaining a memento
of Carolina faith. It is an instance of the accuracy of the opinion which
I have expressed. It stood without a garrison. It commanded the harbor,
and the fort was known to have the armament in it capable of defense.
Did the Carolinians attack it? Did they propose to seize it? It stood
there safe as public property; and there it might have stood to the end of
the negotiations without a question, if a garrison had not been sent into it.
It was the faith on which they relied, that the Federal Government would
take no position of hostility to them, that constituted its safety, and by
which they lost the advantage they would have had in seizing it when
unoccupied.</p>

<p>I think that something is due to faith as well as fraternity; and I think
one of the increasing and accumulative obligations upon us to withdraw the
garrison from that fort is from the manner in which it was taken&mdash;taken,
as we heard by the reading of the paper yesterday, while Carolina remained
under the assurance that the <i>status</i> would not be violated; while
I was under that assurance, and half a dozen other Senators now within
the sound of my voice felt secure under the same pledge, that nothing
would be done until negotiations had terminated, unless it was to withdraw
the garrison. Then we, the Federal Government, broke the faith; we
committed the first act of hostility; and from this first act of hostility arose
all those acts to which reference is made in the message as unprovoked
aggressions&mdash;the seizing of forts elsewhere. Why were they seized? Self-preservation
is the first law of nature; and when they no longer had confidence
that this Federal Government would not seize the forts constructed
for their defense, and use them for their destruction, they only obeyed the
dictates of self-preservation when they seized the forts to prevent the
enemy from taking possession of them as a means of coercion, for they then
were compelled to believe this Federal Government had become an enemy.</p>

<p>Now, what is the remedy? To assure them that you do not intend to
use physical force against them is your first remedy; to assure them that
you intend to consider calmly all the propositions which they make, and to
recognize the rights which the Union was established to secure; that you
intend to settle with them upon a basis in accordance with the Declaration
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page613" id="page613"></a>[pg 613]</span>
of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. When you do
that, peace will prevail over the land, and force become a thing that no
man will consider necessary.</p>

<p>I am here confronted with a question which I will not argue. The
position which I have taken necessarily brings me to its consideration.
Without arguing it, I will merely state it. It is the right of a State to
withdraw from the Union. The President says it is not a constitutional
right. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. <span class="sc">Wade</span>], and his ally, the Senator from
Tennessee [Mr. <span class="sc">Johnson</span>], argued it as no right at all. Well, let us see.
What is meant by a constitutional right? Is it meant to be a right derived
from the Constitution&mdash;a grant made in the Constitution? If that is what
is meant, of course we all see at once that we do not derive it in that way.
Is it intended that it is not a constitutional right, because it is not granted
in the Constitution? That shows, indeed, but a poor appreciation of the
nature of our Government. All that is not granted in the Constitution
belongs to the States; and nothing but what is granted in the Constitution
belongs to the Federal Government; and, keeping this distinction in view,
it requires but little argument to see the conclusion at which we necessarily
arrive. Did the States surrender their sovereignty to the Federal Government?
Did the States agree that they never could withdraw from the
Federal Union?</p>

<p>I know it has been argued here that the Confederation said the Articles
of Confederation were to be a perpetual bond of union, and that the
Constitution was made to form a more perfect union; that is to say, a
Government beyond perpetuity, or one day, or two or three days, after
doomsday. But that has no foundation in the Constitution itself; it has no
basis in the nature of our Government. The Constitution was a compact
between independent States; it was not a national Government; and hence
Mr. Madison answered with such effectiveness to Patrick Henry, in the
Convention of Virginia, which ratified the Constitution, denying his proposition
that it was to form a nation, and stating to him the conclusive fact
that "we sit here as a convention of the State to ratify or reject that Constitution;
and how, then, can you say that it forms a nation, and is adopted
by the mass of the people?" It was not adopted by the mass of the people,
as we all know historically; it was adopted by each State; each State, voluntarily
ratifying it, entered the Union; and that Union was formed whenever
nine States should enter it; and, in abundance of caution, it was stated,
in the resolutions of ratification of three of the States, that they still possessed
the power to withdraw the grants which they had delegated, whenever
they should be used to their injury or oppression. I know it is said
that this meant the people of all the States; but that is such an absurdity
that I suppose it hardly necessary to answer it&mdash;for to speak of an elective
Government rendering itself injurious and oppressive to the whole body of
the people by whom it is elected is such an absurdity that no man can
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page614" id="page614"></a>[pg 614]</span>
believe it; and to suppose that a State convention, speaking for a State,
and having no authority to speak for anybody else, would say that it was
declaring what the people of the other States would do, would be an assumption
altogether derogatory to the sound sense and well-known sentiments
of the men who formed the Constitution and ratified it.</p>

<p>But in abundance of caution not only was this done, but the tenth
amendment of the Constitution declared that all which had not been delegated
was reserved to the States or to the people. Now, I ask, where
among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any
power to coerce a State; where among the provisions of the Constitution
do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and, if you
find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository,
the reserved rights of the States? How was it ever taken out of
that source of all power to be given to the Federal Government? It was
not delegated to the Federal Government; it was not prohibited to the
States; it necessarily remains, then, among the reserved powers of the
States.</p>

<p>This question has been so forcibly argued by the Senator from Louisiana
[Mr. <span class="sc">Benjamin</span>] that I think it unnecessary to pursue it. Three times the
proposition was made to give power to coerce the States, in the Convention,
and as often refused&mdash;opposed as a proposition to make war on a
State, and refused on the ground that the Federal Government could not
make war upon a State. The Constitution was to form a Government for
such States as should unite; it had no application beyond those who should
voluntarily adopt it. Among the delegated powers there is none which interferes
with the exercise of the right of secession by a State. As a right
of sovereignty it remained to the States under the Confederation; and, if
it did not, you arraign the faith of the men who framed the Constitution to
which you appeal, for they provided that nine States should secede from
thirteen.  Eleven did secede from the thirteen, and put themselves in the
very position which, by a great abuse of language, is to-day called treason,
against the two States of North Carolina and Rhode Island; they still
claiming to adhere to the perpetual Articles of Confederation, these eleven
States absolving themselves from the obligations which arose under
them.</p>

<p>The Senator from Tennessee, to whom I must refer again&mdash;and I do so
because he is a Southern Senator&mdash;taking the most hostile ground against
us, refers to the State of Tennessee, and points to the time when that State
may do those things which he has declared it an absurdity for any State to
perform. I will read a single paragraph from his speech, showing what
his language is, in order that I may not, by any possibility, produce an impression
upon others which his language does not justify.  Here are the
expressions to which I refer.  I call the Senator's attention to them:</p>

<p>"If there are grievances, why can not we all go together, and write them
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page615" id="page615"></a>[pg 615]</span>
down and point them out to our Northern friends after we have agreed on
what those grievances were, and say: 'Here is what we demand; here our
wrongs are enumerated; upon these terms we have agreed; and now, after
we have given you a reasonable time to consider these additional guarantees
in order to protect ourselves against these wrongs, if you refuse them,
then, having made an honorable effort, having exhausted all other means,
we may declare the association to be broken up, and we may go into an act
of revolution.' We can then say to them, 'You have refused to give us
guarantees that we think are needed for the protection of our institutions
and for the protection of our other interests.'  When they do this, I will go
as far as he who goes the farthest."</p>

<p>Now, it does appear that he will go that far; and he goes a little further
than anybody, I believe, who has spoken in vindication of the right, for he
says:</p>

<p>"We do not intend that you shall drive us out of this House that was
reared by the hands of our fathers. It is our House. It is the constitutional
House. We have a right here; and because you come forward and violate
the ordinances of this House, I do not intend to go out; and, if you persist
in the violation of the ordinances of the House, we intend to eject you from
the building and retain the possession ourselves."</p>

<p>I wonder if this is what caused the artillery companies to be ordered
here, and the militia of this city to be organized? I think it was a mere figure
of speech. I do not believe the Senator from Tennessee intended to kick
you out of the House; and, if he did, let me say to you, in all sincerity, we
who claim the constitutional right of a State to withdraw from the Union
do not intend to help him. He says, however, and this softens it a little:</p>

<p>"We do not think, though, that we have just cause for going out of the
Union now. We have just cause of complaint; but we are for remaining
in the Union, and fighting the battle like men."</p>

<p>What does that mean?  In the name of common sense, I ask how are
we to fight in the Union?  We take an oath of office to maintain the Constitution
of the United States.  The Constitution of the United States was
formed for domestic tranquillity; and how, then, are we to fight in the
Union?  I have heard the proposition from others; but I have not understood
it.  I understand how men fight when they assume attitudes of hostility;
but I do not understand how men, remaining connected together in
a bond as brethren, sworn to mutual aid and protection, still propose to fight
each other.  I do not understand what the Senator means.  If he chooses
to answer my question, I am willing to hear him, for I do not understand
how we are to fight in the Union.</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Johnson</span>, of Tennessee: When my speech is taken altogether, I
think my meaning can be very easily understood. What I mean by fighting
the battle in the Union is, I think, very distinctly and clearly set forth in
my speech; and, if the Senator will take it from beginning to end, I apprehend
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page616" id="page616"></a>[pg 616]</span>
that he will have no difficulty in ascertaining what I meant.  But, for
his gratification upon this particular point, I will repeat, in substance, what
I then said as to fighting the battle in the Union.  I meant that we should
remain here under the Constitution of the United States and contend for all
its guarantees; and by preserving the Constitution and all its guarantees
we would preserve the Union.  Our true place, to maintain these guarantees
and to preserve the Constitution, is in the Union, there to fight our battle.
How? By argument; by appeals to the patriotism, to the good sense, and
to the judgment of the whole country; by showing the people that the
Constitution had been violated; that all its guarantees were not complied
with; and I have entertained the hope that, when they were possessed of
that fact, there would be found patriotism and honesty enough in the great
mass of the people, North and South, to come forward and do what was just
and right between the contending sections of the country.  I meant that the
true way to fight the battle was for us to remain here and occupy the places
assigned to us by the Constitution of the country.  Why did I make that
statement? It was because on the 4th day of March next we shall have
six majority in this body; and if, as some apprehended, the incoming Administration
shall show any disposition to make encroachments upon the institution
of slavery, encroachments upon the rights of the States, or any
other violation of the Constitution, we, by remaining in the Union, and
standing at our places, will have the power to resist all these encroachments.
How? We have the power even to reject the appointment of the
Cabinet officers of the incoming President.  Then, should we not be fighting
the battles in the Union, by resisting even the organization of the Administration
in a constitutional mode, and thus, at the very start, disable an
Administration which was likely to encroach on our rights and to violate
the Constitution of the country? So far as appointing even a Minister
abroad is concerned, the incoming Administration will have no power without
our consent, if we remain here.  It comes into office handcuffed, powerless
to do harm.  We, standing here, hold the balance of power in our
hands; we can resist it at the very threshold effectually; and do it inside
of the Union, and in our House. The incoming Administration has not even
the power to appoint a postmaster whose salary exceeds one thousand dollars
a year, without consultation with and the acquiescence of the Senate of
the United States. The President has not even the power to draw his
salary&mdash;his twenty-five thousand dollars per annum&mdash;unless we appropriate
it. I contend, then, that the true place to fight the battle is in the Union,
and within the provisions of the Constitution.  The army and navy cannot
be sustained without appropriations by Congress; and, if we were apprehensive
that encroachments would be made on the Southern States and on
their institutions, in violation of the Constitution, we could prevent him
from having a dollar even to feed his army or his navy.</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Davis</span>: I receive the answer from the Senator, and I think I comprehend
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page617" id="page617"></a>[pg 617]</span>
now that he is not going to use any force, but it is a sort of fighting
that is to be done by votes and words; and I think, therefore, the
President need not bring artillery and order out the militia to suppress
them. I think, altogether, we are not in danger of much bloodshed in the
mode proposed by the Senator from Tennessee.</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Johnson</span>: I had not quite done; but if the Senator is satisfied&mdash;</p>

<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Davis</span>: Quite satisfied. I am entirely satisfied that the answer of
the Senator shows me he did not intend to fight at all; that it was a mere
figure of speech, and does not justify converting the Federal capital into a
military camp.  But it is a sort of revolution which he proposes; it is a
revolution under the forms of the Government. Now, I have to say, once
for all, that, as long as I am a Senator here, I will not use the powers I
possess to destroy the very Government to which I am accredited. I will
not attempt, in the language of the Senator, to handcuff the President. I
will not attempt to destroy the Administration by refusing any officers to
administer its functions. I should vote, as I have done in Administrations
to which I stood in nearest relation, against a bad nomination; but I never
would agree, under the forms of the Constitution, and with the powers I
bear as a Senator of the United States, to turn those powers to the destruction
of the Government I was sent to support. I leave that to gentlemen
who take the oath with a mental reservation. It is not my policy. If I
must have revolution, I say let it be a revolution such as our fathers made
when they were denied their natural rights.</p>

<p>So much for that. It has quieted apprehension; and I hope that the
artillery will not be brought here; that the militia will not be called out;
and that the female schools will continue their sessions as heretofore.
[Laughter.] The authority of Mr. Madison, however, was relied on by the
Senator from Tennessee; and he read fairly an extract from Mr. Madison's
letter to Mr. Webster, and I give him credit for reading what it seems to me
destroys his whole argument.  It is this clause:</p>

<p>"The powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective
and responsible governments, under the control of its constituents, the
people, and the Legislatures of the States, and subject to the revolutionary
rights of the people in extreme cases."</p>

<p>Now, sir, we are confusing language very much. Men speak of revolution;
and when they say revolution they mean blood. Our fathers meant
nothing of the sort. When they spoke of revolution they meant an unalienable
right. When they declared as an unalienable right the power of the
people to abrogate and modify their form of government whenever it did
not answer the ends for which it was established, they did not mean that
they were to sustain that by brute force. They meant that it was a right;
and force could only be invoked when that right was wrongfully denied.
Great Britain denied the right in the case of the colonies, and therefore
our revolution for independence was bloody. If Great Britain had admitted
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page618" id="page618"></a>[pg 618]</span>
the great American doctrine, there would have been no blood shed;
and does it become the descendants of those who proclaimed this as the
great principle on which they took their place among the nations of the
earth, now to proclaim, if that is a right, it is one which you can only get
as the subjects of the Emperor of Austria may get their rights, by force
overcoming force? Are we, in this age of civilization and political progress,
when political philosophy had advanced to the point which seemed
to render it possible that the millennium should now be seen by prophetic
eyes&mdash;are we now to roll back the whole current of human thought, and
again to return to the mere brute force which prevails between beasts of
prey, as the only method of settling questions between men?</p>

<p>If the Declaration of Independence be true (and who here gainsays it?),
every community may dissolve its connection with any other community
previously made, and have no other obligation than that which results from
the breach of an alliance between States. Is it to be supposed; could any
man, reasoning <i>a priori</i>, come to the conclusion that the men who fought
the battles of the Revolution for community independence&mdash;that the men
who struggled against the then greatest military power on the face of the
globe in order that they might possess those unalienable rights which they
had declared&mdash;terminated their great efforts by transmitting posterity to a
condition in which they could only gain those rights by force?  If so, the
blood of the Revolution was shed in vain; no great principles were established;
for force was the law of nature before the battles of the Revolution
were fought.</p>

<p>I see, then&mdash;if gentlemen insist on using the word "revolution" in the
sense of a resort to force&mdash;a very great difference between their opinion
and that of Mr. Madison. Mr. Madison put the rights of the people over
and above everything else, and he said this was the Government <i>de jure</i>
and <i>de facto</i>.  Call it by what name you will, he understood ours to be a
Government of the people. The people never have separated themselves
from those rights which our fathers had declared to be unalienable. They
did not delegate to the Federal Government the powers which the British
Crown exercised over the colonies; they did not achieve their independence
for any purpose so low as that. They left us to the inheritance of
freemen, living in independent communities, the States united for the purposes
which they thought would bless posterity. It is in the exercise of
this reserved right as defined by Mr. Madison, as one to which all the
powers of Government are subject, that the people of a State in convention
have claimed to resume the functions which in like manner they had
made to the Federal Government....</p>

<p>The question which now presents itself to the country is, What shall we
do with events as they stand? Shall we allow this separation to be total?
Shall we render it peaceful, with a view to the chance that, when hunger
shall brighten the intellects of men, and the teachings of hard experience
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page619" id="page619"></a>[pg 619]</span>
shall have tamed them, they may come back, in the spirit of our fathers,
to the task of reconstruction? Or will they have that separation partial;
will they give to each State all its military power; will they give to each
State its revenue power; will they still preserve the common agent, and
will they thus carry on a Government different from that which now
exists, yet not separating the States so entirely as to make the work of reconstruction
equal to a new creation; not separating them so as to render
it utterly impossible to administer any functions of the Government in security
and peace?</p>

<p>I waive the question of duality, considering that a dual Executive would
be the institution of a King Log. I consider a dual legislative department
would be to bring into antagonism the representatives of two different
countries, to war perpetually, and thus to continue, not union, but the irrepressible
conflict. There is no duality possible (unless there be two confederacies)
which seems to me consistent with the interests of either or of
both. It might be that two confederacies could be so organized as to answer
jointly many of the ends of our present Union; it might be that
States, agreeing with each other in their internal policy&mdash;having a similarity
of interests and an identity of purpose&mdash;might associate together, and that
these two confederacies might have relations to each other so close as
to give them a united power in time of war against any foreign nation.
These things are possibilities; these things it becomes us to contemplate;
these things it devolves on the majority section to consider now; for with
every motion of that clock is passing away your opportunity. It was
greater when we met on the first Monday in December than it is now; it
is greater now than it will be on the first day of next week. We have
waited long; we have come to the conclusion that you mean to do nothing.
In the Committee of Thirteen, where the resolutions of the Senator from
Kentucky [Mr. <span class="sc">Crittenden</span>] were considered, various attempts were made,
but no prospect of any agreement on which it was possible for us to stand,
in security for the future, could be matured. I offered a proposition, which
was but the declaration of that which the Constitution announces; but
that which the Supreme Court had, from time to time, and from an early
period asserted; but that which was necessary for equality in the Union.
Not one single vote of the Republican portion of that committee was given
for the proposition.</p>

<p>Looking, then, upon separation as inevitable, not knowing how that
separation is to occur, or at least what States it is to embrace, there remains
to us, I believe, as the consideration which is most useful, the inquiry, How
can this separation be effected so as to leave to us the power, whenever we
shall have the will, to reconstruct?  It can only be done by adopting a
policy of peace. It can only be done by denying to the Federal Government
all power to coerce. It can only be done by returning to the point
from which we started, and saying, "This is a Government of fraternity, a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page620" id="page620"></a>[pg 620]</span>
Government of consent, and it shall not be administered in a departure
from those principles."</p>

<p>I do not regard the failure of our constitutional Union, as very many
do, to be the failure of self-government&mdash;to be conclusive in all future time
of the unfitness of man to govern himself. Our State governments have
charge of nearly all the relations of person and property. This Federal
Government was instituted mainly as a common agent for foreign purposes,
for free trade among the States, and for common defense. Representative
liberty will remain in the States after they are separated. Liberty was not
crushed by the separation of the colonies from the mother-country, then
the most constitutional monarchy and the freest Government known. Still
less will liberty be destroyed by the separation of these States, to prevent
the destruction of the spirit of the Constitution by the mal-administration
of it. There will be injury&mdash;injury to all; differing in degree, differing in
manner. The injury to the manufacturing and navigating States will be to
their internal prosperity. The injury to the Southern States will be mainly
to their foreign commerce. All will feel the deprivation of that high pride
and power which belong to the flag now representing the greatest republic,
if not the greatest Government, upon the face of the globe. I would
that it still remained to consider what we might calmly have considered on
the first Monday in December&mdash;how this could be avoided; but events have
rolled past that point. You would not make propositions when they would
have been effective. I presume you will not make them now; and I know
not what effect they would have if you did. Your propositions would have
been most welcome if they had been made before any question of coercion,
and before any vain boasting of power; for pride and passion do not often
take counsel of pecuniary interest, at least among those whom I represent.
But you have chosen to take the policy of clinging to words [the Chicago
platform], in disregard of passing events, and have hastened them onward.
It is true, as shown by the history of all revolutions, that they are most
precipitated and intensified by obstinacy and vacillation. The want of a
policy, the obstinate adherence to unimportant things, have brought us to
a condition where I close my eyes, because I can not see anything that
encourages me to hope.</p>

<p>In the long period which elapsed after the downfall of the great republics
of the East, when despotism seemed to brood over the civilized world,
and only here and there constitutional monarchy even was able to rear its
head&mdash;when all the great principles of republican and representative government
had sunk deep, fathomless, into the sea of human events&mdash;it was
then that the storm of our Revolution moved the waters. The earth, the
air, and the sea became brilliant; and from the foam of ages rose the constellation
which was set in the political firmament, as a sign of unity and
confederation and community independence, coexistent with confederate
strength. That constellation has served to bless our people. Nay, more;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page621" id="page621"></a>[pg 621]</span>
its light has been thrown on foreign lands, and its regenerative power will
outlive, perhaps, the Government as a sign for which it was set. It may
be pardoned to me, sir, who, in my boyhood, was given to the military service,
and who have followed, under tropical suns and over northern snows,
the flag of the Union, if I here express the deep sorrow which always overwhelms
me when I think of taking a last leave of that object of early affection
and proud association; feeling that henceforth it is not to be the
banner which, by day and by night, I was ready to follow; to hail with the
rising and bless with the setting sun. But God, who knows the hearts of
men, will judge between you and us, at whose door lies the responsibility.
Men will see the efforts made, here and elsewhere; that we have been silent
when words would not avail, and have curbed an impatient temper, and
hoped that conciliatory counsels might do that which could not be effected
by harsh means. And yet, the only response which has come from the
other side has been a stolid indifference, as though it mattered not: "Let the
temple fall, we do not care!" Sirs, remember that such conduct is offensive,
and that men may become indifferent even to the objects of their early
attachments.</p>

<p>If our Government should fail, it will not be from the defect of the system,
though each planet was set to revolve in an orbit of its own, each
moving by its own impulse, yet being all attracted by the affections and
interests which countervailed each other; there was no inherent tendency
to disruption. It has been the perversion of the Constitution; it has been
the substitution of theories of morals for principles of government; it has
been forcing crude opinions upon the domestic institutions of others, which
has disturbed these planets in their orbit; it is this which threatens to destroy
the constellation which, in its power and its glory, had been gathering
stars one after another, until, from thirteen, it had risen to thirty-three.</p>

<p>If we accept the argument of to-day in favor of coercion as the theory
of our Government, its only effect will be to precipitate men who have
pride and self-reliance into the assertion of the freedom and independence
to which they were born. Our fathers would never have entered into a
confederate Government which had within itself the power of coercion; they
would not agree to remain one day in such a Government after I had the
power to get out of it. To argue that the man who follows the mandate of
his State, resuming her sovereign jurisdiction and power, is disloyal to his
allegiance to the United States, which allegiance he only owed through his
State, is such a confusion of ideas as does not belong to an ordinary comprehension
of our Government. It is treason to the principle of community
independence. It is to recur to that doctrine of passive obedience which,
in England, cost one monarch his head and drove another into exile; a
doctrine which, since the Revolution of 1688, has obtained nowhere where
men speak the English tongue. Yet all this it is needful to admit, before
we accept this doctrine of coercion, which is to send an army and a navy
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page622" id="page622"></a>[pg 622]</span>
to do that which there are no courts to perform; to execute the law without
a judicial decision, and without an officer to serve process. This, I say,
would degrade us to the basest despotism under which man could live&mdash;the
despotism of a many-headed monster, without the sensibility or regardful
consideration which might belong to an hereditary king.<a id="footnotetag207" name="footnotetag207"></a><a href="#footnote207"><sup>207</sup></a></p>

<hr />

<p>There is a strange similarity in the position of affairs at the present day
to that which the colonies occupied. Lord North asserted the right to collect
the revenue, and insisted on collecting it by force. He sent troops to
Boston Harbor and to Charlestown, and he quartered troops in those towns.
The result was, collision; and out of that collision came the separation of
the colonies from the mother-country. The same thing is being attempted
to-day. Not the law, not the civil magistrate, but troops, are relied upon
now to execute the laws. To gather taxes in the Southern ports, the
army and navy must be sent to perform the functions of magistrates. It
is the old case over again. Senators of the North, you are re&euml;nacting the
blunders which statesmen in Great Britain committed; but among you
there are some who, like Chatham and Burke, though not of our section,
yet are vindicating our rights.</p>

<p>I have heard, with some surprise, for it seemed to me idle, the repetition
of the assertion heretofore made, that the cause of the separation was
the election of Mr. Lincoln. It may be a source of gratification to some
gentlemen that their friend is elected; but no individual had the power to
produce the existing state of things. It was the purpose, the end, it was
the declaration by himself and his friends, which constitute the necessity of
providing new safeguards for ourselves. The man was nothing, save as he
was the representative of opinions, of a policy, of purposes, of power, to
inflict upon us those wrongs to which freemen never tamely submit.</p>

<p>Senators, I have spoken longer than I desired. I had supposed it was
possible, avoiding argument and not citing authority, to have made to you
a brief address. It was thought useless to argue a question which now
belongs to the past. The time is near at hand when the places which have
known us as colleagues laboring together can know us in that relation no
more for ever. I have striven to avert the catastrophe which now impends
over the country, unsuccessfully; and I regret it. For the few days which
I may remain, I am willing to labor in order that that catastrophe shall be
as little as possible destructive to public peace and prosperity. If you desire
at this last moment to avert civil war, so be it; it is better so. If you
will but allow us to separate from you peaceably, since we can not live
peaceably together, to leave with the rights we had before we were united,
since we can not enjoy them in the Union, then there are many relations
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page623" id="page623"></a>[pg 623]</span>
which may still subsist between us, drawn from the associations of our
struggles from the Revolutionary era to the present day, which may be
beneficial to you as well as to us.</p>

<p>If you will not have it thus&mdash;if in the pride of power, if in contempt of
reason, and reliance upon force, you say we shall not go, but shall remain
as subjects to you&mdash;then, gentlemen of the North, a war is to be inaugurated
the like of which men have not seen. Sufficiently numerous on both sides,
in close contact, with only imaginary lines of division, and with many
means of approach, each sustained by productive sections, the people of
which will give freely both of money and of store, the conflicts must be
multiplied indefinitely, and masses of men, sacrificed to the demon of civil
war, will furnish hecatombs, such as the recent campaign in Italy did not
offer. At the end of all this what will you have effected?  Destruction
upon both sides; subjugation upon neither; a treaty of peace leaving both
torn and bleeding; the wail of the widow and the cry of the orphan substituted
for those peaceful notes of domestic happiness that now prevail
throughout the land; and then you will agree that each is to pursue his
separate course as best he may. This is to be the end of war. Through a
long series of years you may waste your strength, distress your people, and
yet at last must come to the position which you might have had at first,
had justice and reason, instead of selfishness and passion, folly and crime,
dictated your course.</p>

<p>Is there wisdom, is there patriotism in the land? If so, easy must be
the solution of this question. If not, then Mississippi's gallant sons will
stand like a wall of fire around their State; and I go hence, not in hostility
to you, but in love and allegiance to her, to take my place among her sons,
be it for good or for evil.</p>

<p>I shall probably never again attempt to utter here the language either of
warning or of argument. I leave the case in your hands. If you solve it
not before I go, you will have still to decide it. Toward you individually,
as well as to those whom you represent, I would that I had the power now
to say there shall be peace between us for ever. I would that I had the
power now to say the intercourse and the commerce between the States, if
they can not live in one Union, shall still be uninterrupted; that all the
social relations shall remain undisturbed; that the son in Mississippi shall
visit freely his father in Maine, and the reverse; and that each shall be
welcomed when he goes to the other, not by himself alone, but also by his
neighbors; and that all that kindly intercourse which has subsisted between
the different sections of the Union shall continue to exist. This is not only
for the interest of all, but it is my profoundest wish, my sincerest desire,
that such remnant of that which is passing away may grace the memory of
a glorious though too brief existence.</p>

<p>Day by day you have become more and more exasperated. False reports
have led you to suppose there was in our section hostility to you with manifestations
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page624" id="page624"></a>[pg 624]</span>
which did not exist. In one case, I well remember when the
Senator from Vermont [Mr. <span class="sc">Collamer</span>] was serving with me on a special
committee, it was reported that a gentleman who had gone from a commercial
house in New York had been inhumanly treated at Vicksburg, and
this embarrassed a question which we then had pending. I wrote to Vicksburg
for information, and my friends could not learn that such a man had
ever been there; but, if he had been there, no violence certainly had been
offered to him. Falsehood and suspicion have thus led you on step by step
in the career of crimination, and perhaps has induced to some part of your
aggression. Such evil effects we have heretofore suffered, and the consequences
now have their fatal culmination. On the verge of war, distrust
and passion increase the danger. To-day it is in the power of two bad
men, at the opposite ends of the telegraphic line between Washington and
Charleston, to precipitate the State of South Carolina and the United States
into a conflict of arms without other cause to have produced it.</p>

<p>And still will you hesitate; still will you do nothing? Will you sit with
sublime indifference and allow events to shape themselves? No longer can
you say the responsibility is upon the Executive. He has thrown it upon
you. He has notified you that he can do nothing; and you therefore know
he will do nothing. He has told you the responsibility now rests with
Congress; and I close as I began, by invoking you to meet that responsibility,
bravely to act the patriot's part. If you will, the angel of peace may
spread her wings, though it be over divided States; and the sons of the
sires of the Revolution may still go on in friendly intercourse with each
other, ever renewing the memories of a common origin; the sections, by
the diversity of their products and habits, acting and reacting beneficially,
the commerce of each may swell the prosperity of both, and the happiness
of all be still interwoven together. Thus may it be; and thus it is in your
power to make it.
</p></blockquote>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote207" name="footnote207"></a><b>Footnote 207:</b><a href="#footnotetag207"> (return) </a><p> Here occurred a colloquy with another Senator, followed by some paragraphs
not essential to the completeness of the subject.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="appendix-i" id="appendix-i"></a>APPENDIX I.</h2>


<p>Correspondence and extracts from correspondence relative
to Fort Sumter, from the affair of the Star of the West, January
9, 1861, to the withdrawal of the envoy of South Carolina from
Washington, February 8, 1861.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Major Anderson to the Governor of South Carolina.</i></p>

<p><i>To his Excellency the Governor of South Carolina.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: Two of your batteries fired this morning upon an unarmed vessel
bearing the flag of my Government. As I have not been notified that war
has been declared by South Carolina against the Government of the United
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page625" id="page625"></a>[pg 625]</span>
States, I can not but think that this hostile act was committed without your
sanction or authority. Under that hope, and that alone, did I refrain from
opening fire upon your batteries.</p>

<p>I have the honor, therefore, respectfully to ask whether the above-mentioned
act&mdash;one I believe without a parallel in the history of our
country, or of any other civilized Government&mdash;was committed in obedience
to your instructions, and to notify you, if it be not disclaimed, that
I must regard it as an act of war, and that I shall not, after a reasonable
time for the return of my messenger, permit any vessels to pass within
range of the guns of my fort.</p>

<p>In order to save as far as in my power the shedding of blood, I beg that
you will have due notification of this my decision given to all concerned.</p>

<p>Hoping, however, that your answer may be such as will justify a further
continuance of forbearance on my part, I have the honor to be,</p>

<p>Very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>ROBERT ANDERSON,</p>

<p><i>Major First Artillery U. S. A., commanding</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Fort Sumter, South Carolina</span>, <i>January 9, 1861</i>.
</p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p>
<i>Extracts from reply of the Governor to Major Anderson</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">State of South Carolina, Executive Office, Headquarters</span>,</p>

<p><span class="sc">Charleston</span>, <i>January 9, 1861</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: Your letter has been received. In it you make certain statements
which very plainly show that you have not been fully informed by your
Government of the precise relations which now exist between it and the
State of South Carolina. Official information has been communicated to
the Government of the United States that the political connection heretofore
existing between the State of South Carolina and the States which
were known as the United States had ceased, and that the State of South
Carolina had resumed all the power it had delegated to the United States
under the compact known as the Constitution of the United States. The
right which the State of South Carolina possessed to change the political
relations it held with other States, under the Constitution of the United
States, has been solemnly asserted by the people of this State, in convention,
and now does not admit of discussion.</p>

<hr />

<p>The attempt to re&euml;nforce the troops now at Fort Sumter, or to retake
and resume possession of the forts within the waters of this State, which
you have abandoned, after spiking the guns placed there, and doing otherwise
much damage, can not be regarded by the authorities of this State as
indicative of any other purpose than the coercion of the State by the armed
force of the Government. To repel such an attempt is too plainly its duty
to allow it to be discussed. But, while defending its waters, the authorities
of the State have been careful so to conduct the affairs of the State that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page626" id="page626"></a>[pg 626]</span>
no act, however necessary for its defense, should lead to a useless waste of
life. Special agents, therefore, have been off the bar, to warn all approaching
vessels, if armed, or unarmed and having troops to re&euml;nforce the forts
on board, not to enter the harbor of Charleston; and special orders have
been given to the commanders of all the forts and batteries not to fire at
such vessels until a shot fired across their bows would warn them of the
prohibition of the State.</p>

<p>Under these circumstances, the Star of the West, it is understood, this
morning attempted to enter this harbor, with troops on board; and, having
been notified that she could not enter, was fired into. The act is perfectly
justified by me.</p>

<p>In regard to your threat in relation to vessels in the harbor, it is only
necessary to say, that you must judge of your responsibilities. Your position
in this harbor has been tolerated by the authorities of the State. And,
while the act of which you complain is in perfect consistency with the
rights and duties of the State, it is not perceived how far the conduct which
you propose to adopt can find a parallel in the history of any country, or
be reconciled with any other purpose of your Government than that of imposing
upon this State the condition of a conquered province.</p>

<p>F. W. PICKENS.</p>

<p>To Major <span class="sc">Robert Anderson</span>, <i>commanding Fort Sumter</i>.
</p></blockquote>

<p><i>Major Anderson to the Governor.</i></p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Headquarters, Fort Sumter, South Carolina</span>, <i>January 9, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>To his Excellency F. W. PICKENS,</p>

<p><i>Governor of the State of South Carolina.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication
of to-day, and to say that, under the circumstances, I have deemed it
proper to refer the whole matter to my Government; and that I intend
deferring the course indicated in my note of this morning until the arrival
from Washington of the instructions I may receive. I have the honor also
to express a hope that no obstructions will be placed in the way of, and
that you will do me the favor to afford every facility to, the departure and
return of the bearer, Lieutenant T. Talbot, U. S. Army, who has been
directed to make the journey.</p>

<p>I have the honor to be, very respectfully,</p>

<p>ROBERT ANDERSON,</p>

<p><i>Major U. S. Army, commanding.</i>
</p></blockquote>

<p><i>The Governor to the President of the United States.</i></p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">State of South Carolina, Executive Office,</span></p>

<p><span class="sc">Headquarters, Charleston</span>, <i>January 11, 1861</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: At the time of the separation of the State of South Carolina from
the United States, Fort Sumter was, and still is, in the possession of troops
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page627" id="page627"></a>[pg 627]</span>
of the United States, under the command of Major Anderson.  I regard
that possession as not consistent with the dignity or safety of the State of
South Carolina; and I have this day addressed to Major Anderson a communication
to obtain from him the possession of that fort, by the authorities
of this State.  The reply of Major Anderson informs me that he has no
authority to do what I required, but he desires a reference of the demand
to the President of the United States.</p>

<p>Under the circumstances now existing, and which need no comment by
me, I have determined to send to you the Hon. I. W. Hayne, the Attorney-General
of the State of South Carolina, and have instructed him to demand
the delivery of Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, to the constituted
authorities of the State of South Carolina.</p>

<p>The demand I have made of Major Anderson, and which I now make of
you, is suggested because of my earnest desire to avoid the bloodshed which
a persistence in your attempt to retain the possession of that fort will
cause, and which will be unavailing to secure you that possession, but induce
a calamity most deeply to be deplored.</p>

<p>If consequences so unhappy shall ensue, I will secure for this State, in
the demand which I now make, the satisfaction of having exhausted every
attempt to avoid it.</p>

<p>In relation to the public property of the United States within Fort
Sumter, the Hon. I. W. Hayne, who will hand you this communication, is
authorized to give you the pledge of the State that the valuation of such
property will be accounted for, by this State, upon the adjustment of its relations
with the United States, of which it was a part.</p>

<p>F. W. PICKENS.</p>

<p><i>To the</i> <span class="sc">President</span>  <i>of the United States</i>.
</p></blockquote>


<p><i>Extracts from instructions of the State Department of South Carolina to
Hon. I. W. Hayne</i>.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">State of South Carolina, Executive Office,</span></p>

<p><span class="sc">State Department, Charleston</span>, <i>January 12, 1861</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: The Governor has considered it proper, in view of the grave questions
which now affect the State of South Carolina and the United States,
to make a demand upon the President of the United States for the delivery
to the State of South Carolina of Fort Sumter, now within the territorial
limits of this Sate and occupied by troops of the United States.</p>

<hr />

<p>You are now instructed to proceed to Washington, and there, in the
name of the government of the State of South Carolina, inquire of the
President of the United States whether it was by his order that troops of
the United States were sent into the harbor of Charleston to re&euml;nforce Fort
Sumter; if he avows that order, you will then inquire whether he asserts
a right to introduce troops of the United States within the limits of this
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page628" id="page628"></a>[pg 628]</span>
State, to occupy Fort Sumter; and you will, in case of his avowal, inform
him that neither will be permitted, and either will be regarded as his declaration
of war against the State of South Carolina.</p>

<p>The Governor, to save life, and determined to omit no course of proceeding
usual among civilized nations, previous to that condition of general
hostilities which belongs to war, and not knowing under what order, or by
what authority, Fort Sumter is now held, demanded from Major Robert
Anderson, now in command of that fort, its delivery to the State. That
officer, in his reply, has referred the Governor to the Government of the
United States at Washington. You will, therefore, demand from the President
of the United States the withdrawal of the troops of the United States
from that fort, and its delivery to the State of South Carolina.</p>

<p>You are instructed not to allow any question of property claimed by the
United States to embarrass the assertion of the political right of the State
of South Carolina to the possession of Fort Sumter. The possession of that
fort by the State is alone consistent with the dignity and safety of the State
of South Carolina; but such possession is not inconsistent with a right to
compensation in money in another Government, if it has against the State
of South Carolina any just claim connected with that fort. But the possession
of the fort can not, in regard to the State of South Carolina, be
compensated by any consideration of any kind from the Government of the
United States, when the possession of it by the Government is invasive of
the dignity and affects the safety of the State. That possession can not
become now a matter of discussion or negotiation. You will, therefore,
require from the President of the United States a positive and distinct answer
to your demand for the delivery of the fort. And you are further
authorized to give the pledge of the State to adjust all matters which
may be, and are in their nature, susceptible of valuation in money, in the
manner most usual, and upon the principles of equity and justice always
recognized by independent nations, for the ascertainment of their relative
rights and obligations in such matters....</p>

<p>Respectfully, your obedient servant,    A. G. MAGRATH.</p>

<p><i>To Hon.</i> <span class="sc">W. Hayne</span>, <i>special envoy from the State of South Carolina to the President
of the United States</i>.
</p></blockquote>

<p><i>Letter of Senators of seceding States to Hon. I. W. Hayne</i>.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Washington City</span>, <i>January 15, 1861</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Hon. Isaac W. Hayne</span>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: We are apprised that you visit Washington, as an envoy from the
State of South Carolina, bearing a communication from the Governor of
your State to the President of the United States, in relation to Fort Sumter.
Without knowing its contents, we venture to request you to defer its delivery
to the President for a few days, or until you and he have considered
the suggestions which we beg leave to submit.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page629" id="page629"></a>[pg 629]</span>

<p>We know that the possession of Fort Sumter by troops of the United
States, coupled with the circumstances under which it was taken, is the
chief, if not only, source of difficulty between the government of South
Carolina and that of the United States. We would add that we, too,
think it a just cause of irritation and of apprehension on the part of your
State. But we have also assurances, notwithstanding the circumstances
under which Major Anderson left Fort Moultrie and entered Fort Sumter
with the forces under his command, that it was not taken, and is not held,
with any hostile or unfriendly purpose toward your State, but merely as
property of the United States, which the President deems it his duty to
protect and preserve.</p>

<p>We will not discuss the question of right or duty on the part of either
Government touching that property, or the late acts of either in relation
thereto; but we think that, without any compromise of right or breach of
duty on either side, an amicable adjustment of the matter of differences may
and should be adopted. We desire to see such an adjustment, and to prevent
war or the shedding of blood. We represent States which have already
seceded from the United States, or will have done so before the 1st of
February next, and which will meet your State in convention on or before
the 15th of that month. Our people feel that they have a common destiny
with your people, and expect to form with them, in that Convention,
a new Confederation and Provisional Government. We must and will
share your fortunes, suffering with you the evils of war if it can not be
avoided; and enjoying with you the blessings of peace, if it can be preserved.
We, therefore, think it especially due from South Carolina to our
States&mdash;to say nothing of other slaveholding States&mdash;that she should, as far
as she can, consistently with her honor, avoid initiating hostilities between
her and the United States or any other power.  We have the public declaration
of the President that he has not the constitutional power or the will
to make war on South Carolina, and that the public peace shall not be disturbed
by any act of hostility toward your State.</p>

<p>We, therefore, see no reason why there may not be a settlement of existing
difficulties, if time be given for calm and deliberate counsel with
those States which are equally involved with South Carolina. We, therefore,
trust that an arrangement will be agreed on between you and the
President, at least till the 15th of February next; by which time your and
our States may, in convention, devise a wise, just, and peaceable solution
of existing difficulties.</p>

<p>In the mean time, we think your State should suffer Major Anderson to
obtain necessary supplies of food, fuel, or water, and enjoy free communication,
by post or special messenger, with the President; upon the understanding
that the President will not send him re&euml;nforcements during the
same period. We propose to submit this proposition and your answer to
the President.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page630" id="page630"></a>[pg 630]</span>

<p>If not clothed with power to make such arrangement, then we trust
that you will submit our suggestions to the Governor of your State for
his instructions. Until you have received and communicated his response
to the President, of course your State will not attack Fort Sumter, and the
President will not offer to re&euml;nforce it.</p>

<p>We most respectfully submit these propositions, in the earnest hope
that you, or the proper authority of your State, may accede to them.</p>

<p>We have the honor to be, with profound esteem,</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>Your obedient servants,</p>
  </div><div class="stanza">
<p>LOUIS T. WIGFALL,</p>
<p>JOHN HEMPHILL,</p>
<p>D. L. YULEE,</p>
<p>S. R. MALLORY,</p>
<p>JEFFERSON DAVIS,</p>
<p>C. C. CLAY, <span class="sc">Jr.</span>,</p>
<p>BENJAMIN FITZPATRICK,</p>
<p>A. IVERSON,</p>
<p>JOHN SLIDELL,</p>
<p>J. P. BENJAMIN.</p>
  </div>  </div>
</blockquote>


<p><i>Letter of Hon. I. W. Hayne in reply to Senators from seceding States.</i></p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>January, 1861</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Gentlemen</span>: I have just received your communication, dated the 15th
instant. You represent, you say, States which have already seceded from
the United States, or <i>will have</i> done so before the 1st of February next, and
which will meet South Carolina in convention, on or before the 15th of that
month; that your people feel they have a common destiny with our people,
and expect to form with them in that Convention a new Confederacy
and Provisional Government; that you must and <i>will</i> share our fortunes,
suffering with us the evils of war, if it can not be avoided, and enjoying
with us the blessings of peace, if it <i>can</i> be preserved.</p>

<p>I feel, gentlemen, the force of this appeal, and, so far as my authority
extends, most cheerfully comply with your request.</p>

<p>I am <i>not</i> clothed with power to make the arrangements you suggest,
but provided you can get assurances, with which you are entirely satisfied,
that <i>no</i> re&euml;nforcements will be sent to Fort Sumter in the interval, and that
public peace shall <i>not</i> be disturbed by any act of hostility toward South
Carolina, I will refer your communication to the authorities of South Carolina,
and, withholding their communication, with which I am at present
charged, will wait for their instructions.</p>

<p>Major Anderson and his command, let me assure you, <i>do</i> now obtain
all necessary supplies of food (including fresh meat and vegetables), and, I
believe, fuel and water; and <i>do</i> now enjoy free communication, by post
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page631" id="page631"></a>[pg 631]</span>
and special messengers, with the President, and will continue to do so, certainly,
until the door of negotiation shall be closed.</p>

<p>If your proposition is acceded to, you may assure the President that <i>no</i>
attack will be made on Fort Sumter until a response from the Governor of
South Carolina has been received by me, and communicated to him.</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>With great consideration and profound esteem,</p>
<p>Your obedient servant,</p>
<p>ISAAC W. HAYNE,</p>
<p><i>Envoy from the Governor and Council of South Carolina.</i></p>
  </div>  </div>
</blockquote>


<p><i>Letter of Senators of seceding States to the President.</i></p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Senate-Chamber</span>, <i>January 19, 1861</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: We have been requested to present to you copies of a correspondence
between certain Senators of the United States and Colonel Isaac W.
Hayne, now in this city, in behalf of the government of South Carolina,
and to ask that you will take into consideration the subject of said correspondence.
Very respectfully, your obedient servants,</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>BENJAMIN FITZPATRICK,</p>
<p>S. R. MALLORY,</p>
<p>JOHN SLIDELL.</p>
<p>To his Excellency <span class="sc">James Buchanan</span>, <i>President United States</i>.</p>
  </div>  </div>
</blockquote>

<p>To the letter above, an evasive reply was returned on the 22d
by the Hon. Joseph Holt, Secretary of War <i>ad interim</i>, on behalf
of the President, the material points of which are contained
in the following paragraph:</p>

<blockquote><p>
In regard to the proposition of Colonel Hayne, that "no re&euml;nforcements
will be sent to Fort Sumter in the interval, and that the public peace will
not be disturbed by any act of hostility toward South Carolina," it is impossible
for me to give you any such assurances. The President has no authority
to enter into such an agreement or understanding. As an executive
officer, he is simply bound to protect the public property, so far as this may
be practicable; and it would be a manifest violation of his duty to place
himself under engagements that he would not perform this duty either for
an indefinite or limited period. At the present moment it is not deemed
necessary to re&euml;nforce Major Anderson, because he makes no such request,
and feels quite secure in his position. Should his safety, however, require
re&euml;nforcements, every effort will be made to supply them.
</p></blockquote>

<p>Mr. Holt concludes his letter by saying:</p>

<blockquote><p>
Major Anderson is not menacing Charleston; and I am convinced that
the happiest result which can be attained is, that both he and the authorities
of South Carolina shall remain on their present amicable footing, neither
party being bound by any obligations whatever, except the high Christian
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page632" id="page632"></a>[pg 632]</span>
and moral duty to keep the peace, and to avoid all causes of mutual irritation.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,</p>

<p>J. HOLT, <i>Secretary of War ad interim.</i>
</p></blockquote>

<p><i>Letter of Senators of seceding States to Hon. I. W. Hayne.</i></p>

<blockquote><p>
Hon. <span class="sc">Isaac W. Hayne. Washington</span>, <i>January 23, 1861</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: In answer to your letter of the 17th inst. we have now to inform
you that, after communicating with the President, we have received a letter
signed by the Secretary of War, and addressed to Messrs. Fitzpatrick,
Mallory, and Slidell, on the subject of our proposition, which letter we now
inclose to you. Although its terms are not as satisfactory as we could have
desired, in relation to the ulterior purposes of the Executive, we have no
hesitation in expressing our entire confidence that no re&euml;nforcements will
be sent to Fort Sumter, nor will the public peace be disturbed within the
period requisite for full communication between yourself and your government;
and we trust, therefore, that you will feel justified in applying for
further instructions before delivering to the President any message with
which you may have been charged.</p>

<p>We take this occasion to renew the expression of an earnest hope that
South Carolina will not deem it incompatible with her safety, dignity; or
honor to refrain from initiating any hostilities against any power whatsoever,
or from taking any steps tending to produce collision, until our
States, which are to share her fortunes, shall have an opportunity of joining
their counsels with hers.</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>We are, with great respect, your obedient servants,</p>
  </div><div class="stanza">
<p>LOUIS T. WIGFALL,</p>
<p>D. L. YULEE,</p>
<p>J. P. BENJAMIN,</p>
<p>A. IVERSON,</p>
<p>JOHN HEMPHILL,</p>
<p>JOHN SLIDELL,</p>
<p>C. C. CLAY, <span class="sc">Jr</span>.</p>
  </div>  </div>

<p>P.S.&mdash;Some of the signatures to the former letter addressed to you are
not affixed to the foregoing communication, in consequence of the departure
of several Senators, now on their way to their respective States.
</p></blockquote>

<p><i>Letter of Hon. I. W. Hayne to Senators of seceding States.</i></p>

<blockquote><p>
To the Honorable <span class="sc">Louis T. Wigfall, D. L. Yulee, J. P. Benjamin, A.
Iverson, John Hemphill, John Slidell, and C. C. Clay</span>, Jr.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Gentlemen</span>:  I have received your letter of the 23d inst., inclosing a
communication dated the 22d inst., addressed to Messrs. Fitzpatrick, Mallory,
and Slidell, from the Secretary of War <i>ad interim</i>.  This communication
from the Secretary is far from being satisfactory to me.  But, inasmuch
as you state that "we (you) have no hesitation in expressing an entire
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page633" id="page633"></a>[pg 633]</span>
confidence that no re&euml;nforcement will be sent to Fort Sumter, nor will the
public peace be disturbed within the period requisite for full communication
between yourself (myself) and your (my) Government," in compliance
with our previous understanding, I withhold the communication with which
I am at present charged, and refer the whole matter to the authorities of
South Carolina, and will await their reply.</p>

<p>Mr. Gourdin, of South Carolina, now in this city, will leave here by the
evening's train, and will lay before the Governor of South Carolina and his
Council the whole correspondence between yourselves and myself, and between
you and the Government of the United States, with a communication
from me, asking further instructions.</p>

<p>I can not, in closing, but express my deep regret that the President
should deem it necessary to keep a garrison of troops at Fort Sumter for
the protection of the "<i>property</i>" of the United States. South Carolina
scorns the idea of appropriating to herself the <i>property</i> of another, whether
of a government or an individual, without accounting, to the last dollar,
for everything which, for the protection of her citizens and in vindication
of her own honor and dignity, she may deem it necessary to take into her
own possession. As <i>property</i>, Fort Sumter is in far greater jeopardy occupied
by a garrison of United States troops than it would be if delivered
over to the State authorities, with the pledge that, in regard to that and all
other property claimed by the United States within the jurisdiction of South
Carolina, they would fully account, upon a fair adjustment.</p>

<p>Upon the other point of the preservation of the peace, and the avoidance
of bloodshed&mdash;is it supposed that the occupation of a fort in the midst
of a harbor, with guns bearing upon every position of it, by a Government
no longer acknowledged, can be other than the occasion of constant irritation,
excitement, and indignation? It creates a condition of things which
I fear is but little calculated to advance the observance of the "high Christian
and moral duty to keep the peace, and to avoid all causes of mutual
irritation," recommended by the Secretary of War in his communication.</p>

<p>In my judgment, to continue to hold Fort Sumter, by United States
troops, is the worst possible means of protecting it as property, and the
worst possible means for effecting a peaceful solution of present difficulties.</p>

<p>I beg leave, in conclusion, to say that it is in deference to the unanimous
opinion expressed by the Senators present in Washington, "representing
States which have already seceded from the United States, or will have
done so before the 1st of February next," that I comply with your suggestions.
And I feel assured that suggestions from such a quarter will be considered
with profound respect by the authorities of South Carolina, and
will have great weight in determining their action.</p>

<p>With high consideration, I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your
obedient servant,</p>

<p>ISAAC W. HAYNE,</p>

<p><i>Envoy from the Governor and Council of South Carolina.</i>
</p></blockquote>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page634" id="page634"></a>[pg 634]</span>


<p><i>Mr. Hayne to the President of the United States</i>.</p>

<blockquote><p>
<span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>January</i> 31, 1861.</p>

<p>To his Excellency <span class="sc">James Buchanan</span>, <i>President</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: I had the honor to hold a short interview with you on the 14th inst.,
informal and unofficial. Having previously been informed that you desired
that whatever was official should be, on both sides, conducted by written
communications, I did not at that time present my credentials, but verbally
informed you that I bore a letter from the Governor of South Carolina in
regard to the occupation of Fort Sumter, which I would deliver the next
day under cover of a written communication from myself. The next day,
before such communication could be made, I was waited upon by a Senator
from Alabama, who stated that he came on the part of all the Senators then
in Washington from the States which had already seceded from the United
States, or would certainly have done so before the 1st day of February
next. The Senator from Alabama urged that he and they were interested
in the subject of my mission in almost an equal degree with the authorities
of South Carolina. He said that hostilities commenced between South Carolina
and your Government would necessarily involve the States represented
by themselves in civil strife, and, fearing that the action of South Carolina
might complicate the relations of your Government to the seceded and
seceding States, and thereby interfere with a peaceful solution of existing
difficulties, these Senators requested that I would withhold my message to
yourself until a consultation among themselves could be had. To this I
agreed, and the result of the consultation was the letter of these Senators
addressed to me, dated 15th January, a copy of which is in your possession.
To this letter I replied on the 17th, and a copy of that reply is likewise in
your possession. This correspondence, as I am informed, was made the
subject of a communication from Senators Fitzpatrick, Mallory, and Slidell,
addressed to you, and your attention called to the contents. These gentlemen
received on the 22d day of January a reply to their application, conveyed in
a letter addressed to them, dated the 22d, signed by the Hon. J. Holt, Secretary
of War <i>ad interim</i>. Of this letter you of course have a copy. This
letter from Mr. Holt was communicated to me under the cover of a letter
from all the Senators of the seceded and seceding States, who still remained
in Washington; and of this letter, too, I am informed you have been furnished
with a copy.</p>

<p>This reply of yours through the Secretary of War <i>ad interim</i> to the
application made by the Senators, was entirely unsatisfactory to me. It
appeared to me to be not only a rejection in advance of the main proposition
made by these Senators, to wit, that "an arrangement should be
agreed on between the authorities of South Carolina and your Government,
at least until the 15th of February next, by which time South Carolina and
the States represented by the Senators might, in convention, devise a wise,
just, and peaceable solution of existing difficulties"; "in the mean time,"
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page635" id="page635"></a>[pg 635]</span>
they say, "we think" (that is, these Senators) "that your State" (South
Carolina) "should suffer Major Anderson to obtain necessary supplies of
food, fuel, or water, and enjoy free communication, by post or special messenger,
with the President, upon the understanding that the President will
not send him re&euml;nforcements during the same period"; but, besides this
rejection of the main proposition, there was in Mr. Holt's letter a distinct
refusal to make any stipulation on the subject of re&euml;nforcement, even for
the short time that might be required to communicate with my government.</p>

<p>This reply to the Senators was, as I have stated, altogether unsatisfactory
to me, and I felt sure that it would be so to the authorities whom I
represented. It was not, however, addressed to me, or to the authorities
of South Carolina; and, as South Carolina had addressed nothing to your
Government, and had asked nothing at your hands, I looked not to Mr.
Holt's letter but to the note addressed to me by the Senators of the seceded
and seceding States. I had consented to withhold my message at <i>their</i>
instance, provided they could get assurances <i>satisfactory to them</i> that no
re&euml;nforcements would be sent to Fort Sumter in the interval, and that the
peace should not be disturbed by any act of hostility. The Senators expressed,
in their note to me of the 23d instant, their "entire confidence
that no re&euml;nforcements will be sent to Fort Sumter, nor will the public
peace be disturbed within the period requisite for full communication
between you (myself) and your (my) Government"; and renewed their
request that I would withhold the communication with which I stood
charged, and await further instructions. This I have done. The further
instructions arrived on the 30th instant and bear date the 26th. I now
have the honor to make to you my first communication as special envoy
from the government of South Carolina. You will find inclosed the original
communication to the President of the United States from the Governor
of South Carolina, with which I was charged in Charleston on the
12th day of January, instant, the day on which it bears date. I am now
instructed by the Governor of South Carolina to say that "his opinion as
to the propriety of the demand which is contained in this letter has not
only been confirmed by the circumstances which your (my) mission has
developed, but is now increased to a conviction of its necessity. The safety
of the State requires that the position of the President should be distinctly
understood. The safety of all seceding States requires it as much as the
safety of South Carolina. If it be so, that Fort Sumter is held as <i>property</i>,
then as property, the rights, whatever they may be, of the United States
can be ascertained, and for the satisfaction of these rights the pledge of the
State of South Carolina you are" (I am) "authorized to give. If Fort
Sumter is not held as property, it is held," say my instructions, "as a military
post, and such a post within the limits of South Carolina can not be
tolerated."</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page636" id="page636"></a>[pg 636]</span>

<p>You will perceive that it is upon the presumption that it is solely as
property that you continue to hold Fort Sumter that I have been selected
for the performance of the duty upon which I have entered. I do not come
as a military man to demand the surrender of a fortress, but as the legal
officer of the State, its Attorney-General, to claim for the State the exercise
of its undoubted right of eminent domain, and to pledge the State to make
good all injury to the rights of property which may arise from the exercise
of the claim.</p>

<p>South Carolina, as a separate, independent sovereignty, assumes the
right to take into her possession everything within her limits essential to
maintain her honor or her safety, irrespective of the question of property,
subject only to the moral duty requiring that compensation should be made
to the owner. This right she can not permit to be drawn into discussion.
As to compensation for any property, whether of an individual or a Government,
which she may deem it necessary for her honor or safety to take into
her possession, her past history gives ample guarantee that it will be made,
upon a fair accounting, to the last dollar. The proposition now is, that her
law officer should, under authority of the Governor and his Council, distinctly
pledge the faith of South Carolina to make such compensation in
regard to Fort Sumter, and its appurtenances and contents, to the full
extent of the money value of the property of the United States delivered
over to the authorities of South Carolina by your command.</p>

<p>I will not suppose that a pledge like this can be considered insufficient
security. Is not the money value of the property of the United States in
this fort, situated where it can not be made available to the United States
for any one purpose for which it was originally constructed, worth more to
the United States than the property itself? Why, then, <i>as property</i>, insist
on holding it by an armed garrison? Yet such has been the ground upon
which you have invariably placed your occupancy of this fort by troops;
beginning, prospectively, with your annual message of the 4th December;
again in your special message of the 9th (8th) January, and still more emphatically
in your message of the 28th January. The same position is set
forth in your reply to the Senators, through the Secretary of War <i>ad
interim</i>. It is there virtually conceded that Fort Sumter "is held merely
as property of the United States, which you deem it your duty, to protect
and preserve."</p>

<p>Again, it is submitted that the continuance of an armed possession actually
jeopards the property you desire to protect. It is impossible but that
such a possession, if continued long enough, must lead to collision. No
people, not completely abject and pusillanimous, could submit, indefinitely,
to the armed occupation of a fortress in the midst of the harbor of its principal
city, and commanding the ingress and egress of every ship that enters
the port, the daily ferry-boats that ply upon the waters moving but at the
sufferance of aliens. An attack upon this fort would scarcely improve it as
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page637" id="page637"></a>[pg 637]</span>
property, whatever the result; and, if captured, it would no longer be the
subject of account.</p>

<p>To protect Fort Sumter, merely as property, it is submitted that an
armed occupancy is not only unnecessary, but that it is manifestly the worst
possible means which can be resorted to for such an object.</p>

<p>Your reply to the Senators, through Mr. Holt, declares it to be your sole
object "to act strictly on the defensive, and to authorize no movement
against South Carolina unless justified by a hostile movement on their part,"
yet, in reply to the proposition of the Senators that no re&euml;nforcements
should be sent to Fort Sumter, provided South Carolina agrees that during
the same period no attack should be made, you say: "It is impossible for
me (your Secretary) to give you (the Senators) any such assurance," that it
"would be a manifest violation of his (your) duty to place himself (yourself)
under engagements that he (you) would not perform the duty either for an
indefinite or a limited period."</p>

<p>In your message of the 28th inst., in expressing yourself in regard to
a similar proposition, you say: "However strong may be my desire to
enter into such an agreement, I am convinced that I do not possess the
power. Congress, and Congress alone, under the war-making power, can
exercise the discretion of agreeing to abstain 'from any and all acts calculated
to produce a collision of arms' between this and other governments.
It would, therefore, be a usurpation for the Executive to attempt to restrain
their hands by an agreement in regard to matters over which he has
no constitutional control. If he were thus to act, they might pass laws
which he should be bound to obey, though in conflict with his agreement."
The proposition, it is suggested, was addressed to you under the
laws as they now are, and was not intended to refer to a new condition of
things arising under new legislation. It was addressed to the Executive
discretion, acting under existing laws. If Congress should, under the war-making
power, or in any other way, legislate in a manner to affect the
peace of South Carolina, her interests or her rights, it would not be accomplished
in secret. South Carolina would have timely notice, and she
would, I trust, endeavor to meet the emergency.</p>

<p>It is added in the letter of Mr. Holt that "at the present moment it is
not deemed necessary to re&euml;nforce Major Anderson, because he makes no
such request, and feels quite secure in his position. But, should his safety
require it, every effort will be made to supply re&euml;nforcements." This
would seem to ignore the other branch of the proposition made by the
Senators, viz., that no attack was to be made on Fort Sumter during the
period suggested, and that Major Anderson should enjoy the facilities of
communication, etc.</p>

<p>I advert to this point, however, for the purpose of saying that to send
re&euml;nforcements to Fort Sumter could not serve as a means of <i>protecting</i> and
<i>preserving</i> <span class="sc">property</span>, for, as must be known to your Government, it would
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page638" id="page638"></a>[pg 638]</span>
inevitably lead to immediate hostilities, in which property on all sides
would necessarily suffer.</p>

<p>South Carolina has every disposition to preserve the public peace, and
feels, I am sure, in full force, those high "Christian and moral duties"
referred to by your Secretary; and it is submitted that on her part there is
scarcely any consideration of mere property, apart from honor and safety,
which could induce her to do aught to jeopard that peace, still less to inaugurate
a protracted and bloody civil war. She rests her position on something
higher than mere property. It is a consideration of her own dignity
as a sovereign, and the safety of her people, which prompts her to demand
that this property should not longer be used as a military post by a Government
she no longer acknowledges. She feels this to be an imperative
duty. It has, in fact, become an absolute necessity of her condition.</p>

<p>Repudiating, as you do, the idea of coercion, avowing peaceful intentions,
and expressing a patriot's horror for civil war and bloody strife
among those who once were brethren, it is hoped that on further consideration
you will not, on a mere question of property, refuse the reasonable
demand of South Carolina, which honor and necessity alike compel her to
vindicate. Should you disappoint this hope, the responsibility for the
result surely does not rest with her. If the evils of war are to be encountered,
especially the calamities of civil war, an elevated statesmanship
would seem to require that it should be accepted as the unavoidable alternative
of something still more disastrous, such as national dishonor or
measures materially affecting the safety or permanent interests of a people&mdash;that
it should be a choice deliberately made, and entered upon as war,
and of set purpose. But that war should be the incident or accident, attendant
on a policy professedly peaceful, and not required to effect the
object which is avowed as the only end intended, can only be excused
when there has been no warning given as to the consequences.</p>

<p>I am further instructed to say that South Carolina can not, by her
silence, appear to acquiesce in the imputation that she was guilty of an act
of unprovoked aggression in firing on the Star of the West. Though an
unarmed vessel, she was filled with armed men entering her territory
against her will, with the purpose of re&euml;nforcing a garrison held, within
her limits, against her protest. She forbears to recriminate by discussing
the question of the propriety of attempting such a re&euml;nforcement at all, as
well as of the disguised and secret manner in which it was intended to be
effected. And on this occasion she will say nothing as to the manner
in which Fort Sumter was taken into the possession of its present occupants.</p>

<p>The interposition of the Senators who have addressed you was a circumstance
unexpected by my government, and unsolicited certainly by me.
The Governor, while he appreciates the high and generous motives by which
they were prompted, and while he fully approves the delay which, in deference
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page639" id="page639"></a>[pg 639]</span>
to them, has taken place in the presentation of this demand, feels that
it can not longer be withheld.</p>

<p>I conclude with an extract from the instructions just received by me
from the government of South Carolina:</p>

<p>"The letter of the President, through Mr. Holt, may be received as the
reply to the question you were instructed to ask, as to his assertion of his
right to send re&euml;nforcements to Fort Sumter. You were instructed to say
to him, if he asserted that right, that the State of South Carolina regarded
such a right when asserted, or with an attempt at its exercise, as a declaration
of war.</p>

<p>"If the President intends it shall not be so understood, it is proper, to
avoid any misconception hereafter, that he should be informed of the manner
in which the Governor will feel bound to regard it.</p>

<p>"If the President, when you have stated the reasons which prompt the
Governor in making the demand for the delivery of Sumter, shall refuse to
deliver the fort upon the pledge you have been authorized to make, you
will communicate that refusal without delay to the Governor. If the
President shall not be prepared to give you an immediate answer, you will
communicate to him that his answer may be transmitted within a reasonable
time to the Governor at this place (Charleston, South Carolina).</p>

<p>"The Governor does not consider it necessary that you (I) should remain
longer in Washington than is necessary to execute this, the closing
duty of your (my) mission, in the manner now indicated to you (me). As
soon as the Governor shall receive from you information that you have
closed your mission, and the reply, whatever it may be, of the President,
he will consider the conduct which may be necessary on his part."</p>

<p>Allow me to request that you would, as soon as possible, inform me
whether, under these instructions, I need await your answer in Washington;
and, if not, I would be pleased to convey from you, to my government,
information as to the time when an answer may be expected in Charleston.</p>

<p>With high consideration,</p>

<p>I am, very respectfully,</p>

<p>ISAAC W. HAYNE, <i>Special Envoy</i>.
</p></blockquote>

<p>Some further correspondence ensued, but without the presentation
of any new feature necessary to a full understanding of
the case.  The result was to leave it as much unsettled in the end
as it had been in the beginning, and the efforts at negotiation were
terminated by the retirement from Washington of Colonel Hayne
on the 8th of February, 1861.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page640" id="page640"></a>[pg 640]</span>




<h2><a name="appendix-k" id="appendix-k"></a>APPENDIX K.</h2>

<p>THE CONSTITUTIONS.</p>


<p>The Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, adopted
on the 8th of February, 1861, is here presented, followed by
the Constitution of the United States, with all its amendments to
the period of the secession of the Southern States, and the permanent
Constitution of the Confederate States (adopted on the
11th of March, 1861), in parallel columns. The variations from
the Constitution of the United States, in the permanent Constitution
of the Confederate States, are indicated by italics; the parts
omitted by periods.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate
States of America.</span></p>

<p>We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, invoking
the favor of Almighty God, do hereby, in behalf of these States, ordain
and establish this Constitution for the provisional Government of the
same: to continue one year from the inauguration of the President,
or until a permanent Constitution or Confederation between the said
States shall be put in operation, whichsoever shall first occur.</p>

<p>ARTICLE I.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 1.&mdash;All legislative powers herein delegated shall be vested in
this Congress now assembled until otherwise ordained.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 2.&mdash;When vacancies happen in the representation from any
State, the same shall be filled in such manner as the proper authorities of
the State shall direct.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 3.&mdash;1. The Congress shall be the judge of the elections, returns,
and qualifications of its members; any number of deputies from a majority
of the States being present, shall constitute a quorum to do business; but
a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to
compel the attendance of absent members; upon all questions before the
Congress each State shall be entitled to one vote, and shall be represented
by any one or more of its deputies who may be present.</p>

<p>2. The Congress may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its
members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds,
expel a member.</p>

<p>3. The Congress shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time
to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page641" id="page641"></a>[pg 641]</span>
require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members on any question
shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, or at the instance of any
one State, be entered on the journal.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 4.&mdash;The members of Congress shall receive a compensation for
their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the
Confederacy. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach
of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session
of the Congress, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any
speech or debate they shall not be questioned in any other place.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 5.&mdash;1. Every bill which shall have passed the Congress shall,
before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the Confederacy;
if he approve, he shall sign it; but, if not, he shall return it with his objections
to the Congress, who shall enter the objections at large on their
journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two
thirds of the Congress shall agree to pass the bill, it shall become a law.
But in all such cases the votes shall be determined by yeas and nays; and
the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on
the journal. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten
days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same
shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress,
by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a
law. The President may veto any appropriation or appropriations, and
approve any other appropriation or appropriations, in the same bill.</p>

<p>2. Every order, resolution, or vote intended to have the force and effect
of a law, shall be presented to the President, and, before the same shall take
effect, shall be approved by him, or, being disapproved by him, shall be
repassed by two thirds of the Congress, according to the rules and limitations
prescribed in the case of a bill.</p>

<p>3. Until the inauguration of the President, all bills, orders, resolutions,
and votes adopted by the Congress shall be of full force without approval
by him.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 6.&mdash;1. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes,
duties, imposts, and excises, for the revenue necessary to pay the debts and
carry on the Government of the Confederacy; and all duties, imposts, and
excises shall be uniform throughout the States of the Confederacy.</p>

<p>2. To borrow money on the credit of the Confederacy.</p>

<p>3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several
States, and with the Indian tribes.</p>

<p>4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on the
subject of bankruptcies throughout the Confederacy.</p>

<p>5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and
fix the standard of weights and measures.</p>

<p>6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and
current coin of the Confederacy.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page642" id="page642"></a>[pg 642]</span>

<p>7. To establish post-offices and post-roads.</p>

<p>8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for
limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective
writings and discoveries.</p>

<p>9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.</p>

<p>10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high-seas,
and offenses against the law of nations.</p>

<p>11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make
rules concerning captures on land and water.</p>

<p>12. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that
use shall be for a longer term than two years.</p>

<p>13. To provide and maintain a navy.</p>

<p>14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and
naval forces.</p>

<p>15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the
Confederacy, suppress insurrections, and repel invasion.</p>

<p>16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and
for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the
Confederacy, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the
officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline
prescribed by Congress.</p>

<p>17. To make all laws that shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers expressly delegated
by this Constitution to this provisional Government.</p>

<p>18. The Congress shall have power to admit other States.</p>

<p>19. This Congress shall also exercise executive powers until the President
is inaugurated.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 7.&mdash;1. The importation of African negroes from any foreign
country, other than the slaveholding States of the United States, is hereby
forbidden; and Congress are required to pass such laws as shall effectually
prevent the same.</p>

<p>2. The Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of
slaves from any State not a member of this Confederacy.</p>

<p>3. The privilege of the writ of <i>habeas corpus</i> shall not be suspended unless,
when in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.</p>

<p>4. No bill of attainder or <i>ex post facto</i> law shall be passed.</p>

<p>5. No preference shall be given, by any regulation of commerce or revenue,
to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound
to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.</p>

<p>6. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of
appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the
receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time
to time.</p>

<p>7. Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury unless it be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page643" id="page643"></a>[pg 643]</span>
asked and estimated for by the President or some one of the heads of departments,
except for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies.</p>

<p>8. No title of nobility shall be granted by the Confederacy; and no person
holding any office of profit or trust under it shall, without the consent
of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any
kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state.</p>

<p>9. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to
petition the Government for a redress of such grievances as the delegated
powers of this Government may warrant it to consider and redress.</p>

<p>10. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.</p>

<p>11. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without
the consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be
prescribed by law.</p>

<p>12. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated;
and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.</p>

<p>13. No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except
in cases arising in the land or naval forces or in the militia, when in
actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be
subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor
shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor
be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor
shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.</p>

<p>14. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein
the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of
the accusation; to be confronted with the witness against him; to have
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the
assistance of counsel for his defense.</p>

<p>15. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact
tried by a jury shall be otherwise re&euml;xamined in any court of the Confederacy
than according to the rules of the common law.</p>

<p>16. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page644" id="page644"></a>[pg 644]</span>

<p>17. The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.</p>

<p>18. The powers not delegated to the Confederacy by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people.</p>

<p>19. The judicial power of the Confederacy shall not be construed to
extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one
of the States of the Confederacy, by citizens of another State, or by citizens
or subjects of any foreign state.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 8.&mdash;1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation;
grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills
of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of
debts; pass any bill of attainder, <i>ex post facto</i> law, or law impairing the
obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility.</p>

<p>2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or
duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for
executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts,
laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury
of the Confederacy, and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and
control of the Congress. No State shall, without the consent of Congress,
lay any duty on tonnage, enter into any agreement or compact with another
State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war unless actually
invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.</p>


<p>ARTICLE II.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 1.&mdash;1. The Executive power shall be vested in a President of
the Confederate States of America. He, together with the Vice-President,
shall hold his office for one year, or until this Provisional Government shall
be superseded by a permanent Government, whichsoever shall first occur.</p>

<p>2. The President and Vice-President shall be elected by ballot by the
States represented in this Congress, each State casting one vote, and a majority
of the whole being requisite to elect.</p>

<p>3. No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of one of the
States of this Confederacy at the time of the adoption of this Constitution,
shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be
eligible to that office who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five
years, and been fourteen years a resident of one of the States of this Confederacy.</p>

<p>4. In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death,
resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said
office (which inability shall be determined by a vote of two thirds of the
Congress), the same shall devolve on the Vice-President; and the Congress
may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page645" id="page645"></a>[pg 645]</span>
both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then
act as President; and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability
be removed or a President shall be elected.</p>

<p>5. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services during
the period of the Provisional Government a compensation at the rate of
twenty-five thousand dollars per annum; and he shall not receive during
that period any other emolument from this Confederacy, or any of the
States thereof.</p>

<p>6. Before he enters on the execution of his office, he shall take the following
oath or affirmation:</p>

<p>I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office
of President of the Confederate States of America, and will, to the best of
my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution thereof.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 2.&mdash;1. The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and Navy of the Confederacy, and of the militia of the several States, when
called into the actual service of the Confederacy; he may require the opinion
in writing of the principal officer in each of the executive departments,
upon subjects relating to the duties of their respective offices; and he shall
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the Confederacy,
except in cases of impeachment.</p>

<p>2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the
Congress, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Congress concur;
and he shall nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Congress,
shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, judges
of the courts, and all other officers of the Confederacy whose appointments
are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by
law. But the Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior
officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or
in the heads of departments.</p>

<p>3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen
during the recess of the Congress, by granting commissions which
shall expire at the end of their next session.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 3.&mdash;1. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information
of the state of the Confederacy, and recommend to their consideration
such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on
extraordinary occasions, convene the Congress at such times as he shall
think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he
shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed; and shall commission
all the officers of the Confederacy.</p>

<p>2. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the Confederacy
shall be removed from office on conviction by the Congress of treason,
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors; a vote of two thirds shall
be necessary for such conviction.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page646" id="page646"></a>[pg 646]</span>


<p>ARTICLE III.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 1.&mdash;1. The judicial power of the Confederacy shall be vested in
one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as are herein directed, or as
the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.</p>

<p>2. Each State shall constitute a district in which there shall be a court
called a District Court, which, until otherwise provided by the Congress,
shall have the jurisdiction vested by the laws of the United States, as far
as applicable, in both the District and Circuit Courts of the United States,
for that State; the judge whereof shall be appointed by the President by
and with the advice and consent of the Congress, and shall, until otherwise
provided by the Congress, exercise the power and authority vested by
the laws of the United States in the judges of the District and Circuit
Courts of the United States for that State, and shall appoint the times and
places at which the courts shall be held. Appeals may be taken directly
from the District Courts to the Supreme Court, under similar regulations to
those which are provided in cases of appeal to the Supreme Court of the
United States, or under such regulations as may be provided by the Congress.
The commissions of all the judges shall expire with this provisional
Government.</p>

<p>3. The Supreme Court shall be constituted of all the district judges, a
majority of whom shall be a quorum, and shall sit at such times and places
as the Congress shall appoint.</p>

<p>4. The Congress shall have power to make laws for the transfer of any
causes which were pending in the courts of the United States to the courts
of the Confederacy, and for the execution of the orders, decrees, and
judgments heretofore rendered by the said courts of the United States; and
also all laws which may be requisite to protect the parties to all such suits,
orders, judgments, or decrees, their heirs, personal representatives, or assignees.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 2.&mdash;1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases of law and
equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States and of
this Confederacy, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under its authority;
to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;
to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies
to which the Confederacy shall be a party; controversies between two or
more States; between citizens of different States; between citizens of the
same State claiming lands under grants of different States.</p>

<p>2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls,
and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have
original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme
Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, with such
exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.</p>

<p>3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page647" id="page647"></a>[pg 647]</span>
jury, and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall
have been committed; but, when not committed within any State, the trial
shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 3.&mdash;1. Treason against this Confederacy shall consist only in
levying war against it, or in adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and
comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony
of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.</p>

<p>2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason;
but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture,
except during the life of the person attainted.</p>


<p>ARTICLE IV.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 1.&mdash;1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the
public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the
Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts,
records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect of such proof.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 2.&mdash;1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges
and immunities of citizens in the several States.</p>

<p>2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime,
who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand
of the Executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up
to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.</p>

<p>3. A slave in one State escaping to another shall be delivered up, on
claim of the party to whom said slave may belong, by the Executive authority
of the State in which such slave shall be found, and, in case of any
abduction or forcible rescue, full compensation, including the value of the
slave and all costs and expenses, shall be made to the party by the State in
which such abduction or rescue shall take place.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Section</span> 3.&mdash;1. The Confederacy shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them
against invasion; and on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive
(when the Legislature can not be convened), against domestic violence.</p>


<p>ARTICLE V.</p>

<p>1. The Congress, by a vote of two thirds, may at any time alter or amend
this Constitution.</p>


<p>ARTICLE VI.</p>

<p>1. This Constitution, and the laws of the Confederacy which shall be
made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made,
under the authority of the Confederacy, shall be the supreme law of the
land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in
the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.</p>

<p>2. The Government hereby instituted shall take immediate steps for the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page648" id="page648"></a>[pg 648]</span>
settlement of all matters between the States forming it, and their other
late confederates of the United States, in relation to the public property and
public debt at the time of their withdrawal from them; these States hereby
declaring it to be their wish and earnest desire to adjust everything pertaining
to the common property, common liability, and common obligations of
that Union upon the principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith.</p>

<p>3. Until otherwise provided by the Congress, the city of Montgomery, in
the State of Alabama, shall be the seat of government.</p>

<p>4. The members of the Congress and all executive and judicial officers
of the Confederacy shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this
Constitution; but no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any
office or public trust under this Confederacy.</p>

<p>[Transcriber's Note: Following are the constitutions of the United States of
America, and of the Confederate States of America, listed essentially sentence
by sentence, with the corresponding sentences from each constitution.  This is
the listing "in parallel columns" described earlier.  Each sentence is prefixed
with either USA or CSA to indicate the source.]</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Constitution of the United
States of America.</span><a id="footnotetag208" name="footnotetag208"></a><a href="#footnote208"><sup>208</sup></a></p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Constitution of the Confederate
States of America.</span></p>

<p>[USA] We the People of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquillity, provide for
the common defence, promote the
general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity, do ordain and
establish this <span class="sc">Constitution</span> for
the United States of America.</p>

<p>[CSA] We, the People of the <i>Confederate</i>
States, <i>each State acting in its
sovereign and independent character,
in order to form a permanent
Federal Government</i>, establish
justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity&mdash;<i>invoking the favor and
guidance of Almighty God</i>&mdash;do
ordain and establish this Constitution
for the <i>Confederate</i> States
of America.</p>


<p>[USA] ARTICLE I.</p>

<p>[CSA] ARTICLE I.</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 1. All legislative Powers
herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which
shall consist of a Senate and House
of Representatives.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 1. All legislative powers
herein <i>delegated</i> shall be vested in a
Congress of the <i>Confederate</i> States,
which shall consist of a Senate and
House of Representatives.</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The House of Representatives
shall be composed of Members
chosen every second Year by
the People of the several States, and
the Electors in each State shall have
the Qualifications requisite for Electors
of the most numerous Branch of
the State Legislature.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The House of Representatives
shall be composed of
members chosen every second year
by the people of the several States;
and the electors in each State shall
<i>be citizens of the Confederate States</i>,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page649" id="page649"></a>[pg 649]</span>
<i>and</i> have the qualifications requisite
for electors of the most numerous
branch of the State Legislature; <i>but
no person of foreign birth, not a citizen
of the Confederate States, shall be
allowed to vote for any officer, civil or
political, State or Federal</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] No Person shall be a Representative
who shall not have attained to
the Age of twenty-five Years, and
been seven Years a Citizen of the
United States, and who shall not,
when elected, be an Inhabitant of
that State in which he shall be
chosen.</p>

<p>[CSA] No person shall be a Representative
who shall not have attained
the age of twenty-five years, and <i>be
a citizen of the Confederate</i> States,
and who shall not, when elected, be
an inhabitant of that State in which
he shall be chosen.</p>

<p>[USA] Representatives and direct Taxes
shall be apportioned among the several
States, which may be included
within this Union, according to their
respective Numbers,<a id="footnotetag209" name="footnotetag209"></a><a href="#footnote209"><sup>209</sup></a> which shall be
determined by adding to the whole
Number of free Persons, including
those bound to Service for a Term
of Years, and excluding Indians not
taxed, three-fifths of all other
Persons.<a id="footnotetag210" name="footnotetag210"></a><a href="#footnote210"><sup>210</sup></a> The actual Enumeration
shall be made within three Years
after the first meeting of the
Congress of the United States, and within
every subsequent Term of ten Years,
in such Manner as they shall by Law
direct. The Number of Representatives
shall not exceed one for every
thirty Thousand, but each State shall
have at Least one Representative;
and until such enumeration shall be
made, the State of New Hampshire
shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts
eight, Rhode-Island and
Providence Plantations one, Connecticut
five, New York six, New Jersey
four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware
one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North
Carolina five, South Carolina five,
and Georgia three.</p>

<p>[CSA] Representatives and direct taxes
shall be apportioned among the several
States which may be included
within this <i>Confederacy</i>, according
to their respective numbers, which
shall be determined by adding to the
whole number of free persons, including
those bound to service for a
term of years, and excluding Indians
not taxed, three fifths of all <i>slaves</i>.
The actual enumeration shall be
made within three years after the
first meeting of the Congress of the
<i>Confederate</i> States, and within every
subsequent term of ten years, in such
manner as they shall be by law direct.
The number of Representatives shall
not exceed one for every <i>fifty</i> thousand,
but each State shall have at
least one Representative; and until
such enumeration shall be made, the
State of <i>South Carolina</i> shall be entitled
to choose <i>six, the State of
Georgia ten, the State of Alabama</i>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page650" id="page650"></a>[pg 650]</span>
<i>nine, the State of Florida two, the
State of Mississippi seven, the State
of Louisiana six, and the State of
Texas six</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] When vacancies happen in the
Representation from any State, the
Executive Authority thereof shall
issue Writs of Election to fill such
Vacancies.</p>

<p>[CSA] When vacancies happen in the
representation from any State, the
Executive authority thereof shall issue
writs of election to fill such vacancies.</p>

<p>[USA] The House of Representatives
shall chuse their Speaker and other
officers;<a id="footnotetag211" name="footnotetag211"></a><a href="#footnote211"><sup>211</sup></a> and shall have the sole
Power of Impeachment.</p>

<p>[CSA] The House of Representatives
shall choose their Speaker and other
officers; and shall have the sole
power of impeachment, <i>except that
any judicial or other Federal officer,
resident and acting solely within the
limits of any State, may be impeached
by a vote of two thirds of both branches
of the Legislature thereof</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. The Senate of the
United States shall be composed of
two Senators from each State, chosen
by the Legislature thereof, for six
Years; and each Senator shall have
one Vote.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. The Senate of the
<i>Confederate</i> States shall be composed
of two Senators from each State,
chosen for six years by the Legislature
thereof, <i>at the regular session
next immediately preceding the commencement
of the term of service</i>; and
each Senator shall have one vote.</p>

<p>[USA] Immediately after they shall be
assembled in Consequence of the first
Election, they shall be divided as
equally as may be into three Classes.
The Seats of the Senators of the first
Class shall be vacated at the Expiration
of the second Year, of the second
Class at the Expiration of the fourth
Year, and of the third class at the
Expiration of the sixth Year, so that
one-third may be chosen every second
year; and if Vacancies happen by
Resignation, or otherwise, during the
Recess of the Legislature of any State,
the Executive thereof may make temporary
Appointments until the next
Meeting of the Legislature, which
shall then fill such Vacancies.</p>

<p>[CSA] Immediately after they shall be
assembled, in consequence of the first
election, they shall be divided as
equally as may be into three classes.
The seats of the Senators of the first
class shall be vacated at the expiration
of the second year; of the second
class at the expiration of the fourth
year; and of the third class at the
expiration of the sixth year; so that
one third may be chosen every second
year; and if vacancies happen by
resignation or otherwise, during the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page651" id="page651"></a>[pg 651]</span>
recess of the Legislature of any State,
the Executive thereof may make temporary
appointments until the next
meeting of the Legislature, which
shall then fill such vacancies.</p>

<p>[USA] No person shall be a Senator who
shall not have attained to the Age of
thirty Years, and been nine Years a
Citizen of the United States, and who
shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant
of that State for which he
shall be chosen.</p>

<p>[CSA] No person shall be a Senator who
shall not have attained the age of
thirty years, and <i>be a citizen of the
Confederate</i> States; and who shall
not, when elected, be an inhabitant
of <i>the</i> State for which he shall be
chosen.</p>

<p>[USA] The Vice President of the United
States shall be President of the Senate,
but shall have no Vote, unless
they be equally divided.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Vice-President of the <i>Confederate</i>
States shall be President of
the Senate, but shall have no vote
unless they be equally divided.</p>

<p>[USA] The Senate shall chuse their other
Officers, and also a President pro
tempore, in the absence of the Vice
President, or when he shall exercise
the Office of President of the United
States.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Senate shall choose their
other officers; and also a President
<i>pro tempore</i> in the absence of the
Vice-President, or when he shall exercise
the office of President of the
<i>Confederate</i> States.</p>

<p>[USA] The Senate shall have the sole
Power to try all Impeachments.
When sitting for that Purpose, they
shall be on Oath or Affirmation.
When the President of the United
States is tried, the Chief Justice shall
preside: And no Person shall be convicted
without the Concurrence of
two-thirds of the Members present.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Senate shall have the sole
power to try all impeachments.
When sitting for that purpose, they
shall be on oath or affirmation. When
the President of the <i>Confederate</i>
States is tried, the Chief-Justice shall
preside; and no person shall be convicted
without the concurrence of
two thirds of the members present.</p>

<p>[USA] Judgment in Cases of Impeachment
shall not extend further than
to removal from Office, and Disqualification
to hold and enjoy any Office
of Honour, Trust or Profit under the
United States: but the Party convicted
shall nevertheless be liable
and subject to Indictment, Trial,
Judgment and Punishment, according
to Law.</p>

<p>[CSA] Judgment in cases of impeachment
shall not extend further than
to removal from office, and disqualification
to hold and enjoy any office
of honor, trust, or profit, under the
<i>Confederate</i> States; but the party
convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable
and subject to indictment, trial,
judgment, and punishment according
to law.</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 4. The Times, Places and
Manner of holding Elections for Senators
and Representatives, shall be prescribed
in each State by the Legislature
thereof: but the Congress may
at any time by Law make or alter
such Regulations, except as to the
places of chusing Senators.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 4. The times, place, and
manner of holding elections for Senators
and Representatives, shall be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page652" id="page652"></a>[pg 652]</span>
prescribed in each State by the Legislature
thereof, <i>subject to the provisions
of this Constitution</i>; but the Congress
may, at any time, by law, make
or alter such regulations, except as
to the <i>times and</i> places of choosing
Senators.</p>

<p>[USA] The Congress shall assemble at
least once in every Year, and such
Meeting shall be on the first Monday
in December, unless they shall by
Law appoint a different Day.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Congress shall assemble at
least once in every year; and such
meeting shall be on the first Monday
in December, unless they shall, by
law, appoint a different day.</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 5. Each House shall be
the Judge of the Elections, Returns
and Qualifications of its own Members
and a Majority of each shall
constitute a Quorum to do Business;
but a smaller Number may adjourn
from day to day, and may be authorized
to compel the Attendance of
absent Members, in such Manner, and
under such Penalties as each House
may provide.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 5. Each House shall be
the judge of the elections, returns,
and qualifications of its own members,
and a majority of each shall
constitute a quorum to do business;
but a smaller number may adjourn
from day to day, and may be authorized
to compel the attendance of absent
members, in such manner and
under such penalties as each House
may provide.</p>

<p>[USA] Each House may determine the
Rules of its Proceedings, punish its
Members for disorderly Behaviour,
and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds,
expel a Member.</p>

<p>[CSA] Each House may determine the
rules of its proceedings, punish its
members for disorderly behavior,
and, with the concurrence of two
thirds of the whole number, expel a
member.</p>

<p>[USA] Each House shall keep a Journal
of its Proceedings, and from time
to time publish the same, excepting
such Parts as may in their Judgment
require Secrecy; and the Yeas
and Nays of the Members of either
House on any question shall, at the
Desire of one-fifth of those Present,
be entered on the Journal.</p>

<p>[CSA] Each House shall keep a journal
of its proceedings, and from time to
time publish the same, excepting such
parts as may in their judgment require
secrecy; and the yeas and
nays of the members of either House,
on any question, shall, at the desire
of one fifth of those present, be entered
on the journal.</p>

<p>[USA] Neither House, during the Session
of Congress, shall, without the
Consent of the other, adjourn for
more than three days, nor to any
other Place than that in which the
two Houses shall be sitting.</p>

<p>[CSA] Neither House, during the Session
of Congress, shall, without the
consent of the other, adjourn for
more than three days, nor to any
other place than that in which the
two Houses shall be sitting.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page653" id="page653"></a>[pg 653]</span>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 6. The Senators and
Representatives shall receive a Compensation
for their Services, to be
ascertained by Law, and paid out of
the Treasury of the United States.
They shall in all Cases, except Treason,
Felony and Breach of the Peace,
be privileged from Arrest during
their Attendance at the Session of
their respective Houses, and in going
to and returning from the same; and
for any Speech or Debate in either
House, they shall not be questioned
in any other Place.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 6. The Senators and
Representatives shall receive a compensation
for their services, to be
ascertained by law, and paid out of
the Treasury of the <i>Confederate</i> States.
They shall in all cases, except treason,
felony and breach of the peace,
be privileged from arrest during their
attendance at the session of their respective
Houses, and in going to and
returning from the same; and, for
any speech or debate in either House,
they shall not be questioned in any
other place.</p>

<p>[USA] No Senator or Representative
shall, during the time for which he
was elected, be appointed to any
civil Office under the Authority of
the United States, which shall have
been created, or the Emoluments
whereof shall have been increased
during such time; and no Person
holding any Office under the United
States, shall be a Member of either
House during his Continuance in
Office.</p>

<p>[CSA] No Senator or Representative
shall, during the time for which he
was elected, be appointed to any
civil office under the authority of
the <i>Confederate</i> States, which shall
have been created, or the emoluments
whereof shall have been increased
during such time; and no
person holding any office under the
<i>Confederate</i> States, shall be a member
of either House during his continuance
in office. <i>But Congress may,
by law, grant to the principal officer
in each of the executive departments
a seat upon the floor of either House,
with the privilege of discussing any
measures appertaining to his department.</i></p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 7. All Bills for raising
Revenue shall originate in the House
of Representatives; but the Senate
may propose or concur with Amendments
as on other Bills.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 7. All bills for raising
<i>the</i> revenue shall originate in the
House of Representatives; but the
Senate may propose or concur with
amendments, as on other bills.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page654" id="page654"></a>[pg 654]</span>

<p>[USA] Every Bill which shall have passed
the House of Representatives and the
Senate, shall, before it become a Law,
be presented to the President of the
United States; If he approve he shall
sign it, but if not he shall return it,
with his Objections to that House in
which it shall have originated, who
shall enter the Objections at large on
their Journal, and proceed to reconsider
it. If after such Reconsideration
two-thirds of that House shall
agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent,
together with the Objections, to the
other House, by which it shall likewise
be reconsidered, and if approved
by two-thirds of that House, it shall
become a Law. But in all such Cases
the Votes of Both Houses shall be
determined by Yeas and Nays, and
the Names of the Persons voting for
and against the Bill shall be entered
on the Journal of each House respectively.
If any Bill shall not be returned
by the President within ten
Days (Sundays excepted) after it
shall have been presented to him,
the Same shall be a law, in like Manner
as if he had signed it, unless the
Congress by their Adjournment prevent
its Return, in which Case it
shall not be a Law.</p>

<p>[CSA] Every bill which shall have passed
<i>both Houses</i>, shall, before it becomes
a law, be presented to the President
of the <i>Confederate</i> States; if he approve,
he shall sign it; but if not, he
shall return it, with his objections,
to that House in which it shall have
originated, who shall enter the objections
at large on their journal, and
proceed to reconsider it. If, after
such reconsideration, two thirds of
that House shall agree to pass the
bill, it shall be sent, together with
the objections, to the other House,
by which it shall likewise be reconsidered,
and, if approved by two
thirds of that House, it shall become
a law. But, in all such cases, the
votes of both Houses shall be determined
by yeas and nays, and the
names of the persons voting for and
against the bill shall be entered on
the journal of each House, respectively.
If any bill shall not be returned
by the President within ten
days (Sundays excepted) after it shall
have been presented to him, the same
shall be a law, in like manner as if
he had signed it, unless the Congress,
by their adjournment, prevent its return;
in which case it shall not be a
law.  <i>The President may approve
any appropriation and disapprove
any other appropriation in the same
bill. In such case he shall, in signing
the bill, designate the appropriations
disapproved; and shall return
a copy of such appropriations, with
his objections, to the House in which
the bill shall have originated; and
the same proceedings shall then be had
as in case of other bills disapproved
by the President.</i></p>

<p>[USA]
Every Order, Resolution, or Vote
to which the Concurrence of the
Senate and House of Representatives
may be necessary (except on a question
of Adjournment) shall be presented
to the President of the United
States; and before the Same shall
take Effect, shall be approved by
him, or being disapproved by him,
shall be repassed by two-thirds of
the Senate and House of Representatives,
according to the Rules and
Limitations prescribed in the Case
of a Bill.</p>

<p>[CSA]
Every order, resolution, or vote,
to which the concurrence of <i>both
Houses</i> may be necessary (except on
a question of adjournment), shall be
presented to the President of the
<i>Confederate</i> States; and, before the
same shall take effect, shall be approved
by him; or, being disapproved,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page655" id="page655"></a>[pg 655]</span>
shall be repassed by two
thirds of <i>both Houses</i>, according to
the rules and limitations prescribed
in case of a bill.</p>

<p>[USA]
<span class="sc">Section</span> 8. The Congress shall
have Power</p>

<p>[CSA]
<span class="sc">Section</span> 8. The Congress shall
have power&mdash;</p>

<p>[USA]
To lay and collect Taxes, Duties,
Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts
and provide for the common Defence
and general Welfare of the United
States; but all Duties, Imposts and
Excises shall be uniform throughout
the United States;</p>

<p>[CSA]
To lay and collect taxes, duties,
imposts, and excises, <i>for revenue necessary</i>
to pay the debts, provide for
the common defense, <i>and carry on
the Government of the Confederate</i>
States; <i>but no bounties shall be
granted from the Treasury; nor shall
any duties or taxes on importations
from foreign nations be laid to promote
or foster any branch of industry;
and all duties, imposts, and excises
shall be uniform throughout the Confederate
States</i>;</p>

<p>[USA]
To borrow Money on the credit
of the United States;</p>

<p>[CSA]
To borrow money on the credit
of the <i>Confederate</i> States;</p>

<p>[USA]
To regulate Commerce with foreign
Nations, and among the several
States, and with the Indian Tribes;</p>

<p>[CSA]
To regulate commerce with foreign
nations, and among the several
States, and with the Indian tribes;
<i>but neither this, nor any other clause
contained in the Constitution, shall
ever be construed to delegate the power
to Congress to appropriate money for
any internal improvement intended
to facilitate commerce; except for the
purpose of furnishing lights, beacons,
and buoys, and other aid to navigation
upon the coasts, and the improvement
of harbors and the removing of
obstructions in river navigation, in
all which cases, such duties shall be
laid on the navigation facilitated
thereby, as may be necessary to pay
the costs and expenses thereof</i>;</p>

<p>[USA]
To establish an uniform Rule of
Naturalization, and uniform Laws on
the subject of Bankruptcies throughout
the United States;</p>

<p>[CSA]
To establish uniform <i>laws</i> of naturalization,
and uniform laws on the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page656" id="page656"></a>[pg 656]</span>
subject of bankruptcies, throughout
the <i>Confederate</i> States; <i>but no law
of Congress shall discharge any debt
contracted before the passage of the
same</i>;</p>

<p>[USA] To coin Money, regulate the Value
thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix
the Standard of Weights and Measures;</p>

<p>[CSA] To coin money, regulate the value
thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix
the standard of weights and measures;</p>

<p>[USA] To provide for the Punishment of
counterfeiting the Securities and current
Coin of the United States;</p>

<p>[CSA] To provide for the punishment of
counterfeiting the securities and current
coin of the <i>Confederate</i> States;</p>

<p>[USA] To establish Post Offices and post
Roads;</p>

<p>[CSA] To establish post-offices and post
<i>routes; but the expenses of the Post-Office
Department, after the first day
of March, in the year of our Lord
eighteen hundred and sixty-three,
shall be paid out of its own revenue</i>;</p>

<p>[USA] To promote the progress of Science
and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors
the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries;</p>

<p>[CSA] To promote the progress of science
and useful arts, by securing for limited
times to authors and inventors
the exclusive right to their respective
writings and discoveries;</p>

<p>[USA] To constitute Tribunals inferior
to the supreme Court;</p>

<p>[CSA] To constitute tribunals inferior to
the Supreme Court;</p>

<p>[USA] To define and punish Piracies and
Felonies committed on the high Seas,
and Offences against the Law of Nations;</p>

<p>[CSA] To define and punish piracies and
felonies committed on the high-seas,
and offenses against the law of nations;</p>

<p>[USA] To declare War, grant Letters of
Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules
concerning Captures on Land and
Water;</p>

<p>[CSA] To declare war, grant letters of
marque and reprisal, and make rules
concerning captures on land and on
water;</p>

<p>[USA] To raise and support Armies, but
no Appropriation of Money to that
Use shall be for a longer Term than
two Years;</p>

<p>[CSA] To raise and support armies, but
no appropriation of money to that
use shall be for a longer term than
two years;</p>

<p>[USA] To provide and maintain a Navy;</p>

<p>[CSA] To provide and maintain a navy;</p>

<p>[USA] To make Rules for the Government
and Regulation of the land and
naval Forces;</p>

<p>[CSA] To make rules for the government
and regulation of the land and naval
forces;</p>

<p>[USA] To provide for calling forth the
Militia to execute the Laws of the
Union, suppress Insurrections and
repel Invasions;</p>

<p>[CSA] To provide for calling forth the
militia to execute the laws of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page657" id="page657"></a>[pg 657]</span>
<i>Confederate</i> States, suppress insurrections,
and repel invasions;</p>

<p>[USA] To provide for organizing, arming
and disciplining, the Militia, and
for governing such Part of them as
may be employed in the Service of the
United States, reserving to the
States respectively, the Appointment
of the Officers, and the Authority of
training the Militia according to the
Discipline prescribed by Congress;</p>

<p>[CSA] To provide for organizing, arming,
and disciplining the militia, and
for governing such part of them as
may be employed in the service of
the <i>Confederate</i> States, reserving to
the States, respectively, the appointment
of the officers, and the authority
of training the militia according
to the discipline prescribed by Congress;</p>

<p>[USA] To exercise exclusive Legislation
in all Cases whatsoever, over such
District (not exceeding ten Miles
square) as may, by Cession of particular
States, and the Acceptance of
Congress, become the Seat of the
Government of the United States,
and to exercise like Authority over
all Places purchased by the Consent
of the Legislature of the State in
which the Same shall be, for the
Erection for Forts, Magazines, Arsenals,
Dock-Yards, and other needful
Buildings;&mdash;And</p>

<p>[CSA] To exercise exclusive legislation
in all cases whatsoever, over such
district (not exceeding ten miles
square) as may, by cession of <i>one or
more</i> States, and the acceptance
Congress, become the seat of the Government
of the <i>Confederate</i> States,
and to the exercise like authority over
all places purchased by the consent
of the Legislature of the Sate in
which the same shall be, for the erection
of forts, magazines, arsenals,
dock-yards, and other needful buildings;
and</p>

<p>[USA] To make all Laws which shall be
necessary and proper for carrying
into Execution the foregoing Powers,
and all other Powers vested by this
Constitution in the Government of
the United Sates, or in any Department
or Officer thereof.</p>

<p>[CSA] To make all laws which shall be
necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the foregoing powers,
and all other powers vested by this
Constitution in the Government of
the <i>Confederate</i> States, or in any department
or officer thereof.</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section 9.</span> The Migration or Importation
of such Persons as any of
the States now existing shall think
proper to admit, shall not be prohibited
by the Congress prior to the
Year one thousand eight hundred
and eight, but a Tax or Duty may be
imposed on such Importation, and not exceeding
ten dollars for each Person.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section 9.</span> The importation of <i>negroes
of the African race, from any
foreign country other than the slave-holding
States or Territories of the
United States of America, is hereby
forbidden; and Congress is required
to pass such laws as shall effectually
prevent the same.</i></p>

<p>[CSA] <i>Congress shall also have power to
prohibit the introduction of slaves
from any State not a member of, or</i>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page658" id="page658"></a>[pg 658]</span>
<i>Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.</i></p>

<p>[USA] The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas
Corpus shall not be suspended,
unless when in Cases of Rebellion or
Invasion the public Safety may require
it.</p>

<p>[CSA] The privilege of the writ of <i>habeas
corpus</i> shall not be suspended,
unless when, in cases of rebellion or
invasion, the public safety may require
it.</p>

<p>[USA] No Bill of Attainder or ex post
facto Law shall be passed.</p>

<p>[CSA] No bill of attainder, <i>ex post facto</i>
law, <i>or law denying or impairing the
right of property in negro slaves shall
be passed</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] No Capitation, or other direct,
Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion
to the Census or Enumeration
herein before directed to be taken.</p>

<p>[CSA] No capitation or other direct tax
shall be laid, unless in proportion to
the census or enumeration herein before
directed to be taken.</p>

<p>[USA] No Tax or Duty shall be laid on
Articles exported from any State.</p>

<p>[CSA] No tax or duty shall be laid on
articles exported from any State <i>except
by a vote of two thirds of both
Houses</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] No Preference shall be given by
any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue
to the Ports of one State over
those of another: nor shall Vessels
bound to, or from, one State, be
obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties
in another.</p>

<p>[CSA] No preference shall be given by
any regulation of commerce or revenue
to the ports of one State over
those of another.</p>

<p>[USA] No Money shall be drawn from
the Treasury, but in Consequence of
Appropriations made by Law; and
a regular Statement and Account of
the Receipts and Expenditures of all
public Money shall be published from
time to time.</p>

<p>[CSA] No money shall be drawn from
the Treasury, but in consequence of
appropriations made by law; and a
regular statement and account of the
receipts and expenditures of all public
money shall be published from
time to time.</p>

<p>[CSA] <i>Congress shall appropriate no
money from the Treasury, except by a
vote of two thirds of both Houses,
taken by yeas and nays, unless it be
asked and estimated for by some one
of the heads of departments, and submitted
to Congress by the President;
or for the purpose of paying its own
expenses and contingencies; or for
the payment of claims against the
Confederate States, the justice of</i>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page659" id="page659"></a>[pg 659]</span>
<i>which shall have been judicially declared
by a tribunal for the investigation
of claims against the Government,
which it is hereby made the
duty of Congress to establish.</i></p>

<p><i>All bills appropriating money
shall specify, in Federal currency, the
exact amount of each appropriation,
and the purposes for which it is made;
and Congress shall grant no extra
compensation to any public contractor,
officer, agent, or servant, after such
contract shall have been made or such
service rendered</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] No Title of Nobility shall be
granted by the United States: And
no Person holding any Office of Profit
or Trust under them, shall, without
the Consent of the Congress, accept
of any present, Emolument, Office,
or Title, of any kind whatever, from
any King, Prince, or foreign State.</p>

<p>[CSA] No title of nobility shall be granted
by the <i>Confederate</i> States; and
no person holding any office of profit
or trust under them shall, without
the consent of the Congress, accept
of any present, emolument, office, or
title of any kind whatever, from any
king, prince, or foreign state.</p>

<p>[CSA] Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble and petition
the Government for a redress
of grievances.</p>

<p>[CSA] A well-regulated militia being necessary
to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and
bear arms shall not be infringed.</p>

<p>[CSA] No soldier shall, in time of peace,
be quartered in any house without
the consent of the owner; nor in
time of war, but in a manner to be
prescribed by law.</p>

<p>[CSA] The right of the people to be secure
in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be
violated; and no warrants shall issue
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page660" id="page660"></a>[pg 660]</span>
but upon probable cause, supported
by oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things
to be seized.</p>

<p>[CSA] No person shall be held to answer
for a capital or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury, except
in cases arising in the land or naval
forces, or in the militia, when in
actual service in time of war or public
danger; nor shall any person be
subject, for the same offense, to be
twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;
nor be compelled, in any criminal
case, to be a witness against himself;
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken
for public use without just compensation.</p>

<p>[CSA] In all criminal prosecutions, the
accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial
jury of the State and district
wherein the crime shall have been
committed, which district shall have
been previously ascertained by law,
and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation; to be confronted
with the witnesses against
him; to have compulsory process for
obtaining witnesses in his favor; and
to have the assistance of counsel for
his defense.</p>

<p>[CSA] In suits at common law, where
the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by
jury shall be preserved; and no fact
<i>so</i> tried by a jury shall be otherwise
re&euml;xamined in any court of the <i>Confederacy</i>,
than according to the rules
of the common law.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page661" id="page661"></a>[pg 661]</span>

<p>[CSA] Excessive bail shall not be required,
nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.</p>

<p>[CSA] <i>Every law, or resolution having
the force of law, shall relate to but
one subject, and that shall be expressed
in the title.</i></p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section 10.</span> No State shall enter
into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation;
grant Letters of Marque
and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills
of Credit; make any Thing but gold
and silver Coin a Tender in Payment
of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder,
ex post facto Law, or Law impairing
the Obligation of Contracts, or grant
any Title of Nobility.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section 10.</span> No State shall
enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation;
grant letters of marque and
reprisal; coin money; make anything
but gold and silver coin a tender
in payment of debts; pass any
bill of attainder, or <i>ex post facto</i> law,
or law impairing the obligation of
contracts, or grant any title of nobility.</p>

<p>[USA] No State shall, without the consent
of the Congress, lay any Imposts
or Duties on Imports or Exports, except
what may be absolutely necessary
for executing  its inspection
Laws: and the net Produce of all
Duties and Imposts, laid by any State
on Imports or Exports, shall be for
the Use of the Treasury of the United States;
and all such Laws shall be
subject to the Revision and Controul
of the Congress.</p>

<p>[CSA] No State shall, without the consent
of the Congress, lay any imposts
or duties on imports or exports, except
what may be absolutely necessary
for executing its inspection laws;
and the net produce of all duties and
imposts, laid by any State on imports
or exports, shall be for the use of the
Treasury of the <i>Confederate</i> States;
and all such laws shall be subject to
the revision and control of Congress.</p>

<p>[USA] No State shall, without the Consent
of Congress, lay any Duty of
Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of
War in time of Peace, enter into any
Agreement or Compact with another
State, or with a foreign Power, or
engage in War, unless actually invaded,
or in such imminent Danger
as will not admit of Delay.</p>

<p>[CSA] No State shall, without the consent
of Congress, lay any duty <i>on</i>
tonnage, <i>except on sea-going vessels
for the improvement of its rivers and
harbors navigated by the said vessels;
but such duties shall not conflict with
any treaties of the Confederate States
with foreign nations. And any surplus
revenue thus derived shall, after
making such improvement, be paid
into the common Treasury; nor shall
any</i> State keep troops or ships of
war in time of peace, enter into any
agreement of compact with another
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page662" id="page662"></a>[pg 662]</span>
State, or with a foreign power, or
engage in war unless actually invaded,
or in such imminent danger as
will not admit of delay.  <i>But when
any river divides or flows through
two or more States, they may enter
into compacts with each other to improve
the navigation thereof.</i></p>


<p>[USA] ARTICLE II.</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section 1.</span> The executive Power
shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America.  He shall
hold his Office during the Term of
four Years, and, together with the
Vice President, chosen for the same
Term, be elected, as follows:</p>


<p>[CSA] ARTICLE II.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section 1.</span> The executive Power
shall be vested in a President of the
<i>Confederate</i> States of America. <i>He
and the Vice-President shall hold
their offices for</i> the term of <i>six</i> years;
<i>but the President shall not be re&euml;ligible.
The President and the Vice-President
shall</i> be elected as follows:</p>

<p>[USA] Each State shall appoint, in such
Manner as the Legislature thereof
may direct, a Number of Electors,
equal to the whole Number of Senators
and Representatives to which
the State may be entitled in the Congress:
but no Senator or Representative,
or Person holding an Office of
Trust or Profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an Elector.</p>

<p>[CSA] Each State shall appoint, in such
manner as the Legislature thereof
may direct, a number of electors,
equal to the whole number of Senators
and Representatives to which
the State may be entitled in the Congress:
but no Senator or Representative,
or person holding an office of
trust or profit under the <i>Confederate</i>
States, shall be appointed an elector.</p>

<p>[USA] <a id="footnotetag212" name="footnotetag212"></a><a href="#footnote212"><sup>212</sup></a>The Electors shall meet in their
respective States, and vote by Ballot
for two Persons, of whom one at
least shall not be an Inhabitant of
the same State with themselves.
And they shall make a List of all the
Persons voted for, and of the Number
of Votes for each; which List
they shall sign and certify, and transmit
sealed to the Seat of the Government
of the United States, directed
to the President of the Senate. The
President of the Senate shall, in the
Presence of the Senate and House of
Representatives, open all the Certificates,
and the Votes shall then be
counted. The Person having the
greatest Number of Votes shall be
the President, if such Number be a
Majority of the whole Number of
Electors appointed; and if there be
more than one who have such Majority
and have an equal Number of
Votes, then the House of Representatives
shall immediately chuse by
Ballot one of them for President;
and if no Person have a Majority,
then from the five highest on the
List the said House shall in like
Manner chuse the President. But
in chusing the President, the Votes
shall be taken by States, the Representation
from each State having one
Vote; a Quorum for this Purpose
shall consist of a Member or Members
from two-thirds of the States,
and a Majority of all the States shall
be necessary to a Choice. In every
Case, after the Choice of the President,
the Person having the greatest
Number of Votes of the Electors
shall be the Vice President. But if
there should remain two or more
have equal Votes, the Senate
shall chuse from them by Ballot the
Vice President.</p>

<p>[CSA] The electors shall meet in their
respective States and vote by ballot
for President and Vice-President,
one of whom, at least, shall not be
an inhabitant of the same State with
themselves; they shall name in their
ballots the person voted for as President,
and in distinct ballots the person
voted for as Vice-President, and
they shall make distinct lists of all
persons voted for as President, and
of all persons voted for as Vice-President
and of the number of votes for
each, which list they shall sign and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page663" id="page663"></a>[pg 663]</span>
certify, and transmit sealed to the
seat of the Government of the <i>Confederate</i>
States, directed to the President
of the Senate. The President
of the Senate shall, in the presence
of the Senate and House of Representatives,
open all the certificates,
and the votes shall then be counted.
The person having the greatest number
of votes for President shall be
the President, if such number be a
majority of the whole number of
electors appointed; and if no person
have such majority, then from the
persons having the highest numbers
not exceeding three on the list of
those voted for as President, the
House of Representatives shall choose
immediately, by ballot, the President.
But in choosing the President, the
votes shall be taken by States, the
representation from each State having
one vote; a quorum for this
purpose shall consist of a member
or members from two thirds of the
States, and a majority of all the
States shall be necessary to a choice.
And if the House of Representatives
shall not choose a President whenever
the right of choice shall devolve
upon them, before the fourth day of
March next following, then the Vice-President
shall act as President, as
in the case of the death or other constitutional
disability of the President.</p>

<p>[CSA] The person having the greatest
number of votes as Vice-President,
shall be the Vice-President, if such
number be a majority of the whole
number of electors appointed; and
if no person have a majority, then
from the two highest numbers on
the list the Senate shall choose the
Vice-President. A quorum for the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page664" id="page664"></a>[pg 664]</span>
purpose shall consist of two thirds
of the whole number of Senators,
and a majority of the whole number
shall be necessary to a choice.</p>

<p>[CSA] But no person constitutionally ineligible
to the office of President shall
be eligible to that of Vice-President
of the <i>Confederate</i> States.</p>

<p>[USA] The Congress may determine the
Time of chusing the Electors, and the
Day on which they shall give their
Votes; which Day shall be the same
throughout the United States.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Congress may determine the
time of choosing the electors, and
the day on which they shall give
their votes; which day shall be the
same throughout the <i>Confederate</i>
States.</p>

<p>[USA] No Person except a natural born
Citizen, or a Citizen of the United
States, at the time of the Adoption
of this Constitution, shall be eligible
to the Office of President; neither
shall any Person be eligible to that
Office who shall not have attained to
the Age of thirty-five Years, and been
fourteen Years a Resident within the
United States.</p>

<p>[CSA] No person except a natural born
citizen of the <i>Confederate</i> States, or
a citizen thereof at the time of the
adoption of this Constitution, <i>or a
citizen thereof born in the United
States prior to the 20th of December,
1860</i>, shall be eligible to the office of
President; neither shall any person
be eligible to that office who shall
not have attained the age of thirty-five
years, and been fourteen years
a resident within the <i>limits of the
Confederate States, as they may exist
at the time of his election</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] In Case of the Removal of the
President from Office, or of his Death,
Resignation, or Inability to discharge
the Powers and Duties of the said
office, the same shall devolve on the
Vice President, and the Congress
may by Law provide for the Case of
Removal, Death, Resignation, or Inability,
both of the President and
Vice President, declaring what Officer
shall then act as President, and
such Officer shall act accordingly,
until the Disability be removed, or a
President shall be elected.</p>

<p>[CSA] In case of the removal of the
President from office, or of his death,
resignation, or inability to discharge
the powers and duties of the said
office, the same shall devolve on the
Vice-President; and the Congress
may, by law, provide for the case of
removal, death, resignation, or inability,
both of the President and
Vice-President, declaring what officer
shall then act as President; and
such officer shall act accordingly,
until the disability be removed or a
President shall be elected.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page665" id="page665"></a>[pg 665]</span>

<p>[USA] The President shall, at stated
Times, receive for his Services, a
Compensation, which shall neither
be encreased nor diminished during
the Period for which he shall have
been elected, and he shall not receive
within that Period any other Emolument
from the United States, or any
of them.</p>

<p>[CSA] The President shall, at stated
times, receive for his services a compensation,
which shall neither be increased
nor diminished during the
period for which he shall have been
elected; and he shall not receive
within that period any other emolument
from the <i>Confederate</i> States,
or any of them.</p>

<p>[USA] Before he enter on the Execution
of his Office, he shall take the following
Oath or Affirmation:</p>

<p>[CSA] Before he enters on the execution
of his office, he shall take the following
oath or affirmation:</p>

<p>[USA] "I do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will faithfully execute the
Office of President of the United
States, and will to the best of my
Ability, preserve, protect and defend
the Constitution of the United
States."</p>

<p>[CSA] "I do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will faithfully execute the
office of President of the <i>Confederate</i>
States <i>of America</i>, and will to the
best of my ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution <i>thereof</i>."</p>

<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The President shall
be Commander in Chief of the Army
and Navy of the United States, and
of the Militia of the several States,
when called into the actual Service
of the United States; he may require
the Opinion, in writing, of the principal
Officer in each of the executive
Departments, upon any Subject relating
to the Duties of their respective
Offices, and he shall have Power
to grant Reprieves and Pardons for
Offences against the United States,
except in Cases of Impeachment.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The President shall
be Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and Navy of the <i>Confederate</i> States,
and of the militia of the several
States, when called into the actual
service of the <i>Confederate</i> States;
he may require the opinion, in writing,
of the principal officer in each
of the executive departments, upon
any subject relating to the duties of
their respective offices, and he shall
have power to grant reprieves and
pardons for offenses against the <i>Confederacy</i>,
except in cases of impeachment.</p>

<p>[USA] He shall have Power, by and with
the Advice and Consent of the Senate,
to make Treaties, provided two-thirds
of the Senators present concur;
and he shall nominate, and by
and with the Advice and Consent of
the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors,
other public Ministers and Consuls,
Judges of the supreme Court,
and all other Officers of the United
States, whose Appointments are not
herein otherwise provided for, and
which shall be established by Law:
but the Congress may by Law vest
the Appointment of such inferior
Officers, as they think proper, in the
President alone, in the Courts of
Law, or in the Heads of Departments.</p>

<p>[CSA] He shall have power, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate,
to make treaties, provided two thirds
of the Senators present concur; and
he shall nominate, and by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate
shall appoint ambassadors, other public
ministers and consuls, Judges of
the Supreme Court and all other
officers of the <i>Confederate</i> States,
whose appointments are not herein
otherwise provided for, and which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page666" id="page666"></a>[pg 666]</span>
shall be established by law; but the
Congress may by law vest the appointment
of such inferior officers,
as they think proper, in the President
alone, in the courts of law, or
in the heads of departments.</p>

<p>[CSA] <i>The principal officer in each of
the executive departments, and all
persons connected with the diplomatic
service, may be removed from office
at the pleasure of the President. All
other civil officers of the executive
department may be removed at any
time by the President, or other appointing
power, when their services
are unnecessary, or for dishonesty,
incapacity, inefficiency, misconduct,
or neglect of duty; and, when so removed
the removal shall be reported
to the Senate, together with the reasons
therefor.</i></p>

<p>[USA] The President shall have Power
to fill up all Vacancies that may happen
during the Recess of the Senate,
by granting Commissions which shall
expire at the End of their next Session.</p>

<p>[CSA] The President shall have power
to fill up all vacancies that may happen
during the recess of the Senate,
by granting commissions which shall
expire at the end of their next session.
<i>But no person rejected by the
Senate shall be reappointed to the
same office during their ensuing recess.</i></p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. He shall from time to
time give to the Congress Information
of the State of the Union, and
recommend to their Consideration
such Measures as he shall judge necessary
and expedient; he may, on
extraordinary Occasions, convene
both Houses, or either of them, and
in Case of Disagreement between
them, with Respect to the time of
Adjournment, he may adjourn them
to such Time as he shall think proper;
he shall receive Ambassadors
and other public Ministers; he shall
take Care that the Laws be faithfully
executed, and shall Commission all
the officers of the United States.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. <i>The President</i> shall
from time to time give to the Congress
information of the state of the
<i>Confederacy</i>, and recommend to their
consideration such measures as he
shall judge necessary and expedient:
he may on extraordinary occasions
convene both Houses, or either of
them; and in case of disagreement
between them, with respect to the
time of adjournment, he may adjourn
them to such time as he shall think
proper; he shall receive ambassadors
and other public ministers; he shall
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page667" id="page667"></a>[pg 667]</span>
take care that the laws be faithfully
executed, and shall commission
all the officers of the <i>Confederate</i>
States.</p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 4. The President, Vice
President and all civil Officers of the
United States, shall be removed from
Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction
of, Treason, Bribery, or other
high Crimes and Misdemeanors.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 4. The President, Vice-President,
and all civil officers of
the <i>Confederate</i> States, shall be removed
from office on impeachment
for and conviction of, treason, bribery,
or other high crimes and misdemeanors.</p>




<p>[USA] ARTICLE III.</p>

<p>[CSA] ARTICLE III.</p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 1. The Judicial Power
of the United States, shall be vested
in one supreme Court, and in such
inferior Courts as the Congress may
from time to time ordain and establish.
The Judges, both of the supreme
and inferior Courts, shall hold
their Offices during good Behavior,
and shall, at stated times, receive for
their Services, a Compensation which
shall not be diminished during their
Continuance in Office.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 1. The judicial power of
the <i>Confederate</i> States shall be vested
in one Supreme Court, and in such
inferior courts as the Congress may
from time to time ordain and establish.
The Judges, both of the Supreme
and inferior Courts, shall hold
their offices during good behavior,
and shall, at stated times, receive for
their services a compensation, which
shall not be diminished during their
continuance in office.</p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The judicial Power
shall extend to all Cases, in Law and
Equity, arising under this Constitution,
the Laws of the United States,
and Treaties made, or which shall be
made, under their Authority;&mdash;to all
Cases affecting Ambassadors, other
public Ministers and Consuls;&mdash;to
all Cases of admiralty and maritime
Jurisdiction;&mdash;to Controversies to
which the United States shall be a
Party;&mdash;to Controversies between
two or more States;&mdash;between a
State and Citizens of another State;&mdash;between
Citizens of different
States,&mdash;between Citizens of the same
State claiming Lands under Grants
of different States, and between a
State, or the Citizens thereof, and
foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The judicial power
shall extend to all cases arising under
this Constitution, the laws of
the <i>Confederate</i> States, and treaties
made, or which shall be made, under
their authority; to all cases affecting
ambassadors, other public ministers,
and consuls; to all cases of admiralty
and maritime jurisdiction;
to controversies to which the <i>Confederate</i>
States shall be a party; to
controversies between two or more
States; between a State and citizens
of another State, <i>where the State is
plaintiff</i>; between citizens claiming
lands under grants of different States,
and between a State or the citizens
thereof, and foreign states, citizens,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page668" id="page668"></a>[pg 668]</span>
or subjects. <i>But no State shall be
sued by a citizen or subject of any
foreign state.</i></p>

<p>[USA] In all Cases affecting Ambassadors,
other public Ministers and Consuls,
and those in which a State shall
be Party, the supreme Court shall
have original Jurisdiction. In all the
other Cases before mentioned, the
supreme Court shall have appellate
Jurisdiction, both as to Law and
Fact, with such Exceptions, and under
such Regulations as the Congress
shall make.</p>

<p>[CSA] In all cases affecting ambassadors,
other public ministers and consuls,
and those in which a State shall be
party, the Supreme Court shall have
original jurisdiction. In all the other
cases before mentioned, the Supreme
Court shall have appellate
jurisdiction, both as to law and fact,
with such exceptions and under such
regulations as the Congress shall
make.</p>

<p>[USA] The Trial of all Crimes, except in
Cases of Impeachment, shall be by
Jury; and such Trial shall be held
in the State where the said Crimes
shall have been committed; but when
not committed with any State, the
Trial shall be at such Place or Places
as the Congress may by Law have
directed.</p>

<p>[CSA] The trial of all crimes, except in
cases of impeachment, shall be by
jury; and such trial shall be held in
the State where the said crimes shall
have been committed; but when not
committed within any State the trial
shall be at such place or places as the
Congress may by law have directed.</p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. Treason against the
United States, shall consist only in
levying War against them, or in adhering
to their Enemies, giving them
Aid and Comfort. No Person shall
be convicted of Treason unless on
the Testimony of two Witnesses to
the same overt Act, or on Confession
in open Court.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. Treason against the
<i>Confederate</i> States shall consist only
in levying war against them, or in
adhering to their enemies, giving
them aid and comfort. No person
shall be convicted of treason unless
on the testimony of two witnesses to
the same overt act, or on confession
in open court.</p>

<p>[USA] The Congress shall have Power to
declare the Punishment of Treason,
but no Attainder of Treason shall
work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture
except during the Life of the
Person attainted.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Congress shall have power
to declare the punishment of treason;
but no attainder of treason
shall work corruption of blood, or
forfeiture, except during the life of
the person attainted.</p>




<p>[USA] ARTICLE IV.</p>

<p>[CSA] ARTICLE IV.</p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 1. Full Faith and Credit
shall be given in each State to the
public Acts, Records, and judicial
Proceedings of every other State.
And the Congress may by general
Laws prescribe the Manner in which
such Acts, Records and Proceedings
shall be proved, and the Effect
thereof.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 1. Full faith and credit
shall be given in each State to the
public acts, records, and judicial proceedings
of every other State. And
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page669" id="page669"></a>[pg 669]</span>
the Congress may, by general laws,
prescribe the manner in which such
acts, records, and proceedings shall
be proved, and the effect thereof.</p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The Citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all Privileges
and Immunities of Citizens in
the several States.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 2. The citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all the privileges
and immunities of citizens in
the several States, <i>and shall have the
right of transit and sojourn in any
State of this Confederacy, with their
slaves and other property; and the
right of property in said slaves shall
not be thereby impaired</i>.</p>

<p>[USA] A Person charged in any State
with Treason, Felony, or other
Crime, who shall flee from Justice,
and be found in another State, shall
on Demand of the executive Authority
of the State from which he fled,
be delivered up, to be removed to
the State having Jurisdiction of the
Crime.</p>

<p>[CSA] A person charged in any State
with treason, felony, or other crime
<i>against the laws of such State</i>, who
shall flee from justice, and be found
in another State, shall on demand of
the Executive authority of the State
from which he fled, be delivered up,
to be removed to the State having
jurisdiction of the crime.</p>

<p>[USA] No Person held to Service or Labour
in one State, under the Laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall,
in Consequence of any Law or Regulation
therein, be discharged from
such Service or Labour, but shall be
delivered up on Claim of the Party
to whom such Service or Labour may
be done.</p>

<p>[CSA] <i>No slave or other</i> person held to
service or labor <i>in any State or Territory
of the Confederate States</i>, under
the laws thereof, escaping <i>or lawfully
carried</i> into another, shall, in
consequence of any law or regulation
therein, be discharged from such
service or labor; but shall be delivered
up on claim of the party <i>to
whom such slave belongs, or</i> to whom
such service or labor may be due.</p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. New States may be
admitted by the Congress into this
Union; but no new State shall be
formed or erected within the Jurisdiction
of any other State; nor any
State be formed by the Junction of
two or more States, or Parts of
States, without the Consent of the
Legislatures of the States concerned
as well as of the Congress.</p>

<p>[CSA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 3. <i>Other States may be
admitted into this Confederacy by a
vote of two thirds of the whole House
of Representatives and two thirds of
the Senate, the Senate voting by
States</i>; but no new State shall be
formed or erected within the jurisdiction
of any other State; nor any
State be formed by the junction of
two or more States, or parts of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page670" id="page670"></a>[pg 670]</span>
States, without the consent of the
Legislatures of the States concerned,
as well as of the Congress.</p>

<p>[USA] The Congress shall have power to
dispose of and make all needful Rules
and Regulations respecting the Territory
or other Property belonging
to the United States; and nothing
in this Constitution shall be so construed
as to Prejudice any Claims of
the United States, or of any particular
State.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Congress shall have power
to dispose of and make all needful
rules and regulations <i>concerning</i> the
<i>property of the Confederate</i> States,
<i>including the lands thereof</i>.</p>

<p>[CSA] <i>The Confederate States may acquire
new territory; and Congress
shall have power to legislate and provide
governments for the inhabitants
of all territory belonging to the Confederate
States, lying without the
limits of the several States; and may
permit them, at such times and in
such manner as it may by law provide,
to form States to be admitted
into the Confederacy.  In all such
territory, the institution, of negro
slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate
States, shall be recognized and
protected by Congress and by the territorial
government; and the inhabitants
of the several Confederate
States and Territories shall have the
right to take to such Territory any
slaves lawfully held by them in any
of the States or Territories of the
Confederate States.</i></p>


<p>[USA] <span class="sc">Section</span> 4. The United States
shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a Republican Form of Government,
and shall protect each of
them against Invasion, and on Application
of the Legislature, or of the
Executive (when the Legislature cannot
be convened) against domestic
Violence.</p>

<p>[CSA] The <i>Confederate</i> States shall guarantee
to every State <i>that now is, or
hereafter may become, a member of
this Confederacy</i>, a republican form
of government; and shall protect
each of them against invasion; and
on application of the Legislature (or
of the Executive when the Legislature
<i>is not in session</i>), against domestic
violence.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page671" id="page671"></a>[pg 671]</span>


<p>[USA] ARTICLE V.</p>

<p>[CSA] ARTICLE V.</p>

<p>[USA] The Congress, whenever two-thirds
of both Houses shall deem it
necessary, shall propose Amendments
to this Constitution, or, on the Application
of the Legislatures of two-thirds
of the several States, shall call
a Convention for proposing Amendments,
which, in either Case, shall
be valid to all Intents and Purposes,
as Part of this Constitution, when
ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths
of the several States, or by
Conventions in three-fourths thereof,
as the one or the other Mode of Ratification
may be proposed by the Congress:
Provided that no Amendment
which may be made prior to the Year
one thousand eight hundred and eight
shall in any Manner affect the first
and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section
of the first Article; and that no
State, without its Consent, shall be
deprived of its equal Suffrage in the
Senate.</p>


<p>[CSA] <i><span class="sc">Section</span> 1. Upon the demand of
any three States, legally assembled in
their several conventions, the Congress
shall summon a Convention of
all the States, to take into consideration
such amendments to the Constitution
as the said States shall concur
in suggesting at the time when the
said demand is made; and should
any of the proposed amendments to
the Constitution be agreed on by the
said Convention&mdash;voting by States&mdash;and
the same be ratified by the Legislatures
of two thirds of the several
States, or by conventions in two-thirds
thereof</i>&mdash;as the one or the
other mode of ratification may be
proposed by the <i>general Convention&mdash;they
shall thenceforward form</i> a
<i>part of this Constitution. But</i> no
State shall, without its consent, be
deprived of its equal <i>representation</i>
in the Senate.</p>



<p>[USA]ARTICLE VI.</p>

<p>[CSA]ARTICLE VI.</p>

<p>[USA] All Debts contracted and Engagements
entered into, before the Adoption
of this Constitution, shall be as
valid against the United States under
this Constitution, as under the Confederation.</p>

<p>[CSA] <i>The Government established by
this Constitution is the successor of
the Provisional Government of the
Confederate States of America, and
all the laws passed by the latter shall
continue in force until the same shall
be repealed or modified; and all the
officers appointed by the same shall
remain in office until their successors
are appointed and qualified, or the
offices abolished.</i></p>

<p>[CSA] All debts contracted and engagements
entered into before the adoption
of this Constitution shall be as
valid against the <i>Confederate</i> States
under this Constitution as under the
<i>Provisional Government</i>.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page672" id="page672"></a>[pg 672]</span>

<p>[USA] This Constitution, and the Laws
of the United States which shall be
made in Pursuance thereof; and all
Treaties made, or which shall be
made, under the authority of the
United States, shall be the supreme
Law of the Land; and the Judges in
every State shall be bound thereby,
any Thing in the Constitution or
Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding.</p>

<p>[CSA] This Constitution, and the laws
of the <i>Confederate</i> States made in
pursuance thereof, and all treaties
made or which shall be made under
the authority of the <i>Confederate</i>
States, shall be the supreme law of
the land; and the Judges in every
State shall be bound thereby, anything
in the Constitution or laws of
any State to the contrary notwithstanding.</p>

<p>[USA] The Senators and Representatives
before mentioned, and the Members
of the several State Legislatures, and
all executive and judicial Officers,
both of the United States and of the
several States, shall be bound by
Oath or Affirmation, to support this
Constitution; but no religious Test
shall ever be required as a Qualification
to any Office or public Trust
under the United States.</p>

<p>[CSA] The Senators and Representatives
before mentioned, and the members
of the several State Legislatures, and
all executive and judicial officers,
both of the <i>Confederate</i> States and
of the several States, shall be bound
by oath or affirmation to support
this Constitution; but no religious
test shall ever be required as a qualification
to any office or public trust
under the <i>Confederate</i> States.</p>

<p>[CSA] The enumeration, in the Constitution,
of certain rights, shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people of <i>the several
States</i>.</p>

<p>[CSA] The powers not delegated to the
<i>Confederate</i> States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States,
respectively, or to the people <i>thereof</i>.</p>


<p>[USA] ARTICLE VII.</p>

<p>[CSA] ARTICLE VII.</p>

<p>[USA] The Ratification of the Conventions
of nine States, shall be sufficient
for the Establishment of this Constitution
between the States so ratifying
the Same.</p>

<p>[CSA] The ratification of the Conventions
of <i>five</i> States shall be sufficient
for the establishment of this Constitution
between the States so ratifying
the same.</p>

<p>[CSA] <i>When five States shall have ratified
this Constitution, in the manner
before specified, the Congress under
the Provisional Constitution shall
prescribe the time for holding the</i>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page673" id="page673"></a>[pg 673]</span>
<i>election of President and Vice-President,
and for the meeting of the electoral
college, and for counting the
votes, and inaugurating the President.
They shall also prescribe the
time for holding the first election of
members of Congress under this Constitution,
and the time for assembling
the same. Until the assembling of
such Congress, the Congress under the
Provisional Constitution shall continue
to exercise the legislative powers
granted them; not extending beyond
the time limited by the Constitution
of the Provisional Government.</i></p>



<p><i>Articles in Addition to, and Amendment of, the Constitution of the United
States of America. Proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures
of the several States, pursuant to the fifth article of the original
Constitution.</i></p>


<p>ARTICLE I.</p>

<p>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.</p>


<p>ARTICLE II.</p>

<p>A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</p>


<p>ARTICLE III.</p>

<p>No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without
the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed
by law.</p>


<p>ARTICLE IV.</p>

<p>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page674" id="page674"></a>[pg 674]</span>


<p>ARTICLE V.</p>

<p>No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual
service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject
for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall
be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself, nor be
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall
private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.</p>


<p>ARTICLE VI.</p>

<p>In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy
and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the
crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation;
to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have Compulsory
process for obtaining Witnesses in his favour, and to have the Assistance
of Counsel for his defence.</p>


<p>ARTICLE VII.</p>

<p>In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact
tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United
States, than according to the rules of the common law.</p>


<p>ARTICLE VIII.</p>

<p>Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.</p>


<p>ARTICLE XII.<a id="footnotetag213" name="footnotetag213"></a><a href="#footnote213"><sup>213</sup></a></p>

<p>The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for
President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant
of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the
person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for
as Vice President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for
as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the
number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit
sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to
the President of the Senate;&mdash;The President of the Senate shall, in presence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page675" id="page675"></a>[pg 675]</span>
of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and
the votes shall then be counted;&mdash;The person having the greatest number
of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority
of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority,
then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding
three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives
shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing
the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from
each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a
member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the
states shall be necessary to a choice.  And if the House of Representatives
shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve
upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice
President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional
disability of the President.&mdash;The person having the greatest number
of votes as Vice President, shall be the Vice President, if such number
be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person
have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate
shall choose the Vice President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of
two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole
number shall be necessary to a choice.  But no person constitutionally ineligible
to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of
the United States.</p>


<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote208" name="footnote208"></a><b>Footnote 208:</b><a href="#footnotetag208"> (return) </a><p>
This is an exact copy of the original in punctuation, spelling, capitals, etc.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote209" name="footnote209"></a><b>Footnote 209:</b><a href="#footnotetag209"> (return) </a><p>
Under the census of 1860 one representative is allowed for every 127,381 persons.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote210" name="footnote210"></a><b>Footnote 210:</b><a href="#footnotetag210"> (return) </a><p> "Other persons" refers to slaves. See Amendments, Art. XIV., Sections 1
and 2.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote211" name="footnote211"></a><b>Footnote 211:</b><a href="#footnotetag211"> (return) </a><p>
The principal of these are the clerk, sergeant-at-arms, door-keeper, and postmaster.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote212" name="footnote212"></a><b>Footnote 212:</b><a href="#footnotetag212"> (return) </a><p> Superseded by the twelfth amendment.</p></blockquote>

<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote213" name="footnote213"></a><b>Footnote 213:</b><a href="#footnotetag213"> (return) </a><p>
This article is substituted for Clause 3, Sec. I., Art. II., page 662, and annuls
it.  It was declared adopted in 1804.</p></blockquote>




<h2><a name="appendix-l" id="appendix-l"></a>APPENDIX L.</h2>

<h3>CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS,
MR. SECRETARY SEWARD AND JUDGE CAMPBELL.</h3>


<p><i>The Commissioners to Mr. Seward.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington City</span>, <i>March 12, 1861</i>.</p>

<p>Hon. <span class="sc">William H. Seward</span>, <i>Secretary of State of the United States</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: The undersigned have been duly accredited by the Government of
the Confederate States of America as commissioners to the Government of
the United States, and, in pursuance of their instructions, have now the
honor to acquaint you with that fact, and to make known, through you to
the President of the United States, the objects of their presence in this
capital.</p>

<p>Seven states of the late Federal Union, having in the exercise of the
inherent right of every free people to change or reform their political institutions,
and through conventions of their people, withdrawn from the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page676" id="page676"></a>[pg 676]</span>
United States and reassumed the attributes of sovereign power delegated to
it, have formed a government of their own. The Confederate States constitute
an independent nation, <i>de facto</i> and <i>de jure</i>, and possess a government
perfect in all its parts, and endowed with all the means of self-support.</p>

<p>With a view to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of this
political separation, upon such terms of amity and good-will as the respective
interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two nations
may render necessary, the undersigned are instructed to make to the
Government of the United States overtures for the opening of negotiations,
assuring the Government of the United States, that the President, Congress,
and people of the Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceful solution
of these great questions; that it is neither their interest nor their wish to
make any demand which is not founded in strictest justice, nor do any act
to injure their late confederates.</p>

<p>The undersigned have now the honor, in obedience to the instructions
of their Government, to request you to appoint as early a day as possible,
in order that they may present to the President of the United States the
credentials which they bear and the objects of the mission with which they
are charged.</p>

<p>We are, very respectfully, your obedient servants,</p>

<p>(Signed)  JOHN FORSYTH.</p>

<p>(Signed)  MARTIN J. CRAWFORD.</p>


<p><i>Memorandum.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Department of State, Washington</span>, <i>March</i> 15, 1861.</p>

<p>Mr. John Forsyth, of the State of Alabama, and Mr. Martin J. Crawford,
of the State of Georgia, on the 11th inst., through the kind offices of a distinguished
Senator, submitted to the Secretary of State their desire for an
unofficial interview.  This request was, on the 12th inst., upon exclusively
public considerations, respectfully declined.</p>

<p>On the 13th inst., while the Secretary was preoccupied, Mr. A. D.
Banks, of Virginia, called at this department, and was received by the
Assistant Secretary, to whom he delivered a sealed communication, which
he had been charged by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford to present to the
Secretary in person.</p>

<p>In that communication Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford inform the Secretary
of State that they have been duly accredited by the Government of
the Confederate States of America as commissioners to the Government of
the United States, and they set forth the objects of their attendance at
Washington. They observe that seven States of the American Union, in
the exercise of a right inherent in every free people, have withdrawn,
through conventions of their people, from the United States, reassumed the
attributes of sovereign power, and formed a government of their own, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page677" id="page677"></a>[pg 677]</span>
that those Confederate States now constitute an independent nation, <i>de
facto</i> and <i>de jure</i>, and possess a government perfect in all its parts, and
fully endowed with all the means of self-support.</p>

<p>Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, in their aforesaid communication, thereupon
proceeded to inform the Secretary that, with a view to a speedy
adjustment of all questions growing out of the political separation thus
assumed, upon such terms of amity and good-will as the respective interests,
geographical contiguity, and the future welfare of the supposed two
nations might render necessary, they are instructed to make to the Government
of the United States overtures for the opening of negotiations, assuring
this Government that the President, Congress, and the people of the
Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceful solution of these great questions,
and that it is neither their interest nor their wish to make any demand
which is not founded in the strictest justice, nor do any act to injure
their late confederates.</p>

<p>After making these statements, Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford close
their communication, as they say, in obedience to the instructions of their
Government, by requesting the Secretary of State to appoint as early a day
as possible, in order that they may present to the President of the United
States the credentials which they bear and the objects of the mission with
which they are charged.</p>

<p>The Secretary of State frankly confesses that he understands the events
which have recently occurred, and the condition of political affairs which
actually exists in the part of the Union to which his attention has thus been
directed, very differently from the aspect in which they are presented by
Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford. He sees in them, not a rightful and accomplished
revolution and an independent nation, with an established Government,
but rather a perversion of a temporary and partisan excitement to
the inconsiderate purposes of an unjustifiable and unconstitutional aggression
upon the rights and the authority vested in the Federal Government,
and hitherto benignly exercised, as from their very nature they always
must so be exercised, for the maintenance of the Union, the preservation of
liberty, and the security, peace, welfare, happiness, and aggrandizement of
the American people.  The Secretary of State, therefore, avows to Messrs.
Forsyth and Crawford that he looks patiently, but confidently, for the cure
of evils which have resulted from proceedings so unnecessary, so unwise,
so unusual, and so unnatural, not to irregular negotiations, having in view
new and untried relations with agencies unknown to and acting in derogation
of the Constitution and laws, but to regular and considerate action of
the people of those States, in co&ouml;peration with their brethren in the other
States, through the Congress of the United States, and such extraordinary
conventions, if there shall be need thereof, as the Federal Constitution contemplates
and authorizes to be assembled.</p>

<p>It is, however, the purpose of the Secretary of State, on this occasion,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page678" id="page678"></a>[pg 678]</span>
not to invite or engage in any discussion of these subjects, but simply to
set forth his reasons for declining to comply with the request of Messrs.
Forsyth and Crawford.</p>

<p>On the 4th of March instant, the then newly elected President of the
United States, in view of all the facts bearing on the present question, assumed
the Executive Administration of the Government, first delivering, in
accordance with an early, honored custom, an inaugural address to the
people of the United States. The Secretary of State respectfully submits a
copy of this address to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford.</p>

<p>A simple reference to it will be sufficient to satisfy these gentlemen that
the Secretary of State, guided by the principles therein announced, is prevented
altogether from admitting or assuming that the States referred to by
them have, in law or in fact, withdrawn from the Federal Union, or that
they could do so in the manner described by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford,
or in any other manner than with the consent and concert of the people of
the United States, to be given through a National Convention, to be assembled
in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution of the United
States. Of course, the Secretary of State can not act upon the assumption,
or in any way admit that the so-called Confederate States constitute a foreign
power, with whom diplomatic relations ought to be established.</p>

<p>Under these circumstances, the Secretary of State, whose official duties
are confined, subject to the direction of the President, to the conducting of
the foreign relations of the country, and do not at all embrace domestic
questions, or questions arising between the several States and the Federal
Government, is unable to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsyth and
Crawford, to appoint a day on which they may present the evidences of
their authority and the objects of their visit to the President of the United
States. On the contrary, he is obliged to state to Messrs. Forsyth and
Crawford that he has no authority, nor is he at liberty, to recognize them
as diplomatic agents, or hold correspondence or other communication with
them.</p>

<p>Finally, the Secretary of State would observe that, although he has supposed
that he might safely and with propriety have adopted these conclusions,
without making any reference of the subject to the Executive, yet,
so strong has been his desire to practice entire directness, and to act in a
spirit of perfect respect and candor toward Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford,
and that portion of the people of the Union in whose name they present
themselves before him, that he has cheerfully submitted this paper to the
President, who coincides generally in the views it expresses, and sanctions
the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse with Messrs. Forsyth
and Crawford.</p>

<p><i>April 8, 1861.</i></p>

<p>The foregoing memorandum was filed in this department on the 15th of
March last. A delivery of the same to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford was delayed,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page679" id="page679"></a>[pg 679]</span>
as was understood, with their consent. They have now, through their
secretary, communicated their desire for a definite disposition of the subject.
The Secretary of State therefore directs that a duly verified copy of the
paper be now delivered.</p>


<p><i>The Commissioners in reply to Mr. Seward.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>April 9, 1861.</i></p>

<p>Hon. <span class="sc">William H. Seward</span>,
<i>Secretary of State for the United States, Washington:</i></p>

<p>The "memorandum" dated Department of State, Washington, March
15, 1861, with postscript under date of 8th instant, has been received through
the hands of Mr. J. T. Pickett, secretary of this commission, who, by the instructions
of the undersigned, called for it on yesterday at the department.</p>

<p>In that memorandum you correctly state the purport of the official note
addressed to you by the undersigned on the 12th ultimo. Without repeating
the contents of that note in full, it is enough to say here that its object
was to invite the Government of the United States to a friendly consideration
of the relations between the United States and the seven States lately
the Federal Union, but now separated from it by the sovereign will of
their people, growing out of the pregnant and undeniable fact that those
people have rejected the authority of the United States, and established a
government of their own.  Those relations had to be friendly or hostile.
The people of the old and new Governments, occupying contiguous territories,
had to stand to each other in the relation of good neighbors, each
seeking their happiness and pursuing their national destinies in their own
way, without interference with the other; or they had to be rival and hostile
nations.  The Government of the Confederate States had no hesitation
in electing its choice in this alternative.  Frankly and unreservedly, seeking
the good of the people who had intrusted them with power, in the spirit
of humanity, of the Christian civilization of the age, and of that Americanism
which regards the true welfare and happiness of the people, the
Government of the Confederate States, among its first acts, commissioned
the undersigned to approach the Government of the United States with the
olive-branch of peace, and to offer to adjust the great questions pending
between them in the only way to be justified by the consciences and common
sense of good men who had nothing but the welfare of the people of
the two confederacies at heart.</p>

<p>Your Government has not chosen to meet the undersigned in the conciliatory
and peaceful spirit in which they are commissioned. Persistently
wedded to those fatal theories of construction of the Federal Constitution
always rejected by the statesmen of the South, and adhered to by those of
the Administration school, until they have produced their natural and often
predicted result of the destruction of the Union, under which we might have
continued to live happily and gloriously together, had the spirit of the ancestry
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page680" id="page680"></a>[pg 680]</span>
who framed the common Constitution animated the hearts of all their
sons, you now, with a persistence untaught and uncured by the ruin which
has been wrought, refuse to recognize the great fact presented to you of a
completed and successful revolution; you close your eyes to the existence of
the Government founded upon it, and ignore the high duties of moderation
and humanity which attach to you in dealing with this great fact.
Had you met these issues with the frankness and manliness with which the
undersigned were instructed to present them to you and treat them, the
undersigned had not now the melancholy duty to return home and tell
their Government and their countrymen that their earnest and ceaseless
efforts in behalf of peace had been futile, and that the Government of the
United States meant to subjugate them by force of arms. Whatever may
be the result, impartial history will record the innocence of the Government
of the Confederate States, and place the responsibility of the blood
and mourning that may ensue upon those who have denied the great fundamental
doctrine of American liberty, that "governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed," and who have set naval and
land armaments in motion to subject the people of one portion of this land
to the will of another portion.  That that can never be done, while a free-*man
survives in the Confederate States to wield a weapon, the undersigned
appeal to past history to prove.  These military demonstrations against the
people of the seceded States are certainly far from being in keeping and
consistency with the theory of the Secretary of State, maintained in his
memorandum, that these States are still component parts of the late American
Union, as the undersigned are not aware of any constitutional power
in the President of the United States to levy war, without the consent of
Congress, upon a foreign people, much less upon any portion of the people
of the United States.</p>

<p>The undersigned, like the Secretary of State, have no purpose to "invite
or engage in discussion" of the subject on which their two Governments
are so irreconcilably at variance. It is this variance that has
broken up the old Union, the disintegration of which has only begun. It is
proper, however, to advise you that it were well to dismiss the hopes you
seem to entertain that, by any of the modes indicated, the people of the
Confederate States will ever be brought to submit to the authority of the
Government of the United States.  You are dealing with delusions, too,
when you seek to separate our people from our Government, and to characterize
the deliberate sovereign act of that people as a "perversion of a
temporary and partisan excitement" If you cherish these dreams, you
will be awakened from them and find them as unreal and unsubstantial as
others in which you have recently indulged.  The undersigned would omit
the performance of an obvious duty, were they to fail to make known to
the Government of the United States that the people of the Confederate
States have declared their independence with a full knowledge of all the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page681" id="page681"></a>[pg 681]</span>
responsibilities of that act, and with as firm a determination to maintain
it by all the means with which nature has endowed them as that which
sustained their fathers when they threw off the authority of the British
Crown.</p>

<p>The undersigned clearly understand that you have declined to appoint
a day to enable them to lay the objects of the mission with which they
are charged before the President of the United States, because so to do
would be to recognize the independence and separate nationality of the
Confederate States.  This is the vein of thought that pervades the memorandum
before us.  The truth of history requires that it should distinctly
appear upon the record that the undersigned did not ask the Government
of the United States to recognize the independence of the Confederate
States.  They only asked audience to adjust, in a spirit of amity and peace,
the new relations springing from a manifest and accomplished revolution in
the Government of the late Federal Union.  Your refusal to entertain these
overtures for a peaceful solution, the active naval and military preparations
of this Government, and a formal notice to the commanding General of the
Confederate forces in the harbor of Charleston that the President intends
to provision Fort Sumter by forcible means, if necessary, are viewed by the
undersigned, and can only be received by the world, as a declaration of
war against the Confederate States; for the President of the United States
knows that Fort Sumter can not be provisioned without the effusion of
blood.  The undersigned, in behalf of their Government and people, accept
the gage of battle thus thrown down to them; and, appealing to God and
the judgment of mankind for the righteousness of their cause, the people
of the Confederate States will defend their liberties to the last, against this
flagrant and open attempt at their subjugation to sectional power.</p>

<p>This communication can not be properly closed without adverting to
the date of your memorandum. The official note of the undersigned, of the
12th of March, was delivered to the Assistant Secretary of State on the 13th
of that month, the gentleman who delivered it informing him that the
secretary of this commission would call at twelve o'clock, noon, on the
next day, for an answer.  At the appointed hour Mr. Pickett did call, and
was informed by the Assistant Secretary of State that the engagements of
the Secretary of State had prevented him from giving the note his attention.
The Assistant Secretary of State then asked for the address of Messrs.
Crawford and Forsyth, the members of the commission then present in this
city, took note of the address on a card, and engaged to send whatever
reply might be made to their lodgings.  Why this was not done, it is proper
should be here explained.  The memorandum is dated March 15th, and was
not delivered until April 8th.  Why was it withheld during the intervening
twenty-three days? In the postscript to your memorandum you say it
"was delayed, as was understood, with their (Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford's)
consent."  This is true; but it is also true that, on the 15th of March,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page682" id="page682"></a>[pg 682]</span>
Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford were assured by a person occupying a high
official position in the Government, and who, as they believed, was speaking
by authority, that Fort Sumter would be evacuated in a very few days, and
that no measure changing the existing <i>status</i> prejudicially to the Confederate
States, as respects Fort Pickens, was then contemplated, and these assurances
were subsequently repeated, with the addition that any contemplated
change as respects Pickens would be notified to us. On the 1st of April
we were again informed that there might be an attempt to supply Fort
Sumter with provisions, but that Governor Pickens should have previous
notice of this attempt. There was no suggestion of any reinforcement.
The undersigned did not hesitate to believe that these assurances expressed
the intentions of the Administration at the time, or at all events of prominent
members of that Administration.  This delay was assented to for the express
purpose of attaining the great end of the mission of the undersigned,
to wit, a pacific solution of existing complications.  The inference deducible
from the date of your memorandum, that the undersigned had, of
their own volition and without cause, consented to this long <i>hiatus</i> in the
grave duties with which they were charged, is therefore not consistent
with a just exposition of the facts of the case.  The intervening twenty-three
days were employed in active unofficial efforts, the object of which
was to smooth the path to a pacific solution, the distinguished personage
alluded to co&ouml;perating with the undersigned; and every step of that effort
is recorded in writing and now in the possession of the undersigned and of
their Government.  It was only when all those anxious efforts for peace
had been exhausted, and it became clear that Mr. Lincoln had determined
to appeal to the sword to reduce the people of the Confederate States to the
will of the section or party whose President he is, that the undersigned resumed
the official negotiation temporarily suspended, and sent their secretary
for a reply to their official note of March 12th.</p>

<p>It is proper to add that, during these twenty-three days, two gentlemen,
of official distinction as high as that of the personage hitherto alluded to,
aided the undersigned as intermediaries in these unofficial negotiations for
peace.</p>

<p>The undersigned, commissioners of the Confederate States of America,
having thus made answer to all they deem material in the memorandum
filed in the department on the 15th of March last, have the honor to be</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>JOHN FORSYTH,</p>
<p>MARTIN J. CRAWFORD,</p>
<p>A. B. ROMAN.</p>
  </div>  </div>


<p><i>Mr. Seward in reply to the Commissioners.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Department Of State, Washington</span>, <i>April 10, 1861.</i></p>

<p>Messrs. Forsyth, Crawford, and Roman, having been apprised by a
memorandum, which has been delivered to them, that the Secretary of State
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page683" id="page683"></a>[pg 683]</span>
is not at liberty to hold official intercourse with them, will, it is presumed,
expect no notice from him of the new communication which they have addressed
to him under date of the 9th inst., beyond the simple acknowledgment
of the receipt thereof, which he hereby very cheerfully gives.</p>


<p><i>Judge Campbell to Mr. Seward.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington City</span>, <i>Saturday, April 18, 1861.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: On the 15th of March, ultimo, I left with Judge Crawford, one of
the commissioners of the Confederate States, a note in writing, to the effect
following:</p>

<p>"I feel entire confidence that Fort Sumter will be evacuated in the next
ten days. And this measure is felt as imposing great responsibility on the
Administration.</p>

<p>"I feel entire confidence that no measure changing the existing <i>status</i>
prejudicially to the Southern Confederate States is at present contemplated.</p>

<p>"I feel an entire confidence that an immediate demand for an answer to
the communication of the commissioners will be productive of evil and not
of good.  I do not believe that it ought, at this time, to be pressed."</p>

<p>The substance of this statement I communicated to you the same evening
by letter. Five days elapsed, and I called with a telegram from General
Beauregard, to the effect that Sumter was not evacuated, but that Major
Anderson was at work making repairs.</p>

<p>The next day, after conversing with you, I communicated to Judge
Crawford in writing that the failure to evacuate Sumter was not the result
of bad faith, but was attributable to causes consistent with the intention to
fulfill the engagement, and that, as regarded Pickens, I should have notice of
any design to alter the existing <i>status</i> there. Mr. Justice Nelson was present
at these conversations, three in number, and I submitted to him each of
my written communications to Judge Crawford, and informed Judge Crawford
that they had his (Judge Nelson's) sanction.  I gave you, on the 22d
of March, a substantial copy of the statement I had made on the 15th.</p>

<p>The 30th of March arrived, and at that time a telegram came from Governor
Pickens, inquiring concerning Colonel Lamon, whose visit to Charleston
he supposed had a connection with the proposed evacuation of Fort
Sumter.  I left that with you, and was to have an answer the following
Monday (1st of April).  On the 1st of April I received from you the
statement in writing, "I am satisfied the Government will not undertake
to supply Fort Sumter without giving notice to Governor P."  The words
"I am satisfied" were for me to use as expressive of confidence in the remainder
of the declaration.</p>

<p>The proposition, as originally prepared, was, "The President <i>may desire</i>
to supply Sumter, but will not do so," etc., and your verbal explanation
was, that you did not believe any such attempt would be made, and that
there was no design to re&euml;nforce Sumter.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page684" id="page684"></a>[pg 684]</span>

<p>There was a departure here from the pledges of the previous month, but,
with the verbal explanation, I did not consider it a matter then to complain
of.  I simply stated to you that I had that assurance previously.</p>

<p>On the 7th of April I addressed you a letter on the subject of the alarm
that the preparations by the Government had created, and asked you if the
assurances I had given were well or ill-founded.  In respect to Sumter,
your reply was, "Faith as to Sumter fully kept&mdash;wait and see."  In the
morning's paper I read, "An authorized messenger from President Lincoln
informed Governor Pickens and General Beauregard that provisions
will be sent to Fort Sumter&mdash;peaceably, or <i>otherwise by force</i>."  This was
the 8th of April, at Charleston, the day following your last assurance, and
is the last evidence of the full faith I was invited to <i>wait for</i> and <i>see</i>.
In the same paper I read that intercepted dispatches disclosed the fact that
Mr. Fox, who had been allowed to visit Major Anderson, on the pledge that
his purpose was pacific, employed his opportunity to devise a plan for supplying
the fort by force, and that this plan had been adopted by the Washington
Government, and was in process of execution.  My recollection of
the date of Mr. Fox's visit carries it to a day in March.  I learn he is a
near connection of a member of the Cabinet.  My connection with the
commissioners and yourself was superinduced by a conversation with Justice
Nelson.  He informed me of your strong disposition in favor of peace,
and that you were oppressed with a demand of the commissioners of the
Confederate States for a reply to their first letter, and that you desired to
avoid it, if possible, at that time.</p>

<p>I told him I might perhaps be of some service in arranging the difficulty.
I came to your office entirely at his request, and without the knowledge
of either of the commissioners. Your depression was obvious to
both Judge Nelson and myself.  I was gratified at the character of the
counsels you were desirous of pursuing, and much impressed with your
observation that a civil war might be prevented by the success of my mediation.
You read a letter of Mr. Weed, to show how irksome and responsible
the withdrawal of troops from Sumter was. A portion of my communication
to Judge Crawford, on the 16th of March, was founded upon these
remarks, and the pledge to evacuate Sumter is less forcible than the words
you employed.  These words were, "Before this letter reaches you [a proposed
letter by me to President Davis], Sumter will have been evacuated."
The commissioners who received those communications conclude they
have been abused and overreached.  The Montgomery Government hold
the same opinion.  The commissioners have supposed that my communications
were with you, and upon the [that] hypothesis were prepared to arraign
you before the country, in connection with the President.  I placed a peremptory
prohibition upon this, as being contrary to the terms of my communications
with them.  I pledged myself to them to communicate information,
upon what I considered as the best authority, and they were to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page685" id="page685"></a>[pg 685]</span>
confide in the ability of myself, aided by Judge Nelson, to determine upon
the credibility of my informant.</p>

<p>I think no candid man, who will read over what I have written, and
considers for a moment what is going on at Sumter, but will agree that the
equivocating conduct of the Administration, as measured and interpreted
in connection with these promises, is the proximate cause of the great
calamity.</p>

<p>I have a profound conviction that the telegrams of the 8th of April, of
General Beauregard, and of the 10th of April, of General Walker, the
Secretary of War, can be referred to nothing else than their belief that
there has been systematic duplicity practiced on them through me. It is
under an impressive sense of the weight of this responsibility that I submit
to you these things for your explanation.</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>Very respectfully,</p>
<p>(Signed)  JOHN A. CAMPBELL,</p>
<p><i>Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, United States.</i></p>
<p>Hon. <span class="sc">William H. Seward</span>, <i>Secretary of State</i>.</p>
  </div>  </div>


<p><i>Judge Campbell to Mr. Secretary Seward</i>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington</span>, <i>April 20, 1861.</i></p>

<p><span class="sc">Sir</span>: I inclose you a letter, corresponding very nearly with one I addressed
to you one week ago (April 13th), to which I have not had any
reply.  The letter is simply one of inquiry in reference to facts concerning
which, I think, I am entitled to an explanation.  I have not adopted any
opinion in reference to them which may not be modified by explanation;
nor have I affirmed in that letter, nor do I in this, any conclusion of my
own unfavorable to your integrity in the whole transaction.  All that I
have said and mean to say is, that an explanation is due from you to myself.
I will not say what I shall do in case this request is not complied
with, but I am justified in saying that I shall feel at liberty to place these
letters before any person who is entitled to ask an explanation of myself.</p>

<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
<p>Very respectfully,</p>
  </div><div class="stanza">
<p>JOHN A. CAMPBELL,</p>
<p><i>Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, United States</i>.</p>
<p>Hon. <span class="sc">William H. Seward</span>, <i>Secretary of State</i>.</p>
  </div>  </div>

<p>No reply has been made to this letter, April 24, 1861.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page686" id="page686"></a>[pg 686]</span>




<h2>INDEX TO VOL. I.</h2>


<p><i>Abolition of African servitude</i>; its first public agitation, <a href="#page33">33</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;activity of the propagandists, <a href="#page34">34</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;misuse of the sacred word liberty, <a href="#page34">34</a>.</p>

<p><i>Absurdity of the construction</i>, attempted to be put on expressions of the Constitution, <a href="#page175">175</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp; a brief analysis, <a href="#page175">175</a>.</p>

<p><i>Accede</i>, discussions on the word, <a href="#page136">136</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its former use, <a href="#page137">137</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Adams, James H</span>, commissioner from South Carolina to Washington, <a href="#page213">213</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Adams, John</span>, stumbled at the preamble of the Constitution, <a href="#page121">121</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Adams, John Quincy</span>, his declaration of the rights of the people of the States, <a href="#page190">190</a>, <a href="#page191">191</a>.</p>

<p><i>African servitude</i>, its aid to the Confederacy in the war, <a href="#page303">303</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;confidence of the people in the Africans, <a href="#page303">303</a>.</p>

<p><i>Agreement</i>, between Generals Harney and Price, at St. Louis, Missouri, <a href="#page416">416</a>.</p>

<p><i>Agricultural products, Southern</i>, mainly for export, <a href="#page302">302</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a change of habits in the planters required, <a href="#page302">302</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;our success largely due to African servitude, <a href="#page303">303</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;condition of the Africans, <a href="#page303">303</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;diminished every year during the war, <a href="#page505">505</a>.</p>

<p><i>Alabama</i>, withdraws from the Union, <a href="#page220">220</a>.</p>

<p><i>All powers not delegated</i>, etc., what does it mean? <a href="#page175">175</a>.</p>

<p><i>Allegiance</i>, inconsistent ideas of, <a href="#page182">182</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;paramount to the Government, a monstrous view, <a href="#page182">182</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the sovereign is the people, <a href="#page182">182</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;obligation to support a Constitution derived from the allegiance due to the sovereign, <a href="#page183">183</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;oath to support the Constitution based on the sovereignty of the States, <a href="#page183">183</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the oath of military and naval officers, <a href="#page183">183</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how false to attribute "treason" to the Southern States, <a href="#page183">183</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an oath to support the Constitution, <a href="#page183">183</a>.</p>

<p><i>Amendment</i> of the Constitution, distinct from the delegation of power, <a href="#page196">196</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Anderson, Robert</span>, commands forts in Charleston Harbor, <a href="#page212">212</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instructions from the War Department of the United States, <a href="#page212">212</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;removes to Fort Sumter, <a href="#page213">213</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;acquaintance and past associations with the author, <a href="#page216">216</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his protest against relieving Fort Sumter, <a href="#page281">281</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the letter of protest, <a href="#page282">282</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reply to the demand for evacuation, <a href="#page286">286</a>.</p>

<p><i>Annapolis, Maryland</i>, first meeting of the commissioners to revise Articles of Confederation held there, <a href="#page87">87</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how revision was effected, <a href="#page88">88</a>.</p>

<p><i>Anti-slavery and pro-slavery</i>, terms misleading the sympathies and opinions of the world, <a href="#page6">6</a>.</p>

<p><i>Armories</i>, the chief, where located, <a href="#page480">480</a>.</p>

<p><i>Armory at Harper's Ferry</i>, burned by order of the United States Government, <a href="#page317">317</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a breach of pledges, <a href="#page317">317</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;machinery and materials largely saved, <a href="#page317">317</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;removed to Richmond, <a href="#page317">317</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;and Fayetteville, North Carolina, <a href="#page317">317</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Armorer Ball, his skill and fate, <a href="#page318">318</a>.</p>

<p><i>Arms and ammunition</i>, arrangements for the purchase of, <a href="#page311">311</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;agent sent to Europe, <a href="#page311">311</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. sent North, <a href="#page311">311</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to Admiral Semmes, <a href="#page311">311</a>.</p>

<p><i>Army officers</i> choose their future place of service in disintegration of the army, <a href="#page306">306</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act of Confederate Congress relative to, <a href="#page307">307</a>.</p>

<p><i>Arms</i> within the limits of the Confederacy in 1861, <a href="#page471">471</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. powder, <a href="#page472">472</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. arsenals, <a href="#page472">472</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;cannon-foundries, <a href="#page472">472</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the increased supply, <a href="#page476">476</a>.</p>

<p><i>Army, Confederate</i>, its organization, instruction, and equipment, the first object, <a href="#page303">303</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provisions of the first bill of Congress, <a href="#page304">304</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its modification for twelve months' men, <a href="#page304">304</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;fifth section of the act, <a href="#page304">304</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;system of organization, <a href="#page305">305</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;acts of Congress providing for its organization, <a href="#page305">305</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act to establish army of Confederate States, <a href="#page306">306</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its provisions, <a href="#page306">306</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the army belongs to the States, and its officers return to the States on its disintegration, <a href="#page306">306</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page687" id="page687"></a>[pg 687]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provision securing rank to officers of the United States Army, <a href="#page307">307</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the constitutional view, <a href="#page307">307</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how observed, <a href="#page307">307</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Generals appointed, <a href="#page308">308</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;efforts to increase the efficiency of, <a href="#page384">384</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;desire to employ the available force, <a href="#page384">384</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;organization of&mdash;early circumstances relating to it, <a href="#page443">443</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the largest army in 1861 that of the Potomac, <a href="#page443">443</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act of Congress relating to organization, <a href="#page444">444</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right to preserve for volunteers the character of State troops surrendered by the States, <a href="#page444">444</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;efforts to comply with the law, <a href="#page444">444</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;obstruction to its execution, <a href="#page444">444</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence, <a href="#page444">444</a>.</p>

<p><i>Arrest</i>, threats of, against Senators withdrawing from Congress, <a href="#page226">226</a>.</p>

<p><i>Arrest and imprisonment</i> of police authorities of Baltimore, <a href="#page334">334</a>.</p>

<p><i>Arsenals</i>, contents of, in 1861, <a href="#page471">471</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. in Richmond, <a href="#page479">479</a>.</p>

<p><i>Artillery</i>, extent of its manufacture, <a href="#page473">473</a>.</p>

<p><i>Assault on us</i>, The, made by the hostile descent of the fleet to relieve Fort Sumter, <a href="#page292">292</a>.</p>

<p><i>Assertions</i>, of Everett and Motley examined, <a href="#page130">130</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Baker, Edward</span>, Colonel, killed at Ball's Bluff, <a href="#page437">437</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Ball, Armistead</span>, master armorer at Harper's Ferry, <a href="#page317">317</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his gallant services, <a href="#page317">317</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his capacity and fidelity, <a href="#page318">318</a>.</p>

<p><i>Ball's Bluff</i>, defeat of the enemy at, <a href="#page437">437</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;losses, <a href="#page437">437</a>.</p>

<p><i>Baltimore</i>, manly effort of her citizens to resist the progress of the armies of invasion, <a href="#page299">299</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;occupied by United States troops, <a href="#page333">333</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the city disarmed, <a href="#page334">334</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arrest and imprisonment of police commissioners by General Banks, <a href="#page334">334-5</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provost-marshal appointed, <a href="#page334">334</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;search for and seizure of arms, <a href="#page335">335</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;report of a committee of the Legislature on the arrests, <a href="#page335">335</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Banks</span>, Major-General, unlawful proceeding of, in Baltimore, <a href="#page334">334</a>.</p>

<p><i>Bargain, A</i>, can not be broken on one side, says Webster, and still bind the other side, <a href="#page167">167</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Barnwell, Robert W.</span>, commissioner from South Carolina to Washington, <a href="#page213">213</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;offered the place of Secretary of State under Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page241">241</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Bartow</span>, Colonel, killed at Manassas, <a href="#page357">357</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Beauregard</span>, General P. G. T., correspondence with the Confederate Government relative to Fort Sumter, <a href="#page285">285</a>, <a href="#page286">286-287</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;demands its evacuation; commands army at Manassas, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;orders troops from left to right at Manassas, <a href="#page352">352</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his promotion, <a href="#page359">359</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his statement of the defenses of Washington, <a href="#page360">360</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;report of the battle of Manassas, <a href="#page368">368</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;endorsement of the President, <a href="#page369">369</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Bee</span>, General <span class="sc">Bernard</span>, wounded at Manassas, <a href="#page357">357</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Bell, John</span>, nominated for the Presidency in 1860, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;offers to withdraw, <a href="#page52">52</a>.</p>

<p><i>Belmont, Missouri</i>, occupied by Federal troops, <a href="#page403">403</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;afterward garrisoned by Confederate troops, <a href="#page403">403</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Grant attempts to surprise the garrison, <a href="#page403">403</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the battle that ensued, <a href="#page404">404</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Benjamin, Judah P.</span>, Attorney-General under Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page242">242</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Bible and Sharpe's rifles</i>," declaration of a famous preacher, <a href="#page29">29</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Bloodletting, A little more</i>," the letter recommending, <a href="#page249">249</a>.</p>

<p><i>Bond of Union, A</i>, necessary after the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#page193">193</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Articles of Confederation followed, <a href="#page193">193</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how amended, <a href="#page193">193</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;difference in the new form of government from the old one, <a href="#page194">194</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the same principle for obtaining grants of power in both, <a href="#page194">194</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;amendments made more easy, <a href="#page195">195</a>.</p>

<p><i>Border States</i> promptly accede to the proposition of Virginia for a Congress to adjust controversies, <a href="#page248">248</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;secession of the, <a href="#page328">328</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Bonham</span>, General, marches to Virginia with his brigade on her secession, <a href="#page300">300</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;commands brigade at Manassas, <a href="#page353">353</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proposal that he shall pursue the enemy, <a href="#page353">353</a>.</p>

<p><i>Bowling Green, Kentucky</i>, occupied by General Johnston, <a href="#page406">406</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Breckinridge, John C.</span>, nominated for the Presidency in 1860, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;willing to withdraw, <a href="#page52">52</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;ex-Vice-President of United States, <a href="#page399">399</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his address to the citizens of Kentucky, <a href="#page399">399</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Brown, John</span>, his raid into Virginia, <a href="#page41">41</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how viewed, <a href="#page41">41</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;report of United States Senate committee, <a href="#page41">41</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Brown</span>, Mayor of Baltimore, visits with citizens President Lincoln, <a href="#page332">332</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his report, <a href="#page332">332</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Buchanan</span>, President, his views and action in 1860, <a href="#page54">54</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his objection to withdrawing the garrison from the&nbsp;&nbsp;forts in Charleston Harbor, <a href="#page215">215</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page688" id="page688"></a>[pg 688]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;opposed to the coercion of States, <a href="#page216">216</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;view of the cession of a site for a fort, <a href="#page217">217</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;hope to avert a collision, <a href="#page217">217</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;message to Congress, with letter of South Carolina commissioners, and his answer, <a href="#page218">218</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his alarm at the state of affairs, <a href="#page265">265</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Butler</span>, Major-General B. F., occupies Baltimore with troops, <a href="#page333">333</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Cabell</span>, W. L., statement of field transportation at Manassas, <a href="#page383">383</a>.</p>

<p><i>Cabinet</i> of the President under the Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page241">241</a>.</p>

<p><i>Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln's</i>, a transaction in, <a href="#page276">276</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Calhoun, John C.</span>, his death, <a href="#page17">17</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks of Mr. Webster, <a href="#page17">17</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;anecdote, <a href="#page17">17</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract from his speech, "How to save the Union," <a href="#page55">55</a>.</p>

<p><i>California</i>, circumstances of its admission to the Union, <a href="#page16">16</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Campbell</span>, J. A. P., letter relative to the views of the Provisional President, <a href="#page238">238</a>.</p>

<p><i>Camp Jackson</i> surrounded by General Lyon's force, <a href="#page414">414</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;massacre at, <a href="#page416">416</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Campbell</span>, Judge, his statement relative to the intercourse between our commissioners and the Federal State Department, <a href="#page267">267</a>, <a href="#page268">268</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his own views, <a href="#page268">268</a>, <a href="#page269">269</a>.</p>

<p><i>Capon Springs</i>, speech of Webster at, <a href="#page167">167</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Cass, Lewis</span>, his "Nicholson letter," <a href="#page38">38</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resigns as United States Secretary of State, <a href="#page214">214</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his reason, <a href="#page214">214</a>.</p>

<p><i>Causes</i> which led the Southern States into the position they held at the close of 1860, recapitulation of, <a href="#page77">77</a>.</p>

<p><i>Cavils, verbal</i>, relative to the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation, <a href="#page135">135</a>, <a href="#page136">136</a>.</p>

<p><i>Centralism</i>, its fate in the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page161">161</a>.</p>

<p><i>Centreville</i>, conflagration at, <a href="#page467">467</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;retreat from, <a href="#page468">468</a>.</p>

<p><i>Change of government</i>, a question that the States had the power to decide, by virtue of the unalienable rights announced in the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#page438">438</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Chandler</span>, Z., his letter on a "little more bloodletting," <a href="#page249">249</a>.</p>

<p><i>Charleston Harbor defenses</i>, a subject of anxiety in the secession of the State, <a href="#page212">212</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Representatives in Congress call on the President, <a href="#page212">212</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proposal to observe a peaceful military status, <a href="#page212">212</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;secret preparations for re&euml;nforcement by United States Government, <a href="#page212">212</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nstructions to the commander, <a href="#page212">212</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;modified, <a href="#page213">213</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;commissioners sent by the State to treat for the delivery of the forts, <a href="#page213">213</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;change of military condition in the harbor, <a href="#page213">213</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how regarded, <a href="#page213">213</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;interview of commissioners with President, <a href="#page214">214</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;sharp correspondence, <a href="#page214">214</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Chesnut, James</span>, letter on the election of Provisional President, <a href="#page289">289</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Clark, John B.</span>, of Missouri, letter from President Davis, <a href="#page427">427</a>.</p>

<p><i>Clause second of Article VI</i> of the Constitution, adduced by the friends of centralism, <a href="#page149">149</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how magnified and perverted, <a href="#page150">150</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Clay, C. C.</span>, letter relative to certain misstatements relative to the author, <a href="#page206">206-208</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Clayton, Alexander M.</span>, letter relative to the election of Provisional President, <a href="#page237">237</a>.</p>

<p><i>Coercion of a State</i>, views in 1850, <a href="#page55">55</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. 1860, <a href="#page55">55</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration of the Convention that framed the Constitution, <a href="#page56">56</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;other declarations, <a href="#page56">56</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the idea absolutely excluded, <a href="#page101">101</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the alternative of secession, if no such right exists, <a href="#page177">177</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the proposition before the Convention, <a href="#page177">177</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of the delegates, <a href="#page177">177</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;coercion military, treated with abhorrence, <a href="#page179">179</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right to, repudiated, <a href="#page252">252</a>, <a href="#page253">253</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;language of the New York press, <a href="#page253">253</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of Northern speeches, <a href="#page254">254</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of Thayer, <a href="#page254">254</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks of Governor Seymour, <a href="#page255">255</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of Chancellor Walworth, <a href="#page255">255</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of the Northern press, <a href="#page256">256</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of Mr. Lincoln in his inaugural, <a href="#page256">256</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of Southern people, <a href="#page257">257</a>.</p>

<p><i>Columbus, Kentucky</i>, occupation by Confederate forces, <a href="#page402">402</a>.</p>

<p><i>Commissioners</i> to the United States appointed, <a href="#page246">246</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nature of, <a href="#page246">246</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how treated, <a href="#page247">247</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;negotiations of Judges Nelson and Campbell, <a href="#page267">267</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;statement of Judge Campbell, <a href="#page268">268</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his views, <a href="#page268">268</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declarations of Mr. Seward, <a href="#page268">268</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his assurances, <a href="#page269">269</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;expectations of the commissioners and of the Confederate Government, <a href="#page269">269</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;pledge given by Federal authorities, <a href="#page270">270</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;telegram to General Beauregard, <a href="#page270">270</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his reply, <a href="#page270">270</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;explanations of Mr. Seward, <a href="#page270">270</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;plan to re&euml;nforce and supply Sumter, <a href="#page271">271</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proceedings for its execution by Secretary Fox, <a href="#page271">271</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page689" id="page689"></a>[pg 689]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;facts presented to Mr. Seward, <a href="#page273">273</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the point of honor, <a href="#page273">273</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;further declarations of Mr. Seward, <a href="#page273">273</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;official notification from Washington to Governor Pickens and General Beauregard, <a href="#page274">274</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to President Buchanan, <a href="#page264">264</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their arrival, <a href="#page264">264</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;incidents, <a href="#page265">265</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of Judge Crawford describing his reception, <a href="#page265">265</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arrival of Mr. Forsyth&mdash;their letter to Mr. Seward, <a href="#page266">266</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no answer received for twenty-seven days, <a href="#page266">266</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a paper filed in the State Department, <a href="#page266">266</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an oral answer, <a href="#page266">266</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;state of affairs relative to Fort Sumter, <a href="#page266">266</a>, <a href="#page267">267</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their letters to General Beauregard, <a href="#page277">277</a>, <a href="#page278">278</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;failure of their mission, <a href="#page296">296</a>.</p>

<p><i>Commissioners from South Carolina</i> to President Buchanan relative to the delivery of the forts in Charleston Harbor, <a href="#page213">213</a>.</p>

<p><i>Community independence</i>, its origin and development, <a href="#page116">116</a>.</p>

<p><i>Compact, The original</i>, causes that blighted its fair prospects, <a href="#page48">48</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the Articles of Confederation a compact, <a href="#page135">135</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;been denied of the Constitution, <a href="#page135">135</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;denied by Webster, <a href="#page135">135</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;cavils on the words of the Constitution compared with the Articles of Confederation, <a href="#page136">136</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the wood accede considered, <a href="#page136">136</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;use of the words "compact, accede, Confederacy," <a href="#page137">137</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;compact used by Gerry, Morris, Madison, Washington, Martin, and others, <a href="#page138">138</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;in the ratification of Massachusetts, <a href="#page137">137</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the Constitution shown to be one by its structure, <a href="#page140">140</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provisions, <a href="#page140">140</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;representation in the Senate, etc., <a href="#page140">140</a>.</p>

<p><i>Compromise measures of 1850</i>, their origin, <a href="#page14">14</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;bear the impress of the sectional spirit, <a href="#page14">14</a>.</p>

<p><i>Compromise, Missouri</i>, how constituted, <a href="#page13">13</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;votes on, <a href="#page13">13</a>.</p>

<p><i>Confederacies</i>, the first local formed in New England, <a href="#page115">115</a>.</p>

<p><i>Confederacy</i>, the growth of, <a href="#page485">485</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;financial system of, <a href="#page485">485</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the state of the finances in 1862, <a href="#page485">485</a>.</p>

<p><i>Confederate Government</i>, its instructions to General Beauregard relative to Fort Sumter, <a href="#page284">284</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the correspondence, <a href="#page285">285</a>, <a href="#page286">286</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;aid given to Missouri, <a href="#page429">429</a>.</p>

<p><i>Confederation, The old</i>, declares independence of each State, <a href="#page86">86</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its articles, <a href="#page86">86</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;affairs, how managed, <a href="#page87">87</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the first idea of reorganization, <a href="#page87">87</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;consequences, <a href="#page87">87</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;term applied to the articles, <a href="#page88">88</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;revision, how effected, <a href="#page88">88</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how could it be superseded without secession? <a href="#page100">100</a>.</p>

<p><i>Conference of the President and generals</i>, after the victory at Manassas, <a href="#page352">352</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;order to pursue the enemy, <a href="#page353">353</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of the President respecting, <a href="#page353">353</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer from General Beauregard, <a href="#page354">354</a>, <a href="#page355">355</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;subjects considered, <a href="#page356">356</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;second do. of the President and generals, after the victory at Manassas, inquiry as to what more it was practicable to do, <a href="#page360">360</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;fortifications said to exist at Washington, <a href="#page360">360</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;subsequent reports, <a href="#page360">360</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;at variance with the information then possessed, <a href="#page360">360</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;why an advance was not contemplated to south bank of Potomac, <a href="#page360">360</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;returns to Richmond to increase army, <a href="#page361">361</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;charge of preventing the pursuit, <a href="#page361">361</a>.</p>

<p><i>Congress of the Confederation</i>, its distinction from the United States Congress, <a href="#page26">26</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;language of its resolution for a revision of its articles, <a href="#page88">88</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its recommendation, <a href="#page89">89</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instructions to the commissioners to the Constitutional Convention by the several States, <a href="#page89">89</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;early acts of, <a href="#page243">243</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;laws of United States not inconsistent continued in force till altered, <a href="#page243">243</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;financial officers continued in office, <a href="#page243">243</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;early steps required to be taken for a settlement with United States, <a href="#page244">244</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act relative to free navigation of the Mississippi River, <a href="#page245">245</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;coasting trade opened to foreign vessels, <a href="#page245">245</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolutions after the victory at Manassas, <a href="#page383">383</a>.</p>

<p><i>Congress, Provisional</i>, of seceding States assembles at Montgomery, <a href="#page220">220</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolution to remove the seat of government to Richmond, <a href="#page339">339</a>.</p>

<p><i>Congress of the Confederation and that of the United States</i>, difference between, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</p>

<p><i>Congress, United States</i>, decision on first abolition petition, <a href="#page5">5</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;prohibits importation of slaves, vote on the bill, <a href="#page5">5</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its action on the petition of Indiana Territory for the suspension of the ordinance prohibiting slavery, <a href="#page8">8</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;report of the committee, <a href="#page8">8</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;future action on resolutions, <a href="#page10">10</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;has only delegated powers, <a href="#page26">26</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action in the Senate in 1860-'61, <a href="#page68">68</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of its committee, <a href="#page69">69</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;failures of adjustment in the House, <a href="#page70">70</a>.</p>

<p><i>Connecticut</i>, instructions to her delegates to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page92">92</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page107">107</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Constitution, The</i>, a covenant with hell,"&nbsp;&nbsp;use of the expression, <a href="#page56">56</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page690" id="page690"></a>[pg 690]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;signification of the word, <a href="#page88">88</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the seventh article, a provision for secession, <a href="#page101">101</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not established by the people in the aggregate, nor by the States in the aggregate, <a href="#page101">101</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;delegates were chosen by the States as States, and voted as States, <a href="#page102">102</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;object for which they were sent, <a href="#page102">102</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;terms used then in the same sense as now, <a href="#page102">102</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a national Government distinctly rejected, <a href="#page102">102</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;final words of the Constitution, <a href="#page102">102</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not adopted by the people in the aggregate, <a href="#page114">114</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the assertion a monstrous fiction, <a href="#page114">114</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;as British colonies they did not constitute one people, <a href="#page114">114</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;confused views of Judge Story, <a href="#page115">115</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;exposition of them, <a href="#page115">115</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;some facts, <a href="#page115">115</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;local confederacies, <a href="#page115">115</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the form of the first, <a href="#page115">115</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its existence, <a href="#page115">115</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assertion of Edward Everett, <a href="#page116">116</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;unsustainable, <a href="#page116">116</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his quotations, <a href="#page117">117</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of General Gage to Congress in 1774, <a href="#page117">117</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract, <a href="#page117">117</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a citation from the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#page118">118</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a palpable misconception, <a href="#page118">118</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;as united States Independence was achieved, <a href="#page118">118</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;as united States they entered into a new compact, <a href="#page119">119</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;in no single instance was the action by the people in the aggregate or as one body, <a href="#page119">119</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;facts, <a href="#page119">119</a>, <a href="#page120">120</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;by what authority was it ordained? <a href="#page131">131</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;denied by Webster to be a compact, <a href="#page135">135</a>.</p>

<p><i>Constitution, Confederate</i>, the permanent of the Confederate States, prepared and ratified, <a href="#page258">258</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks of Mr. Stephens, <a href="#page258">258</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;followed the model of the United States Constitution, <a href="#page259">259</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;some of its distinctive features, <a href="#page259">259</a>, <a href="#page260">260</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;term of the President's office, <a href="#page259">259</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;removals from office, <a href="#page259">259</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;admission of Cabinet officers to seats on floor of Congress, <a href="#page259">259</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;protective duties prohibited, <a href="#page260">260</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;two-thirds vote for appropriations, <a href="#page260">260</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;impeachment by State Legislature, <a href="#page260">260</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the States make a compact for improvement of navigation, <a href="#page260">260</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;amendments obligatory by convention, <a href="#page260">260</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provisions relative to slavery, <a href="#page261">261</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;other provisions, <a href="#page261">261</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of Mr. Lincoln, <a href="#page262">262</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of "New York Herald," <a href="#page263">263</a>.</p>

<p><i>Constitution, Provisional</i>, for the Confederacy, adopted, <a href="#page229">229</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;officers elected, <a href="#page230">230</a>.</p>

<p><i>Constitutional Convention</i>, the original, rejected the doctrine of the coercion of a State, <a href="#page56">56</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;conclusions drawn from the instructions of the States to their delegates, <a href="#page93">93</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assembling of the Convention, <a href="#page94">94</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the work takes a wider range than was contemplated, <a href="#page94">94</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;diversity of opinion among the members, <a href="#page95">95</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Luther Martin's description of the three parties in the Convention, <a href="#page95">95</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the equality of the States, how adjusted, <a href="#page96">96</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;plan of government of Edmund Randolph, <a href="#page96">96</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how the word "national" was treated, <a href="#page97">97</a>.</p>

<p><i>Constitutional questions</i> involved in the position of the Southern States, recapitulation of, <a href="#page77">77</a>.</p>

<p><i>Constitutional Union party</i> of 1860, its principles, <a href="#page51">51</a>.</p>

<p><i>Constitutional Union Convention</i> in 1860, its nominations and resolutions, <a href="#page60">60</a>.</p>

<p><i>Convention</i>, the original idea of calling, <a href="#page98">98</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its powers merely advisory, <a href="#page103">103</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how its work was approved, <a href="#page103">103</a>.</p>

<p><i>Conventions, State</i>, representatives of sovereignty, <a href="#page97">97</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Cooper, Samuel</span>, resigns in United States Army, <a href="#page308">308</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his rank, <a href="#page308">308</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appointment in the Confederate Army, <a href="#page308">308</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Count of Paris</span>, his travesty of history, <a href="#page200">200</a>, <a href="#page201">201</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;libels the memory of Major Anderson, <a href="#page283">283</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Coxe, Tench</span>, words relative to separate sovereignties, <a href="#page128">128</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Crawford, Martin J.</span>, appointed commissioner to United States, <a href="#page246">246</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;commissioner to Washington arrives, <a href="#page246">246</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;describes the incidents and his reception, <a href="#page265">265</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;other proceedings, <a href="#page266">266</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Crittenden, J. C.</span>, offers in the Senate a joint resolution proposing amendments to the Constitution, <a href="#page60">60</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how received, <a href="#page60">60</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Davis, Jefferson</span>, re&euml;lected to United States Senate in 1851, <a href="#page18">18</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;subject of the compromise measures agitating Mississippi, <a href="#page18">18</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;division of opinion, <a href="#page18">18</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the principles of the Declaration of Independence of more value than the Union, <a href="#page18">18</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his position and views, <a href="#page19">19</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;invited to become candidate for Governor, <a href="#page19">19</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not accepted, <a href="#page20">20</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;active canvass, <a href="#page20">20</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nominated again on the withdrawal of the former nominee, <a href="#page20">20</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resigns as United States Senator, <a href="#page20">20</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his position relative to the Union, <a href="#page21">21</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to W. J. Brown, <a href="#page21">21</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;enters the Cabinet of President Pierce, <a href="#page22">22</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;charge of the Pacific Railroad survey, <a href="#page23">23</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;charge of the Capitol extension, <a href="#page23">23</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;charge of changes in the model of arms, <a href="#page23">23</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page691" id="page691"></a>[pg 691]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;increase of the army, <a href="#page23">23</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its officers, <a href="#page24">24</a>; clerkships, <a href="#page24">24</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;anecdote of General Jesup, <a href="#page24">24</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;again elected Senator from Mississippi, <a href="#page25">25</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no change in President Pierce's Cabinet during his term, <a href="#page25">25</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract from a speech in the Senate on the relation of master and servant in a Territory, <a href="#page30">30</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks in the Senate on the "Nicholson letter" of General Cass, <a href="#page37">37</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;offers a series of resolutions in United States Senate, <a href="#page42">42</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the resolutions, <a href="#page42">42</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;discussion and vote in the Senate, <a href="#page43">43</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;position of the mover shown in extract from his speech, <a href="#page44">44-46</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;meets with the Congressional representatives and Governor of Mississippi in consultation, <a href="#page57">57</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his views, <a href="#page57">57</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;summoned to Washington, <a href="#page58">58</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;state of affairs there and his proceedings, <a href="#page59">59</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract from a speech in December, 1860, in the Senate, showing his position, <a href="#page61">61-68</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;position and feelings at the beginning of 1861, <a href="#page205">205</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;previous life, <a href="#page205">205</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;office of Senator, <a href="#page206">206</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;in the Cabinet, <a href="#page206">206</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of C. C. Clay, relative to misstatements respecting, <a href="#page206">206</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;conversation with President Buchanan relative to the forts in Charleston Harbor, <a href="#page214">214</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;advises him to withdraw the garrison, <a href="#page215">215</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his objections, <a href="#page215">215</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;presents rejoinder of South Carolina Commissioners to President Buchanan in the Senate, <a href="#page218">218</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his speech, <a href="#page219">219</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;notified of the secession of Mississippi, <a href="#page220">220</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;states the position of the State in his final address to the United States Senate <a href="#page221">221-224</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;elected President of the Confederate States, <a href="#page230">230</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;engaged at home, <a href="#page230">230</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;disappointed, <a href="#page230">230</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;better fitted for command in the field, <a href="#page230">230</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;anecdote of W. L. Sharkey, <a href="#page230">230</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;addresses on the way to Montgomery, <a href="#page231">231</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;inaugural address, <a href="#page232">232</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to President Buchanan, <a href="#page264">264</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;message to Congress on April 28th, <a href="#page278">278</a>, <a href="#page279">279</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;writes to Governor Letcher to sustain Baltimore, <a href="#page300">300</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remained in the Senate after Mississippi called her convention, in order to obtain such measures as would prevent the final step, <a href="#page302">302</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;when her ordinance was enacted the question was no longer open, and her Senator could only retire from the United States Senate, <a href="#page302">302</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of instructions to Captain Semmes, <a href="#page311">311</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;message to Congress in April, 1861, <a href="#page326">326</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reply to the Maryland Commissioners, <a href="#page333">333</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer to Johnston relative to the rank of the latter, <a href="#page348">348</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;goes to the Manassas battle-field, <a href="#page348">348</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;scenes witnessed and described, <a href="#page348">348</a>, <a href="#page349">349</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arrives at Beauregard's headquarters, <a href="#page349">349</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;meets General Johnston, <a href="#page350">350</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appearance of the enemy, <a href="#page350">350</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the field on the left, <a href="#page351">351</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;meets General Beauregard, <a href="#page352">352</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;conference with the generals after Manassas battle, <a href="#page352">352</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;subject of conference, <a href="#page356">356</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;necessity of pursuit, <a href="#page356">356</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;condition of the troops, <a href="#page356">356</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;meets the wounded, <a href="#page357">357</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter promoting General Beauregard, <a href="#page359">359</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;charged with preventing the pursuit at Manassas, <a href="#page361">361</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General Johnston on the subject, <a href="#page362">362</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer of Johnston, <a href="#page363">363</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reference to another conference, <a href="#page363">363</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General Beauregard relative to the plea of a want of transportation for not pursuing the enemy, <a href="#page365">365</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;endorsement on the report of General Johnston, <a href="#page366">366</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks upon it, <a href="#page366">366</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to Beauregard relative to his report, <a href="#page366">366</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the objectionable point reviewed, <a href="#page367">367</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the part of the report and objections suppressed by Congress, <a href="#page367">367</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the report, <a href="#page368">368</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the endorsement of the President, <a href="#page369">369</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter calling for information on the wants of the army, <a href="#page384">384</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reply to the letter of the Governor of Kentucky, <a href="#page390">390</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;anxiety about affairs in Missouri, <a href="#page426">426</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to John B. Clark, <a href="#page427">427</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer to the request of General J. E. Johnston for re&euml;nforcements, <a href="#page442">442</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General G. W. Smith on the reorganization of the army, <a href="#page445">445</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General Beauregard, <a href="#page446">446</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General Beauregard, <a href="#page447">447</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston, <a href="#page448">448</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston on enemy's movements, <a href="#page452">452</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General G. W. Smith on movements against the enemy, <a href="#page453">453</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston on inspection of the line between Dumfries and Fredericksburg, <a href="#page454">454</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston on Jackson's movement in the Valley, <a href="#page457">457</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston on the order of the Secretary of War for the troops to retire to the Valley, <a href="#page460">460</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston on the complaint of irregular action by the Secretary of War, <a href="#page461">461</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston in answer to a letter stating that his position was considered unsafe, <a href="#page462">462</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston on mobilizing his army, <a href="#page463">463</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General J. E. Johnston in answer to a notice that the army was in retreat, <a href="#page464">464</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page692" id="page692"></a>[pg 692]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;visit to General Johnston's headquarters, <a href="#page465">465</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reconnaissance, <a href="#page466">466</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract from the inaugural address in 1862, <a href="#page484">484</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;message on the employment of slaves in the army, <a href="#page515">515</a>.</p>

<p><i>Debt, Foreign</i>, at the close of the war, <a href="#page496">496</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;attempts to discredit the Government abroad, <a href="#page497">497</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reference to Union bank-bonds, <a href="#page497">497</a>.</p>

<p><i>Delaware</i>, instructions to her delegates to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page93">93</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her words of ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page104">104</a>.</p>

<p><i>Delicate truth, A</i>, to be veiled, <a href="#page101">101</a>.</p>

<p><i>Democratic Convention of 1860</i>, disagreement, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;adjournment of divisions, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nominations by the friends of popular sovereignty, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nominations by the Conservatives, <a href="#page50">50</a>.</p>

<p><i>Democratic party</i>, dissensions in, <a href="#page36">36</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">D'Wolf, James</span>, president of a slave-trading company, anecdote of, <a href="#page84">84</a>.</p>

<p><i>Disguise with Confederate Commissioners</i> thrown off on the reduction of Sumter, <a href="#page297">297</a>.</p>

<p><i>Dissolution and secession</i> from the first Union gave existence to the present Union, <a href="#page171">171</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right to withdraw in either case results from the same principles, <a href="#page171">171</a>.</p>

<p><i>Dogma, A new</i>, created at the Chicago Convention in 1860, <a href="#page49">49</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Douglas, Stephen A.</span>, on the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, <a href="#page38">38</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nominated for the Presidency in 1860, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;unwilling to withdraw, <a href="#page52">52</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his resolution in the Senate recommending evacuation of the forts, <a href="#page281">281</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his remarks, <a href="#page281">281</a>.</p>

<p><i>Dred Scott case</i>; the question, <a href="#page83">83</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the salient points established, <a href="#page84">84</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks of the Chief-Justice, <a href="#page84">84</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Early</span>, General <span class="sc">Jubal</span>, commands regiment at Manassas, <a href="#page351">351</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extracts relative to the first battle of Manassas written by him, <a href="#page372">372</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;sketch of him, <a href="#page372">372-378</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks on the retreat from Centreville, <a href="#page468">468</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. on the loss of supplies, <a href="#page468">468</a>.</p>

<p><i>Election, Presidential, of 1860</i>, votes and result, <a href="#page53">53</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Ellis</span>, Governor, of North Carolina, reply to Mr. Lincoln's call for troops, <a href="#page412">412</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;sketch of Governor Ellis, <a href="#page413">413</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to President Buchanan restoring Forts Johnson and Caswell, <a href="#page413">413</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Ellsworth, Oliver</span>, views of, on the coercion of a State, <a href="#page178">178</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Elzy</span>, General, commands brigade at Manassas, <a href="#page351">351</a>.</p>

<p><i>Endorsement of the President</i>, on the report of the victory at Manassas, by General Beauregard, <a href="#page369">369</a>.</p>

<p><i>Equality of the States</i> a condition of the Union, <a href="#page180">180</a>, <a href="#page181">181</a>.</p>

<p><i>Equilibrium between the sections</i> destroyed by the action of the General Government, <a href="#page32">32</a>.</p>

<p><i>Equipments for armies</i>, the supply of, <a href="#page478">478</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their manufacture, <a href="#page478">478</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Everett, Edward</span>, nominated for the Vice-Presidency in 1860, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his assertions relative to the Constitution, <a href="#page129">129</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views on the sovereignty of the States, <a href="#page148">148</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Evans</span>, General N. S., his force near Leesburg, <a href="#page437">437</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;fight at Ball's Bluff, <a href="#page437">437</a>.</p>

<p><i>Expedition, Naval</i>, to re&euml;nforce Fort Sumter, <a href="#page274">274</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the circumstances, <a href="#page274">274</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its arrival delayed by a storm, <a href="#page274">274</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;dissensions in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, <a href="#page274">274</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;impossible that he was ignorant of the communications of the Secretary, <a href="#page275">275</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;yet the Secretary was not impeached, <a href="#page275">275</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a transaction in the Cabinet, <a href="#page275">275</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of Mr. Blair, <a href="#page277">277</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letters of the Commissioners, <a href="#page277">277</a>, <a href="#page278">278</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;message of President Davis to Congress, <a href="#page277">277</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the relief squadron, <a href="#page284">284</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence of Major Anderson, <a href="#page288">288</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arrival of the fleet off Charleston Harbor, <a href="#page289">289</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its failure to relieve the fort, <a href="#page289">289</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;report of Captain McGowan, <a href="#page291">291</a>.</p>


<p><i>Fairfax Court-House</i>, The conference at, <a href="#page445">445</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;circumstances, <a href="#page449">449</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;questions considered at the conference, <a href="#page449">449</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a paper relating to the conference, <a href="#page450">450</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;details respecting it, <a href="#page450">450</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;position unfavorable for defense, <a href="#page452">452</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;establishment of a battery near Acquia Creek, <a href="#page452">452</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;possibilities in the Valley of the Shenandoah, <a href="#page452">452</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence, <a href="#page452">452</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reference to, <a href="#page464">464</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Faith as to Sumter fully kept</i>"&mdash;the written answer of Secretary Seward, <a href="#page273">273</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;official notification of re&euml;nforcement served on Governor Pickens on the same day, <a href="#page274">274</a>.</p>

<p><i>False representations</i> made of us at the close of 1860, <a href="#page77">77</a>.</p>

<p><i>Federal Constitution</i>, how the term was freely used, <a href="#page93">93</a>.</p>

<p><i>Federal Government</i>, the tendency to pervert the functions delegated to it, and to use them with sectional discrimination against the minority, <a href="#page32">32</a>.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page693" id="page693"></a>[pg 693]</span>

<p><i>Federalist, The</i>, its use of the word "sovereign" as applied to the States, <a href="#page144">144</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Fighting in the Union</i>," what was meant by it, <a href="#page225">225</a>.</p>

<p><i>Financial system of The Confederacy</i> adopted from necessity, <a href="#page485">485</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its operation during eighteen months, <a href="#page485">485</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;issue of notes and bonds, <a href="#page486">486</a>, <a href="#page487">487</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;efforts to fund Treasury notes, <a href="#page487">487</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provisions of Congress relative to, <a href="#page488">488</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;measure to reduce the currency, <a href="#page489">489</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a review of the financial legislation, <a href="#page489">489</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a war-tax, <a href="#page490">490</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;internal taxation a partial failure, <a href="#page490">490</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;compulsory reduction of the currency, <a href="#page491">491</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its success, <a href="#page492">492</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;financial condition of the Government at its close, <a href="#page492">492</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;amount of the public debt, <a href="#page493">493</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;taxation, <a href="#page493">493</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Firing on the flag</i>," the disingenuous rant of demagogues, <a href="#page292">292</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Flaunting lie, A</i>," the compact of Union, <a href="#page326">326</a>.</p>

<p><i>Florida</i> withdraws from the Union, <a href="#page220">220</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Floyd</span>, General <span class="sc">John B</span>., resigns as United States Secretary of War, <a href="#page214">214</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his reason, <a href="#page214">214</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;advances to the support of General Wise, <a href="#page433">433</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his skirmishes with the enemy, <a href="#page433">433</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;defeats them, <a href="#page435">435</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assailed by General Rosecrans, <a href="#page433">433</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Rosecrans falls back, <a href="#page433">433</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Foote, Samuel A.</span>, states the true issue relative to the admission of Missouri to the Union, <a href="#page12">12</a>.</p>

<p><i>Foreign relations</i>, efforts at recognition, <a href="#page469">469</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;seizure of our commissioners on board the Trent, <a href="#page469">469</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;indignation in England, <a href="#page469">469</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their restoration, <a href="#page469">469</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Forsyth, John</span>, appointed commissioner to United States, <a href="#page246">246</a>.</p>

<p><i>Forts and arsenals</i>, course of United States Government relative to, <a href="#page281">281</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolution, <a href="#page202">202</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. taken possession of by the Southern States, <a href="#page202">202</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assertion made that the absence of troops was the result of collusion, <a href="#page202">202</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;this absence was the ordinary condition of peace, <a href="#page203">203</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;as defenseless now as in 1861, <a href="#page203">203</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;some exceptions, <a href="#page203">203</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the situation long maintained at Pensacola Bay, <a href="#page203">203</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;conditional cession to United States, <a href="#page209">209</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;condition of the cession of Massachusetts, <a href="#page209">209</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of New York, <a href="#page209">209</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of South Carolina, <a href="#page210">210</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;stipulations made by Virginia in ceding the ground for Fortress Monroe, <a href="#page210">210</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act of cession, <a href="#page211">211</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Fox, G. V.</span>, his plan to re&euml;nforce and furnish supplies to Fort Sumter, <a href="#page271">271</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;describes the details, <a href="#page271">271</a>.</p>

<p><i>Framework of the Government</i>, how constructed, <a href="#page97">97</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Franklin, Benjamin</span>, his use of the word "sovereignties" as applied to the States, <a href="#page144">144</a>.</p>

<p><i>Freedom</i> and <i>slavery</i>, terms misleading the opinions and sympathies of the world, <a href="#page6">6</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Fremont</span>, General <span class="sc">John C.</span>, his confiscation proclamation in Missouri, <a href="#page430">430</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Frost</span>, General D.M., commands militia at Camp Jackson, <a href="#page415">415</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;surrenders to Captain Lyon, <a href="#page415">415</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;efforts for release, <a href="#page415">415</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his letter to General Harney, <a href="#page415">415</a>, <a href="#page416">416</a>.</p>

<p><i>Fugitives</i>, law for the rendition of, occasion of its passage, <a href="#page16">16</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;tended to lead other States to believe they might evade their constitutional obligations, <a href="#page16">16</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of the States which had passed personal liberty laws, <a href="#page16">16</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the rendition of, not the proper subject for the legislation of Congress, <a href="#page81">81</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how it was in early times, <a href="#page82">82</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Garnett</span>, General <span class="sc">Robert</span>, killed at Rich Mountain, <a href="#page338">338</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;biographical notice, <a href="#page338">338</a>.</p>

<p><i>General Government</i>, its claim of a right to judge of the extent of its own authority, <a href="#page191">191</a>.</p>

<p><i>Georgia</i>, efforts to prohibit importation of slaves, <a href="#page4">4</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instructions to her deputies to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page91">91</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page106">106</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;withdraws from the Union, <a href="#page220">220</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Gerry, Elbridge</span>, objects to the provision for nine States to ratify, as a virtual dissolution of the Union, <a href="#page100">100</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his use of the word "compact," <a href="#page137">137</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Gorgas</span>, General, appointed chief of ordnance, <a href="#page310">310</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;states the growth of his department, <a href="#page481">481</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;statement relative to the charge against Secretary of War Floyd, <a href="#page482">482</a>.</p>

<p><i>Government, The United States</i>, exalted above the States which created it, <a href="#page127">127</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no such unit as United States ever mentioned, <a href="#page127">127</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instances, <a href="#page127">127</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of Tench Coxe, <a href="#page128">128</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;forgotten misconceptions revived by Daniel Webster, <a href="#page128">128</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his assertions in debate, <a href="#page128">128</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;specimen of views of sectionists, <a href="#page129">129</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assertion of Edward Everett, <a href="#page129">129</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of J. L. Motley, <a href="#page129">129</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;most remarkable of these assertions, <a href="#page130">130</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Constitution mentions the States as States seventy times, <a href="#page130">130</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;what authority ordained and established the Constitution, <a href="#page131">131</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page694" id="page694"></a>[pg 694]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;statements of Everett and Motley, <a href="#page131">131</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;question of Story and its answer, <a href="#page132">132</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of Madison on the nature of the ratification, <a href="#page133">133</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;legislation can not alter a fact, <a href="#page134">134</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its treatment of citizens of Kentucky, <a href="#page398">398</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not supreme, but subject to the Constitution and laws, <a href="#page151">151</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;accepted of sites for forts on the conditions prescribed by the State, <a href="#page211">211</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;confounded with the oath to support the Constitution, <a href="#page151">151</a>.</p>

<p><i>Government, Confederate</i>, seat of, removed to Richmond, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reasons for the removal, <a href="#page340">340</a>.</p>

<p><i>Governments</i> only agents of the sovereign, <a href="#page142">142</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;responsible to it, and subject to its control, <a href="#page154">154</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Grant</span>, General, attempts to capture the garrison at Belmont, <a href="#page403">403</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his defeat, <a href="#page404">404</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;became willing to exchange prisoners, <a href="#page405">405</a>.</p>

<p><i>Grants to the Federal Government</i>, not surrenders, says Hamilton, but delegations of power, <a href="#page163">163</a>.</p>

<p><i>Great Britain</i>, charge preferred against the Government of, in the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#page82">82</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Green, James S.</span>, offers a resolution in the United States Senate relative to preserving peace between the States, <a href="#page61">61</a>.</p>

<p><i>Grievance</i>, the intolerable, <a href="#page83">83</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Hamilton, Alexander</span>, his use of the word "sovereignty" as applied to the States, <a href="#page144">144</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the supremacy of the Constitution, <a href="#page150">150</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on a confederated republic, <a href="#page162">162</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract from "The Federalist," <a href="#page162">162</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;further views, <a href="#page162">162</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his views on the coercion of a State, <a href="#page178">178</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the omission of a State to appoint Senators, <a href="#page179">179</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Harney</span>, Major-General, removed from command in Missouri, <a href="#page421">421</a>.</p>

<p><i>Harper's Ferry</i>, burned and evacuated, <a href="#page328">328</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;President Lincoln expresses his approbation, <a href="#page328">328</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;destruction caused, <a href="#page329">329</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an important, position for military and political considerations, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its occupation needful for the removal of machinery, <a href="#page341">341</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Harris</span>, Governor of Tennessee, reply to Mr. Lincoln's call for troops, <a href="#page413">413</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Harrison, William Henry</span>, Governor of Indiana Territory, <a href="#page8">8</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to Congress with resolutions requesting the suspension of the ordinance prohibiting slavery, <a href="#page9">9</a>.</p>

<p><i>Hartford Convention</i>, proceedings relative to a dissolution of the Union, <a href="#page74">74</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Hayne, I. W.</span>, Commissioner from South Carolina to Washington, <a href="#page219">219</a>.</p>

<p><i>Hemp, bales of</i>, used for a breastwork, <a href="#page430">430</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Henry, Patrick</span>, asks what right had they to say, "We the people," <a href="#page121">121</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his objection to "one people," <a href="#page174">174</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Hicks</span>, Governor of Maryland, his declarations, <a href="#page331">331</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his proclamation, <a href="#page331">331</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Hill</span>, Colonel A. P., orders the affair near Romney, <a href="#page343">343</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;sketch of, <a href="#page344">344</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Hill</span>, Colonel D. H., afterward lieutenant-general, <a href="#page342">342</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;report of the combat at Bethel Church, <a href="#page342">342</a>.</p>

<p><i>Honor of the United States Government</i>, how maintained relative to the forts in Charleston Harbor, <a href="#page217">217</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a point easy to concede, <a href="#page217">217</a>.</p>

<p><i>Hope of reconciliation</i>, the last expires, <a href="#page250">250</a>.</p>

<p><i>Hostile expedition</i>, the, made the reduction of Sumter necessary before it should be re&euml;nforced, <a href="#page297">297</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Howard, Charles</span>, arrest and imprisonment by General Banks, <a href="#page335">335</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Huger</span>, General, commands a force at Norfolk, <a href="#page340">340</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Hurlburt</span>, a captive prisoner, <a href="#page361">361</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his career, <a href="#page361">361</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Huse</span>, Major <span class="sc">Caleb</span>, sent to Europe for the purchase of munitions of war, <a href="#page311">311</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;our agent in Europe, <a href="#page482">482</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his letter relative to the shipment of supplies, <a href="#page482">482</a>.</p>


<p><i>Immigration</i>, causes which combined for its direction to the Northern States, <a href="#page32">32</a>.</p>

<p><i>Inaction of the Army of the Potomac</i>, the President alleged to be responsible for it, <a href="#page449">449</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the question for consideration at the Fairfax conference, <a href="#page449">449</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a paper relative to the conference, <a href="#page450">450</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proceedings at the Conference, <a href="#page451">451</a>, <a href="#page452">452</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence, <a href="#page452">452</a>, <a href="#page453">453</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;application of General Jackson, <a href="#page454">454</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence relative to, <a href="#page455">455</a>, <a href="#page456">456</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;further correspondence, <a href="#page457">457</a>, etc.</p>

<p><i>Inaugural address</i> of the author as President of the Confederate States, <a href="#page232">232</a>.</p>

<p><i>Incendiaries</i>, trained in scenes of Kansas strife, <a href="#page31">31</a>.</p>

<p><i>Independence</i> of North Carolina and Rhode Island while not members of the Union, <a href="#page112">112</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;relations between them and the United States, <a href="#page112">112</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter from the Governor of Rhode Island, <a href="#page112">112</a>.</p>

<p><i>Indiana Territory</i>, petitions for the suspension of the Ordinance of 1787, prohibiting slavery, <a href="#page8">8</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page695" id="page695"></a>[pg 695]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action on the petitions, <a href="#page8">8</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;subsequent action and resolutions, <a href="#page9">9</a>.</p>

<p><i>Insurrection, An</i>, was it? <a href="#page325">325</a>.</p>

<p><i>Introduction</i>, The, <a href="#page1">1</a>.</p>

<p><i>Irrepressible conflict</i>, how the declaration of, arose, <a href="#page34">34</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Is thy servant a dog?</i>" its use in the United States Senate, <a href="#page34">34</a>.</p>

<p><i>Invasions of States</i>, no right in the Federal government to, <a href="#page411">411</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of the Constitution, <a href="#page411">411</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;deemed a high crime, <a href="#page411">411</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;response of Governors to President Lincoln's call for troops, <a href="#page411">411</a>.</p>

<p><i>Invention</i> exhausted itself in the creation of imaginary "cabals," "conspiracies," and "intrigues," <a href="#page200">200</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;examples, <a href="#page209">209</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Jackson</span>, General T. J., skill and daring in checking the enemy's forces in June, 1861, <a href="#page344">344</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;character, <a href="#page454">454</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter proposing a movement into the Shenandoah Valley, <a href="#page455">455</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of the President, <a href="#page457">457</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Jackson</span>, Governor of Missouri, reply to Mr. Lincoln's call for troops, <a href="#page412">412</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;issues a call for fifty thousand volunteers, <a href="#page421">421</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of the Governor, <a href="#page421">421</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his efforts to preserve the peace, <a href="#page422">422</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his declarations, <a href="#page422">422</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;demands of the Federal officers, <a href="#page422">422</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his march, <a href="#page459">459</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its results, <a href="#page459">459</a>.</p>

<p><i>Jersey Plan, The</i>, States rights, and opposed to national, as proposed in the Federal Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page105">105</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arguments for it, <a href="#page106">106</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Johnston</span>, General <span class="sc">Albert Sidney</span>, resigns in United States Army, <a href="#page308">308</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;rank, <a href="#page308">308</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appointment in Confederate Army, <a href="#page309">309</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his early career, <a href="#page405">405</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resigns in United States army, <a href="#page406">406</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assigned to the command of the Confederate Department of the West, <a href="#page406">406</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;destitution at Nashville, <a href="#page406">406</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his movements, <a href="#page406">406</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his military positions, <a href="#page406">406</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;takes command at Bowling Green, <a href="#page406">406</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his force, <a href="#page407">407</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;force of the enemy, <a href="#page407">407</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;efforts to procure arms and men, <a href="#page407">407</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to the Governor of Alabama, <a href="#page407">407</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to the Governor of Georgia, <a href="#page407">407</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;telegram to Richmond, <a href="#page407">407</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer of the Secretary of War, <a href="#page407">407</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;aid from the Governor and Legislature of Tennessee, <a href="#page408">408</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;measures taken to concentrate and recruit his forces, <a href="#page408">408</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the result, <a href="#page408">408</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolves on a levy <i>en masse</i>, <a href="#page409">409</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letters to the Governors of States, <a href="#page409">409</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;re&euml;nforced from Virginia, <a href="#page410">410</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Johnson, Herschel V.</span>, nominated for the Vice-Presidency in 1860, <a href="#page50">50</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Johnston</span>, General <span class="sc">Joseph E.</span>, commands army near Harper's Ferry, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;desires to retire, <a href="#page341">341</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;official letter addressed to him, <a href="#page341">341</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;apparent effort of the enemy to detain him in the Valley of the Shenandoah, <a href="#page344">344</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his junction with Beauregard becomes necessary, <a href="#page344">344</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract from official letter, <a href="#page345">345</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;urged to join General Beauregard, <a href="#page345">345</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence lost, <a href="#page346">346</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;telegram sent to, by General Cooper, <a href="#page346">346</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;confidence reposed in him, <a href="#page346">346</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the meaning of an order, <a href="#page347">347</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the junction made with marked skill, <a href="#page347">347</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer to telegram to join Beauregard, <a href="#page347">347</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his telegram asking his position relative to Beauregard, <a href="#page348">348</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer, <a href="#page348">348</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his rank in the Confederate Army, <a href="#page348">348</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter relative to obstacles to the pursuit of the enemy at Manassas, <a href="#page363">363</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his report, and the endorsement put on it by the President, <a href="#page366">366</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remonstrates against the movement of General Jackson in the valley, <a href="#page454">454</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter, <a href="#page456">456</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reconnaissance, <a href="#page465">465</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Johnson, John M.</span>, chairman of committee of Kentucky Senate on military occupation, <a href="#page393">393</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to General Polk, <a href="#page393">393</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Jordan</span>, Colonel <span class="sc">Thomas</span>, letter respecting the pursuit of the enemy after battle at Manassas, <a href="#page354">354</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his order, <a href="#page355">355</a>.</p>

<p><i>Judiciary, The Federal</i>, views of Marshall on the power of, <a href="#page166">166</a>.</p>

<p><i>Justification, A</i>, efforts of President Lincoln to make out his, <a href="#page322">322</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of his message, <a href="#page322">322</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his question, <a href="#page322">322</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its answer very plain, <a href="#page322">322</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his supposed answer, <a href="#page322">322</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nothing more erroneous than such views, <a href="#page323">323</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the beginning and end of all the powers of government are to be found in the instrument of delegation, <a href="#page323">323</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;for what purpose must he call out the war power? <a href="#page324">324</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his blockade proclamation, <a href="#page324">324</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its scheme, <a href="#page324">324</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how based, <a href="#page324">324</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its assumption of an insurrection, <a href="#page325">325</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;was it an insurrection? <a href="#page325">325</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Kane</span>, Police Marshal, arrested and imprisoned at Baltimore, <a href="#page334">334</a>.</p>

<p><i>Kansas and Nebraska Bill</i>, some facts connected with it, <a href="#page26">26</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration of 1850, <a href="#page26">26</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page696" id="page696"></a>[pg 696]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its discussion, <a href="#page27">27</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proceedings relative to, <a href="#page28">28</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not inspired by President Pierce's Cabinet, <a href="#page28">28</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;true intent and meaning of the act, <a href="#page28">28</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its terms, <a href="#page29">29</a>.</p>

<p><i>Kansas</i> Territory, its organization, <a href="#page26">26</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Kenner, Duncan F.</span>, letter on the election of Provisional President, <a href="#page238">238</a>.</p>

<p><i>Kentucky</i>, the principles announced by her, <a href="#page385">385</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolutions, <a href="#page385">385</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her position in the conflict, <a href="#page386">386</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the question of neutrality, <a href="#page386">386</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how could it be maintained, <a href="#page386">386</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence between Governor Magoffin and President Lincoln, <a href="#page387">387</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence with President Davis, <a href="#page389">389</a>, <a href="#page390">390</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;advance of General Polk, <a href="#page391">391</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the occasion of it, <a href="#page390">390</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence between General Polk and the authorities of Kentucky, <a href="#page392">392</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolutions of the Legislature relative to the occupation of points in the State by troops, <a href="#page392">392</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;treatment of her citizens by United States Government, <a href="#page398">398</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">King, Rufus</span>, on the danger to the Union, <a href="#page186">186</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Lamon</span>, Colonel, application to visit Fort Sumter, <a href="#page272">272</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Lane, Joseph</span>, nominated for the Vice-Presidency in 1860, <a href="#page50">50</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Senator from Oregon, some remarks relative to affairs, <a href="#page250">250</a>.</p>

<p><i>Language of the Northern press</i>, on the right to coerce a State, <a href="#page253">253-256</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;language of Northern speeches, on resistance to an attempt to coerce a State, <a href="#page254">254</a>.</p>

<p><i>Laurel Hill</i>, West Virginia, the conflict at, <a href="#page338">338</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Lay</span>, Colonel, reminiscences of the battle of Manassas, <a href="#page381">381</a>, <a href="#page382">382</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Lee, Robert E</span>., resigns in the United States Army, <a href="#page308">308</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;rank, <a href="#page308">308</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appointment in the Confederate Army, <a href="#page309">309</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appointed commander-in-chief of the military forces of Virginia, <a href="#page328">328</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;commands the Army of Virginia, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;goes to western Virginia, <a href="#page434">434</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his movements, <a href="#page434">434</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the bad season, <a href="#page434">434</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;decides to attack the encampment of the enemy, <a href="#page434">434</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the instructions, <a href="#page435">435</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;refrains from the attack, <a href="#page435">435</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;cause, <a href="#page435">435</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;moves to the support of Wise and Floyd, <a href="#page436">436</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the enemy withdraws, <a href="#page436">436</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Lee returns to Richmond, <a href="#page436">436</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;sent to South Carolina, <a href="#page437">437</a>.</p>

<p><i>Leesburg</i>, movement of the enemy to cross the Potomac near, <a href="#page437">437</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Letcher</span>, Governor, reply to Mr. Lincoln's call for troops, <a href="#page412">412</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Let the Union slide</i>," origin of the expression, <a href="#page56">56</a>.</p>

<p><i>Lexington, Missouri</i>, the battle at, <a href="#page430">430</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;surrender of the enemy, <a href="#page431">431</a>.</p>

<p><i>Liberty</i>, misuse of the word by abolitionists, <a href="#page34">34</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Lincoln</span>, President, his language relative to coercion, <a href="#page256">256</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;approves the plan of Fox to re&euml;nforce Sumter, <a href="#page272">272</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;issues his proclamation introducing the farce of combinations, <a href="#page297">297</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no power to declare war, <a href="#page298">298</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution, <a href="#page298">298</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no justification for the invasion of a State, <a href="#page298">298</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a palpable violation of the Constitution, <a href="#page298">298</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his effort to justify himself before the world for attacking us, <a href="#page322">322</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;expresses his approbation at the burning of Harper's Ferry, <a href="#page329">329</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his explanation of his policy, <a href="#page329">329</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter relative to the passage of troops through Baltimore, <a href="#page332">332</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reply to the letter of the Governor of Kentucky, <a href="#page388">388</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;calls on the Governors of States for troops, <a href="#page412">412</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their answers, <a href="#page412">412</a>.</p>

<p><i>Louisiana Territory</i>, its purchase one of
the earliest occasions for the manifestation
of sectional jealousy, <a href="#page12">12</a>; withdraws
from the Union, <a href="#page220">220</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Loring</span>, General, commands at Valley Mountain, Virginia, <a href="#page434">434</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Lyons</span>, General, begins hostilities in Missouri, <a href="#page415">415</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;announces the intention of the Administration to reduce Missouri to the exact condition of Maryland, <a href="#page423">423</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;killed at Springfield, <a href="#page429">429</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;disposal of his body, <a href="#page430">430</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Madison, James</span>, asks on what principle the old Confederation can be superseded, <a href="#page100">100</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his answer, <a href="#page100">100</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;says the parties to the Constitution are the people as composing thirteen sovereignties, <a href="#page122">122</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views on the nature of the ratification of the Constitution, <a href="#page133">133</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his use of the word "compact" as applied to the Constitution, <a href="#page138">138</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his use of the word "sovereignties" as applied to the States, <a href="#page144">144</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the supremacy of the Constitution, <a href="#page150">150</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his interpretation of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, <a href="#page164">164</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his argument to show that the great principles of the Constitution are an expansion of the principles in the Articles of Confederation, <a href="#page171">171</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his view of "one people," <a href="#page174">174</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the coercion of a State, <a href="#page177">177</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page697" id="page697"></a>[pg 697]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the danger to the perpetuity of the Union, <a href="#page185">185</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Magoffin, B.</span>, Governor of Kentucky, <a href="#page287">287</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to President Lincoln, <a href="#page287">287</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to President Davis, <a href="#page389">389</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reply to Mr. Lincoln's call for troops, <a href="#page412">412</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Magruder</span>, General, commands the force on the Peninsula, <a href="#page340">340</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Mallory, S. B.</span>, Secretary of State under Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page242">242</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Secretary of Confederate Navy, <a href="#page314">314</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his experience, <a href="#page314">314</a>.</p>

<p><i>Manassas</i>, first battle at, <a href="#page348">348</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appearance of the field, <a href="#page348">348</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;condition of our forces afterward, <a href="#page356">356</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;evidences of the rout of the enemy, <a href="#page356">356</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;cost of the victory, <a href="#page356">356</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;dispersion of our troops after the battle, <a href="#page357">357</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reasons why it was an extraordinary victory, <a href="#page358">358</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nature of the field, <a href="#page358">358</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the line of the retreating foe followed, <a href="#page359">359</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;articles abandoned, <a href="#page359">359</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the spoils gathered, <a href="#page360">360</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;strength of the two armies, <a href="#page371">371</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;amount of field transportation, <a href="#page383">383</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;dissatisfaction that followed the victory, <a href="#page442">442</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;unjust criticisms, <a href="#page442">442</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their effect on the Government, <a href="#page442">442</a>.</p>

<p><i>Manufacturing industry</i>, more extensive than ever, <a href="#page505">505</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Marshall, John</span>, on the powers of the States, <a href="#page165">165</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the power of the Federal judiciary, <a href="#page166">166</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Martin, Luther</span>, his use of the word "compact" as applied to the Constitution, <a href="#page138">138</a>.</p>

<p><i>Maryland</i>, instructions to her delegates to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page92">92</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page108">108</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;refused to be bound by the Articles of Confederation, <a href="#page126">126</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;first to be invaded, <a href="#page330">330</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;warning to all the slaveholding States, <a href="#page330">330</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of Governor Hicks, <a href="#page330">330</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a commissioner from Mississippi, <a href="#page330">330</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declarations of Governor Hicks, <a href="#page331">331</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Baltimore resists the passage of troops, <a href="#page332">332</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;efforts of the police and Governor, <a href="#page332">332</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of President Lincoln, <a href="#page332">332</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;visit of the Mayor of Baltimore, <a href="#page332">332</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his report, <a href="#page332">332</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Legislature appoints commissioners to the Confederate Government, <a href="#page333">333</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;also to Washington, <a href="#page333">333</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reply of President Davis, <a href="#page333">333</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Baltimore occupied by United States troops, <a href="#page333">333</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the city disarmed, <a href="#page334">334</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;authorities arrested and imprisoned, <a href="#page334">334</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arrest of members of the Legislature, <a href="#page336">336</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;imprisonment, <a href="#page336">336</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Governor Hicks's final message, <a href="#page336">336</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her story sad to the last degree, <a href="#page337">337</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how relieved, <a href="#page337">337</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the Maryland line of the Revolution, <a href="#page337">337</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;tender ministrations of her daughters to the wounded, <a href="#page337">337</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Mason, George</span>, views on the coercion of a State, <a href="#page177">177</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Mason</span> and <span class="sc">Slidell</span>, Messrs., sent as Commissioners to Europe, <a href="#page469">469</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;seized on their passage by Captain Wilkes, United States Navy, <a href="#page469">469</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their treatment and restoration, <a href="#page470">470</a>.</p>

<p><i>Massachusetts</i>, threats of a dissolution of the Union in 1844-'45, <a href="#page76">76</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instructions to her delegates to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page92">92</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;tenacious of her State independence, <a href="#page107">107</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action on the ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page107">107</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her terms of ratification, <a href="#page139">139</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her use of the word "compact," as applied to the Constitution, <a href="#page139">139</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;use of the word "sovereign," as applied to the State, <a href="#page143">143</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the reserved powers of the States, <a href="#page146">146</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolutions of her Legislature express perhaps too decided a doctrine of nullification, <a href="#page190">190</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;terms of cession of land for forts and navy-yard to the United States, <a href="#page209">209</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">McClellan</span>, Major-General <span class="sc">George B.</span>, commands force in Western Virginia, <a href="#page338">338</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;commands enemy's forces at Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill, <a href="#page338">338</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">McDowell</span>, General, moves to attack General Beauregard, <a href="#page344">344</a>.</p>

<p><i>Medicines</i>, declared by the enemy contraband of war, <a href="#page310">310</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;substitutes sought from the forest, <a href="#page310">310</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Memminger, C. G.</span>, Secretary of the Treasury under the Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page242">242</a>.</p>

<p><i>Michigan</i>, action of her Senators relative to the Peace Congress, <a href="#page248">248</a>, <a href="#page249">249</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the "bloodletting" letter, <a href="#page249">249</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Miles, W. Porcher</span>, letter on the election of Provisional President, <a href="#page240">240</a>.</p>

<p><i>Military organizations, quasi</i>, in the North in 1860, <a href="#page55">55</a>.</p>

<p><i>Military service</i>, laws relating to, <a href="#page506">506</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a constitutional question raised, <a href="#page506">506</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its discussion at length, <a href="#page506">506</a>.</p>

<p><i>Mississippi</i>, agitated by compromise measures of 1850, <a href="#page18">18</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;diversity of views, <a href="#page18">18</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Governor calls special session of the Legislature after the Presidential election in 1860, <a href="#page57">57</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its Senators and Representatives in Congress convened for consultation, <a href="#page57">57</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of the author, <a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page58">58</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of O. R. Singleton on the consultation, <a href="#page58">58</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page698" id="page698"></a>[pg 698]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;withdraws from the Union, <a href="#page220">220</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;State Convention makes provision for a State army, <a href="#page228">228</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appoints the author major-general, and other officers, <a href="#page228">228</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;State divided into districts, and troops apportioned, <a href="#page228">228</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;destitution of arms showed the absence of expectation of war, <a href="#page228">228</a>.</p>

<p><i>Mississippi River</i>, misrepresentations relative to the free navigation of, <a href="#page244">244</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act of Congress relative to, <a href="#page245">245</a>.</p>

<p><i>Mississippi Union Bank</i> bonds, the facts in relation to them, <a href="#page497">497</a>.</p>

<p><i>Missouri Compromise</i>, without Constitutional authority, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</p>

<p><i>Missouri</i>, controversy relative to the admission of, to the Union, <a href="#page12">12</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its origin, <a href="#page12">12</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;history of the excitement occasioned, <a href="#page12">12</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its result, <a href="#page12">12</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;true issue stated by Samuel A. Foote, <a href="#page12">12</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the compromise, how constituted, <a href="#page13">13</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;votes on, <a href="#page13">13</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;line obliterated in 1850, <a href="#page14">14</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its effect, <a href="#page14">14</a>, <a href="#page15">15</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resistance to its admission as a State, owing merely to political motives, <a href="#page33">33</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the issue of subjugation presented to her, <a href="#page403">403</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her condition similar to that of Kentucky, <a href="#page414">414</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;hostilities instituted by Captain Lyon, <a href="#page414">414</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Camp Jackson surrounded, <a href="#page414">414</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its surrender, <a href="#page415">415</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;imprisonment of General Frost, <a href="#page415">415</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;efforts to restore order, <a href="#page416">416</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;agreement between Generals Price and Harney, <a href="#page416">416</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;signification of the agreement between Generals Harney and Price, <a href="#page417">417</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;favorable prospect of peace in the State, <a href="#page418">418</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;misrepresentations by a cabal, <a href="#page418">418</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an incident, <a href="#page418">418</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;General Harney removed, <a href="#page419">419</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arms removed from the United States Arsenal to St. Louis, <a href="#page419">419</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;houses of citizens searched for arms, <a href="#page419">419</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the excitement in the State, <a href="#page420">420</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;General Jackson an object of special persecution, <a href="#page420">420</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;activity of Lieutenant-Governor Reynolds, <a href="#page420">420</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;position of the State in 1860, <a href="#page420">420</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;interference of unauthorized parties, <a href="#page420">420</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the volunteers attacked at Booneville by General Lyon and United States troops, <a href="#page424">424</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a party of the enemy routed, <a href="#page424">424</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;General Price moves to southwestern part of the State, <a href="#page424">424</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the patriot army of Missouri, <a href="#page425">425</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;rout of the enemy at Carthage, <a href="#page425">425</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;anxiety about affairs in Missouri, <a href="#page426">426</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;General Price's efforts, <a href="#page427">427</a>, <a href="#page428">428</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;complaints and embarrassments in, <a href="#page427">427</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence with John B. Clark, <a href="#page427">427</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;destitution of arms, <a href="#page428">428</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Missourians at Vicksburg, <a href="#page428">428</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;aid from Confederate States, <a href="#page429">429</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;battle at Springfield, <a href="#page429">429</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of General Fremont, <a href="#page430">430</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;conflict at Lexington, <a href="#page430">430</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;asserts her right to exercise supreme control over her domestic affairs, <a href="#page421">421</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proceedings in, <a href="#page421">421</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;attack of Kansas troops, <a href="#page431">431</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;put to flight, <a href="#page431">431</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;increase of the force of the enemy, <a href="#page432">432</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;General Price retires, <a href="#page432">432</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;evidence that the ordinance of secession was the expression of the
popular will of Missouri, <a href="#page432">432</a>.</p>

<p><i>Misrepresentations</i>, inspired by a cabal in St. Louis, <a href="#page418">418</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Monroe</span>, Judge, citizen of Kentucky, his treatment by the Government of the United States, <a href="#page398">398</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Moore</span>,&nbsp;&nbsp;Surgeon L. P., appointed Surgeon-general, <a href="#page310">310</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Morris, Gouverneur</span>, his use of the word "compact," <a href="#page137">137</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his remarkable propositions in the Convention, and their fate, <a href="#page159">159</a>, <a href="#page160">160</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Motley, John</span> L., his assertions relative to the Constitution, <a href="#page129">129</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his declaration relative to the words "sovereign" and "sovereignty," <a href="#page143">143</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views on the second clause of the sixth article, <a href="#page150">150</a>.</p>

<p><i>Munitions of war</i>, preparations to provide them, <a href="#page316">316</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;prompt measures to supply niter, saltpeter, charcoal, <a href="#page316">316</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Myers</span>, Lieutenant-Colonel A. C., appointed quartermaster-general, <a href="#page310">310</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>National</i>," how the word was treated in the Convention that framed the Constitution, <a href="#page97">97</a>.</p>

<p><i>Nationalism</i>, its fate in the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page161">161</a>.</p>

<p><i>Naval officers, Southern</i>, view of their position, <a href="#page313">313</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;returned all vessels to the North, <a href="#page314">314</a>.</p>

<p><i>Naval vessels</i>, instructions to Captain Semmes to seek for, <a href="#page313">313</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views relative to Southern naval officers, <a href="#page313">313</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;officer sent to England, <a href="#page314">314</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Nelson</span>, Judge, co&ouml;perates between the Commissioners and the Federal authorities, <a href="#page267">267</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his own views, <a href="#page267">267</a>.</p>

<p><i>Neutrality</i>, the position assumed by Kentucky, <a href="#page386">386</a>.</p>

<p><i>Neutrality of Kentucky</i> not respected by United States Government, <a href="#page397">397</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;historical statement, <a href="#page398">398</a>.</p>

<p><i>New Hampshire</i>, instructions to her deputies to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page92">92</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page108">108</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page699" id="page699"></a>[pg 699]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;use of the word "compact" as applied to the Constitution, <a href="#page134">134</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;use of the word "sovereign" as applied to the State, <a href="#page143">143</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the reserved powers of the States, <a href="#page147">147</a>.</p>

<p><i>New Jersey</i>, instructions to her delegates to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page90">90</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page106">106</a>.</p>

<p><i>New States</i>, practice of the Government relative to the admission of, <a href="#page38">38</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the usual process of transition, <a href="#page39">39</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;question of sovereignty, <a href="#page39">39</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Territorial Legislatures the agents of Congress, <a href="#page40">40</a>.</p>

<p><i>New York</i>, instructions to her delegates to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page92">92</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how the ratification was secured, <a href="#page109">109</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a declaration of principles, <a href="#page110">110</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her declaration on the reserved powers of the States, <a href="#page147">147</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;conditions upon which the land for Brooklyn Navy Yard was ceded to the United States, <a href="#page209">209</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nine States to ratify, reason for the adoption of this number, <a href="#page98">98</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;why referred to State Conventions, <a href="#page99">99</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a dissolution of the Union, <a href="#page100">100</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right of, to form a government for themselves under the seventh article of the Constitution, <a href="#page101">101</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a refutation of the assertion that the Constitution was formed by the people in the aggregate, <a href="#page101">101</a>.</p>

<p><i>Niter and Mining Bureau</i>, organized, <a href="#page477">477</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its operation, <a href="#page477">477</a>.</p>

<p><i>North, The</i>, the cause of undue caution, <a href="#page314">314</a>.</p>

<p><i>North Carolina</i>, instructions to her commissioners to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page90">90</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her declaration on the reserved powers of the States, <a href="#page147">147</a>.</p>

<p><i>Northern States</i>, at the last moment, refuse to make any concessions, or to offer any guarantees to check the current toward secession of the complaining States, <a href="#page438">438</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;responsible for whatever of bloodshed, of devastation, or shock to republican government has resulted from the war, <a href="#page439">439</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Northrop</span>, Colonel L. B., placed at the head of the subsistence department, <a href="#page303">303</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his experience and capacity, <a href="#page303">303</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;rank, <a href="#page310">310</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his efforts to provide for present and future supplies, <a href="#page315">315</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;lack of transportation, <a href="#page315">315</a>.</p>

<p><i>Nullification</i> and <i>secession</i>, distinction between, <a href="#page184">184</a>.</p>


<p><i>Oath</i> required by the Constitution, some took it and made use of the powers and opportunities of the offices held under its sanctions to nullify its obligations, <a href="#page81">81</a>.</p>

<p><i>Object of the war</i>, our subjugation by the North, <a href="#page321">321</a>.</p>

<p><i>Obstacles</i> to the formation of a more perfect Union, <a href="#page31">31</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>On to Richmond</i>," changed at Manassas to "off to Washington," <a href="#page351">351</a>.</p>

<p><i>Order of pursuit</i>, after the victory at Manassas, details of, <a href="#page353">353</a>, <a href="#page354">354</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not sent, <a href="#page355">355</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;another order sent, <a href="#page355">355</a>.</p>

<p><i>Ordinance of Virginia</i> in 1787, its articles, <a href="#page7">7</a>, <a href="#page355">355</a>.</p>

<p><i>Ordinance of Virginia</i> in 1787, its articles, <a href="#page7">7</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;urged as a precedent in support of the claim of a power in Congress to determine the question of the admission of slaves into the Territories, <a href="#page10">10</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its validity examined, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Orr, James</span> L., Commissioner from South Carolina to Washington, <a href="#page213">213</a>.</p>


<p><i>Pandora's box</i>, the opening of, <a href="#page15">15</a>.</p>

<p><i>Paradoxical theories</i>, relative to sovereignty in the United States, <a href="#page142">142</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no government is sovereign, <a href="#page142">142</a>.</p>

<p><i>Patriot army of</i> Missouri, description of, <a href="#page425">425</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Patterson</span>, <span class="sc">William</span>, arguments for the Jersey plan in the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page206">206</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Patterson</span>, Major-General, commands force at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, <a href="#page337">337</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its object, <a href="#page338">338</a>.</p>

<p><i>Pause, A</i>, to consider the attitude of the parties to the contest, and the grounds on which they stand, <a href="#page289">289</a>.</p>

<p><i>Peace Congress</i>, it assembles, <a href="#page248">248</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;States represented, <a href="#page248">248</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its officers and proceedings, <a href="#page249">249</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the plan proposed, <a href="#page250">250</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how treated by the majority, <a href="#page250">250</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the failure of, <a href="#page296">296</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Pegram</span>, Colonel, second in command at Rich Mountain, <a href="#page338">338</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Pendleton</span>, Captain W. N., commands an effective battery at Manassas, <a href="#page358">358</a>.</p>

<p><i>Peninsula of Virginia</i>, features for defense, <a href="#page300">300</a>.</p>

<p><i>Pennsylvania</i>, instructions to her deputies to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page90">90</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words with which she ratified the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page105">105</a>.</p>

<p><i>People in the aggregate, The</i>, no instance of the action of the people as one body, <a href="#page119">119</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;use of the word by Virginia, <a href="#page125">125</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its early use, <a href="#page125">125</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. in the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#page126">126</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of Story, <a href="#page126">126</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;speak as the people of the States, <a href="#page152">152</a>.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page700" id="page700"></a>[pg 700]</span>

<p><i>People of the State</i>, the only sovereign political community before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page154">154</a>.</p>

<p><i>People of the United States</i>, understood to mean the people of the respective States, <a href="#page174">174</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of Virginia, of Massachusetts, and others, <a href="#page174">174</a>.</p>

<p><i>People of the South</i>, their hope and wish that the disagreeable necessity of separation would be peaceably met, <a href="#page438">438</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;every step of the Confederate Government directed to that end, <a href="#page439">439</a>.</p>

<p><i>Perpetuity of the Union</i>, danger to, foreshadowed, <a href="#page185">185</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Pickens</span>, Governor, his dispatch relative to Colonel Lamon, <a href="#page272">272</a>.</p>

<p><i>Pickens, Fort</i>, its condition at the outbreak of the war, <a href="#page203">203</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Pickering</span>, <span class="sc">Timothy</span>, letter in 1803-'4 on a separation of the Union, <a href="#page71">71</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his prediction, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Pierce</span>, <span class="sc">Franklin</span>, President, his character, <a href="#page25">25</a>.</p>

<p><i>Plans of the enemy</i>, their development, <a href="#page468">468</a>.</p>

<p><i>Pledge</i> given by Federal authorities to Confederate Commissioners and Government for the evacuation of Sumter and unchanged condition of Pickens, <a href="#page269">269</a>.</p>

<p><i>Plighted faith</i>, the last vestige of, disappeared, <a href="#page274">274</a>.</p>

<p><i>Point of honor</i>, the, raised by Secretary Seward, <a href="#page273">273</a>.</p>

<p><i>Political parties</i>, the changes occurring in, <a href="#page35">35</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their names and signification, <a href="#page35">35</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Polk</span>, Major-General <span class="sc">Leonidas</span>, enters Kentucky and occupies Hickman and Columbus, <a href="#page391">391</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his dispatch to the President and the answer, <a href="#page392">392</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer to Kentucky Committee, <a href="#page394">394</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter to the Governor of Kentucky, <a href="#page396">396</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his proposition, <a href="#page397">397</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;repulses the assailants at Belmont, <a href="#page404">404</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his report of the conflict, <a href="#page405">405</a>.</p>

<p><i>Popular sovereignty party</i> of 1860, its principles, <a href="#page51">51</a>.</p>

<p><i>Powder</i>, our supply in 1861, <a href="#page472">472</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;first efforts to obtain, <a href="#page473">473</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;mills in existence, <a href="#page472">472</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;progress of development, <a href="#page474">474</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;amount of powder annually required, <a href="#page474">474</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how supplied, <a href="#page474">474</a>, <a href="#page475">475</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Government mills, <a href="#page475">475</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Powell</span>, Senator, offers a resolution in the United States Senate relative to the state of affairs in 1860, <a href="#page61">61</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action on the resolution, <a href="#page68">68</a>.</p>

<p><i>Power, Political</i>, the balance of, the basis of sectional controversy, <a href="#page11">11</a>;<br/>
 its earlier manifestations, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</p>

<p><i>Power of amendment</i>, special examination of, <a href="#page195">195</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;what is the Constitution? <a href="#page195">195</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the States have only intrusted to a common agent certain functions, <a href="#page196">196</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a power to amend the delegated grants, <a href="#page196">196</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the first ten amendments, <a href="#page196">196</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;distinction between amendment and delegation of power, <a href="#page196">196</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;smaller power required for amendment than for a grant, <a href="#page196">196</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;apprehensions of the power of amendment, <a href="#page197">197</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;restrictions placed on the exercise of the delegated powers, <a href="#page197">197</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;effect on New England, <a href="#page198">198</a>.</p>

<p><i>Power of the Confederate Government</i> over its own armies and the militia, <a href="#page506">506</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;object of confederations, <a href="#page506">506</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the war powers granted, <a href="#page507">507</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;two modes of raising armies in the Confederate States, <a href="#page507">507</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;is the law necessary and proper? <a href="#page508">508</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Congress is the judge, under the grant of specific power, <a href="#page508">508</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;what is meant by militia, <a href="#page509">509</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;whole military strength divided into two classes, <a href="#page510">510</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;powers of Congress, <a href="#page510">510</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;objections answered, <a href="#page511">511</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the limitations enlarged, <a href="#page512">512</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;result of the operations of these laws, <a href="#page515">515</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act for the employment of slaves, <a href="#page515">515</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;message to Congress, <a href="#page515">515</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;died of a theory, <a href="#page518">518</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act passed, <a href="#page518">518</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not time to put it in operation, <a href="#page519">519</a>.</p>

<p><i>Power to prohibit slavery</i> in a Territory, argument for its possession by the United States Congress, <a href="#page26">26</a>.</p>

<p><i>Preamble to the Constitution</i>, its words, <a href="#page121">121</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the stronghold of the advocates of consolidation, <a href="#page121">121</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;we, the People, interpreted as a nation, <a href="#page121">121</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of John Adams, <a href="#page121">121</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of Patrick Henry, <a href="#page121">121</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;other words of Henry, <a href="#page122">122</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;answer of Madison to Henry, <a href="#page122">122</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the people were those of the respective States, <a href="#page123">123</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proceeding in the Convention, <a href="#page123">123</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the original words reported, <a href="#page124">124</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;vote on them unanimous, <a href="#page124">124</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reason of modification, <a href="#page124">124</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the word <i>people</i>&mdash;its signification, <a href="#page125">125</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;examples from Scripture, <a href="#page125">125</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instances in the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#page126">126</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;revolt of Maryland, <a href="#page126">126</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of North Carolina and Rhode Island, <a href="#page126">126</a>.</p>

<p><i>Precipitation</i>, the calmness with which Southern measures were adopted refutes the charge of, <a href="#page199">199</a>.</p>

<p><i>Prediction</i> of Timothy Pickering, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</p>

<p><i>Presidential election of 1800</i>, the basis of the contest, <a href="#page189">189</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page701" id="page701"></a>[pg 701]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the last contest on them, <a href="#page189">189</a>.</p>

<p><i>Pretension, Absurdity of</i> the, by which a factitious sympathy was obtained in certain quarters for the war upon the South, on the ground that it was a war in behalf of freedom against slavery, <a href="#page262">262</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of Mr. Seward, <a href="#page263">263</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Price</span>, General, agreement with General Harney, <a href="#page416">416</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;address to the people of Missouri, <a href="#page421">421</a>, <a href="#page422">422</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his efforts in Missouri, <a href="#page427">427</a>, <a href="#page428">428</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his enthusiasm, <a href="#page428">428</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;magnanimity at the battle of Springfield, <a href="#page429">429</a>.</p>

<p><i>Proclamation of President Lincoln</i> on April 15, 1861, an official declaration of war, <a href="#page319">319</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his words, <a href="#page319">319</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;power granted in the Constitution, how expressed, <a href="#page320">320</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;delegated to Congress, <a href="#page320">320</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of South Carolina, <a href="#page320">320</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the State designated as a combination, <a href="#page320">320</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not recognized as a State, <a href="#page320">320</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its effect, <a href="#page321">321</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reason of President Lincoln for designating the State as a combination, <a href="#page321">321</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no authority to enter a State on insurrection arising, <a href="#page321">321</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of the Constitution, <a href="#page321">321</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his efforts to justify himself, <a href="#page322">322</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;was it an insurrection? <a href="#page325">325</a>.</p>

<p><i>Prohibitory clauses</i>, relative to the States, <a href="#page149">149</a>.</p>

<p><i>Propositions</i> clearly established relative to sovereignty, <a href="#page157">157</a>, <a href="#page158">158</a>.</p>

<p><i>Proposition of Major-General Polk</i> to the Governor of Kentucky, <a href="#page397">397</a>.</p>

<p><i>Public opinion</i>, how drifted from the landmarks set up by the sages and patriots who formed the constitutional Union, <a href="#page216">216</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Quincy, Josiah</span>, member of Congress from Massachusetts, declaration of a dissolution of the Union in 1811, <a href="#page73">73</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Quitman, John A.</span>, nominated for Governor of Mississippi, <a href="#page20">20</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;accepts and subsequently withdraws, <a href="#page20">20</a>.</p>


<p><i>Railroads</i>, insufficient in number, <a href="#page315">315</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;poorly furnished, <a href="#page315">315</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;dependent on Northern foundries, <a href="#page315">315</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Rains, General G. W.</span>, his experience, <a href="#page316">316</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;charged with the manufacture of powder, <a href="#page316">316</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;undertakes the manufacture of powder, <a href="#page475">475</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Randolph, Edmund</span>, plan of government offered in the Convention, <a href="#page96">96</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his views on the coercion of a State, <a href="#page178">178</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Reagan, J. H.</span>, Postmaster-General under Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page242">242</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Rector</span>, Governor of Arkansas, reply to Mr. Lincoln's call for troops, <a href="#page412">412</a>.</p>

<p><i>Relay House</i>, occupied by United States troops, <a href="#page333">333</a>.</p>

<p><i>Remedy, The</i>, invoked by Mr. Calhoun <a href="#page189">189</a>.</p>

<p><i>Representatives of the South</i>, their proceedings at Washington.</p>

<p><i>Republic, An American</i>, never transfers or surrenders its sovereignty, <a href="#page154">154</a>.</p>

<p><i>Republican (so-called) Convention</i> of 1860, a purely sectional body, <a href="#page49">49</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its selection of candidates, <a href="#page49">49</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration of Mr. Lincoln, <a href="#page49">49</a>.</p>

<p><i>Republican party</i>, its growth, <a href="#page36">36</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its principle, <a href="#page36">36</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;votes, <a href="#page36">36</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;of 1860, its principles, <a href="#page51">51</a>.</p>

<p><i>Republicans</i>, demand made on them in the United States Senate for a declaration of their policy, <a href="#page69">69</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no answer, <a href="#page69">69</a>.</p>

<p><i>Resolutions</i>, relating to Territories offered by Senator Davis, <a href="#page42">42</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;discussion and vote upon them, <a href="#page43">43</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;position of the Senator, <a href="#page44">44</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;adopted by Southern Senators, <a href="#page204">204</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their significance, <a href="#page204">204</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;further efforts would be unavailing, <a href="#page205">205</a>.</p>

<p><i>Resolutions of</i> 1798-'99, the corner-stone of the political edifice of Mr. Jefferson, <a href="#page385">385</a>.</p>

<p><i>Reserved powers of the States</i>, views of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, <a href="#page146">146</a>, <a href="#page147">147</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration of New York, <a href="#page147">147</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of South Carolina, <a href="#page147">147</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of North Carolina, <a href="#page147">147</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of Rhode Island, <a href="#page148">148</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no objection made to the principle, <a href="#page148">148</a>.</p>

<p><i>Resumption of powers, etc.</i>, some objections considered, <a href="#page180">180</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;as to new States, <a href="#page180">180</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;every State equal, <a href="#page180">180</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;States formed of purchased territory, <a href="#page181">181</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;allegiance to the Federal Government said to be paramount, <a href="#page182">182</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;examined, <a href="#page182">182</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the sovereign is the people, <a href="#page182">182</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right asserted in the ratifications of Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island, <a href="#page173">173</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;effort to construe these as declaring the right of one people, <a href="#page174">174</a>.</p>

<p><i>Revolutionary measures in the extreme</i>, acts of the United States Government in Missouri, <a href="#page420">420</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Reynolds</span>, Lieutenant-Governor, ably seconds the efforts of Governor Jackson in Missouri, <a href="#page423">423</a>.</p>

<p><i>Rhode Island</i>, the Constitution rejected by a vote of the people, <a href="#page111">111</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;subsequently ratified, <a href="#page111">111</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;terms of ratification, <a href="#page111">111</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of her Governor to President Washington relative to her position as not a member of the new Union, <a href="#page113">113</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page702" id="page702"></a>[pg 702]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her declaration on the reserved powers of the States, <a href="#page148">148</a>.</p>

<p><i>Rich Mountain</i>, West Virginia, the contest at, <a href="#page338">338</a>.</p>

<p><i>Richmond</i>, a campaign against, planned by the enemy, <a href="#page466">466</a>.</p>

<p><i>Right, the</i>, enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#page386">386</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;determination of the States to exercise it, <a href="#page386">386</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;to attack Fort Sumter, South Carolina a State, <a href="#page290">290</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;ground on which the fort stood ceded in trust to the United States for her defense, <a href="#page290">290</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no other had an interest in the maintenance of the fort except for aggression against her, <a href="#page290">290</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks of Senator Douglas, <a href="#page290">290</a>.</p>

<p><i>Rights of the States</i>, assertions of, in various quarters, <a href="#page190">190</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;resolutions of Massachusetts Legislature, <a href="#page190">190</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration on the purchase of Louisiana, <a href="#page190">190</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the admission of the State, <a href="#page190">190</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the annexation of Texas, <a href="#page190">190</a>.</p>

<p><i>Right of the Federal troops to enter a State</i>, <a href="#page411">411</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;words of the Constitution, <a href="#page411">411</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how could they be sent to overrule the will of the people? <a href="#page411">411</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Roman</span>, A. B., appointed Commissioner to United States, <a href="#page246">246</a>.</p>

<p><i>Romney</i>, the affair near, in June, 1861, <a href="#page343">343</a>.</p>

<p>"<i>Rope of sand</i>," the expression examined, <a href="#page176">176</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Scott</span>, Major-General, advises the evacuation of the forts, <a href="#page282">282</a>.</p>

<p><i>Seat of sovereignty</i>, never disturbed heretofore in this country, <a href="#page154">154</a>.</p>

<p><i>Secession</i>, the tendency of the Southern movement to, <a href="#page60">60</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;repeated instances of the assertion of this right in the prior history of the country, <a href="#page71">71</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;several instances, <a href="#page71">71</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letters, <a href="#page71">71</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provision made for, <a href="#page100">100</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right of, to be veiled, <a href="#page101">101</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a question easily determined, <a href="#page168">168</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the compact between the States was in the nature of a partnership, <a href="#page168">168</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;law of partnerships, <a href="#page168">168</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;formation of the Confederation, <a href="#page169">169</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. of the "more perfect Union," <a href="#page169">169</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an amended Union not a consolidation, <a href="#page169">169</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the very powers of the Federal Government and prohibitions to the States, relied upon by the advocates of centralism as incompatible with State sovereignty, were in force under the old Confederation, <a href="#page170">170</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arguments of Madison to show that the great principles of the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation are the same, <a href="#page170">170</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract, <a href="#page171">171</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;why was it not expressly renounced if it was intended to surrender it? <a href="#page172">172</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;it would have been extraordinary to put in the Constitution a provision for the dissolution of the Union, <a href="#page172">172</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;in treaties there is a provision for perpetuity, but the right to dissolve the compact is not less clearly understood, <a href="#page172">172</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the movements which culminated in, began before the session of Congress of December, 1860, <a href="#page201">201</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of the author, <a href="#page201">201</a>, <a href="#page202">202</a>.</p>

<p><i>Secession and coercion</i>, views on, that had been held in all parts of the country, <a href="#page252">252</a>.</p>

<p><i>Secessionists per se</i>, number so small as not to be felt in any popular decision, <a href="#page301">301</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;only alternative to a surrender of equality in the union, <a href="#page301">301</a>.</p>

<p><i>Sectional controversy</i>, the basis of, <a href="#page11">11</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no question of the right or wrong of slavery involved in the earlier, <a href="#page13">13</a>.</p>

<p><i>Sectional hostility</i>, not the consequence of any difference on the abstract question of slavery, <a href="#page79">79</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the offspring of sectional rivalry and political ambition, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</p>

<p><i>Sectional rivalry</i>, its efforts to prevent free emigration, <a href="#page29">29</a>.</p>

<p><i>Self-defense</i>, preparations for, <a href="#page326">326</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declarations of the message to Congress, <a href="#page326">326</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the state of affairs, <a href="#page326">326</a>, <a href="#page327">327</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;acts for military purposes passed, <a href="#page327">327</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;our object and desire distinctly declared, <a href="#page327">327</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the patriotic devotion of every portion of the country, <a href="#page328">328</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;secession of the border States, <a href="#page328">328</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Semmes</span>, Captain, afterward Admiral, <a href="#page311">311</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;sent North to purchase arms, ammunition, etc., etc., <a href="#page311">311</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;letter of instructions, <a href="#page311">311</a>.</p>

<p><i>Senators, Southern</i>, efforts to dissuade from aggressive movements, <a href="#page204">204</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how exerted, <a href="#page204">204</a>.</p>

<p><i>Separation</i> made familiar to the people by agitation, <a href="#page227">227</a>.</p>

<p><i>Settlement with the United States</i>, views relative to, <a href="#page245">245</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Seward</span>, W. H., letter to Mr. Dayton on the views and purposes of the United States Government, <a href="#page262">262</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proceedings as Secretary of State relative to our Commissioners, <a href="#page267">267</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his declarations, <a href="#page268">268</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assurances given, <a href="#page269">269</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his representations and misrepresentations to the Commissioners, <a href="#page273">273</a>, <a href="#page425">425</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;further statements, <a href="#page277">277</a>.</p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page703" id="page703"></a>[pg 703]</span>

<p><span class="sc">Seymour</span>, <span class="sc">Horatio</span>. remarks relative to coercion, <a href="#page255">255</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sharkey</span>, <span class="sc">William</span> L., anecdote of, <a href="#page230">230</a>.</p>

<p><i>Sharp correspondence</i> between the Commissioners from South Carolina and President Buchanan, <a href="#page214">214</a> (see Appendix).</p>

<p><span class="sc">Sherman</span>, <span class="sc">Roger</span>, his use of the word "sovereign" as applied to the States, <a href="#page144">144</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Singleton</span>, O. R., letter on conference of Senators and Representatives in Congress from Mississippi with the Governor, <a href="#page58">58</a>.</p>

<p><i>Slaves</i>, importation forbidden by Southern States, <a href="#page4">4</a>.</p>

<p><i>Slave-trade</i>, interference with, by Congress forbidden in the Constitution, <a href="#page4">4</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;importation forbidden by Southern States, <a href="#page4">4</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its final abolition, <a href="#page5">5</a>.</p>

<p><i>Slavery</i>, a right understanding of questions growing out of, <a href="#page3">3</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;existed at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page3">3</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;occasion of diversities, <a href="#page3">3</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;cause of its abolition, <a href="#page4">4</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;first petitions for abolition of, <a href="#page5">5</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;question of maintenance of, belongs exclusively to the States, <a href="#page6">6</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;how raised by zealots in the North, <a href="#page6">6</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the extension of, a term misleading the opinions of the world, <a href="#page6">6</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;did not imply the addition of a single slave to the number existing, <a href="#page7">7</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;signified distribution or dispersion, <a href="#page7">7</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no question of the right or wrong of, involved in the earlier sectional controversies, <a href="#page13">13</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;historical sketch of its existence among us, <a href="#page78">78</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;far from being the cause of the conflict, <a href="#page73">73</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;only an incident, <a href="#page80">80</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a matter entirely subject to the control of the States, <a href="#page80">80</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its existence and validity distinctly recognized by the Constitution, <a href="#page80">80</a>.</p>

<p><i>Slaves</i>, message on the employment of, in the army, <a href="#page515">515</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act passed, <a href="#page519">519</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Smith</span>, General E. K., wounded at Manassas, <a href="#page351">351</a>.</p>

<p><i>South Carolina</i> repeals law to prohibit importation of slaves, <a href="#page4">4</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instructions to her representatives to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page91">91</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;adopts an ordinance of secession, <a href="#page70">70</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her representatives in Congress withdraw, <a href="#page70">70</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of other States, <a href="#page71">71</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her ratification of the Federal Constitution, <a href="#page108">108</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her declaration on the reserved powers of the States, <a href="#page147">147</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;conditions of her cession of sites for ports in Charleston Harbor to United States, <a href="#page210">210</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;any delay by her to secede could not have changed the result, <a href="#page300">300</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nature of her act of secession, <a href="#page320">320</a>.</p>

<p><i>South, The</i>, growth of overweening confidence in, <a href="#page314">314</a>.</p>

<p><i>Southern manifestations</i>, cause of, after the Presidential election of 1860, <a href="#page53">53</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their deliberate action, <a href="#page54">54</a>.</p>

<p><i>Southern</i> people, in advance of their leaders throughout, <a href="#page199">199</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their grounds to hope there would be no war, <a href="#page257">257</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their conservative temper, <a href="#page258">258</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the prevailing sentiment, a cordial attachment to the Union, <a href="#page301">301</a>.</p>

<p><i>Southern States</i>, only alternative to seek security out of the Union, <a href="#page85">85</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;what course remained for them to adopt, <a href="#page192">192</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;over sovereigns there is no common judge, <a href="#page192">192</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their defenseless condition in 1861, <a href="#page228">228</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their calamities a result of their credulous reliance on the power of the Constitution, <a href="#page228">228</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;satisfied with a Federal Government such as their fathers had formed, <a href="#page439">439</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;against the violations of the Constitution they remonstrated, argued, and finally appealed to the undelegated power of the States, <a href="#page439">439</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;years of fruitless effort to secure from their Northern associates a faithful observance of the compact, <a href="#page439">439</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a peaceful separation preferred to a continuance in a hostile Union, <a href="#page439">439</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;pleas for peace met deceptive answers, <a href="#page440">440</a>.</p>

<p><i>Sovereignty resides alone in the States</i>, <a href="#page26">26</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;assertion of Story, <a href="#page141">141</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;increased the unnecessary confusion of ideas, <a href="#page141">141</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;definition of Burlamaqui, <a href="#page141">141</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;sovereignty seated in the people, <a href="#page141">141</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;they can exercise it only through the State, <a href="#page141">141</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the States were sovereign under the articles of Confederation, <a href="#page142">142</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;never been divested of it, <a href="#page142">142</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;paradoxical theories in the United States, <a href="#page142">142</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;if the people have transferred their sovereignty, to whom was it made? <a href="#page143">143</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration of Motley, <a href="#page143">143</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;refutation by articles of Confederation, <a href="#page143">143</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, <a href="#page143">143</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declarations of Madison, Hamilton, and others, <a href="#page143">143</a>, <a href="#page144">144</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of others, <a href="#page145">145</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reservations in the tenth amendment, <a href="#page146">146</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its meaning, <a href="#page146">146</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;views of the States on signification of it, <a href="#page147">147</a>, <a href="#page148">148</a>.</p>

<p><i>Sovereign will</i>, two modes of expressing known to the people of this country, <a href="#page153">153</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an effort to make it clear beyond the possibility of misconception, <a href="#page153">153</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page704" id="page704"></a>[pg 704]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;propositions clearly established, <a href="#page157">157</a>, <a href="#page158">158</a>.</p>

<p><i>Special friends of the Union</i>, claim arrogated by the abolitionists, <a href="#page34">34</a>.</p>

<p><i>Springfield, Missouri</i>, the battle at, <a href="#page429">429</a>.</p>

<p><i>Squatter sovereignty</i>, responsibilities of the authors of, <a href="#page31">31</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its origin, <a href="#page36">36</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;when fully developed, <a href="#page38">38</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the theory in its application to Territories, <a href="#page40">40</a>.</p>

<p><i>Star of the West,</i> attempts to re&euml;nforce Fort Sumter, <a href="#page217">217</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the result, <a href="#page218">218</a>.</p>

<p><i>Statements</i>, unfounded, relative to the election of Provisional President, <a href="#page236">236</a>.</p>

<p><i>State</i>, a suit against, views of Hamilton, <a href="#page162">162</a>.</p>

<p><i>State seceding, A</i>, assumes control of all her defenses intrusted to the United States, <a href="#page211">211</a>.</p>

<p><i>States, The</i>, their separate independence acknowledged by Great Britain, <a href="#page47">47</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;to whom could they have surrendered their sovereignty, <a href="#page156">156</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;represented in the Peace Congress, <a href="#page248">248</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;as States, mentioned in the Constitution seventy times, <a href="#page130">130</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;ratification by, alone gave validity to the Constitution, <a href="#page132">132</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;have never been divested of sovereignty, <a href="#page142">142</a>.</p>

<p><i>States Rights party</i> of 1860, its principles, <a href="#page51">51</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Stephens, Alexander H.</span>, elected Vice-President of the Confederate States, <a href="#page230">230</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remarks on the permanent Constitution, <a href="#page258">258</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">St. John</span>, General, appointed commissary-general of subsistence, <a href="#page318">318</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his report, <a href="#page318">318</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Story</span>, Judge Joseph, a question asked by him, <a href="#page132">132</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its answer, <a href="#page132">132</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Stuart</span>, General J. E. B., activity and vigilance in Virginia, <a href="#page344">344</a>.</p>

<p><i>Subjugation</i>; the measures of the United States Government in Missouri designed for the subjugation of the State, <a href="#page423">423</a>.</p>

<p><i>Sumter, Fort</i>, correspondence relative to occupancy of, between Colonel I.W. Hayne and President Buchanan, <a href="#page219">219</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;state of affairs relative to, after the inauguration of President Lincoln, <a href="#page267">267</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;pledges given relative to, <a href="#page269">269</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proceedings of G. V. Fox relative to re&euml;nforcing and furnishing supplies to, <a href="#page271">271</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;official notification from Washington, <a href="#page274">274</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;correspondence relative to bombardment of, <a href="#page285">285</a>, <a href="#page286">286</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. relative to evacuation of, <a href="#page288">288</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right to claim it as public property is untenable, apart from a claim of coercive control over the State, <a href="#page290">290</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right of the Federal Government to coerce a State to submission, <a href="#page291">291</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;no hope of peaceful settlement existed, <a href="#page291">291</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;repeated attempts at negotiation, <a href="#page291">291</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;met by evasion, prevarication, and perfidy, <a href="#page291">291</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the right to demand that there should be no hostile grip pending a settlement, <a href="#page291">291</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the forbearance of the Confederate Government unexampled, <a href="#page292">292</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;he who makes the assault is not necessarily the one who strikes the first blow, <a href="#page292">292</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the attempt to represent us as the aggressors unfounded, <a href="#page292">292</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;"firing on the flag," <a href="#page292">292</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;idea of the commander of the Pawnee, <a href="#page292">292</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;remark of Greeley, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the conflict, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;nobody injured, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extract from Mr. Lincoln's message, <a href="#page294">294</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;reply, <a href="#page294">294</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a word from him would have relieved the hungry, <a href="#page294">294</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;suppose the Confederate authorities had consent to supplies for the garrison, <a href="#page294">294</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;what would have been the next step, <a href="#page294">294</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;what reliance could be placed on his assurances, <a href="#page294">294</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;fire upon, opened by General Beauregard, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the conflict, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;final surrender, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an incident of ex-Senator Wigfall, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;terms of surrender, <a href="#page293">293</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;bombardment in anticipation of the fleet, <a href="#page296">296</a>.</p>

<p><i>Supremacy of the Constitution</i>, considerations conducing to a clearer understanding of, <a href="#page150">150</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declared to be in the Constitution and laws, not in the Government of the United States, <a href="#page151">151</a>.</p>

<p><i>Supremacy, State</i>, the controlling idea in the Confederate army bill, <a href="#page304">304</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;arms and munitions within the several States were considered as belonging to them, <a href="#page305">305</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the forces could only be drawn from the several States by their consent, <a href="#page305">305</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the system of organization, <a href="#page305">305</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provision for the discharge of the forces, <a href="#page305">305</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the act to provide for the public defense, <a href="#page305">305</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the law for the establishment and organization of the army of the Confederate States, <a href="#page306">306</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;wish and object of the Government were peace, <a href="#page306">306</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;provisions of the act, <a href="#page306">306</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Taney</span>, Chief-Justice, remark in the Dred Scott case, <a href="#page84">84</a>.</p>

<p><i>Tariff laws</i>, enacted for protection against foreign competition, <a href="#page32">32</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a burden on the Southern States, <a href="#page32">32</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a most prolific source of sectional strife, <a href="#page498">498</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its early history, <a href="#page498">498</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;policy of the British Government with the colonies, <a href="#page499">499</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a difficulty in the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page499">499</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;progress after the formation of the Union, <a href="#page500">500</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page705" id="page705"></a>[pg 705]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;all laws based on the principle of duties for revenue, <a href="#page500">500</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the first time a tariff law had protection for its object, it for the first time produced discontent, <a href="#page501">501</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;geographical differences between North and&nbsp;&nbsp;South, <a href="#page501">501</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;legislation for the benefit of Northern manufactures a Northern policy, <a href="#page501">501</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the controversy quadrennially renewed, <a href="#page502">502</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;motion of Mr. Drayton, of South Carolina, <a href="#page502">502</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;progress of parties, <a href="#page503">503</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;position of Southern representatives, <a href="#page503">503</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;other causes, <a href="#page503">503</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;general effect on the character of our institutions, <a href="#page504">504</a>.</p>

<p><i>Texas</i>, her division, how effected, <a href="#page16">16</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;compared with California, <a href="#page16">16</a>.</p>

<p><i>Taxation</i>, the system of measures for, <a href="#page493">493</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;objects of taxation, <a href="#page494">494</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;direct taxes, <a href="#page494">494</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;obstacle to the levy of these taxes, <a href="#page495">495</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Thayer, James S.</span>, speech of, in New York, on the attempt to coerce a State, <a href="#page254">254</a>.</p>

<p><i>Thirteen, Senate Committee</i> of, consequences of their failure to come to an agreement, <a href="#page199">199</a>.</p>

<p><i>Thoroughfare Gap</i>, meat-packing establishment at, <a href="#page462">462</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Toombs, Robert</span>, Secretary of State under Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page242">242</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Townsend</span>, Colonel Frederick, commands Third Regiment of the enemy's force at Bethel Church, <a href="#page342">342</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his account of the combat at Bethel Church, <a href="#page342">342</a>.</p>

<p><i>Travesty of history</i>, statements of a foreign writer, <a href="#page201">201</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their absurdity shown, <a href="#page201">201</a>.</p>

<p><i>Trent, The steamer</i>, seizure of our Commissioners on board, <a href="#page470">470</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their treatment and restoration, <a href="#page470">470</a>.</p>

<p><i>Tribune, The New York</i>, declaration relative to the coercion of States, <a href="#page56">56</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its declarations relative to coercion, <a href="#page252">252</a>.</p>

<p><i>Troops, Southern</i>, rush to Virginia, <a href="#page300">300</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;also sent by Confederate Government, <a href="#page300">300</a>.</p>

<p><i>Troops</i> of the two armies, exemplification of the difference before either was trained to war, <a href="#page342">342</a>, <a href="#page343">343</a>.</p>


<p><i>Union, The</i>, no moral or sentimental considerations involved in the controversies that ruptured the Union, <a href="#page6">6</a>.</p>

<p><i>Union, Dissolution of the</i>, first threats or warnings of, from New England, <a href="#page12">12</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;ground of opposition stated, <a href="#page12">12</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Colonel Timothy Pickering in 1803, <a href="#page71">71</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;do. in 1804, <a href="#page72">72</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its peaceful character, <a href="#page72">72</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration of Josiah Quincy in Congress in 1811, <a href="#page73">73</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;action of the House, <a href="#page74">74</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the celebrated Hartford Convention, <a href="#page74">74</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its proceedings, <a href="#page74">74</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;published report, <a href="#page74">74</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their declaration, <a href="#page75">75</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;threats of Massachusetts in 1844, <a href="#page76">76</a>.</p>

<p><i>Union</i>, the, how to be saved, views of President Buchanan, <a href="#page54">54</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;declaration of Senator Calhoun, <a href="#page55">55</a>.</p>

<p><i>Union, A perpetual</i>, provided for in the last article of the Confederation, <a href="#page98">98</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a serious difficulty, <a href="#page98">98</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;danger of failure, <a href="#page98">98</a>.</p>

<p><i>Union</i>, A, necessarily involves the idea of competent States, <a href="#page128">128</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;was not formed to destroy the States, but to secure the blessings of liberty, <a href="#page176">176</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a voluntary junction of free and independent States, <a href="#page439">439</a>.</p>

<p><i>Union of the armies of Johnston and Beauregard</i>, decided at Richmond, <a href="#page347">347</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;order sent to Johnston, <a href="#page347">347</a>.</p>

<p><i>United States Supreme Court</i>, decision of, flouted, denounced, and disregarded, <a href="#page85">85</a>.</p>

<p><i>Usurpation</i>, tendency to, in the Federal Government, <a href="#page176">176</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;last effort to stay the tide of, <a href="#page247">247</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;set on foot by Virginia, <a href="#page247">247</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;an effort for adjustment, <a href="#page247">247</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the Peace Congress, <a href="#page248">248</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Vattel</span>, his views on the sovereignty of a state, <a href="#page145">145</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Vaughn</span>, Colonel, report of the affair near Romney, in June, 1861, <a href="#page343">343</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a notice of Vaughn, <a href="#page344">344</a>.</p>

<p><i>Virginia</i>, made efforts to prohibit the importation of slaves, <a href="#page4">4</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;first to prohibit, <a href="#page5">5</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her cession of territory in 1784, <a href="#page7">7</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Ordinance of 1787, <a href="#page7">7</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the occasion of her cession of territory north of the Ohio River, <a href="#page47">47</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;instructions to her Commissioners to the Constitutional Convention, <a href="#page90">90</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;long debates in her Convention, <a href="#page108">108</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the speakers, <a href="#page108">108</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her terms of ratification, <a href="#page109">109</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her cession of sites for forts to United States, <a href="#page210">210</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;act of cession, <a href="#page211">211</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proposes a convention to adjust existing controversies, <a href="#page247">247</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;appoints commissioners, <a href="#page247">247</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her ordinance subject to the ratification of the people, <a href="#page299">299</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;forms a convention with the Confederate States, <a href="#page299">299</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;prompt to reclaim the grants she had made on the appearance of President Lincoln's proclamation, <a href="#page298">298</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;passes an ordinance of secession, <a href="#page299">299</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;liable to be invaded from north, east, and west, <a href="#page300">300</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the forces assembled in, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page706" id="page706"></a>[pg 706]</span>
&nbsp;&nbsp;divided into three armies, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;their positions, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;junction possible between first and second, <a href="#page340">340</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her history a long course of sacrifices for the benefit of her sister States, <a href="#page440">440</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her efforts to check dissolution, <a href="#page440">440</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;her mediations rejected in the Peace Congress, <a href="#page440">440</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;required to furnish troops for subjugation, or reclaim her grants to the Federal Government, <a href="#page440">440</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;one course left consistent with her stainless reputation, <a href="#page440">440</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the forces of the enemy around her, <a href="#page440">440</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Richmond threatened, <a href="#page441">441</a>.</p>

<p><i>Volunteers</i>, sufficient secured during the first year, <a href="#page505">505</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;laws relating to the military service, <a href="#page506">506</a>.</p>


<p><span class="sc">Walker, L. P.</span>, Secretary of War under Provisional Constitution, <a href="#page242">242</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Walworth</span>, Chancellor, remarks on the coercion of the Southern States, <a href="#page255">255</a>.</p>

<p><i>War of the Revolution</i>, its causes were grievances inflicted on the Northern colonies, <a href="#page148">148</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the South had no material cause of complaint, <a href="#page48">48</a>.</p>

<p><i>War, the late bloody</i>, the theory on which it was waged, <a href="#page160">160</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;proposition in the Convention to incorporate it in the Constitution, <a href="#page160">160</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;not seconded, <a href="#page160">160</a>.</p>

<p><i>War between the Slates</i>, who was responsible for? <a href="#page440">440</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;the probability of, discussed by the people, <a href="#page227">227</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;opinion that it would be long and bloody, <a href="#page230">230</a>.</p>

<p><i>War-cry, the</i>, employed to train the Northern mind, <a href="#page29">29</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;its success, <a href="#page30">30</a>.</p>

<p><i>Washington</i>, the great effort of invasion to be from that point, <a href="#page337">337</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;accumulation of troops, <a href="#page337">337</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington, George</span>, his use of the word "compact" as applied to the Constitution, <a href="#page138">138</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;repeatedly refers to the proposed Union as a confederacy, <a href="#page164">164</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;extracts from his letters, <a href="#page164">164</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Washington, John A.</span>, killed on a reconnaissance, <a href="#page436">436</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Webster, Daniel</span>, remark of, at the death of Mr. Calhoun, <a href="#page17">17</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;first to revive refuted misconceptions, <a href="#page128">128</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;a remark of his, <a href="#page134">134</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;denies the Constitution to be a compact, <a href="#page135">135</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the word "accede," <a href="#page136">136</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his concessions, <a href="#page137">137</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;denied what Massachusetts and New Hampshire affirmed, <a href="#page139">139</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the sovereignty of the Government, <a href="#page151">151</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his inconsistent ideas, <a href="#page152">152</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his views in 1819, <a href="#page166">166</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his speech at Capon Springs, <a href="#page167">167</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;on the omission of a State to appoint Senators, <a href="#page179">179</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Welles, Gideon</span>, statement of proceedings in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, <a href="#page276">276</a>.</p>

<p><span class="sc">Wise</span>, General <span class="sc">Henry A.</span>, sent to western Virginia, <a href="#page433">433</a>;<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;his success, <a href="#page433">433</a>.
</p>
</html>