Review of 1861.--Summary of Hostile Acts of United States
Government.--Fuller Details of some of them.--Third Session of
Provisional Congress.--Message.--Subjugation of the Southern States
intended.--Obstinacy of the Enemy.--Insensibility of the North as
to the Crisis.--Vast Preparation of the Enemy.--Embargo and
Blockade.--Indiscriminate War waged.--Action of Confederate
Congress.--Confiscation Act of United States Congress.--Declared
Object of the War.--Powers of United States Government.--
Forfeitures inflicted.--Due Process of Law, how interpreted.--"Who
pleads the Constitution?"--Wanton Destruction of Private Property
unlawful--Adams on Terms of the Treaty of Ghent.--Sectional
Hatred.--Order of President Lincoln to Army Officers in Regard to
Slaves.--"Educating the People."--Fremont's Proclamation.--
Proclamation of General T. W. Sherman.--Proclamation of General
Halleck and others.--Letters of Marque.--Our Privateers.--Officers
tried for Piracy.--Retaliatory Orders.--Discussion in the British
House of Lords.--Recognition as a Belligerent of the Confederacy.--
Exchange of Prisoners.--Theory of the United States.--Views of
McClellan.--Revolutionary Conduct of United States Government.--
Extent of the War at the Close of 1861.--Victories of the Year.--
New Branches of Manufactures.--Election of Confederate States
President.--Posterity may ask the Cause of such Hostile Actions.--
Answer.
The inauguration of the permanent government, amid the struggles of
war, was welcomed by our people as a sign of the independence for
which all their sacrifices had been made, and the increased efforts
of the enemy for our subjugation were met by corresponding
determination on our part to maintain the rights our fathers left us
at whatever cost. We now enter upon those terrible scenes of wrong
and blood in which the government of the United States, driven to
desperation by our successful resistance, broke through every
restraint of the Constitution, of national law, of justice, and of
humanity. But, before commencing this fearful narration, let us sum
up the hostile acts and usurpations committed during the first year.
Our people had been declared to be combinations of insurrectionists,
and more than one hundred and fifty thousand men had been called to
arms to invade our territory; our ports were blockaded for the
destruction of our regular commerce, and we had been threatened with
denunciation as pirates if we molested a vessel of the United States,
and some of our citizens had been confined in cells to await the
punishment of piracy; one of our States was rent asunder and a new
State constructed out of the fragment; every proposition for a
peaceful solution of pending issues had been spurned. An
indiscriminate warfare had been waged upon our peaceful citizens,
their dwellings burned and their crops destroyed; a law had been
passed imposing a penalty of forfeiture on the owner of any faithful
slave who gave military or naval service to the Confederacy, and
forbidding military commanders to interfere for the restoration of
fugitives; the United States Government had refused to agree to an
exchange of prisoners, and suffered those we had captured to languish
in captivity; it had falsely represented us in every court of Europe,
to defeat our efforts to obtain a recognition from foreign powers; it
had seized a portion of the members of the Legislature of one State
and confined them in a distant military prison, because they were
thought merely to sympathize with us, though they had not committed
an overt act; it had refused all the propositions of another State
for a peaceful neutrality, invaded her and seized important
positions, where not even a disturbance of the peace had occurred,
and perpetrated the most despotic outrages on her people; it rejected
the most conciliatory terms offered for the sake of peace by the
Governor of another State, claimed for itself an unrestricted right
to move and station its troops whenever and wherever its officers
might think it to be desirable, and persisted in its aggressions
until the people were involved in conflicts, and a provisional
government became necessary for their protection. Within the Northern
States, which professed to be struggling to maintain the Union, the
Constitution, its only bond, and the laws made in pursuance of it,
were in peaceful, undisputed existence; yet even there the Government
ruled with the tyrant's hand, and the provisions for the freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, and the personal liberty of the
citizen, were daily violated, and these sacred rights of man
suppressed by military force.
But some of these hostile actions require here a more specific
consideration. They were the antecedents of oppressive measures which
the enemy strove to enforce upon us during the entire war.
The third session of the Provisional Congress commenced at Richmond
on July 20, 1861, and ended on August 31st. At the previous session,
a resolution had been passed authorizing the President to cause the
several executive departments, with the archives thereof, to be
removed to Richmond at such time as he might determine prior to July
20th. In my message to the Congress of that date, the cause of
removal was stated to be, that the aggressive movements of the enemy
required prompt, energetic action; that the accumulation of his
forces on the Potomac sufficiently demonstrated that his first
efforts were to be directed against Virginia, and from no point could
necessary measures for her defense and protection be so effectively
provided as from her own capital. My remarks to Congress at this
session were confined to such important facts as had occurred during
the recess, and to the matters connected with the public defense.
"The odious features of the policy and purposes of the Government of
the United States stood revealed; the recent grant of a half million
of men and four hundred millions of dollars by their Congress, was a
confession that their intention was a subjugation of the Southern
States."
The fact thus briefly presented in the message was established by the
course pursued since the first advent to power of those who had come
into possession of the sword and the purse of the Union. Not only by
the legislation cited was the intent to make war for the purpose of
subjugating the Southern States revealed, but also, and yet more
significantly, was the purpose manifested in the evasion and final
rejection of every proposition of the Southern States for a peaceful
solution of the issues arising from secession.
Such extreme obstinacy was unnatural, unreasonable, and contrary to
the general precedents of history, except those which resulted in
civil war. This unfavorable indication was also observable in the
original party of abolition. Its intolerance had a violence which
neither truth nor justice nor religion could restrain, and it was
transferred undiluted to their successors. The resistance to the
demands of the States and persistence in aggressions upon them were
the occasion of constant apprehensions and futile warnings of their
suicidal tendency on the part of the statesmen of the period. For
thirty years had patriotism and wisdom pointed to dissolution by this
perverse uncharitableness. Had the North been contending for a
principle only, there would have been a satisfactory settlement, not
indeed by compromising the principle, but by adjusting the manner of
its operation so that only good results should ensue. But when the
contest is for supremacy on one side and self-defense on the other--
when the aim of the aggressor is "power, plunder, and extended
rule"--there will be no concessions by him, no compromises, no
adjustment of results. The alternative is subjugation by the sword,
or peace by absolute submission. The latter condition could not be
accepted by us. The former was, therefore, to be resisted as best we
might.
An amazing insensibility seemed to possess a portion of the Northern
people as to the crisis before them. They would not realize that
their purpose of supremacy would be so resolutely resisted; that, if
persisted in, it must be carried to the extent of bloodshed in
sectional war. With them the lust of dominion was stronger than the
sense of justice or of the fraternity and the equal rights of the
States, which the Union was formed to secure, and so they were blind
to palpable results. Otherwise they must have seen, when the remnants
of the old Whig party joined hands with abolitionism, that it was
like a league with the spirit of evil, in which the conditions of the
bond were bestowal of power on one side, and the commission of deeds
meet for disunion on the other. The honest masses should have
remembered that when scheming leaders abandon principle, and adopt
the ideas of dreamers and fanatics, the ladder on which they would
mount to power is one on which they can not return, and upon which it
would be a fatal delusion to follow.
The reality of armed resistance on our part the North was slow to
comprehend. The division of sentiment at the South on the question of
the _expediency_ of immediate secession, was mistaken for the
existence of a submission party, whereas the division was confined to
expediency, and wholly disappeared when our territory was invaded.
Then was revealed to them the necessity of defending their homes and
liberties against the ruthless assault on both, and then
extraordinary unanimity prevailed. Then, as Hamilton and Madison had
stated, war against the States had effected the deprecated
dissolution of the Union.
Adjustment by negotiation the United States Government had rejected,
and had chosen to attempt our subjugation. This course, adopted
without provocation, was pursued with a ferocity that disregarded all
the laws of civilized warfare, and must permanently remain a stain
upon the escutcheon of a Government once bright among the nations.
The vast provision made by the United States in the material of war,
the money appropriated, and the men enrolled, furnished a sufficient
refutation to the pretense that they were only engaged in dispersing
rioters, and suppressing unlawful combinations too strong for the
usual course of judicial proceedings.
Further, they virtually recognized the separate existence of the
Confederate States by an interdictive embargo, and blockade of all
commerce between them and the United States, not only by sea but by
land; not only with those who bore arms, but with the entire
population of the Confederate States. They waged an indiscriminate
war upon all: private houses in isolated retreats were bombarded and
burned; grain-crops in the field were consumed by the torch; and,
when the torch was not applied, careful labor was bestowed to render
complete the destruction of every article of use or ornament
remaining in private dwellings after their female inhabitants had
fled from the insults of brutal soldiers; a petty war was made on the
sick, including women and children, by carefully devised measures to
prevent them from obtaining the necessary medicines. Were these the
appropriate means by which to execute the laws, and in suppressing
rioters to secure tranquillity and preserve a voluntary union? Was
this a government resting on the consent of the governed?
At this session of the Confederate Congress additional forces were
provided to repel invasion, by authorizing the President to accept
the services of any number of volunteers not exceeding four hundred
thousand men. Authority was also given for suitable financial
measures hereafter stated, and the levy of a tax. An act of
sequestration was also adopted as a countervailing measure against
the operations of the confiscation law enacted by the Congress of the
United States on August 6, 1861.
This act of the United States Congress, with its complement passed in
the ensuing year, will be considered further on in these pages. One
of the most indicative of the sections, however, provided that,
whenever any person, claimed to be held to labor or service under the
laws of any State, shall be permitted, by the person to whom such
labor or service is claimed to be due, to take up arms against the
United States, or to work, or to be employed in or upon any fort,
intrenchment, etc., or in any military or naval service whatever
against the Government of the United States, the person to whom such
labor is claimed to be due shall forfeit his claim, and, to any
attempt to enforce it, a statement of the facts shall be a sufficient
answer. The President of the United States, in his message of
December 3, 1861, stated that numbers of persons held to service had
been liberated and were dependent on the United States, and must be
provided for in some way. He recommended that steps be taken for
colonizing them at some places in a climate congenial to them.
As the President and the Congress of the United States had declared
this to be a war for the preservation of the Constitution, it may not
be out of place to see what course they now undertook to pursue under
the pretext of preserving the Constitution of the United States. It
had been conceded in all time that the Congress of the United States
had no power to legislate on slavery in the States, and that this was
a subject for State legislation. It was one of the powers not granted
in the Constitution, but "reserved to the States respectively." [1]
All the powers of the Federal Government were delegated to it by the
States, and all which were reserved were withheld from the Federal
Government, as well in time of war as in peace. The conditions of
peace or war made no change in the powers granted in the
Constitution. The attempt, therefore, by Congress, to exercise a
power of confiscation, one not granted to it, was a mere usurpation.
The argument of forfeiture for treason does not reach the case,
because there could be no forfeiture until after conviction, and the
Constitution says, "No attainder of treason shall work corruption of
blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person
attainted." [2] The confiscation act of 1861 undertook to convict and
sentence without a trial, and entirely to deprive the owner of slaves
of his property by giving final freedom to the slaves. Still further
to show how regardless the United States Government was of the
limitations imposed upon it by the compact of Union, the reader is
referred to the fifth article of the first amendment, being one of
those cases in which the people of the several States, in an
abundance of caution, threw additional protection around rights which
the framers of the Constitution thought already sufficiently guarded.
The last two clauses of the article read thus: No person "shall be
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation."
Here was a political indictment and conviction by the Congress and
President, with total forfeitures inflicted in palpable violation of
each and of all the cited clauses of the Constitution.
One can scarcely anticipate such effrontery as would argue that "due
process of law" meant an act of Congress, that judicial power could
thus be conferred upon the President, and private property be
confiscated for party success, without violating the Constitution
which the actors had sworn to support.
The unconstitutionality of the measure was so palpable that, when the
bill was under consideration, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, a member of
Congress from Pennsylvania, said: "I thought the time had come when
the laws of war were to govern our action; when constitutions, if
they stood in the way of the laws of war in dealing with the enemy,
had no right to intervene. Who pleads the Constitution against our
proposed action?" [3] This subject is further considered in subsequent
chapters on the measures of emancipation adopted by the United States
Government.
It is to be remembered in this connection that pillage and the wanton
destruction of private property are not permitted by the laws of war
among civilized nations. When prosecuting the war with Mexico, we
respected private property of the enemy; and when in 1781 Great
Britain, attempting to reduce her revolted American colonies, took
possession of the country round and about Point Comfort (Fortress
Monroe), the homes quietly occupied by the rebellious people were
spared by the armies of the self-asserting ruler of the land. At a
later date, war existed between Great Britain and the independent
States of the Union, during which Great Britain got possession of
various points within the States. At the Treaty of Ghent, 1815, by
which peace was restored to the two countries, it was stipulated in
the first article that all captured places should be restored
"without causing any destruction, or carrying away any of the
artillery or other public property originally captured in the said
forts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the exchange of
the ratifications of this treaty; or any slaves or other private
property." Persistent efforts were made to avoid the return of
deported slaves, and it was attempted to put them in the category of
artillery which had been removed before the exchange of ratification.
Mr. John Quincy Adams, first as United States Minister to England,
and subsequently as United States Secretary of State, conducted with
great vigor and earnestness a long correspondence to maintain the
true construction of the treaty as recognizing and guarding the right
of private property in slaves. In his letter to Viscount Castlereagh,
the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, after explaining
the distinction between "artillery or other public property" and
"slaves or other private property," as used in the treaty, and why it
might be impracticable, if they had been removed, to return the
former, but that the reasons did not apply to the latter, for, he
proceeds to say, "Private property, not having been subject to
legitimate capture with the places, was not liable to the reason of
limitation." In the same letter, Mr. Adams writes: "Merchant-vessels
and effects captured on the high-seas are, by the laws of war between
civilized nations, lawful prize, and by the capture become the
property of the captors. . . . But, as by the same usages of
civilized nations, private property is not the subject of lawful
capture in war upon the land, it is perfectly clear that, in every
stipulation, private property shall be respected; or that, upon the
restoration of places taken during the war, it shall not be carried
away." (See "American State Papers," vol. iv, pp. 122, 123.)
Sectional hostility and party zeal had not then so far undermined the
feeling of fraternity which generated the Union as to make a public
officer construe the Constitution as it might favor or injure one
section or another, and Great Britain was, from a sense of right,
compelled to recognize the wrong done in deporting slaves, the
private property of American citizens.
On the 4th of December, 1861, the President of the United States
issued an order to the commander-in-chief relative to slaves as above
mentioned, in which he said, "Their arrest as fugitives from service
or labor should be immediately followed by the military arrest of the
parties making the seizure." Had Congress and the President made new
laws of war?
Although the Government of the United States did not boldly proclaim
the immediate emancipation of all slaves, the tendency of all its
actions was directly to that end. To use a favorite expression of its
leaders, the Northern people were not at that time "educated up to
the point." A revolt from too sudden a revelation of its entire
policy was apprehended. Even as late as July 7, 1862, General
McClellan wrote to the authorities at Washington from the vicinity of
Richmond, "A declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery,
will rapidly disintegrate our armies." Nevertheless, when policy
indicated it, the declaration came, as will be seen hereafter.
Meantime, General Fremont, in command in Missouri, issued a
proclamation on August 31, 1861, declaring the property, real and
personal, of all persons in arms against the United States, or taking
an active part with their enemies, to be confiscated, and their
slaves to be free men. This was subsequently modified to conform to
the terms of the above-mentioned confiscation act. General Thomas W.
Sherman, commanding at Port Royal, in South Carolina, was instructed,
on October 14, 1861, to receive all persons, whether slaves or not,
and give them employment, "assuring all loyal masters that Congress
will provide just compensation to them for the loss of the services
of the persons so employed." To others no relief was to be given.
This was, by confiscation, to punish a class of citizens, in the
emancipation of every slave whose owner rendered support to the
Confederate States. Finally, General Halleck, who succeeded Fremont,
and General Dix, commanding near Fortress Monroe, issued orders not
to permit slaves to come within their lines. They were speedily
condemned for this action, because it put a stop to the current of
emancipation, which will be hereafter narrated.
Reference has been made to our want of a navy, and the efforts made
to supply the deficiency. The usual resort under such circumstances
to privateers was, in our case, without the ordinary incentive of
gain, as all foreign ports were closed against our prizes, and, our
own ports being soon blockaded, our vessels, public or private, had
but the alternative of burning or bonding their captures. To those
who, nevertheless, desired them, letters of marque were granted by
us, and there was soon a small fleet of vessels composed of those
which had taken out these letters, and others which had been
purchased and fitted out by the Navy Department. They hovered on the
coasts of the Northern States, capturing and destroying their
vessels, and filling the enemy with consternation. The President of
the United States had already declared in his proclamation of April
19th, as above stated, that "any person, who, under the pretended
authority of the said (Confederate) States, should molest a vessel of
the United States, or the persons or cargo on board," should be held
amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention of
piracy. This was another violation of international law, another
instance of arrogant disregard for universal opinion. The threat, if
meant for intimidation, and to deprive the Confederacy of one of the
usual weapons of war, was unbecoming the head of a Government. To
have executed it upon a helpless prisoner, would have been a crime
intensified by its cowardice. Happily for the United States, the
threat was not executed, but the failure to carry out the declared
purpose was coupled with humiliation, because it was the result of a
notice to retaliate as fully as might need be to stop such a
barbarous practice. To yield to the notice thus served, was a
practical admission by the United States Government that the
Confederacy had become a power among the nations.
On June 3, 1861, the little schooner Savannah, previously a
pilot-boat in Charleston Harbor and sailing under a commission issued
by authority of the Confederate States, was captured by the United
States brig Perry. The crew were placed in irons and sent to New
York. It appeared, from statements made without contradiction, that
they were not treated as prisoners of war, whereupon a letter was
addressed by me to President Lincoln, dated July 6th, stating
explicitly that, "painful as will be the necessity, this Government
will deal out to the prisoners held by it the same treatment and the
same fate as shall be experienced by those captured on the Savannah;
and, if driven to the terrible necessity of retaliation by your
execution of any of the officers or crew of the Savannah, that
retaliation will be extended so far as shall be requisite to secure
the abandonment of a practice unknown to the warfare of civilized
man, and so barbarous as to disgrace the nation which shall be guilty
of inaugurating it." A reply was promised to this letter, but none
came. Still later in the year the privateer Jefferson Davis was
captured, the captain and crew brought into Philadelphia, and the
captain tried and found guilty of piracy and threatened with death.
Immediately I instructed General Winder, at Richmond, to select one
prisoner of the highest rank, to be confined in a cell appropriated
to convicted felons, and treated in all respects as if convicted, and
to be held for execution in the same manner as might be adopted for
the execution of the prisoner of war in Philadelphia. He was further
instructed to select thirteen other prisoners of the highest rank, to
be held in the same manner as hostages for the thirteen prisoners
held in New York for trial as pirates. By this course the infamous
attempt made by the United States Government to commit judicial
murder on prisoners of war was arrested.
The attention of the British House of Lords was also attracted to the
proclamation of President Lincoln, threatening the officers and crew
of privateers with the punishment of piracy. It led to a discussion
in which the Earl of Derby said: "He apprehended that, if one thing
was clearer than another, it was that privateering was not piracy;
and that no law could make that piracy, as regarded the subjects of
one nation which was not piracy by the law of nations. Consequently,
the United States must not be allowed to entertain this doctrine, and
to call upon her Majesty's Government not to interfere." The Lord
Chancellor said: "There was no doubt that, if an Englishman engaged
in the service of the Southern States, he violated the laws of his
country and rendered himself liable to punishment, and that he had no
right to trust to the protection of his native country to shield him
from the consequences of his act. But, though that individual would
be guilty of a breach of the law of his own country, he could not be
treated as a pirate, and those who treated him as a pirate would be
guilty of murder."
The appearance of this little fleet on the ocean made it necessary
for the powers of Europe immediately to define their position
relative to the contending powers. Great Britain, adopting a position
of neutrality, and recognizing both as belligerents, interdicted the
armed ships and privateers of both from carrying prizes into the
waters of the United Kingdom or its colonies. All the other powers
recognized the Confederate States to be belligerents, but closed
their ports against the admission of prizes captured by either
belligerent.
It is worthy of notice that the United States Government (though it
had previously declined) at this time notified the English and French
Governments that it was now willing to adhere to all the conditions
of the Paris Congress of 1856, provided the clause abolishing
privateers might apply to the Confederate States. The offer, with the
proviso, was honorably declined by both France and England.
In the matter of the exchange of prisoners, which became important in
consequence of these retaliatory measures, and the number taken by
our troops at Manassas, the people of the Northern States were the
victims of incessant mortification and distress through the
vacillating and cruel conduct of their Government. It based all its
immense military movements on the theory that "the laws of the United
States have been for some time past and now are opposed and the
execution thereof obstructed, . . . by combinations too powerful to
be suppressed" by the ordinary methods. Under this theory the United
States are assumed to be one nation, and the distinctions among them
of States are as little recognized as if they did not exist. This
theory was false, and thereby led its originators into constant
blunders. When the leaders of a government aspire to the acquisition
of absolute, unlimited power, and the sword is drawn to hew the way,
it would be more logical and respectable to declare the laws silent
than to attempt to justify unlawful acts by unwarranted legislation.
If their theory had been true, then their prisoners of war were
insurrectionists and rebels, and guilty of treason, and hanging would
have been the legitimate punishment. Why were they not hung? Not
through pity, but because the facts contradicted the theory. The
"combinations" spoken of were great and powerful States, and the
danger was that the North would be the greater sufferer by our
retaliation. There was no humane course but to exchange prisoners
according to the laws of war. With this the Government of the United
States refused to comply, lest it might be construed into an
acknowledgment of belligerent rights on our part, which would explode
their theory of insurrectionary combinations, tend to restore more
correct views of the rights and powers of the States, and expose in
its true light their efforts to establish the supreme and unlimited
sovereignty of the General Government. The reader may observe the
tenacity with which the authorities at Washington, and, behind them,
the Northern States, clung to this theory. Upon its strict
maintenance depended the success of their bloody revolution to secure
absolute supremacy over the States. Upon its failure, the dissolution
of the Union would have been established; constitutional liberty
would have been vindicated; the hopes of mankind in the modern
institutions of federation fulfilled; and a new Union might have been
formed and held together with a bond of fraternity and not by the
sword, as under the above revolutionary theory.
By the exchange of prisoners, nothing was conceded except what was
evident to the world--that actual war existed, and that a Christian
people should at least conduct it according to the usages of
civilized nations. But sectional hate and the vain conceit of newly
acquired power led to the idle prophecy of our speedy subjection, and
hence the Government of the United States refused to act as required
by humanity and the usages of civilized warfare. At length, moved by
the clamors of the relatives and friends of the prisoners we held,
and by fears of retaliation, it covertly submitted to abandon its
declared purpose, and to shut its eyes while the exchanges were made
by various commanders under flags of truce. Thus some were exchanged
in New York, Washington, Cairo, and Columbus, Kentucky, and by
General McClellan in western Virginia and elsewhere. On the whole,
the partial exchanges were inconsiderable and inconclusive as to the
main question. The condition at the close of the year 1861, summarily
stated, was that soldiers captured in battle were not protected by
the usage of "exchange," and citizens were arrested without due
process of law, deported to distant States, and incarcerated without
assigned cause. All this by persons acting under authority of the
United States Government, but in disregard of the United States
Constitution, which provides that "no person shall be held to answer
for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
an indictment of a grand jury, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law." [4] "The right of the people to
be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated." [5] These
provisions were of no avail to protect the citizens from the
outrages, because those who derived their authority from the
Constitution used that authority to violate its guarantees. It has
been stated that the rule upon which the United States Government was
conducting affairs was entirely revolutionary. Its efforts to clothe
the Government of the Union with absolute power involved the
destruction of the rights of the States and the subversion of the
Constitution. Hence on every occasion the provisions of the
Constitution afforded no protection to the citizens: their rights
were spurned; their persons were seized and imprisoned beyond the
reach of friends; their houses sacked and burned. If they pleaded the
Constitution, the Government of the Constitution was deaf to them,
unsheathed its sword, and said the Union was at stake; and the
Constitution, which was the compact of union, must stand aside. This
was indeed a revolution. A constitutional government of limited
powers derived from the people was transformed into a military
despotism. The Northern people were docile as sheep under the change,
reminding one of the words of the Psalmist: "All we, like sheep, have
gone astray."
Posterity may ask with amazement. What cause could there have been
for such acts by a government that was ordained "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"?
Posterity may further ask, Where could a government of limited
powers, constructed only for certain general purposes--and on the
principle that all power proceeds from the people, and that "the
powers not delegated by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"--
find a grant of power, or an authority to perpetrate such injuries
upon the States and the people? As to the first question, it may be
said: There was no external cause for such acts. All foreign nations
were at peace with the United States. No hostile fleets were hovering
on her coasts, nor immense foreign armies threatening to invade her
territory. The cause, if any plausible one existed, was entirely
internal. It lay between it and its citizens. If it had treated them
with injustice and oppression, and threatened so to continue, it had
departed from the objects of its creation, and they had the resulting
right to dissolve it.
Who was to be the umpire in such a case? Not the United States
Government, for it was the creature of the States; it possessed no
inherent, original sovereignty. The Constitution says, "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." [6] The umpireship is, therefore,
expressly on the side of the States, or the people. When the State of
South Carolina, through a sovereign convention, withdrew from the
Union, she exercised the umpireship which rightly belonged to her,
and which no other could exercise for her. This involved the
dissolution of the Union, and the extinction of the Government of the
United States so far as she was concerned; but the officers of that
Government, instead of justly acquiescing in that which was
constitutionally and legally inevitable, drew the sword, and resolved
to maintain by might that which had no longer existence by right. A
usurpation thus commenced in wrong was the mother of all the
usurpations and wrongs which followed. The unhallowed attempt to
establish the absolute sovereignty of the Government of the United
States, by the subjugation of States and their people, brought forth
its natural fruit. Well might the victim of the guillotine exclaim,
"O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"
As to the other question--Where could a government of limited powers
find authority to perpetrate such injuries upon its own
constituents?--an answer will be given in succeeding pages.
Up to the close of the year the war enlarged its proportions so as to
include new fields, until it then extended from the shores of the
Chesapeake to the confines of Missouri and Arizona. Sudden calls from
the remotest points for military aid were met with promptness enough
not only to avert disaster in the face of superior numbers, but also
to roll back the tide of invasion on the border.
At the commencement of the war the enemy were possessed of certain
strategic points and strong places within the Confederate States.
They greatly exceeded us in numbers, in available resources, and in
the supplies necessary for war. Military establishments had been long
organized, and were complete; the navy and the army, once common to
both, were in their possession. To meet all this we had to create not
only an army in the face of war itself, but also military
establishments necessary to equip and place it in the field. The
spirit of the volunteers and the patriotism of the people enabled us,
under Providence, to grapple successfully with these difficulties. A
succession of glorious victories at Bethel, Manassas, Springfield,
Lexington, Leesburg, and Belmont, checked the invasion of our soil.
After seven months of war the enemy had not only failed to extend
their occupancy of the soil, but new States and Territories had been
added to our confederacy. Instead of their threatened march of
unchecked conquest, the enemy were driven at more than one point to
assume the defensive; and, upon a fair comparison between the two
belligerents, as to men, military means, and financial condition, the
Confederate States were relatively much stronger at the end of the
year than when the struggle commenced.
The necessities of the times called into existence new branches of
manufactures, and gave a fresh impulse to the activity of those
previously in operation, and we were gradually becoming independent
of the rest of the world for the supply of such military stores and
munitions as were indispensable for war.
At an election on November 6, 1861, the chief executive officers of
the provisional Government were unanimously chosen to similar
positions in the permanent Government, to be inaugurated on the
ensuing 22d of February, 1862.
[Footnote 1: Constitution of the United States, Article X.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., Article III, section 3.]
[Footnote 3: Congress of the United States, July, 1861.]
[Footnote 4: Constitution of the United States, Article V.]
[Footnote 5: Ibid., Article IV.]
[Footnote 6: Constitution of the United States, Article X.]