British race. All who belong to that race will especially deprecate it,
as they ought. It may well be believed that men of every race and kindred
will deplore it. A war not unlike it between the same parties occurred at
the close of the last century. Europe atoned by forty years of suffering
for the error that Great Britain committed in provoking that contest. If
that nation shall now repeat the same great error, the social convulsions
which will follow may not be so long, but they will be more general. When
they shall have ceased, it will, we think, be seen, whatever may have been
the fortunes of other nations, that it is not the United States that
will have come out of them with its precious Constitution altered or its
honestly obtained dominion in any degree abridged. Great Britain has but
to wait a few months and all her present inconveniences will cease with
all our own troubles. If she take a different course, she will calculate
for herself the ultimate as well as the immediate consequences, and will
consider what position she will hold when she shall have forever lost the
sympathies and the affections of the only nation on whose sympathies and
affections she has a natural claim. In making that calculation she will do
well to remember that in the controversy she proposes to open we shall be
actuated by neither pride, nor passion, nor cupidity, nor ambition; but
we shall stand simply on the principle of self-preservation, and that our
cause will involve the independence of nations and the rights of human
nature.
I am, Sir, respectfully your obedient servant, W. H. S.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., etc,
TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR,
EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 21, 1861.
HON. SECRETARY OF WAR. MY DEAR SIR:--Why cannot Colonel Small's
Philadelphia regiment be received? I sincerely wish it could. There is
something strange about it. Give these gentlemen an interview, and take
their regiment.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO GOVERNOR MORGAN.
WASHINGTON, May 12, 1861
GOVERNOR E. D. MORGAN, Albany, N.Y.
I wish to see you face to face to clear these difficulties about
forwarding troops from New York.
A. LINCOLN.
TO CAPTAIN DAHLGREEN.
EXECUTIVE, MANSION, May 23, 1863.
CAPT. DAHLGREEN.
MY DEAR SIR:--Allow me to introduce Col. J. A. McLernand, M.C. of my own
district in Illinois. If he should desire to visit Fortress Monroe, please
introduce him to the captain of one of the vessels in our service, and
pass him down and back.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO ONE OF FIRST CASUALTIES
TO COLONEL ELLSWORTH'S PARENTS, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 1861
TO THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF COL. ELMER E. ELLSWORTH.
MY DEAR SIR AND MADAME:--In the untimely loss of your noble son, our
affliction here is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised
usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and
friends, have never been so suddenly dashed as in his fall. In size, in
years, and in youthful appearance a boy only, his power to command men
was surpassingly great. This power, combined with a fine intellectual and
indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military, constituted in him,
as seemed to me, the best natural talent in that department I ever knew.
And yet he was singularly modest and deferential in social intercourse.
My acquaintance with him began less than two years ago; yet, through the
latter half of the intervening period, it was as intense as the disparity
of our ages and my engrossing engagements would permit. To me he appeared
to have no indulgences or pastimes, and I never heard him utter a profane
or an intemperate word. What was conclusive of his good heart, he never
forgot his parents. The honors he labored for so laudably, and for which,
in the sad end, he so gallantly gave his life, he meant for them no less
than for himself.
In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sacredness of your
sorrow, I have ventured to address you this tribute to the memory of my
young friend and your brave and early fallen son.
May God give you the consolation which is beyond all early power.
Sincerely your friend in common affliction,
A. LINCOLN.
TO COLONEL BARTLETT.
WASHINGTON, May 27, 1861
COL. W. A. BARTLETT, New York.
The Naval Brigade was to go to Fort Monroe without trouble to the
government, and must so go or not at all.
A. LINCOLN.
MEMORANDUM ABOUT INDIANA REGIMENTS.
WASHINGTON, JUNE 11, 1861
The government has already accepted ten regiments from the State of
Indiana. I think at least six more ought to be received from that State,
two to be those of Colonel James W. McMillan and Colonel William L.
Brown, and the other four to be designated by the Governor of the State
of Indiana, and to be received into the volunteer service of the United
States according to the "Plan of Organization" in the General Orders of
the War Department, No.15. When they report to Major-General McClellan in
condition to pass muster according to that order, and with the approval of
the Secretary of War to be indorsed hereon, and left in his department,
I direct that the whole six, or any smaller number of such regiments, be
received.
A. LINCOLN.
TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861
HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
MY DEAR SIR:--There is, it seems, a regiment in Massachusetts commanded
by Fletcher Webster, and which HON. Daniel Webster's old friends very much
wish to get into the service. If it can be received with the approval of
your department and the consent of the Governor of Massachusetts I shall
indeed be much gratified. Give Mr. Ashmun a chance to explain fully.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861 HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
MY DEAR SIR--I think it is entirely safe to accept a fifth regiment from
Michigan, and with your approbation I should say a regiment presented by
Col. T. B. W. Stockton, ready for service within two weeks from now, will
be received. Look at Colonel Stockton's testimonials.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 17, 1861
HON. SECRETARY Of WAR.
MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of the Governor of Indiana,
I am in favor of accepting into what we call the three years' service any
number not exceeding four additional regiments from that State. Probably
they should come from the triangular region between the Ohio and Wabash
Rivers, including my own old boyhood home. Please see HON. C. M. Allen,
Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, and unless you perceive
good reason to the contrary, draw up an order for him according to the
above.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 17,1861
HON. SECRETARY OF WAR. MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of
the Governor of Ohio, I am in favor of receiving into what we call the
three years' service any number not exceeding six additional regiments
from that State, unless you perceive good reasons to the contrary. Please
see HON. John A. Gurley, who bears this, and make an order corresponding
with the above.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO N. W. EDWARDS
WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1861
Hon. N. W. EDWARDS MY DEAR SIR:
....When you wrote me some time ago in reference to looking up something
in the departments here, I thought I would inquire into the thing and
write you, but the extraordinary pressure upon me diverted me from it, and
soon it passed out of my mind. The thing you proposed, it seemed to me, I
ought to understand myself before it was set on foot by my direction or
permission; and I really had no time to make myself acquainted with it.
Nor have I yet. And yet I am unwilling, of course, that you should be
deprived of a chance to make something, if it can be done without
injustice to the Government, or to any individual. If you choose to come
here and point out to me how this can be done I shall not only not object,
but shall be gratified to be able to oblige you.
Your friend as ever
A. LINCOLN.
TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 20, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:--Since you spoke to me yesterday about General J. H. Lane, of
Kansas, I have been reflecting upon the subject, and have concluded that
we need the service of such a man out there at once; that we had better
appoint him a brigadier-general of volunteers to-day, and send him off
with such authority to raise a force (I think two regiments better than
three, but as to this I am not particular) as you think will get him into
actual work quickest. Tell him, when he starts, to put it through not to
be writing or telegraphing back here, but put it through.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
[Indorsement.]
General Lane has been authorized to raise two additional regiments of
volunteers.
SIMON CAMERON, Secretary o f War.
TO THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 29, 1861.
GENTLEMEN OF THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION WHO ARE FOR THE UNION:
I somewhat wish to authorize my friend Jesse Bayles to raise a Kentucky
regiment, but I do not wish to do it without your consent. If you consent,
please write so at the bottom of this.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
We consent:
R. MALLORY.
H. GRIDER.
G. W. DUNLAP.
J. S. JACKSON.
C. A. WICKLIFFE.
August 5, 1861.
I repeat, I would like for Col. Bayles to raise a regiment of cavalry
whenever the Union men of Kentucky desire or consent to it.
A. LINCOLN.
ORDER AUTHORIZING GENERAL SCOTT TO SUSPEND THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS, JULY
2, 1861
TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL, ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES:
You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of the
United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of any military line
which is now or which shall be used between the city of New York and
the city of Washington you find resistance which renders it necessary to
suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally,
or through the officer in command at the point where resistance occurs,
are authorized to suspend that writ.
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of
Washington, this second day of July, A.D. 1861, and of the independence of
the United States the eighty-fifth.
A. LINCOLN.
By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
TO SECRETARY SEWARD.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, JULY 3, 1861
HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
MY DEAR SIR:--General Scott had sent me a copy of the despatch of which
you kindly sent one. Thanks to both him and you. Please assemble the
Cabinet at twelve to-day to look over the message and reports.
And now, suppose you step over at once and let us see General Scott (and)
General Cameron about assigning a position to General Fremont.
Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
MESSAGE TO CONGRESS IN SPECIAL SESSION,
JULY 4, 1861.
FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--Having been
convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the Constitution,
your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of legislation.
At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago, the
functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally
suspended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of the
Post-Office Department.
Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses, and
the like, including the movable and stationary property in and about
them, had been seized, and were held in open hostility to this government,
excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and near the
Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The
forts thus seized had been put in improved condition, new ones had been
built, and armed forces had been organized and were organizing, all
avowedly with the same hostile purpose.
The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in and
near these States were either besieged or menaced by warlike preparations,
and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by well-protected
hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to the best of its own, and
outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one. A disproportionate share
of the Federal muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into
these States, and had been seized to be used against the government.
Accumulations of the public revenue lying within them had been seized for
the same object. The navy was scattered in distant seas, leaving but
a very small part of it within the immediate reach of the government.
Officers of the Federal army and navy had resigned in great numbers;
and of those resigning a large proportion had taken up arms against the
government. Simultaneously, and in connection with all this, the purpose
to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed. In accordance with this
purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States, declaring
the States respectively to be separated from the national Union. A
formula for instituting a combined government of these States had
been promulgated; and this illegal organization, in the character
of confederate States, was already invoking recognition, aid, and
intervention from foreign powers.
Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be an imperative
duty upon the incoming executive to prevent, if possible, the consummation
of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to that
end became indispensable. This choice was made and was declared in the
inaugural address. The policy chosen looked to the exhaustion of all
peaceful measures before a resort to any stronger ones. It sought only
to hold the public places and property not already wrested from the
government, and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on time,
discussion, and the ballot-box. It promised a continuance of the mails, at
government expense, to the very people who were resisting the government;
and it gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any of the
people, or any of their rights. Of all that which a President might
constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was
forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the government on
foot.
On the 5th of March (the present incumbent's first full day in office), a
letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter, written on the 28th
of February and received at the War Department on the 4th of March, was
by that department placed in his hands. This letter expressed the
professional opinion of the writer that reinforcements could not be thrown
into that fort within the time for his relief, rendered necessary by the
limited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding possession of the
same, with a force of less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined
men. This opinion was concurred in by all the officers of his command, and
their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of Major Anderson's
letter. The whole was immediately laid before Lieutenant-General Scott,
who at once concurred with Major Anderson in opinion. On reflection,
however, he took full time, consulting with other officers, both of
the army and the navy, and at the end of four days came reluctantly but
decidedly to the same conclusion as before. He also stated at the
same time that no such sufficient force was then at the control of the
government, or could be raised and brought to the ground within the time
when the provisions in the fort would be exhausted. In a purely military
point of view, this reduced the duty of the administration in the case to
the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of the fort.
It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position, under the
circumstances, would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity under which
it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many it would
be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home it would
discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far
to insure to the latter a recognition abroad; that in fact, it would
be our national destruction consummated. This could not be allowed.
Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would be reached
Fort Pickens might be reinforced. This last would be a clear indication
of policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacuation of
Fort Sumter as a military necessity. An order was at once directed to be
sent for the landing of the troops from the steamship Brooklyn into Fort
Pickens. This order could not go by land, but must take the longer and
slower route by sea. The first return news from the order was received
just one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. The news itself was that
the officer commanding the Sabine, to which vessel the troops had been
transferred from the Brooklyn, acting upon some quasi armistice of
the late administration (and of the existence of which the present
administration, up to the time the order was despatched, had only too
vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the
troops. To now reinforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be reached
at Fort Sumter was impossible--rendered so by the near exhaustion
of provisions in the latter-named fort. In precaution against such a
conjuncture, the government had, a few days before, commenced preparing
an expedition as well adapted as might be to relieve Fort Sumter, which
expedition was intended to be ultimately used, or not, according to
circumstances. The strongest anticipated case for using it was now
presented, and it was resolved to send it forward. As had been intended
in this contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor of South
Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be made to provision the
fort; and that, if the attempt should not be resisted, there would be no
effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or
in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was accordingly given;
whereupon the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even
awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.
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--they were expressly notified--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. They knew that this government desired to
keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely to maintain
visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and
immediate dissolution--trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time,
discussion, and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they assailed
and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object--to drive out the
visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate
dissolution. That this was their object the executive well understood; and
having said to them in the inaugural address, "You can have no conflict
without being yourselves the aggressors," he took pains not only to keep
this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free from the power of
ingenious sophistry that the world should not be able to misunderstand
it. By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that
point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the government began
the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return
their fire, save only the few in the fort sent to that harbor years before
for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in
whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced
upon the country the distinct issue, "immediate dissolution or blood."
And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It
presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional
republic or democracy--a government of the people by the same people--can
or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic
foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few
in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any
case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other
pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government,
and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It
forces us to ask: Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal
weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties
of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?
So viewing the issue, no 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.
The call was made, and the response of the country was most gratifying,
surpassing in unanimity and spirit the most sanguine expectation. Yet
none of the States commonly called slave States, except Delaware, gave
a regiment through regular State organization. A few regiments have been
organized within some others of those States by individual enterprise,
and received into the government service. Of course the seceded States,
so called (and to which Texas had been joined about the time of the
inauguration), gave no troops to the cause of the Union.
The border States, so called, were not uniform in their action, some
of them being almost for the Union, while in others--as Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas--the Union sentiment was nearly
repressed and silenced. The course taken in Virginia was the most
remarkable--perhaps the most important. A convention elected by the people
of that State to consider this very question of disrupting the Federal
Union was in session at the capital of Virginia when Fort Sumter fell. To
this body the people had chosen a large majority of professed Union men.
Almost immediately after the fall of Sumter, many members of that majority
went over to the original disunion minority, and with them adopted an
ordinance for withdrawing the State from the Union. Whether this change
was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter, or their
great resentment at the government's resistance to that assault, is not
definitely known. Although they submitted the ordinance for ratification
to a vote of the people, to be taken on a day then somewhat more than
a month distant, the convention and the Legislature (which was also in
session at the same time and place), with leading men of the State not
members of either, immediately commenced acting as if the State were
already out of the Union. They pushed military preparations vigorously
forward all over the State. They seized the United States armory at
Harper's Ferry, and the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk. They received
perhaps invited--into their State large bodies of troops, with their
warlike appointments, from the so-called seceded States. They formally
entered into a treaty of temporary alliance and co-operation with the
so-called "Confederate States," and sent members to their congress at
Montgomery. And finally, they permitted the insurrectionary government to
be transferred to their capital at Richmond.
The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to make
its nest within her borders; and this government has no choice left but
to deal with it where it finds it. And it has the less regret as the loyal
citizens have, in due form, claimed its protection. Those loyal citizens
this government is bound to recognize and protect, as being Virginia.