Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 64)

Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott vs. John F. A. Sandford (Howard's Reports, volume 19).

"By this presentation of the iniquity, naked and in its most repulsive form, Taney did no small harm to the party which he intended to aid. It has been said that slavery plucked ruin on its own head by its aggressive violence. It could not help showing its native temper, nor could it help feeding its hunger of land, insisting on the restoration of its runaways, or demanding a foreign policy such as would fend off the approach of emancipation. But Taney's judgment was a gratuitous aggression and an insult to humanity at the same time, for which, supposing that the Southern leaders inspired it, they paid dear. If the slave was mere property, his owner might be entitled to take him anywhere, and thus slavery might be made national. The boast of a daring partisan of slavery might be fulfilled, that the day would come when men might be bought and sold in Boston as freely as any other goods. The issue, which all the politicians had striven to keep out of sight, was presented in its most startling and shocking form."

Goldwin Smith, The United States, page 235.

ALSO IN: H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 39.

S. Tyler, Memoirs of Roger B. Taney, chapters 4-5.

A. Johnston, The United States: Its History and Constitution, section 249.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857. Tariff reduction. The financial collapse.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1846-1861.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857-1859. The Mormon rebellion in Utah.

See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1858. Treaty with China.

See CHINA: A. D. 1857-1868.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1858. The Lincoln and Douglas debate in Illinois.

The senatorial term of Mr. Stephen A. Douglas being about to expire, the choice of his successor became an issue which controlled the election of members of the Illinois Legislature, in the fall of 1858. Mr. Douglas received an endorsement at the hands of the Democratic State Convention, in April, which virtually nominated him for re-election. Abraham Lincoln, who had come markedly to the front in his state during the Kansas discussions, "was the man already chosen in the hearts of the Republicans of Illinois for the same office, and therefore with singular appropriateness they passed, with great unanimity, at their convention in Springfield on the 16th of June, the characteristic resolution: 'That Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States Senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas' term of office.' {3402} There was of course no surprise in this for Mr. Lincoln. He had been all along led to expect it, and with that in view had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred on him. This speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that miscellaneous and convenient receptacle, his hat. As the convention drew near he copied the whole on connected sheets, carefully revising every line and sentence, and fastened them together, for reference during the delivery of the speech, and for publication. The former precaution, however, was unnecessary, for he had studied and read over what he had written so long and carefully that he was able to deliver it without the least hesitation or difficulty. … Before delivering his speech he invited a dozen or so of his friends over to the library of the State House, where he read and submitted it to them. After the reading he asked each man for his opinion. Some condemned and not one endorsed it. One man, more forcible than elegant, characterized it as a 'd-d fool utterance;' another said the doctrine was 'ahead of its time;' and still another contended that it would drive away a good many voters fresh from the Democratic ranks. Each man attacked it in his criticism. I was the last to respond. Although the doctrine announced was rather rank, yet it suited my views, and I said, 'Lincoln, deliver that speech as read and it will make you President.' At the time I hardly realized the force of my prophecy. Having patiently listened to these various criticisms from his friends—all of which with a single exception were adverse—he rose from his chair, and after alluding to the careful study and intense thought he had given the question, he answered all their objections substantially as follows: 'Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth—let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.' The next day, the 17th, the speech was delivered just as we had heard it read. [The part of this famous speech which made the profoundest impression and gave rise to the most discussion was the opening part, contained in the following sentences: 'If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let anyone who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination—piece of machinery, so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief architects, from the beginning.'] … Lincoln had now created in reality a more profound impression than he or his friends anticipated. Many Republicans deprecated the advanced ground he had taken, the more so as the Democrats rejoiced that it afforded them an issue clear and well-defined. Numbers of his friends distant from Springfield, on reading his speech, wrote him censorious letters; and one well-informed co-worker predicted his defeat, charging it to the first ten lines of the speech. These complaints, coming apparently from every quarter, Lincoln bore with great patience. To one complainant who followed him into his office he said proudly, 'If I had to draw a pen across my record, and erase my whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased.' Meanwhile Douglas had returned from Washington to his home in Chicago. Here he rested for a few days until his friends and co-workers had arranged the details of a public reception on the 9th of July, when he delivered from the balcony of the Tremont House a speech intended as an answer to the one made by Lincoln in Springfield. Lincoln was present at this reception, but took no part in it. The next day, however, he replied. Both speeches were delivered at the same place. Leaving Chicago, Douglas passed on down to Bloomington and Springfield, where he spoke on the 16th and 17th of July respectively. On the evening of the latter day Lincoln responded again in a most effective and convincing effort. The contest now took on a different phase. Lincoln's Republican friends urged him to draw Douglas into a joint debate, and he accordingly sent him a challenge on the 24th of July. … On the 30th Douglas finally accepted the proposition to 'divide time, and address the same audiences,' naming seven different places, one in each Congressional district, outside of Chicago and Springfield, for joint meetings. The places and dates were, Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, August 27; Jonesboro, September 15; Charleston, September 18; Galesburg, October 7; Quincy, October 13; and Alton, October 15. … During the canvass Mr. Lincoln, in addition to the seven meetings with Douglas, filled thirty-one appointments made by the State Central Committee, besides speaking at many other times and places not previously advertised. … The election took place on the second of November, and while Lincoln received of the popular vote a majority of over 4,000, yet the returns from the legislative districts foreshadowed his defeat. In fact, when the Senatorial election took place in the Legislature, Douglas received 54 and Lincoln 46 votes—one of the results of the lamentable apportionment law then in operation."

W. H. Herndon and J. W. Weik, Lincoln, the True Story of a Great Life, chapter 13 (volume 2).

{3403}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859. Admission of Oregon into the Union, with a constitution excluding free colored People.

See OREGON: A. D. 1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859. John Brown's attack on Slavery in Virginia. The tragedy at Harper's Ferry.

"On the 17th of October, 1859, this country was bewildered and astounded while the fifteen Slave States were convulsed with fear, rage, and hate, by telegraphic dispatches from Baltimore and Washington, announcing the outbreak, at Harper's Ferry, of a conspiracy of Abolitionists and negroes, having for its object the devastation and ruin of the South, and the massacre of her white inhabitants. … As time wore on, further advices, with particulars and circumstances, left no room to doubt the substantial truth of the original report. An attempt had actually been made to excite a slave insurrection in Northern Virginia, and the one man in America to whom such an enterprise would not seem utter insanity and suicide, was at the head of it." This was John Brown, of Osawatomie, who had been fighting slavery and the border ruffians in Kansas (see KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859) for five years, and had now changed his field. "A secret convention, called by Brown, and attended only by such whites and blacks as he believed in thorough sympathy with his views, had assembled in a negro church at Chatham, Canada West, May 8, 1858; at which Convention a 'Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States' had been adopted. It was, of course, drafted by Brown, and was essentially an embodiment of his political views. … John Brown was chosen Commander-in-Chief; J. H. Kagi, Secretary of War; Owen Brown (son of John), Treasurer; Richard Realf, Secretary of State. Brown returned to the States soon after his triumphal entry into Canada as a liberator. … He was in Hagerstown, Maryland, on the 30th [of June, 1859], where he registered his name as 'Smith, and two sons, from Western New York.' He told his landlord that they had been farming in Western New York, but had been discouraged by losing two or three years' crops by frost, and they were now looking for a milder climate, in a location adapted to wool-growing, etc. After looking about Harper's Ferry for several days, they found, five or six miles from that village, a large farm, with three unoccupied houses, the owner, Dr. Booth Kennedy, having died the last Spring. These houses they rented for a trifle until the next March, paying the rent in advance. … After they had lived there a few weeks, attracting no observation, others joined them from time to time, including two of Brown's young daughters; and one would go and another come, without exciting any particular remark. … Meantime, the greater number of the men kept out of sight during the day, so as not to attract attention, while their arms, munitions, etc., were being gradually brought from Chambersburg, in well-secured boxes. No meal was eaten on the farm, while old Brown was there, until a blessing had been asked upon it; and his Bible was in daily requisition. The night of the 24th of October was originally fixed upon by Brown for the first blow against Slavery in Virginia, by the capture of the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry; and his biographer, Redpath, alleges that many were on their way to be with him on that occasion, when they were paralyzed by the intelligence that the blow had already been struck, and had failed. The reason given for this, by one who was in his confidence, is, that Brown, who had been absent on a secret journey to the North, suspected that one of his party was a traitor, and that he must strike prematurely, or not at all. But the women who had been with them at the Kennedy farm—the wives or daughters of one or another of the party—had already been quietly sent away; and the singular complexion of their household had undoubtedly begun to excite curiosity, if not alarm, among their neighbors. … Harper's Ferry was then a village of some 5,000 inhabitants, lying on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and on either side of its principal tributary, the Shenandoah, which here enters it from the South. Its site is a mere nest or cup among high, steep mountains. … Here the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac. … Washington is 57 miles distant by turnpike; Baltimore 80 miles by railroad. … One of its very few streets was entirely occupied by the work-shops and offices of the National Armory, and had an iron railing across its entrance. In the old Arsenal building, there were usually stored from 100,000 to 200,000 stand of arms. The knowledge of this had doubtless determined the point at which the first blow of the liberators was to be struck. The forces with which Brown made his attack consisted of seventeen white and five colored men, though it is said that others who escaped assisted outside, by cutting the telegraph wires and tearing up the railroad track. The entrance of this petty army into Harper's Ferry on Sunday evening … seems to have been effected without creating alarm. They first rapidly extinguished the lights of the town; then took possession of the Armory buildings, which were only guarded by three watchmen, whom, without meeting resistance or exciting alarm, they seized and locked up in the guardhouse. It is probable that they were aided, or, at least, guided, by friendly negroes belonging in the village. … At a quarter-past one, the western train arrived, and its conductor found the bridge guarded by armed men. … A little after midnight, the house of Colonel Washington was visited by six of Brown's men under Captain Stevens, who captured the Colonel, seized his arms, horses, etc., and liberated his slaves. On their return, Stevens and party visited the house of Mr. Alstadtt and his son, whom they captured, and freed their slaves. These, with each male citizen as he appeared in the street, were confined in the Armory until they numbered between forty and fifty. Brown informed his prisoners that they could be liberated on condition of writing to their friends to send a negro apiece as ransom. At daylight, the train proceeded, Brown walking over the bridge with the conductor. Whenever anyone asked the object of their captors, the uniform answer was, 'To free the slaves;' and when one of the workmen, seeing an armed guard at the Arsenal gate, asked by what authority they had taken possession of the public property, he was answered, 'By the authority of God Almighty!' The passenger train that sped eastward from Harper's Ferry, by Brown's permission, in the early morning of Monday, October 17th, left that place completely in the military possession of the insurrectionists. … {3404} But it was no longer entirely one-sided. The white Virginians, who had arms, and who remained unmolested in their houses, prepared to use them. … Several Virginians soon obtained possession of a room overlooking the Armory gates, and fired thence at the sentinels who guarded them, one of whom was mortally wounded. Still, throughout the forenoon, the liberators remained masters of the town. … Had Brown chosen to fly to the mountains with his few followers, he might still have done so, though with a much slenderer chance of impunity than if he had, according to his original plan, decamped at midnight, with such arms and ammunition as he could bear away. Why he lingered, to brave inevitable destruction, is not certain; but it may fairly be presumed that he had private assurances that the negroes of the surrounding country would rise. … At all events, if his doom was already sealed, his delay at least hastened it. Half an hour after noon, a militia force, 100 strong, arrived from Charlestown, the county seat, and were rapidly disposed so as to command every available exit from the place. … Militia continued to pour in; the telegraph and railroad having been completely repaired, so that the Government at Washington, Governor Wise at Richmond, and the authorities at Baltimore, were in immediate communication with Harper's Ferry, and hurrying forward troops from all quarters. … Night found Brown's forces reduced to three unwounded whites beside himself, with perhaps half a dozen negroes from the vicinity. Eight of the insurgents were already dead; another lay dying beside the survivors; two were captives mortally wounded, and one other unhurt. Around the few survivors were 1,500 armed, infuriated foes. … During that night, Colonel Lee, with 90 United States marines and two pieces of artillery, arrived, and took possession of the Armory guard, very close to the engine-house. … At seven in the morning, after a parley which resulted in nothing, the marines advanced to the assault, broke in the door of the engine-house by using a ladder as a battering-ram, and rushed into the building. One of the defenders was shot and two marines wounded; but the odds were too great; in an instant, all resistance was over. Brown was struck in the face with a saber and knocked down, after which the blow was several times repeated, while a soldier ran a bayonet twice into the old man's body."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 20.

"The Virginians demonstrated amply during the Civil War that they were not cowards. What made them shake in their shoes was not John Brown and his handful of men, but the shadows which their excited imagination saw standing behind them. … The best evidence of the frightful genuineness of the panic is the brazen impudence with which it was brought forward as the justifying motive for the many atrocities which marked the trial. The brutalizing influences of slavery came to light with terrible vividness. Kapp's statement that Brown 'enjoyed very careful treatment' is not mistaken, but it is true only of the later period of his imprisonment. Watson Brown, whose life was prolonged until the early morning of the 19th of October, complained of the hard bench he was forced to lie on, His fellow-prisoner, Coppoc, begged for a mattress, or at least a blanket, for the dying man, but could obtain neither. Both Brown himself and Stevens, who was even more seriously wounded, had nothing furnished them but wretched straw. Redpath (page 373) assures us that 'from October 19 till November 7 no clean clothing was given to Brown, but that he lay in his soiled and blood-stained garments just as he had fallen at Harper's Ferry.' On the 25th of October he was brought before the court; he was not at first carried there on a camp-bed, as was the case afterward, but compelled to walk, leaning on two men. Virginia could not wait till he could stand. … There was no such haste to carry out the sentence as there had been to bring the trial to a close. On the 2d of November, Brown was sentenced to suffer death by hanging on the 2d of December."

H. von Holst, John Brown, pages 139-155.

"Brown actually expected that the raid on Harper's Ferry would be the stroke with which Moses called forth water from the rock. The spring was to turn southward, and in its swift course to swell to a mighty river. He declared expressly to Governor Wise, and later still in his letters, that he had not intended simply to break the chains of a few dozen or a few hundred slaves, and to take them again to Canada. Emancipation was to be spread farther and farther, and the freedmen were to remain in the Southern States. Heaven itself could not have brought this about, unless it had sent the angel of judgment to cast down into the dust the whole white population from Florida to Maine." At the last, when John Brown, wounded and a prisoner, lay waiting his death, "he did not perceive that his undertaking could not have succeeded under any circumstances; but he did see that his failure and its consequences achieved much greater results than its most complete success could have done. … 'I can leave to God,' he writes, 'the time and manner of my death, for I believe now that the sealing of my testimony before God and man with my blood will do far more to further the cause to which I have earnestly devoted myself, than anything else I have done in my life.' And a few days later, 'My health improves slowly, and I am quite cheerful concerning my approaching end, since I am convinced that I am worth infinitely more on the gallows than I could be anywhere else.' … One year after the execution of Brown, on the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina declared its secession from the Union, and on May 11, 1861, the Second Massachusetts Regiment of infantry was raised, which was first to sing on its march South: 'John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, His soul goes marching on.'"

H. von Holst, John Brown, pages 139-155, 125-126, 167-175.

"Editors persevered for a good while in saying that Brown was crazy; but at last they said only that it was 'a crazy scheme,' and the only evidence brought to prove it was that it cost him his life. I have no doubt that if he had gone with 5,000 men, liberated 1,000 slaves, killed a hundred or two slaveholders, and had as many more killed on his own side, but not lost his own life, these same editors would have called it by a more respectable name. Yet he has been far more successful than that."

H. D. Thoreau, The Last Days of John Brown (Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers).

ALSO IN: H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 2, chapter 45.

F. B. Sanborn, Life and Letters of John Brown, chapters 15-17.

J. Redpath, Public Life of Captain John Brown.

{3405}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860. The Eighth Census.

Total population, 31,443,322, being an increase exceeding 35½ per cent. over the population of 1850; classified and distributed as follows:

North.

White. Free black. Slave. California. 361,353 4,086 0 Colorado. 34,231 46 0 Connecticut. 451,520 8,627 0 Dakota. 2,576 0 0 Illinois. 1,704,323 7,628 0 Indiana. 1,339,000 11,428 0 Iowa. 673,844 1,069 0 Kansas. 106,579 625 2 Maine. 626,952 1,327 0 Massachusetts. 1,221,464 9,602 0 Michigan. 742,314 6,799 0 Minnesota. 171,864 259 0 Nebraska. 28,759 67 15 Nevada. 6,812 45 0 New Hampshire. 325,579 494 0 New Jersey. 646,699 25,318 18 New York. 3,831,730 49,005 0 Ohio. 2,302,838 36,673 0 Oregon. 52,337 128 0 Pennsylvania. 2,849,266 56,849 0 Rhode Island. 170,668 3,952 0 Utah. 40,214 30 29 Vermont. 314,389 709 0 Washington. 11,138 30 0 Wisconsin. 774,710 1,171 0 —- —- —- Total 18,791,159 225,967 64

South.

White. Free black. Slave. Alabama. 526,431 2,690 435,080 Arkansas. 324,191 144 111,115 Delaware. 90,589 19,829 1,798 District of Columbia. 60,764 11,131 3,185 Florida. 77,748 932 61,745 Georgia. 591,588 3,500 462,198 Kentucky. 919,517 10,684 225,483 Louisiana. 357,629 18,647 331,726 Maryland. 515,918 83,942 87,189 Mississippi. 353,901 773 436,631 Missouri. 1,063,509 3,572 114,931 New Mexico 82,924 85 0 North Carolina. 631,100 30,463 881,059 South Carolina. 291,388 9,914 402,406 Tennessee. 826,782 7,300 275,719 Texas. 421,294 855 182,566 Virginia. 1,047,411 58,042 490,865 —— —- —- Total 8,182,684 262,008 8,958,696

Immigration in the preceding decade added 2,598,214 to the population, being 1,388,098 from the British Islands, and 1,114,564 from other parts of Europe.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860. The Southern view of Slavery.

The state of opinion and feeling on the subject of slavery to which the people of the southern states had arrived in 1860 is set forth with brevity and distinctness in Claiborne's Life of General Quitman, which was published that year: "In the early stages of African slavery in the South," says the writer, "it was by many considered an evil, that had been inflicted upon the country by British and New England cupidity. The Africans were regarded as barbarians, and were governed by the lash. The very hatred of the 'evil' forced upon us was, in a measure, transferred to the unhappy victims. They were treated with severity, and no social relations subsisted between them and the whites. By degrees slavery began to be considered 'a necessary evil,' to be got rid of by gradual emancipation, or perhaps not at all, and the condition of the slave sensibly improved. The natural sense of justice in the human heart suggested that they had been brought here by compulsion, and that they should be regarded not as savages, but as captives, who were to be kindly treated while laboring for their ultimate redemption. The progress of anti-slavery sentiment in the Northern States (once regarded by the South as a harmless fanaticism), the excesses it has occasioned, and the unconstitutional power it claims, at length prompted a general and searching inquiry into the true status of the negro. The moment that the Southern mind became convinced, that slavery, as it exists among us, instead of being a moral, social, and political evil, is a moral, social, and political good, and is the natural condition of the negro, as ordained by Providence, and the only condition in which he can be civilized and instructed, the condition of the Southern slave underwent a thorough change. As a permanent fixture, as a hereditary heirloom, as a human being with an immortal soul, intrusted to us by God for his own wise purposes, his value increased, and his relation to his owner approximated to the relation of guardian and ward. Interest taught us that it would be wise to cherish what was to be the permanent means of production and profit, and religion exacted the humane and judicious employment of the 'talent' committed to our care. Thus the most powerful influences that sway the heart and the judgment are in operation for the benefit of the slave, and hence his present comfortable and constantly ameliorating condition. It is due, almost solely, to the moral convictions of the slaveholder. Our laws protect the slave in life and limb, and against cruel and inordinate punishment. Those laws are rigorously applied, though rarely necessary, for public opinion, more formidable than law, would condemn to execration and infamy the unjust and cruel master. Since these convictions in regard to slavery have been adopted almost unanimously in the South, the value of negroes has quadrupled. This, however, is in some measure an evil, because the tendency is to concentrate the slaves in the hands of the few, who are able to pay the extraordinary rates now demanded. It would be better for the commonwealth, and give additional solidity to our system of domestic servitude, if every family had an interest in it, secured, to a limited extent, against liability for debt. It should constitute in the South, if practicable, a part of every homestead, and then interest, and household tradition, and the friendly, confidential, and even affectionate relations that in the present state of public feeling prevail between master and slave, would unite all men in its defense. Neither land, nor slaves, which are here more valuable than land, should, by either direct or indirect legislation, be concentrated in few hands. Every citizen should have, if possible, that immediate interest in them which would make him feel that, in defending the commonwealth and its institutions, he is defending his own inheritance."

J. F. H. Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, volume 1, chapter 4.

{3406}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (April-November). Nineteenth Presidential Election. Division of the Democratic Party. Four candidates in the field. A victory for freedom in the choice of Abraham Lincoln.

"Mr. J. W. Fell, a politician of Pennsylvania, says that after the debates of 1858 [with Douglas] he urged Lincoln to seek the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1860. Lincoln, however, replied curtly that men like Seward and Chase were entitled to take precedence, and that no such 'good luck' was in store for him. … In the winter of 1859-60 sundry 'intimate friends,' active politicians of Illinois, pressed him to consent to be mentioned as a candidate. He considered the matter over night and then gave them the desired permission, at the same time saying that he would not accept the vice-presidency. … With the opening of the spring of 1860 the several parties began the campaign in earnest. The Democratic Convention met first, at Charleston, April 23; and immediately the line of disruption opened. Upon the one side stood Douglas, with the moderate men and nearly all the Northern delegates, while against him were the advocates of extreme Southern doctrines, supported by the administration and by most of the delegates from the 'Cotton States.' The majority of the committee appointed to draft the platform were anti-Douglas men; but their report was rejected, and that offered by the pro-Douglas minority was substituted, 165 yeas to 138 nays. Thereupon the delegations of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, and sundry delegates from other States, withdrew from the Convention, taking away 45 votes out of a total of 303. Those who remained declared the vote of two thirds of a full Convention, i. e., 202 votes, to be necessary for a choice. Then during three days 57 ballots were cast, Douglas being always far in the lead, but never polling more than 152½ votes. At last, on May 3, an adjournment was had until June 18, at Baltimore. At this second meeting contesting delegations appeared, and the decisions were uniformly in favor of the Douglas men, which provoked another secession of the extremist Southern men. A ballot showed 173½ votes for Douglas out of a total of 191½; the total was less than two thirds of the full number of the original Convention, and therefore it was decided that any person receiving two thirds of the votes cast by the delegates present should be deemed the nominee. The next ballot gave Douglas 181½. Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was nominated for vice-president. On June 28, also at Baltimore [after a meeting and adjournment from Richmond, June 11], there came together a collection composed of original seceders at Charleston, and of some who had been rejected and others who had seceded at Baltimore. Very few Northern men were present, and the body in fact represented the Southern wing of the Democracy. Having, like its competitor, the merit of knowing its own mind, it promptly nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane of Oregon, and adopted the radical platform which had been reported at Charleston. These doings opened, so that it could never be closed, that seam of which the thread had long been visible athwart the surface of the old Democratic party. … In May the Convention of the Constitutional Union party met, also at Baltimore. This organization was a sudden outgrowth designed only to meet the present emergency. … The party died, of necessity, upon the day when Lincoln was elected, and its members were then distributed between the Republicans, the Secessionists, and the Copperheads. John Bell, of Tennessee, the candidate for the presidency, joined the Confederacy; Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, the candidate for the vice-presidency, became a Republican. The party never had a hope of electing its men; but its existence increased the chance of throwing the election into Congress; and this hope inspired exertions far beyond what its own prospects warranted. On May 16 the Republican Convention came together at Chicago, where the great 'Wigwam' had been built to hold 10,000 persons. … Many candidates were named, chiefly Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Cameron, Edward Bates of Missouri, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey. Thurlow Weed was Seward's lieutenant. Horace Greeley, chiefly bent upon the defeat of Seward, would have liked to achieve it by the success of Bates. David Davis, aided by Judge Logan and a band of personal friends from Illinois, was manager for Lincoln. Primarily the contest lay between Seward and Lincoln. … Upon the third ballot … those who were keeping the tally saw that it stood:—Seward, 180; Lincoln, 231½; Chase, 24½; Bates, 22; Dayton, 1; McLean, 5; Scattering, 1. … Before the count could be announced, a delegate from Ohio transferred four votes to Lincoln. This settled the matter; and then other delegations followed, till Lincoln's score rose to 354. … Later in the day the convention nominated Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, on tho second ballot, by 367 votes, for the vice-presidency. … Almost from the beginning it was highly probable that the Republicans would win, and it was substantially certain that none of their competitors could do so. The only contrary chance was that no election might be made by the people, and that it might be thrown into Congress."

J. T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, volume 1, chapter 6.

At the popular election, the votes were: Lincoln, 1,866,452 (Free-States vote, 1,840,022, Slave States vote, 26,430); Douglas, 1,375,157 (Free States vote, 1,211,632, Slave States vote, 163,525); Breckenridge, 847,953 (Free States vote, 277,082, Slave States vote, 570,871); Bell, 590,631 (Free States vote, 74,658, Slave States vote, 515,973).

In the Electoral College, the four candidates were voted for as follows: Lincoln, 180; Breckenridge, 72; Bell, 39; Douglas, 12.

E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: H. W. Raymond, Life of Lincoln, chapter 4.

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, page 1.

J. G. Holland, Life of Lincoln, chapters 15-16.

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 2, chapters 13-16.

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 11 (volume 2).

{3407}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (November-December). The plotting of the rebellion. Secession of South Carolina.

"The long-hoped-for opportunity of trying the experiment of secession was now at last presented. Abraham Lincoln had been elevated to the presidency by a strictly sectional vote; and though the fact could not be denied that he had been elected in a perfectly constitutional manner, … yet, no sooner was it ascertained that it was almost certain that he would receive a majority of the electoral votes of the whole Union, than steps began to be taken for carrying into effect a revolutionary project which had engrossed the thoughts and sensibilities of a small class of extreme Southern politicians, mainly confined to the State of South Carolina, for some thirty years preceding. … So thoroughly matured was the project of secession in the minds of Southern extremists in South Carolina, that they are known actually to have commenced movements looking to this desired end before even the presidential election had taken place, and when the result which soon ensued was yet but a strong probability. Accordingly we find Governor Gist, as early as the 5th of November, 1860, addressing a message to the South Carolina Legislature, embodying the following bold and explicit declarations. … 'That an exposition of the will of the people may be obtained on a question involving such momentous consequences, I would earnestly recommend that, in the event of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, a Convention of the people of this state be immediately called, to consider and determine for themselves the mode and measure of redress. My own opinions of what the Convention should do are of little moment; but, believing that the time has arrived when everyone, however humble he may be, should express his opinions in unmistakable language, I am constrained to say that the only alternative left, in my judgment, is the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The indications from many of the Southern States justify the conclusion that the secession of South Carolina will be immediately followed, if not adopted simultaneously by them, and ultimately by the entire South. … I would also respectfully recommend a thorough reorganization of the militia, so as to place the whole military force of the state in a position to be used at the shortest notice and with the greatest efficiency. … In addition to this general preparation, I would recommend that the services of 10,000 volunteers be immediately accepted.' … I desire not to particularize on this painful subject to an extent which might now prove annoying, and therefore proceed briefly to state that the Legislature of South Carolina provided for the assemblage of a state Convention, the members of which were to be elected on the 6th of December, while the conventional body itself was to come together on the 19th of the same month; that the Convention did assemble on the last-mentioned day, and, after an excited debate of several days' continuance, adopted an Ordinance of Secession on the 20th of December. Commissioners were sent with a copy of the ordinance to each of the slave states, in order to quicken co-operative action, and notification was duly made as to these events to the Federal government in Washington City. The next secession movement it was expected would come off in the State of Georgia. A Convention for this purpose had been already called. It was known that Alexander H. Stephens, Herschel V. Johnson, and other public men, of elevated standing and of extended influence, would be members of the Convention, and it was expected that they would exert themselves to the utmost to prevent the imitation by the State of Georgia of the rash example which had just been set by South Carolina; and it was likewise known that eminent personages from the State of South Carolina would attend the Convention of Georgia, in order to urge immediate co-operation. Under these circumstances, I took it upon myself to persuade the public men of most influence in the city of Nashville, where I was then residing, to send ten or fifteen delegates forthwith to Milledgeville, respectfully and earnestly to protest against extreme action on the part of Georgia. … I urged these views for several days most zealously, but, I regret to say, without success; some supposing that there was no serious danger of the Convention of Georgia adopting an Ordinance of Secession, and others that there was reason to fear, if we should send delegates to Milledgeville, it might result in fatally compromising our own attitude. The manly opposition made by Mr. Stephens to the attempt to draw Georgia into the Secession maelstrom is well known. This want of success is a circumstance which I shall ever deplore as the most unfortunate event of a public nature which has occurred within my recollection. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were now soon enrolled among the seceded States. Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware still stood firm, despite all the efforts essayed to shake their constancy. It is indeed true, as Mr. Greeley has deliberately recorded, that after the secession 'conspiracy had held complete possession of the Southern mind for three months, with the Southern members of the cabinet, nearly all the Federal officers, most of the governors and other state functionaries, and seven eighths of the prominent and active politicians pushing it on, and no force exerted against nor in any manner threatening to resist it, a majority of the slave states, with two thirds of the free population of the entire slaveholding region, was openly and positively adverse to it, either because they regarded the alleged grievances of the South as exaggerated if not unreal, or because they believed that those wrongs would rather be aggravated than cured by disunion.'"

H. S. Foote, War of the Rebellion, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: J. G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, chapter 1.

S. W. Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War, chapters 2-5.

F. Moore, editor, Rebellion Record, volume 1.

The following is the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, adopted December 20, together with the Declaration of Causes which was promulgated by the Convention four days later:

"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.' We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained. That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved."

{3408}

"Declaration of the immediate causes which induce and justify the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:

The People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A. D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue. And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act. In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, 'that they are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.' They further solemnly declared that whenever any 'form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.' Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies 'are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.' In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments—Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defence, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first article, 'that 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. Under this Confederation the War of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3d September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definitive Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the Independence of the Colonies in the following terms:

'Article 1.—His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent States; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.' Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country as a free, sovereign and independent State. In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended, for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States. The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed, the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then to be invested with their authority. If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they were—separate sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation. By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But, to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that 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. On 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her people, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken. Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government, with defined objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights. We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

{3409}

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert, that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused for years past to fulfil their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its 4th Article, provides as follows: '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.' This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio river. The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from the service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. The ends for which this Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be 'to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen other States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to claim the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the Common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the Common Government, because he has declared that that 'Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons, who, by the Supreme Law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and safety. On the 4th March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced, that the South shall be excluded from the common Territory; that the Judicial Tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The Guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief. We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates, in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

{3410}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December). President Buchanan's surrender. His disunion message and its evil effects.

Congress met on the first Monday of December and received from President Buchanan "his mischievous and deplorable message … —a message whose evil effect can never be estimated, and whose evil character can hardly be exaggerated. The President informed Congress that 'the long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at last produced its natural effect.' … The President found that the chief grievance of the South was in the enactments of the Free States known as 'personal liberty laws' [designed to protect free citizens, black or white, in their right to trial by jury, which the fugitive slave law denied to a black man claimed as a slave]. … Very likely these enactments, inspired by an earnest spirit of liberty, went in many cases too far, and tended to produce conflicts between National and State authority. That was a question to be determined finally and exclusively by the Federal Judiciary. Unfortunately Mr. Buchanan carried his argument beyond that point. … After reciting the statutes which he regarded as objectionable and hostile to the constitutional rights of the South, and after urging their unconditional repeal upon the North, the President said: 'The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have a right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have been willfully violated. … In that event, the injured States, after having used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the government of the Union.' By this declaration the President justified, and in effect advised, an appeal from the constitutional tribunals of the country to a popular judgment in the aggrieved States, and recognized the right of those States, upon such popular judgment, to destroy the Constitution and the Union. … Mr. Buchanan proceeded to argue ably and earnestly against the assumption by any State of an inherent right to secede from the government at its own will and pleasure. But he utterly destroyed the force of his reasoning by declaring that, 'after much serious reflection' he had arrived at 'the conclusion that no power has been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal Government, to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn,' from the Union. … Under these doctrines the Government of the United States was shorn of all power to preserve its own existence, and the Union might crumble and fall while its constituted authorities stood paralyzed and impotent. This construction was all that the extremists of the South desired. With so much conceded, they had every thing in their own hands. … Men who, under the wholesome restraint of executive power, would have refrained from taking aggressive steps against the National Government, were by Mr. Buchanan's action forced into a position of hostility. Men in the South, who were disposed to avoid extreme measures, were by taunt and reproach driven into the ranks of Secession. … The evil effects of Mr. Buchanan's message were not confined to the slave States. It did incalculable harm in the free States. It fixed in the minds of tens of thousands of Northern men who were opposed to the Republican party, the belief that the South was justified in taking steps to break up the government, if what they termed a war on Southern institutions should be continued. This feeling had in turn a most injurious influence in the South."

ALSO IN: G. T. Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, volume 2, chapters 16-17.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December). Vain concessions and humiliations of the North proposed. The Crittenden compromise.

"When, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Boteler, of Virginia, proposed to refer so much of the President's Message as related to the perilous condition of the country to a committee of thirty-three—one from each state—not less than 52 members from the Slave States refused to vote. 'I pay no attention to any action taken in this body,' said one. 'I am not sent here to patch up difficulties,' said another. The Democratic members from the Free States did their utmost to compose the dissension—some of them who subsequently became conspicuous in the war—suggesting concessions which doubtless they looked back upon with regret. It was proposed that persons of African blood should never be considered as citizens of the United States; that there should never be any interference with slavery in the Territories, nor with the interstate slave-trade; that the doctrine of state-rights should be admitted, and power of coercion denied to the government. Among the dissatisfied members, one would allow any state at pleasure to secede, and allot it a fair share of the public property and territory. Another would divide the Union into four republics; another would abolish the office of President, and have in its stead a council of three, each of whom should have a veto on every public act. Propositions such as these show to what length the allies of the slave power would have gone to preserve it and give it perpetuity. At this stage, Mr. Crittenden [Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky], proposed in the Senate certain amendments of the Constitution, and resolutions known subsequently as the Crittenden Compromise. The essential features of his plan were the re-establishing of the Missouri Compromise: that in all territory of the United States north of 36° 30' slavery should be prohibited; in all south of that line, not only permitted, but protected; that from such territory north or south states might be admitted with or without slavery, as the Constitution of each might determine; that Congress should have no power to abolish slavery in places under its jurisdiction in a slave state, nor in the District of Columbia, without the consent of the adjoining states, nor without compensation to the slaveholders, nor to prevent persons connected with the government bringing their slaves into the District; that Congress should have no power to hinder the interstate or territorial transport of slaves; that the national government should pay a full value to the owner of a fugitive slave who might have been rescued from the officers; that no amendments of the Constitution should ever be made which might affect these amendments, or other slave compromises already existing in the Constitution. {3411} He also recommended to the states that had enacted laws in conflict with the existing fugitive slave acts, their repeal; and in four resolutions made provision for the more perfect execution of those acts. But the dissension was too deep to be closed by such a measure as Mr. Crittenden's, which contained nothing that could satisfy the North. The South was resolved not to be satisfied with any thing. It had taken what was plainly an irreversible step. According]y, Mr. Crittenden's proposition was eventually lost."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 31 (section 6, volume 1).

ALSO IN: H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 24.

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, pages 48-90.

J. A. Logan, The Great Conspiracy, chapter 8.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December). Major Anderson at Fort Sumter. Floyd's treachery in the War Department. Cabinet rupture. Loyalty reinstated in the national government.

"In November, 1860, the fortifications of Charleston Harbor consisted of three works—Castle Pinckney, an old-fashioned, circular brick fort, on Shute's Folly Island, and about one mile east of the city; Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, still farther to the east, and famous as being on the site of the old fort of palmetto logs, where, during the long bombardment by the British fleet in Revolutionary days, the gallant William Jasper leaped from the low rampart upon the beach below, and seizing the flag that had been shot down, rehoisted it above the fort; and lastly, Fort Sumter, an unfinished fortification, named after General Thomas Sumter, the famous partisan leader of the Revolution, and who was familiarly known as the 'gamecock of the Carolinas.' The armament of Castle Pinckney consisted of 22 cannon, 2 mortars, and 4 light pieces; that of Moultrie of 45 cannon and 7 light pieces; while Sumter mounted 78 heavy guns of various calibre. The entire force of United States troops in these fortifications was composed of two weak companies of artillery under command of Major Robert Anderson, and a few engineer employees under Captain John G. Foster. Of these a sergeant and squad of men were stationed at Castle Pinckney for the care of the quarters and the guns; a similar handful were at Sumter; while most of the little force were at Moultrie, where Anderson had his headquarters. Such was the military situation when South Carolina began to proclaim, without disguise, her purpose to secede and to possess herself of the fortifications on her coast. … Our Government paid no apparent heed, and yet the authorities at Washington were fully and betimes forewarned. … On the files of the Engineer Department I found a letter, which still remains there, dated as early as November 24, 1860, from Captain Foster to Colonel De Russy, then the chief of the engineer corps, in which the captain states that, at the request of Major Anderson, he has, in company with that officer, made a thorough inspection of the forts in the harbor; that, in the opinion of Anderson, one additional company of artillery should at once be sent to garrison Castle Pinckney, which in the terse language of the letter, 'commands the city of Charleston.' Upon the back of the letter is the simple but significant indorsement, in his own hand-writing, 'Return to Governor Floyd.' You may recall him as Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War. On November 30, Captain Foster again writes to Colonel De Russy, saying: 'I think that more troops should have been sent here to guard the forts, and I believe that no serious demonstration on the part of the populace would have met such a course.' On this is indorsed: 'Colonel Cooper says this has been shown to the Secretary of War. H. G. W.' The initials, placed there by himself, are those of the gallant Horatio G. Wright, who succeeded to the command of the Sixth Army Corps after the loved Sedgwick fell. On December 2, application was made by Captain Foster for the small supply of four boxes of muskets and sixty rounds of cartridge per man, to arm the few civilians or hired laborers who constituted the engineer corps. These arms and ammunition were in the United States arsenal at Charleston, a building which still had a Federal keeper, and over which still floated the Federal flag. On this application is the following indorsement, also in General Wright's handwriting: 'Handed to adjutant-general, and by him laid before the Secretary of War on the sixth of December. Returned by adjutant-general on the seventh. Action deferred for the present. See Captain Foster's letter of December 4.' … On December 17, Captain Foster, acting on his own patriotic judgment, but without orders, went to Charleston and took from the Federal arsenal forty muskets, with which to arm his laborers. Early on the morning of the 19th, he received a telegram from Secretary Floyd, directing him instantly to return the arms to the arsenal. On the next day, the 20th, the South Carolinians decided, in State convention, to secede, and proclaimed their State an independent sovereignty. … All alike were delirious with the epidemic madness of the hour, were hopeful, resolute, enthusiastic. Bells pealed and cannon boomed. … But few ventured to breast the storm. There was one, whose name should live honored in in a nation's memory, a wise, true man, the greatest lawyer of his State, James L. Pettigrew, who, when his minister first dropped from the service the prayer for the President of the United States, rose in his pew in the middle aisle of Charleston's most fashionable church, and slowly and with distinct voice repeated: 'Most humbly and heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of these United States.' Then, placing his prayer-book in the rack, and drawing his wife's arm within his own, he left the church, nor entered it again until his body was borne there for burial. To their honor be it said, that even the Carolinians respected his sincerity and candor, and never molested him. … On the night of December 26, Major Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie, which was untenable by his small force, spiked his guns, burned the gun-carriages, and transferred his small command in two schooners to Fort Sumter. This act was without orders and against the do-nothing and helpless policy which had thus far controlled the Government. But it showed the wisdom and prompt decision of the trained soldier and the spirit of the loyal citizen. … Let us recall the appearance of Sumter when Anderson transferred his feeble garrison to its protection. The fort was built on an artificial island, which had been constructed by dumping stone upon a shoal that lay on the south side of the principal ship channel to Charleston Harbor. Sumter was pentagonal in form, and its five sides of brick, made solid by concrete, rose 60 feet above the water. It was pierced for an armament of 135 guns, which were to be placed in three tiers. {3412} Two tiers were to be in casemates, and one 'en barbette,' or on the top of the wall. The embrasures of the upper tier of casemates were never completed. They were filled up with brick during Major Anderson's occupation of the fort, and so remained during all the succeeding operations and siege. Seventy-eight guns of various calibre composed its then armament, the most efficient of which were placed 'en barbette.' On the east and west sides of the parade were barracks for the privates, and on the south side were the officers' quarters. These were all wooden structures. The wharf by which access was had to the fort was on the southern side against the gorge wall. Looking from the sea front, Sumter lay nearly midway between Sullivan's Island on the north and the low, sandy ridges of Morris on the south, and about 1,400 yards from either. The main ship channel was between Sumter and Sullivan's Island. The water between the fort and Morris Island was for the most part comparatively shallow. James Island lay to the west and southwest, while to the northwest, and at a distance of three and one-third miles, rose the steeples of Charleston. The city could have been barely reached by the heaviest guns of the barbette battery. Castle Pinckney lay in the direction of the city, and was distant about two and one-third miles. Sullivan's, Morris, and James Islands thus formed a segment of three-fourths of a circle around Sumter. They were so close under the guns of the fort that, with the then limited experience in the construction of earthworks, no batteries could have been erected under fire from Sumter sufficiently strong to prevent the re-enforcement and supplying of the fort, had Anderson been allowed to open fire at the first upon the rebel working parties. … At noon of December 27, the flag of the nation was raised over the defenders of the fort. Major Anderson knelt, holding the halliards, while Reverend Matthew Harris, an army chaplain, offered fervent prayer for that dear flag and for the loyal few who stood beneath its folds. … And then all wearily the days and weeks dragged on. New fortifications rose day by day on each sandhill about the harbor; vessels of war, bearing the Confederate flag, steamed insultingly near, and the islands were white as harvest fields, with the tents of the fast-gathering rebel soldiery; and still, by positive orders, Anderson was bidden to stand in idle helplessness beside his silent indignant cannon."

General Stewart L. Woodford, The Story of Fort Sumter (Personal Recollections of the War of the Rebellion, pages 259-266).

On the 29th of December, three days after Anderson had transferred his command to Fort Sumter, Floyd gave up his work of treachery in the War Department, and resigned. Howell Cobb had resigned the Treasury Department previously, on the 10th. A few days later, January 8, Jacob Thompson withdrew from the Interior Department. Loyal men now replaced these secessionists in the Cabinet. Joseph Holt of Kentucky took the place of Floyd in the War Department; John A. Dix of New York succeeded Cobb in the Treasury, and the place of Thompson was not filled. Edwin M. Stanton entered the Cabinet as Attorney-General, taking the place of Jeremiah S. Black who became Secretary of State. General Cass had held the State Department until December 12, when he, too, resigned, but for reasons opposite to those of Floyd and Cobb. He left the Government because it would not reinforce the Charleston forts.

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, page 28.

ALSO IN: S. W. Crawford, Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, chapters 1, and 6-10.

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 2, chapters 18-29, and volume 3, chapter 1-6.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860-1861 (December-February). Seizure of arms, arsenals, forts, and other public property by the Southern insurgents. Base surrender of an army by Twiggs.

"Directly after Major Anderson's removal to Fort Sumter, the Federal arsenal in Charleston, containing many thousand stand of arms and a considerable quantity of military stores, was seized by the volunteers, now flocking to that city by direction of the State authorities; Castle Pinckney, Fort Moultrie, and Sullivan's Island were likewise occupied by them, and their defenses vigorously enlarged and improved. The Custom-House, Post-Office, etc., were likewise appropriated, without resistance or commotion. … Georgia having given [January 2, 1861] a large popular majority for Secession, her authorities immediately took military possession of the Federal arsenal at Augusta, as also of Forts Pulaski and Jackson, commanding the approaches by sea to Savannah. North Carolina had not voted to secede, yet Governor Ellis simultaneously seized the United States Arsenal at Fayetteville, with Fort Macon, and other fortifications commanding the approaches to Beaufort and Wilmington. Having done so, Governor Ellis coolly wrote to the War Department that he had taken the step to preserve the forts from seizure by mobs! In Alabama, the Federal arsenal at Mobile was seized on the 4th, by order of Governor Moore. It contained large quantities of arms and munitions. Fort Morgan, commanding the approaches to Mobile, was likewise seized, and garrisoned by State troops. … In Louisiana, the Federal arsenal at Baton Rouge was seized by order of Governor Moore on the 11th. Forts Jackson and St. Philip, commanding the passage up the Mississippi to New Orleans, and Fort Pike, at the entrance of Lake Pontchartrain, were likewise seized and garrisoned by State troops. The Federal Mint and Custom-House at New Orleans were left untouched until February 1st, when they, too, were taken possession of by the State authorities. … In Florida, Fort Barrancas and the Navy Yard at Pensacola were seized by Florida and Alabama forces on the 13th; Commander Armstrong surrendering them without a struggle. He ordered Lieutenant Slemmer, likewise, to surrender Forts Pickens and McRae; but the intrepid subordinate defied the order, and, withdrawing his small force from Fort McRae to the stronger and less accessible Fort Pickens, announced his determination to hold out to the last. He was soon after besieged therein by a formidable volunteer force; and a dispatch from Pensacola announced that 'Fort McRae is being occupied and the guns manned by the allied forces of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi.' … The revenue cutter Cass, stationed at Mobile, was turned over by Captain J. J. Morrison to the authorities of Alabama at the end of January. {3413} The McClellan, Captain Breshwood, stationed on the Mississippi below New Orleans, was, in like manner, handed over to those of Louisiana. General Dix had sent down a special agent to secure them, but he was too late. The telegraph dispatch whereby General Dix directed him, 'If any person' attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot,' sent an electric thrill through the loyal heart of the country. Finally, tidings reached Washington, about the end of February, that Brigadier-General Twiggs, commanding the department of Texas, had disgracefully betrayed his trust, and turned over his entire army, with all the posts and fortifications, arms, munitions, horses, equipments, etc., to General Ben. M'Culloch, representing the authorities of Texas, now fully launched upon the rushing tide of treason. The Union lost by that single act at least half its military force, with the State of Texas, and the control of our Mexican frontier. … The defensive fortifications located within the seceding States were some 30 in number, mounting over 3,000 guns, and having cost at least $20,000,000. Nearly all these had been seized and appropriated by the Confederates before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, with the exception of Fortress Monroe (Virginia), Fort Sumter (South Carolina), Fort Pickens (Florida), and the fortresses on Key West and the Tortugas, off the Florida coast."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 26.

ALSO IN: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, series 1, volume 1.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (January-February). Secession of Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas. Opposition of Alexander H. Stephens, in Georgia.

"On the 9th day of January, 1861, the State of Mississippi seceded from the Union. Alabama and Florida followed on the 11th day of the same month; Georgia on the 20th; Louisiana on the 26th; and Texas on the 1st of February. Thus, in less than three mouths after the announcement of Lincoln's election, all the Cotton States … had seceded from the Union, and had, besides, secured every Federal fort within their limits, except the forts in Charleston harbor, and Fort Pickens, below Pensacola, which were retained by United States troops."

E. A. Pollard, The First Year of the War, chapter 1.

The secession of Georgia was powerfully but vainly opposed by the foremost citizen of that state, Alexander H. Stephens, whose speech before the Legislature of Georgia, in protest against the disruption of the Union, had been one of the notable utterances of the time. "Shall the people of the South," asked Mr. Stephens, "secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the government, to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere election of a man to the presidency, and that, too, in accordance with the prescribed forms of the constitution, make a point of resistance to the government, without becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves, by withdrawing ourselves from it? Would we not be in the wrong? Whatever fate is to befall this country, let it never be laid to the charge of the people of the South, and especially to the people of Georgia, that we were untrue to our national engagements. Let the fault and the wrong rest upon others. … Let the fanatics of the North break the constitution, if such is their fell purpose. Let the responsibility be upon them. … We went into the election with this people. The result was different from what we wished; but the election has been constitutionally held. Were we to make a point of resistance to the government and go out of the Union on that account, the record would be made up hereafter against us. But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against the constitution, and that, if he carries them out, it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. If he violates the constitution, then will come our time to act. Do not let us break it because, forsooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for us to strike. I think it would be injudicious and unwise to do this sooner. I do not anticipate that Mr. Lincoln will do anything to jeopard our safety or security, whatever may be his spirit to do it; for he is bound by the constitutional checks which are thrown around him, which at this time render him powerless to do any great mischief. This shows the wisdom of our system. The President of the United States is no emperor, no dictator—he is clothed with no absolute power. He can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Representatives is largely in a majority against him. In the very face and teeth of the heavy majority which he has obtained in the northern States, there have been large gains in the House of Representatives to the conservative constitutional party of the country, which here I will call the national democratic party, because that is the cognomen it has at the North. … Is this the time, then, to apprehend that Mr. Lincoln, with this large majority in the House of Representatives against him, can carry out any of his unconstitutional principles in that body? In the Senate he will also be powerless. There will be a majority of four against him. … Mr. Lincoln cannot appoint an officer without the consent of the Senate—he cannot form a cabinet without the same consent. He will be in the condition of George the Third (the embodiment of toryism), who had to ask the whigs to appoint his ministers, and was compelled to receive a cabinet utterly opposed to his views; and so Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to ask of the Senate to choose for him a cabinet, if the democracy of that party chose to put him on such terms. He will be compelled to do this, or let the government stop, if the national democratic men (for that is their name at the North), the conservative men in the Senate, should so determine. Then how can Mr. Lincoln obtain a cabinet which would aid him, or allow him to violate the constitution? Why then, I say, should we disrupt the ties of this Union when his hands are tied—when he can do nothing against us?"

A. H. Stephens, Speech against Secession, November 14, 1860 (in "Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private; by H. Cleveland").

{3414}

But when Georgia, despite his exertions, was drawn into the movement of rebellion, Mr. Stephens surrendered to it, and lent his voice to the undertaking which he had proved to be without excuse.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (MARCH).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (February). The Peace Convention.

"The General Assembly of Virginia, on the 19th of January, adopted resolutions inviting representatives of the several States to assemble in a Peace Convention at Washington, which met on the 4th of February. It was composed of 133 Commissioners, many from the border States, and the object of these was to prevail upon their associates from the North to unite with them in such recommendations to Congress as would prevent their own States from seceding and enable them to bring back six of the cotton States which had already seceded." On the 15th of February a committee of the Convention reported certain proposed amendments to the Constitution which "were substantially the same with the Crittenden Compromise;

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (DECEMBER) VAIN CONCESSIONS;

but on motion of Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, the general terms of the first and by far the most important section were restricted to the present Territories of the United States. On motion of Mr. Franklin, of Pennsylvania, this section was further amended, but not materially changed, by the adoption of the substitute offered by him. Nearly in this form it was afterwards adopted by the Convention. The following is a copy:

'In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the Constitution of such State may provide.'…

More than ten days were consumed in discussion and in voting upon various propositions offered by individual commissioners. The final vote was not reached until Tuesday, the 26th February, when it was taken on the first vitally important section, as amended. This section, on which all the rest depended, was negatived by a vote of eight States to eleven. Those which voted in its favor were Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. And those in the negative were Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia." A reconsideration of the vote was moved, however, and on the day following (February 27), "the first section was adopted, but only by a majority of nine to eight States, nine being less than a majority of the States represented. … From the nature of this vote, it was manifestly impossible that two-thirds of both Houses of Congress should act favorably on the amendment, even if the delay had not already rendered such action impracticable before the close of the session. The remaining sections of the amendment were carried by small majorities," and the proposed amendment of the Constitution was reported to Congress, with a request that it be submitted to the Legislatures of the States, but no action upon it was taken.

T. V. Cooper, American Politics, pages 106-108.

"Most of the Southerners thought these propositions worse than nothing. Hunter preferred the present position under the constitution, with the Dred Scott decision as its exposition. Mason, the other Senator from the state that had issued the call for the Peace Convention, said that he would consider himself a traitor if he should recommend such propositions. Wigfall of Texas, however, bore off the palm by saying: 'If those resolutions were adopted, and ratified by three-fourths of the states of this Union, and no other cause ever existed, I make the assertion that the seven states now out of the Union would go out upon that.' Many of the Republicans were equally strong in their opposition to them. Chandler of Michigan spoke the substance of the opinions of several on his side of the Senate when he expressed himself in the language of the 'stump' by saying: 'No concession, no compromise,—ay, give us strife, even to blood,—before a yielding to the demands of traitorous insolence.' … John Tyler, the president of the convention that passed them, and Seddon returned to their state and denounced the recommendations of the Peace Convention as a delusion, a sham and an insult to the South. … Hawkins of Florida told the House, when the question was first touched upon, that the day of compromise was past and that he and his state were opposed to all and every compromise. Pugh and Clopton of Alabama both spoke boldly for secession and against any temporizing policy. Congress had been in session but ten days, and neither of the committees on compromise had had time to report, when a large number of the members of Congress from the extreme Southern States issued a manifesto declaring that 'argument was exhausted' and that 'the sole and primary aim of each slaveholding state ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from an unnatural and hostile Union.' … The boldness of these facts is startling, even when viewed at this distance. They make it perfectly evident that it was not the constitution which the South was desirous of saving, but the institution of slavery which she was determined to preserve. Likewise on the Northern side we find that those who were courageous, logical, and intellectually vigorous in political speculation considered the constitution of less importance than the development of their ideas of freedom. These people were called Abolitionists. Although their political strength was not great, some one of their many ideas found sympathy in the mind of almost every Northerner of education or of clear moral intentions. This explains how John A. Andrew could be elected governor of Massachusetts, although known to have presided over a John Brown meeting. {3415} The purpose of the Abolitionists was 'the utter extermination of slavery wheresoever it may exist.' Wendell Phillips surprised very few Abolitionists when, knowing that the Confederacy was forming, he rejoiced that 'the covenant with death' was annulled and 'the agreement with hell' was broken in pieces, and exclaimed: 'Union or no Union, constitution or no constitution, freedom for every man between the oceans, and from the hot Gulf to the frozen pole! You may as well dam up Niagara with bulrushes as bind our anti-slavery purpose with Congressional compromise.' Congress had to consider such facts as these, as well as the compromises which were proposed. Stephen A. Douglas felt compelled to say, as early as January, 1861, that there were Democrats in the Senate who did not want a settlement. And it was plain to all that most of the Republicans discouraged further concessions. Nor would a constitutional amendment have been possible unless the Northern members had first recognized the seven states as being out of the Union, for it would otherwise have required the support of all but one of the states that were still active. That the 'personal liberty' laws were a violation of the constitution, and that the execution of the fugitive slave law of 1850 had been unconstitutionally obstructed, were unquestioned facts, directly or indirectly recognized by many of the Republican leaders. Nevertheless, the North was much more inclined to continue in this unconstitutional position than to yield to the demands of the South."

F. Bancroft, The Final Efforts at Compromise (Political Science Quarterly, September, 1891).

ALSO IN: H. A. Wise, Seven Decades of the Union, chapter 15.

L. G. Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, volume 2, chapter 20.

L. E. Chittenden, Report of Debates and Proceedings in Secret Session of the Conference Convention, Washington, 1861.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (February). Adoption of a Constitution for "The Confederate States of America." Election of a President and Vice President.

"Early in February, 1861, a convention of six seceding states, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, was held at Montgomery, Alabama. They were represented by 42 persons. Measures were taken for the formation of a provisional government. After the vote on the provisional Constitution was taken, Jefferson Davis was elected President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President of the Confederacy for the current year. The inauguration of Mr. Davis took place on February 18th. Both were shortly after re-elected permanently for six years. … The permanent Constitution adopted for 'The Confederate States of America,' the title now assumed, was modeled substantially on that of the United States. It was remarked that, after all, the old Constitution was the most suitable basis for the new Confederacy. Among points of difference must be noticed that the new instrument broadly recognized, even in its preamble, the contested doctrine of state-rights. … Inducements and threats were applied to draw Virginia and the other Border States into the Confederacy. … With an ominous monition, the second article reads, 'Congress shall … have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any state not a member of this Confederacy.' At this time Virginia was receiving an annual income of $12,000,000 from the sale of slaves. In 1860 12,000 slaves were sent over her railroads to the South and Southwest. One thousand dollars for each was considered a low estimate. Notwithstanding this, the Ordinance of Secession did not pass the Virginia Convention until some weeks subsequently (April 17)."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 32 (volume 1).

The preamble of the Constitution declared that "the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, ordained a Constitution to form a permanent Federal Government and for other purposes. The change in phraseology was obviously to assert the derivative character of the Federal Government and to exclude the conclusion which Webster and others had sought to draw from the phrase, 'We, the people of the United States.' In the Executive department, the Constitution provided, in accordance with the early agreement of the Convention of 1787, that the President should be elected for six years and be ineligible. A seat upon the floor of either House of Congress might be granted to the principal officer in each of the Executive departments with the privilege of discussing any measures appertaining to his department. The President was empowered to remove at pleasure the principal officer in each of the Executive departments and all persons connected with the diplomatic service. To give entire control of Cabinet officers and of foreign ministers was considered to be necessary for the proper discharge of the President's duties and for the independence of his department. All other civil officers could be removed when their services were unnecessary, or for dishonesty, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty, but the removals in such cases, with the reasons therefor, were to be reported to the Senate, and no person rejected by the Senate could be reappointed to the same office during the recess of the Senate. The President was empowered, while approving portions of an appropriation bill, to disapprove particular items, as in other like cases of veto, the object being to defeat log-rolling combinations against the Treasury. Admitting members of the Cabinet to seats upon the floor of Congress with right of discussion (which worked well during the brief life of the Confederacy), was intended to secure greater facility of communication betwixt the Executive and the Legislative departments and enforce upon the heads of the departments more direct personal responsibility. By ineligibility of the President and restriction of the power of removal, the Congress, acting as a convention, sought to secure greater devotion to public interests, freedom from the corrupting influences of Executive patronage, and to break up the iniquitous spoils system which is such a peril to the purity and perpetuity of our Government. The Judicial department was permitted to remain substantially as it was in the old Government. The only changes were to authorize a tribunal for the investigation of claims against the Government, the withholding from the Federal Courts jurisdiction of suits between citizens of different States, and the enactment of a wise provision that any judicial or other Federal officer, resident and acting solely within the limits of any State, might be impeached by a vote of two thirds of both branches of the Legislature thereof.