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CHAPTER VI.

Political Movements in the Fall of 1863.-The "Peace Party" in the North.-The Yankee Fall Elections.-The War Democrats in the North.-The South's Worst Enemies.-Yankee Self-Glorification.-Farragut's Dinner-Party.-The Russian Banquet.-Russia and Yankeedom.-The Poles and the Confederates. -THE POLITICAL TROUBLES IN KENTUCKY.-Bramlette and Wickcliffe.-The Democratic Platform in Kentucky. Political Ambidexterity.-Burnside's Despotic Orders.-The Kentucky "Board of Trade."-An Election by Bayonets.-The Fate of Kentucky Sealed.—OUR EUROPEAN RELATIONS.-Dismissal of the Foreign Consuls in the Confederacy.— Seizure of the Confederate "Rams" in England.-The Confederate Privateers.Their Achievements.-British Interests in Privateering.-The Profits of So-called "Neutrality."-NAVAL AFFAIRS OF THE CONFEDERACY.-Embarrassments of Our Naval Enterprise.-The Naval Structures of the Confederates.-LEE'S FLANK MOVEMENT IN VIRGINIA.-Affair of Bristoe Station.-Failure of Lee's Plans.-Meade's Escape to Centreville.-Imboden's Operations in the Valley.--Capture of Charlestown. -OPERATIONS AT KAPPAHANNOCK BRIDGE.-Kelley's Ford.-Surprise and Capture of Hayes' and Hoke's Brigades.-Gallantry of Colonel Godwin.-Lee's Army on the Rapidan.-THE AFFAIR OF GERMANIA FORD.-Meade Foiled.-The "On-to-Richmond" Delayed.

WE must take the reader's attention from military campaigns to certain political movements, which, in the fall of 1863, apparently involved more or less distinctly the fortunes of the

war.

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The long-continued delusion, indulged by Southern men, of a peace party" in the North, which would eventually compel peace on the terms of the Confederacy, is to be compared to that similar delusion of Northern politicians, which insisted that "a Union party" existed in the South, and that it was only temporarily suppressed by a faction. There was not the least foundation in fact for either of these opinions; and the agreeable confidence of the South, in its supposed friends in the North, was to be rudely dispelled by events that admitted of but one construction. The South had mistaken for substantial tokens of public sentiment the clamors and exaggerations of party elections. The Democratic party in the North went into the fall elections of 1863, on the issue of a general opposition to the Lincoln Administration; at the same time, promising a vigorous "constitutional" prosecution of the war, while their

vague allusions to an impossible peace and platitudes of fraternal sentiment were merely intended to catch favor in the South, and really meant nothing. Even Mr. Seymour, of New York, managed, while cozening the South, to maintain, on the other hand, a cordial understanding with the authorities at Washington; and he found it necessary to conclude one of his finest speeches by saying, "never have I embarrassed the Administration, and I never will."

But even on its moderate issues, with reference to the war, which, as we have seen, proposed only certain constitutional limitations, the Democratic party in the North was badly beaten in the fall elections. From Minnesota to Maine, the Democrats were defeated. In the latter, which was supposed to be the least fanatical of the New England States, the Republicans carried the election by an overwhelming majority. In Ohio, Vallandigham was defeated. He was still in exile. Voorhies, who had proclaimed doctrines somewhat similar to his, in a neighboring State, narrowly escaped being lynched by the soldiers. The elections were followed by a remarkable period of political quiet in the North. Those who had the courage to confront the administration of Lincoln, had either been suppressed by the strong hand of lawless power, or had supinely sought safety in silence. The overthrow of free government in the North was complete.

The South was not easily imposed upon by that organized hypocrisy, the War Democracy of the North. While it professed constitutional moderation in the conduct of the war, it aimed at the reconstruction of the Union, which was only a different phrase for the military conquest of the South. It must be observed that so far as questions of the constitutional conduct of the authorities at Washington were made in the North, they were questions entirely between their domestic parties, which did not properly interest the people of the Confederacy, inasmuch as their demand for independence, simple and absolute, had nothing to do with the modifications of the different parties which opposed it. Indeed, with regard to this demand, the War Democrat at the North was a far more dangerous enemy to the Confederacy than the open and avowed Abolitionist. The former was more plausible; his programme of reconstruction carried an appearance of possibility to entice

the popular faith which that of naked conquest did not possess. But both programmes-that of the War Democrat and that of the Abolitionist-were equally fatal to the Confederacy: as it mattered not what was the formula of subjugation, if the people of the South once placed themselves within the power of their treacherous enemies, and submitted to any form of their authority.

The North had yet shown no real disposition to abandon the war. The Yankees were still busy with the game of self-glorification. Their conceit, their love of display, their sensations amused the world. Their favorite generals were all Napoleons; in the cities mobs of admirers chased them from hotel to hotel; in the New England towns deputations of school-girls kissed them in public. Farragut, their successful admiral, was entertained in New York with feasts, where a plaster of ice-cream represented the American Eagle, and miniature ships, built of sticks of candy, loaded the table. These childish displays and vain glory had culminated in an immense banquet given to a Russian fleet in the harbor of New York, at which distinguished Yankee orators declared that the time had come when Russia and the United States were to be taken as twins in civilization and power, to hold in subjection all others of Christendom, and to accomplish the "destiny" of the nineteenth century.

And really this festive fervor but gave insolent expression to an idea that had long occupied thoughtful minds in distant quarters of the world. Christendom was called upon to witness two political murders. While twenty millions of Yankees sought to strangle the Southern Confederacy, fifty millions of Muscovites combined to keep ten or twelve millions of Poles under a detested yoke. In their infamous attempt upon Poland, Russians tried to pass themselves off as the defenders of liberal ideas against Polish aristocracy; and it was declared that the Polish nobility was in rebellion in order not to be forced to emancipate the serfs. "Russia and the United States," said a French writer of the time, "proclaim the liberty of the serf and the emancipation of the slave, but in return both seek to reduce to slavery all who defend liberty and independence." Liberty of the press, of speech, of public meetings, even the venerable privilege of habeas corpus, inherited from England, had already been put under the feet of Abraham Lincoln.

While the Democratic party was timidly protesting in the Northern States, Mr. Lincoln had prefaced the farce of the fall elections in the North by an outrage upon the ballot in Kentucky, which Yankee Democrats were too weak or too dishonest to resent.

A history of the Kentucky troubles, in some details, is the best commentary we can choose from events, upon the condition to which the whole system of political liberty had fallen in the North.

THE POLITICAL TROUBLES IN KENTUCKY.

In the last days of August, 1862, the Hon. Beriah Magoffin resigned his office as Governor of the State of Kentucky. From causes into which it is not necessary now to enter, he had incurred the suspicion of a great majority of the Union party, and through the Legislature they had succeeded in divesting him of all real power in the government. The executive control of the State had rapidly fallen into the hands of the military officers of the United States, and for months the people had been subject to martial law in all its oppressiveness, without its declaration in form. Under these circumstances, and for the purpose of relieving the people, and especially that portion of them known as "Southern-rights Men," who had been the peculiar objects of persecution, Mr. Magoffin, in a published letter, declared his willingness to resign whenever he could be assured of the election of a successor of conservative views, who, commanding the confidence at the same time of the Administration at Washington and of the people of Kentucky, would be able and willing to secure every peaceful citizen in the exercise of the rights guaranteed to him by the Constitution and laws. James F. Robinson, then a member of the Senate, was indicated to him, and he consented to resign in his favor.

For the August election of 1863, Thomas E. Bramlette was offered as a candidate for governor. Mr. Bramlette maintained generally the rightfulness of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and the extension of martial law over States where war did not exist, and gave in a quasi adhesion to Mr. Lincoln's policy.

A number of Kentucky Democrats presented a ticket in opposition, headed by C. A. Wickcliffe for governor, and published the following expressions of their views, as comprising the issues of the approaching election.

"We cannot consent to the doctrine that the Constitution and laws are inadequate to the present emergency; that the constitutional guarantees of liberty and property can be suspended by war.

"Our fathers certainly did not intend that our Constitution should be a fairweather document, to be laid away in a storm, or a fancy garment to be worn only in dry weather. On the contrary, it is in times like the present that constitutional restraints on the power of those in authority are needed.

"We hold the Federal government to be one of limited powers, that cannot be enlarged by the existence of civil commotion.

“We hold the rights reserved to the States equally sacred with those granted to the United States. The government has no more right to disregard the Constitution and laws of the States than the States have to disregard the Constitution and laws of the United States.

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'We hold that the Administration has committed grave errors in confiscation bills, lawless proclamations, and military orders setting aside constitutions and laws, and making arrests outside of military lines where there is no pub lic danger to excuse it.

"It is now obvious that the fixed purpose of the Administration is to arm the negroes of the South to make war upon the whites, and we hold it to be the duty of the people of Kentucky to enter against such a policy a solemn and most emphatic protest.

"We hold as sacred and inalienable the right of free speech and a free press-that the government belongs to the people and not the people to the government.

"We hold this rebellion utterly unjustifiable in its inception, and a dissolution of the Union the greatest of calamities. We would use all just and constitutional means adapted to the suppression of the one and the restoration of the other."

Notwithstanding these resolutions, which so carefully sounded in "loyalty," and exhibited the usual ambidexterity of the War Democracy, it soon became evident that the authorities at Washington were determined to interfere in the Kentucky election, and force it exactly to their purpose.. Messrs. Wolfe and Trimble, candidates for Congress in the First and Fifth districts, and Mr. Martin, candidate for the Legislature in Lyon and Livingston counties, were arrested by the provost-marshals.

On the 31st of July, Burnside declared martial law in Kentucky. The following is a summary of the most outrageous of the despotic orders which followed in quick succession the declaration of martial law.

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