There is one direction where we can scarcely look for the tears that blind us. When we see the wholehearted, unselfish devotion of our Northern people, we thank God that we have a country. We thank God for mothers that cheer on their sons, for young wives that have said "go" to their husbands, for widows who have given their only sons. It is our solemn belief that, since the proclamation of the President, there has been in this country more earnest, unselfish heroism, more high-minded self-devotion, in one week than in years of ordinary life. -Independent. THE UPRISING OF THE COUNTRY. Let no one feel that our present troubles are deplorable, in view of the majestic development of nationality and patriotism which they have occasioned. But yesterday we were esteemed a sordid, grasping, money-loving people, too greedy of gain to cherish generous and lofty aspirations. To-day vindicates us from that reproach, and demonstrates that, beneath the scum and slag of forty years of peace, and in spite of the insidious approaches of corruption, the fires of patriotic devotion are still intensely burning. The echoes of the cannon fired at Sumter have barely rolled over the Western hills ere they are drowned in the shouts of indignant freemen, demanding to be led against the traitors who have plotted to divide and destroy the country. Party lines disappear-party cries are hushed or emptied of meaning-men forget that they were Democrats or Republicans, in the newly aroused and intense consciousness that they are Americans. The ordeal now upon us may cost our country many lives and much treasure, but its fruits will be richly worth them all. But few weeks have elapsed since babbling demagogues were talking of an Eastern, a Central, a North-western, and a Pacific, as well as a South-western and a Border-State Confederacy: let them now be silent a little, and note the cost of dividing the Union barely once before they talk further of shivering it into five or six fragments. The experience will be conclusive. Let but this trial be surmounted, and no one will again plot the dissolution of the Union for at least half a century. We feel confident that the President's call for seventy-five thousand militia from all the loyal States will be responded to within thirty days by proffers of more than one hundred thousand from the Free States alone, and that this number can be doubled upon a mere suggestion that the additional number is desired. Any number that may be required will step forward as fast as they may be called for, even though it should be judged best to confront the Secessionists on their frontier with half a million men. But the Rebels also can muster men enough, while they are as yet far ahead of us in arms and munitions; their weak point is that of finance. With a notorious and abusive champion of Repudiation at their head, they cannot borrow a dollar outside of their own limits, and their first loan of fifteen millions will exhaust the resources of their banks. That sum will just about suffice to put one hundred thousand men in the field in fighting array; it will be utterly exhausted before they shall have been two months on foot. Their banks are already twothirds broken, and their notes selling slowly in our Northern cities at fifty per cent. of their face whence are their next funds to be obtained? How are they to defend their two thousand miles of mainly exposed sea-coast and navigable inlets against an undisputed naval ascendency, without more men and unlimited supplies of money? It is a plain case that they must hurry matters or succumb, and that they must make an immediate dash at our weakest point, the Federal Metropolis. If Jeff. Davis and Beauregard are not on the Potomac within sixty days, their rebellion will stand exposed a miserable failure. They must back their allies in North Carolina and Virginia by a prompt display of force and daring, to which end all their energies must first be directed. We do not believe they will even stop to reduce Fort Pickens if it should be so held as to compel them to besiege it in form. They cannot wait; we can; and they will show that they cannot, by a speedy advance on Washington, unless they shall despair of success, and desist from serious effort altogether. It is cheering then, to know that Washington will be defended by ten thousand men before the close of this week, and that the number will be doubled the next, and quadrupled the week after. That will be enough until we have tidings that Virginia has seceded and Jeff. Davis is this side of the Roanoke: thenceforth the number of volunteers pouring into Washington for its defence, will be limited only by the ability of the Northern and Western railroads to convey them. We have a civil war on our hands-there is no use in looking away from the fact. For this year, the chief business of the American people must be proving that they have a Government, and that Freedom is not another name for Anarchy. Hundreds of thousands must be temporarily drawn away from peaceful and productive avocations until this point is settled-drawn away just at the time when labor is wanted to sow and plant for the ensuing harvest. But those who will be left behind must work the harder and plant the more, since years of war are usually years of dear bread. Farmers! employ all the help you can pay, and put in all the crops for which you can seasonably and thoroughly prepare the ground, for a season of scarcity is probably at hand. Let each do his best toward preparing for it. -N. Y. Tribune, April 17. A despatch from Washington says that the President will to-day issue a proclamation, calling upon the loyal States for seventy-five thousand militia to aid the General Government in enforcing the laws and recapturing the forts and other public property seized by the revolutionists. We have no doubt the call will be responded to with a good deal of alacrity. We doubt, however, whether as many men will be as willing to enlist in the army as are anxious to hold office under the Government, -Buffalo Courier. Of all the wars which have disgraced the human race, it has been reserved for our own enlightened nation to be involved in the most useless and foolish one. What advantage can possibly accrue to any one from this war, however prolonged it might be? Does any man suppose that millions of free white Americans in the Southern States, who will soon be arrayed against us, can be conquered by any efforts which can be brought against them? Brave men, fighting on their own soil, and as they believe, for their freedom and dearest rights, can never be subjugated. The war may be prolonged until we are ourselves exhausted, and become an easy prey to military despotism or equally fatal anarchy; but we can never conquer the South. Admit, if you please, that they are rebels and traitors; they are beyond our reach. Why should we destroy ourselves in injuring them? Who are to fight the battles of sectional hatred in this sad strife? The Seceders will fight; but will the Abolitionists, who have combined with them to overthrow the Union, make themselves food for powder? If this could be so; if ten thousand picked fire-eaters of either side could be arrayed against each other, and would fight, until, like the Kilkenny cats, all were destroyed, the country would be the better for it. But while the Secessionist defends himself, the Abolitionist will sneak in the back ground, leaving those to do the fighting who have no interest in the bloody strife, no hatred against their brethren. The best we can hope is, that, at the end of a fearful struggle, when the country becomes tired of gratifying the spirit of fanaticism, we shall have a peace, through a treaty in which both sides must make sacrifices, but each must agree to respect the rights of the other. How much better to make such a treaty now, before further blood is shed, before worse hatreds are engendered. -Utica (N. Y.) Observer. To-day come the tidings that the President has made a call upon the Governors of the several States for seventy-five thousand men, and intimates that if more are offered they will be accepted. Prominent men at Washington are leaving for their respective States, to aid in the organization of the troops. In ten days Lincoln will probably have two hundred thousand volunteers at his disposal. With this force he will be enabled to prosecute the John Brown schemes of his party for a time with vigor, and perhaps with success. -Patterson (N. J.) Reporter. Seventy-five thousand men have been called for, and the War Department will make known the details of the service to the State authorities. We have no doubt that the demands of the Federal Executive will be responded to by the States on which they may be made. It is the imperative duty of all good citizens to desire to see the laws obeyed and all the constitutional obligations of the States fulfilled. None but those who invoke a higher law," as the rule and guide of their actions, will hesitate to do what the Constitution and the laws require them to do. Nevertheless, it is to be expected that there will be but little cheerfulness manifested in the obedience to a call which is intended to array in arms citizens of States connected by such numerous ties as have so recently bound together the people of this dissevered Confederacy. Painful as has been the suspense in which the President's dubious and vacillating course has held the public mind, it is much more so to find the last lingering hope of peace dispelled by this sudden call to arms under circumstances so embarrassing and humiliating. issue the North will fight with the South, the whole question will be presented in a new aspect, and we cannot but believe that cool reflection will then also demonstrate the necessity of a pacific policy. We leave the question at present for the development of future events. -Boston Courier. Democrats of Maine! The loyal sons of the fathers of old gathered about Boston in defence of South have gathered around Charleston as your the same sacred principles of liberty-principles which you have ever upheld and defended with your vote, your voice, and your strong right arm. and the right. Those who have inaugurated this Your sympathies are with the defenders of the truth unholy and unjustifiable war are no friends of yours, no friends of Democratic Liberty. Will you aid them in their work of subjugation and tyranny? When the Government at Washington calls for volunteers or recruits to carry on the work of subjugation and tyranny under the specious phrase of 'enforcing the laws," "retaking and protecting the public property" and "collecting the revenue," let every Democrat fold his arms and bid the minions of tory despotism do a tory despot's work. Say to them fearlessly and boldly, in the language of England's great Lord, the Earl of Chatham, whose bold words in behalf of the struggling Colonies of America, in the dark hours of the Revolution, have enshrined his name in the heart of every friend of freedom and immortalized his fame wherever the name of liberty is known-say in his thrilling language: "If I were a Southerner, as I am a Northerner, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms—never, never, never!" -Bangor (Me.) Union. The President has issued his proclamation calling Congress to meet on the 4th of July. Also calling for 75,000 volunteers to aid in carrying on a conflict with the South. The news already received from the Border States indicates that they will leave the Union, and that the war will be between nineteen free and fifteen slave States. Could this war policy possibly save the Union and promote the welfare of the people, we could look upon it with more complacency. But as it must inevitably more completely divide the Union and injure the interests of the whole country, we believe it to be an unwise and unsafe policy. To march soldiers into the Southern country to contend with armies and yellow fever-and to end in no good, but much evil, does not seem to be a discreet or a righteous policy. A bloody conflict may be continued with the South for weeks, for months, or for years. At its close a compromise must be made no more favorable to the North than was the Crittenden compromise. But the evils of the unnecessary strife will continue into the long years of the future, and be felt by millions. No good whatever can come out of the shocking conflict. War has been commenced. Its origin is the negro agitation. Let the friends of the agitation point out the spot where a slave has been benefited if they can. Great evils have come. Where are -Trenton (N. J.) True American, We earnestly pray that the war may be averted. If the Border States, upon the action of which the whole question hinges, determine to remain in the Union, we cannot doubt that they will require a -Hartford (Ct.) Times. pacific policy to be pursued. If they join the already seceded States, then, as the point to be de- President Lincoln has called an extra session of termined will be whether upon a mere sectional | Congress, to meet on the 4th of July, and the meas the benefits? A war based upon a spirit of revenge, or a disposition to subjugate the States now assuming an attitude of rebellion, will not long be tolerated by the people. If we have no nobler purposes than to gratify our passions, we shall soon witness a sudden and overwhelming reaction all over the North, and the Governments of Europe will interfere to bring our quarrels to a close. We must not long embarrass the commerce of the country. England looks to the South for cotton, and will not, for any length of time, permit the blockading of Southern ports. ure will undoubtedly receive the approval of the | triotism and independence of character, have been people in all the loyal States. adverse to the political expediency of any attempt We dislike to believe that the sole wish of the to reinforce Sumter; and when the proposition President is to be supplied with the means of pros- was made to abandon that fortification, upon the ecuting a war against the South, and that Con-urgent request of General Scott, the measure was gress will be asked to do nothing more than pass hailed with joy as a peace-offering. We have force bills and raise money for their execution. never attempted to justify the Secessionists, any more than we have attempted to vindicate the clamors of Black Republicanism; but we have simply disapproved of a line of policy on the part of the administration of President Lincoln, which, if carried out, must entail upon our country all the horrors of a civil war. We did not believe such a policy would restore that Union, but expressed our opinion that it would forever defeat its reconstruction. Seriously impressed with the belief that our opinions upon these subjects were the reflection of the sentiments of the people of the country, we have given utterance to them. But for so doing The refusal of the Black Republican leaders to we have received from Republican officials and othyield any thing of their contemptible party creeders in this community coarse abuse and defamation. has weakened, and is still weakening the Govern- Events have demonstrated how well founded were ment. The Border States would have been as our opinions. The attempt has been made at profirmly bound to the Union as Rhode Island herself, visioning Sumter, and what is the result? Fort if Congress had adopted Crittenden's resolutions, or Sumter is captured by the Southern Confederacyeven the proposition of the Peace Conference at its the Administration is defeated in the first onset. recent session. The Southern Confederacy has the prestige of vicIn the free States there is a population of nearly tory. Has this defeat demonstrated that we have a 20,000,000 of souls. In the seven Confederate Government? On the contrary, it has clearly deStates there are less than 3,000,000 of white in-monstrated that fanaticism and imbecility rule at habitants. Even if all the Border Slave States Washington. Overriding and disregarding the should be against us, the difference in point of num- counsels of Gen. Scott, the Administration first debers would be as two to one. Under these circum-clares for war, and then, when told by Gen. Scott stances the Christian world looks to us for a magnanimous, not to say generous policy. We must be liberal toward the South, in all things, where liberality can be deemed a virtue, or we shall become a hissing and by-word in every civilized community. Starting with these reflections, which seem to us true and appropriate, what shall we say of the duty of Congress? Is it not to make such offers to the revolted States as will give reasonable men there assurances of their safety in the Union's keeping? Is it not to do what alone can allay the fears of those thousands who are now ready to fight against us, because dreading their own subjugation and degradation? Is it not to remove, so far as it is in our power, the apprehensions of good men that we mean to wage a sectional warfare which shall end only in the overthrow of their institutions? Is it not to satisfy the world, by generous acts, that we still love forbearance and peace; that we do not willingly array brother against brother. We say, let Congress, on the first day of the session, put the Government right, and put the North right, on the questions which have led to this quarrel. Deny it who may, we began this controversy. We began this interference with State rights. We have been for thirty years the aggressors. We have produced, by our own wilfulness and bigotry, by our exhibitions of hatred and affected superiority, the very state of things from which the country is now suffering. Let Congress turn the tide which is now setting against us in the minds of thinking men. a fair, reasonable, liberal, honorable compromise be offered at once, and let the offer be kept before the South until the controversy is brought to an end. -Providence Daily Post. Let that Sumter could not be relieved with a less force than 20,000 men, sends forth an armada of four or five vessels, and less than one-fourth of the number of men required to insure success. In disregarding the advice of Gen. Scott, President Lincoln has entailed upon the country the disgrace of a defeat in the first onset. But the past is past, and cannot be recalled. As a choice between two evils, we would have preferred separation to civil war. The "powers that be" have chosen the latter alternative, and tho destinies and honor of our country are in the hands of a weak and imbecile man, the tool of a party which has, ever since its organization, been arrayed in hostility to the Constitution and to the perpetuity of the Union. As it is, Abolition fanaticism bids fair to involve our whole country in the horrors of a civil war-a war in which brother must meet brother in the deadly conflict. While we will stand by the honor and integrity of our political institutions and civil authorities to the fullest extent required of loyal citizens, we do not feel to rejoice at the dark clouds which seem to be settling over our country. We will leave to Abolition fanatics the pleasure of rejoicing over the downfall of the Union, and the substitution of the evils of war for the pursuits of peace. -Auburn Democrat. Doc. 58.-PROCLAMATION BY THE MAYOR. As Chief Magistrate, representing the whole people, I feel compelled at this crisis to call upon them to avoid excitement and turbulence. What Men of all parties, possessing intelligence, pa- ever may be or may have been individual positions DOCUMENTS-5 or opinions on questions of public policy, let us remember that our country now trembles upon the brink of a precipice, and that it requires a patriotic and honest effort to prevent its final destruction. Let us ignore the past, rising superior to partisan considerations, and rally to the restoration of the Constitution and the Union as they existed in the days and in the spirit of our fathers. Whether this is to be accomplished by fratricidal warfare or by concession, conciliation and sacrifice, men may differ, but all will admit that here at least harmony and peace should prevail. Thus may we, under the guidance of Divine Providence, set an example of peace and good will throughout our extended country. In this spirit and with this view, I call upon the people of New York, irrespective of all other considerations or prejudices, to unite in obedience to the laws, in support of the public peace, in the preservation of order and in the protection of property. FERNANDO WOOD, Mayor. -Tribune, April 16. Doc. 59. GOV. LETCHER'S PROCLAMATION. WHEREAS Seven of the States, formerly composing a part of the United States, have, by authority of their people, solemnly resumed the powers granted by them to the United States, and have framed a Constitution and organized a Government for themselves, to which the people of those States are yielding willing obedience, and have so notified the President of the United States by all the formalities incident to such action, and thereby become to the United States a separate, independent and foreign power; And whereas the Constitution of the United States has invested Congress with the sole power to "declare war," and until such declaration is made, the President has no authority to call for an extraordinary force to wage offensive war against any foreign power; and whereas, on the 15th inst., the President of the United States, in plain violation of the Constitution, issued a proclamation calling for a force of seventy-five thousand men, to cause the laws of the United States to be duly executed over a people who are no longer a part of the Union, and in said proclamation threatens to exert this unusual force to compel obedience to his mandates; And whereas the General Assembly of Virginia, by a majority approaching to entire unanimity, declared at its last session, that the State of Virginia would consider such exertion of force as a virtual declaration of war, to be resisted by all the power at the command of Virginia; and subsequently, the convention now in session, representing the sovereignty of this State, has reaffirmed in substance the same policy, with equal unanimity; And whereas the State of Virginia deeply sympathizes with the Southern States, in the wrongs they have suffered, and in the position they have assumed; and having made earnest efforts peaceably to compose the differences which have severed the Union, and having failed in that attempt, through this unwarranted act on the part of the President; and it is believed that the influences which operate to produce this proclamation against the seceded States will be brought to bear upon this commonwealth, if she should exercise her undoubted right to resume the powers granted by her people, and it is due to the honor of Virginia that an improper exercise of force against her people THE following is the "ordinance to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said constitution," which passed the State Convention on the 17th of April, 1861: The people of Virginia, in the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention, on the 25th day o June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensocver the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States; Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, that the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention on the twentyfifth day of June, 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 all acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying or adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the Union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State. And they do further declare that said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State. This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day, when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon, on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted. Done in convention in the city of Richmond, on the seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Commonwealth of Virginia. A true copy, JNO. L. EUBANK, Secretary of Convention. SECESSION OF VIRGINIA, The announcement that the Convention of Virginia had passed an Ordinance of Secession, was received with the most universal and profound satisfaction. There are no longer in Virginia two parties. The Union men and the Secessionists are arrayed in a solid band of brotherhood under the flag of Virginia. The only rivalry is which shall do and suffer most in defence of our common honor against the monstrous despotism at Washington. LINCOLN'S Proclamation has accomplished the union of all parties in Virginia and the South. The Ordinance of Secession is the answer of the Convention to that Proclamation, and the action of the Convention is but the echo of the people's will. The old Union, for which our fathers fought and bled, has been wilfully sacrificed by a Black Republican despot, and he now seeks to wrench from us our Liberty and Independence. Virginia, which led the van in the war of '76, now meets him on the threshold. She has been slow to act, but she will be slower still to retrace her steps. The Union has lost its brightest planet, but it will henceforth beam as a star of the first magnitude in the purer, brighter, and grander constellation of the Southern Cross. -Richmond Dispatch. Doc. 61.-PROCLAMATION BY JEFFERSON DAVIS. Whereas, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the President of the United States has, by proclamation, announced the intention of invading this Confederacy with an armed force, for the purpose of capturing its fortresses, and thereby subverting its independence, and subjecting the free people thereof to the dominion of a foreign power; and whereas it has thus be come the duty of this Government to repel the threatened invasion, and to defend the rights and liberties of the people by all the means which the laws of nations and the usages of civilized warfare place at its disposal; of ten thousand dollars, with condition that the owners, officers, and crew who shall be employed on board such commissioned vessel, shall observe the laws of these Confederate States and the instructions given to them for the regulation of their conduct. That they shall satisfy all damages done contrary to the tenor thereof by such vessel during her commission, and deliver up the same when revoked by the President of the Confederate States. And I do further specially enjoin on all persons holding offices, civil and military, under the authority of the Confederate States, that they be vigilant and zealous in discharging the duties incident thereto; and I do, moreover, solemnly exhort the good people of these Confederate States, as they love their country, as they prize the blessings of free government, as they feel the wrongs of the past and these now threatened in aggravated form by those whose enmity is more implacable because unprovoked, that they exert themselves in preserving order, in promoting concord, in maintaining the authority and efficacy of the laws, and in supporting and invigorating all the measures which may be adopted for the common defence, and by which, under the blessings of Divine Providence, we may hope for a speedy, just, and honorable peace. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the Seal of the Confederate States to be affixed, this seventeenth day of April, 1861. ferring to this proclamation, says: "To avoid any The Charleston Mercury of the 19th April, in remisunderstanding and prevent comment arising from the supposition that the President intends to assume the authority and responsibility of issuing these him self, without the action of Congress, we would say cation of what he intends to recommend to Conthat the proclamation is merely a preparatory indi Now, therefore, I, JEFFERSON DAVIS, PRESI-gress, and what we have no doubt Congress will do DENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, do issue this my Proclamation, inviting all those who may desire, by service in private armed vessels on the high seas, to aid this Government in resisting so wanton and wicked an aggression, to make ap: plication for commissions or Letters of Marque and Reprisal, to be issued under the Seal of these Con federate States. And I do further notify all persons applying for Letters of Marque, to make a statement in writing, giving the name and a suitable description of the character, tonnage, and force of the vessel, and the name and place of residence of each owner concerned therein, and the intended number of the crew, and to sign said statement and deliver the same to the Secretary of State, or to the Collector of any port of entry of these Confederate States, to be by him transmitted to the Secretary of State. And I do further notify all applicants aforesaid that before any commission or Letter of Marque is issued to any vessel, the owner or owners thereof, and the commander for the time being, will be required to give bond to the Confederate States, with at least two responsible sureties, not interested in such vessel, in the penal sum of five thousand dollars; or if such vessel be provided with more than one hundred and fifty men, then in the penal sum evitable. The secession of Virginia and the frontier and ought to do, in the event that war becomes inSouthern States may command the peace even from the silly fanatics who at present rule Washington. The South does not want war. We stand on the defensive. But if the Northern Government choose to have war, they can and will have it, they may rest assured." Doc. 614.-ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE. In the perilous times upon which our country is thrown, we trust it will not be deemed presumptuous or improper in us to express to our fellowcitizens our united opinion as to the duty of the State in this dire emergency. We are threatened with a civil war, the dreadful consequences of which, if once fully inaugurated, no language can depict. In view of such consequences we deem it the duty of every good citizen to exert his utmost powers to avert the calamities of such a war. The agitation of the slavery question, combined with party spirit and sectional animosity, has at length produced the legitimate fruit. The present is no time to discuss the events of the past. The awful presence |