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blood too precious, our treasure too valuable to be devoted to the preservation of such a Government as this? They fought through a seven years' war with the greatest power on earth, for the hope, the bare hope, of being able to found this republic, and now that it is no longer a hope nor an experiment, but a glorious reality, which has excited the admiration and the homage of the nations, and has covered us with blessings as the waters cover the channels of the sea," have we, their children, no years of toil, of sacrifice, and of battle even, if need be, to give, to save it from absolute destruction at the hands of men who, steeped in guilt, are perpetrating against us and humanity a crime, for which I verily believe the blackest page of the history of the world's darkest period furnishes no parallel! Can it be possible that in the history of the American people we have already reached a point of degeneracy so low, that the work of Washington and Franklin, of Adams and Jefferson, of Hancock and Henry, is to be overthrown by the morally begrimed and pigmied conspirators who are now tugging at its foundation? It would be the overturning of the Andes by the miserable reptiles that are crawling in the sands at their base.

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of antagonism. Your inaction is a virtual indorsement of the rebellion, and if you do not thereby give to the rebels precisely that "aid and comfort" spoken of in the Constitution, you certainly afford them a most powerful encouragement and support. That they regard your present position as friendly to them, is proved by the fact that, in a recent enactment of the Confederate Congress confiscating the debts due from their own citizens to those of loyal States, the debts due to the people of Kentucky are expressly excepted. Is not this significant? Does it leave any room for doubt that the Confederate Congress suppose they have discovered, under the guise of your neutrality, a lurking sympathy for their cause which entitles you to be treated as friends, if not as active allies? Patriotic as was the purpose of her apprehensive statesmen in placing her in the anomalous position she now occupies, it cannot be denied that Kentucky by her present attitude is exerting a potent influence in strengthening the rebellion, and is, therefore, false alike to her loyalty and to her fame. You may rest well assured that this estimate of your neutrality is entertained by the true men of the country in all the States which are are now sustaining the Government. Within the last few weeks how many of those gallant volunteers who have left home and kindred, and all that is dear to them, and are now under a southern sun, exposing themselves to death from disease and to death from battle, and are accounting their lives as nothing in the effort they are making for the deliverance of your Government and theirs; how many of them have said to me in sadness and in longing, "Will not Kentucky help us?" How my soul would have leaped could I have answered promptly, confidently, exultingly, "Yes, she will!" But when I thought of this neutrality my heart sank within me, and I did not and I could not look those brave men in the face. And yet I could not answer, "No." I could not crush myself to the earth under the self-abasement of such a reply. I therefore said-and may my country sustain me-"I hope, I trust, I pray, nay, I believe Kentucky will yet do her duty."

But our neutral fellow-citizens in the tenderness of their hearts say: "This effusion of blood sickens us." Then do all in your power to bring it to an end. Let the whole strength of this commonwealth be put forth in support of the Government, in order that the war may be terminated by a prompt suppression of the rebellion. The longer the struggle continues, the fiercer will be its spirit, and the more fearful the waste of life attending it. You therefore only aggravate the calamity you deplore by standing aloof from the combat. But again they say, "We cannot fight our brethren." Indeed? But your brethren can fight you, and with a good will, too. Wickedly and wantonly have they commenced this war against you and your institutions, and ferociously are they prosecuting it. They take no account of the fact that the massacre with which they hope their swords will, ere long, be clogged, must be the massacre of their brethren. However much we may bow our heads at the confession, it is If this Government is to be destroyed, ask nevertheless true that every free people that yourselves are you willing it shall be recorded have existed have been obliged, at one period in history that Kentucky stood by in the greator other of their history, to fight for their liber-ness of her strength and lifted not a hand to ties against traitors within their own bosoms, and that people who have not the greatness of soul thus to fight, cannot longer continue to be free, nor do they deserve to be so.

There is not, and there cannot be, any neutral ground for a loyal people between their own Government and those who, at the head of armies, are menacing its destruction. Your inaction is not neutrality, though you may delude yourselves with the belief that it is so. With this rebellion confronting you, when you refuse to cooperate actively with your Government in subduing it, you thereby condemn the Government, and assume toward it an attitude

stay the catastrophe? If it is to be saved, as I verily believe it is, are you willing it shall be written that, in the immeasurable glory which must attend the achievement, Kentucky had no part?

I will only add, if Kentucky wishes the waters of her beautiful Ohio to be dyed in blood-if she wishes her harvest fields, now waving in their abundance, to be trampled beneath the feet of hostile soldiery, as a flowergarden is trampled beneath the threshings of the tempest-if she wishes the homes where her loved ones are now gathered in peace, invaded by the proscriptive fury of a military

despotism, sparing neither life nor property-if | informed that these provisions were to be sent she wishes the streets of her towns and cities for to-night (July 14) by some person who was grown with grass, and the steamboats of her riv- to convey them and the negroes on the plantaers to lie rotting at her wharves, then let her join tion to the Southern army. On this representhe Southern Confederacy; but if she would have tation, he took into possession three horses, and the bright waters of that river flow on in their the negroes harnessed up one four-mule team gladness-if she would have her harvests peace- to a wagon, and one two-mule team to a wagon, fully gathered to her garners-if she would and got in, to the number of ten, of their own have the lullabies of her cradles and the songs accord, and drove to my camp. of her homes uninvaded by the cries and terrors of battle-if she would have the streets of her towns and cities again filled with the hum and throngs of busy trade, and her rivers and her shores once more vocal with the steamer's whistle, that anthem of a free and prosperous commerce, then let her stand fast by the Stars and Stripes, and do her duty, and her whole duty as a member of this Union. Let her brave people say to the President of the United States: "You are our chief magistrate; the Government you have in charge, and are striving to save from dishonor and dismemberment, is our Government; your cause is indeed our cause; your battles are our battles; make room for us, therefore, in the ranks of your armies, that your triumph may be our triumph also."

Even as with the Father of us all I would plead for salvation, so, my countrymen, as upon my very knees, would I plead with you for the life, aye for the life, of our great and beneficent institutions. But if the traitor's knife, now at the throat of the republic, is to do its work, and this Government is fated to add yet another to that long line of sepulchres which whiten the highway of the past, then my heartfelt prayer to God is, that it may be written in history, that the blood of its life was not found upon the skirts of Kentucky!

Doo. 91.

REPORT OF COL. DAVIES. HEAD-QUARTERS, 2D BRIGADE, 5TH DIVISION, ALEXANDRIA, July 14, 1861. To Col. Miles, Commanding 5th Division Troops, Department of Northeastern Virginia. SIR:-In pursuance of your verbal order of yesterday, I made a reconnoissance on the Fairfax road, seven miles out, and on the Richmond road about ten miles, and on the Mount Vernon road as far as Mount Vernon. The pickets on the Fairfax road captured a newly-painted ambulance, containing a set of harness and two bags of buckwheat. On the curtain, on the inside, was distinctly written in pencil, "John Hughes, Fairfax." The picket on the Richmond road saw three horsemen, who, by a dexterous turn, evaded a shot from the picket. The picket on the Mount Vernon road, in its diligence, discovered, on the premises of one John A. Washington, formerly a resident and still an occupant of a large estate near Mount Vernon, what was supposed to amount to eight thousand pounds of bacon, and seventy-five barrels of fish. The officer in charge of the picket was

Deeming the transaction of sufficient conse-. quence to merit my individual attention, and supposing that I might capture the force sent to convey these provisions away, I immediately ordered out three companies of the 10th Regiment, and, taking the two teams referred to and two others, proceeded to capture the provisions and bring them to camp. On arriving at the plantation I proceeded to make inquiry and ascertain if such an amount of provisions was really upon the place. I could not find any thing like the quantity of bacon-not more than sufficient, in my judgment, to carry on the operations of the plantation, whatever might have been there in the morning; but I found twenty-five barrels more fish (one hundred in all) than were at first represented. On looking the whole matter over, whatever may be my individual views as to the confiscation of the property of rebels, who are using it and its income to overthrow the Government, I considered that the case was not sufficiently plain to authorize me to retain the mule teams, or seize upon the fish and bacon, although their owner is well known to be an officer high in rank in the rebel army, and now in active command.

As to the negroes, there being no law or orders directing me either to cause them to remain at home or to prevent them from volunteering to do team duty in my brigade, I shall allow them to remain until otherwise directed. I, however, have placed a guard over the provisions, the mules, and the wagons on the estate, and shall await your orders for their disposition. THOMAS A. DAVIES,

Colonel Commanding 2d Brigade, 5th Division
Troops, N. E. Army, Virginia.

Doo. 92.

MOVEMENT ON BUNKER HILL.

BUNKER HILL, Berkeley Co., Va., July 16, 1861. GEN. PATTERSON moved, with his whole column, except two regiments, early yesterday morning to this place, where it is now encamped, ten miles from Martinsburg and twelve from Winchester. The army marched in two columns, one composed of the First Division, Major-General Cadwalader, and the Second Division, Major-General Kiem commanding; and the other of the Seventh and Eighth Brigades, Cols. Stone and Butterfield forming a Third Division, Major-General Sandford commanding. The First and Second Divisions came by the turnpike, and the Third by the old dirt roadboth roads converging at this point. The troops

and wagons of the Third Division formed a column over five miles long, and the other column was seven or eight miles long, the van reaching here before the rear guard had got far out of Martinsburg. The army marched in different order from that of the column coming from Williamsport to Martinsburg, when the wagons accompanied their own brigades; on this occasion they were all kept in the rear, protected only by a small rear guard of infantry and cavalry. The Philadelphia City Troop were the rear guard of the column of the First and Second Divisions. Although the van of the army reached here before noon, the rear did not get into camp till long after dark. The whole force forms, probably, the largest body ever concentrated in one army in America. The column on the turnpike was seven or eight miles long, and that on the dirt road over five. As the troops filed ont of the camps at Martinsburg and formed in long, dense columns on the roads, with bands playing and colors flying, the scene was well calculated to gratify the pride and patriotism of the North, and to make treason and rebellion quail in the South.

Those hosts of soldiers-not "Northern mercenaries," as traitors have insolently called them, but Northern freemen-were marching forward in serried ranks, all animated by one sentiment and one purpose-the love of country, a broad national sentiment, with no mean sectional or State limits, and the firm resolve to conquer or die. Such an army, so inspired and so determined, could only impress friends with joy and pride, and foes with fear.

The head of the column moving on the turnpike was Col. Thomas's Brigade, a detachment of the Second United States Cavalry, a section of the Rhode Island Battery, and McMullin's Rangers, acting as skirmishers, forming the advance guard.

Between the village of Darksville and Bunker Hill the cavalry of the enemy, in command of Col. Stuart, made their appearance. The Rangers opened upon them, but they were too far off for their fire to be effective, and the troopers scattered and scampered off. At this place the whole squadron, some six or seven hundred, made a show of fight, and the Rhode Island Artillery threw a few shot and shell among them, when they again scampered. Our cavalry followed and overtook some of them, killing one sergeant, taking prisoners one captain, one lieutenant, and three privates, and capturing six horses. Three men were also killed by a shell, and carried off the ground by the rebel cavalry. There was no loss or damage on our side.

The rebel troopers had their camp a little beyond Bunker Hill, and were taken so completely by surprise that they lost their cooking utensils and a dinner just preparing, such as it was-corn bread and bacon. It seems singular that our whole army could move so near to their camp without their being apprised of its advance, when they usually keep up an active

scouting and have so many friends in the country. They have no tents, and camp under brushwood; and in one instance, only a few days ago, they robbed a farmer of the crop he had just cut by covering their camps with wheat-sheaves. We noticed a number of their old encampments near the road in coming here, some six or seven thousand men, under Gen. Jackson, having been in this neighborhood until ten days ago, when they retired to Winchester on a false alarm that Patterson was coming. -New York Tribune, July 20.

Doo. 93.

GEN. HURLBURT'S PROCLAMATION. JULY 15, 1861.

To the Citizens of Northeast Missouri :FALSE and designing men, seeking the overthrow of a Government which they have known by its benefits and comforts, have so misled the minds of many of you, that armed opposition to the Constitution and the laws has, in many parts of your country, become the fashion of the times. It becomes my duty, as commanding a portion of the Government troops now in service in your section, to warn you that the time for toleration of treason has passed, and the man, or body of men, who venture to stand in defiance of the supreme authority of the Union, peril their lives in the attempt. It is a question now of free government under the Constitution your fathers made, or of no government. You must make your choice to obey, maintain, and support the Union which has given you every element of prosperity you have, or to deliver yourselves by your own folly into the hands of an irresponsible mob, excited by passion, crazy with prejudice, unable and unwilling to protect your lives, your property, or your reputation. If you choose on your own free will to put yourselves into this position, if you will deliberately call down upon yourselves and your neighbors the curse of war, if you will compel the Executive power of the nation to put in motion among you the terrible machinery of the military service, remember when the blow comes that you have compelled it to descend upon you. Without your wrongful acts this would not be. Your peaceful and prospective pursuits would go on as usual, and your country would be free from armed occupation, as it was when you were loyal to the nation, as it is now wherever the idea of secession has not cursed the country. There is one simple and easy remedy for this state of things, and that remedy is in your hands; it is a return to the old habits of trust, confidence, and affection for the Union, to the old peaceful times when every man was protected by the law, and loved the law for the blessings it conferred. Thus much of warning and advice to those who have been swept along with this tide of evil influence. The character of the resistance

which has been made is in strict conformity with the source from which it originates. Cowardly assassins watch for opportunities of murder, and become heroes among their associated bands by slaughtering by stealth those whom openly they dare not meet. This system, unknown to civilized warfare, is the natural fruit that treason bears. The process of criminal courts administered in disaffected neighborhoods, will not cure this system of assassination, but the stern and imperative demand of military necessity, and the duty of self-protection, will furnish a sharp, decisive, and rapid remedy in the summary justice of a court-martial. Men who have forsworn themselves by treason will be ready to commit perjury again as the means of escape from merited captivity; and when the mistaken lenity of officers permits them to go free upon their renewed oath, they openly boast that they never meant to keep it, and thus truth and honor are merely by-words where the sentiment of loyalty has failed. But I am slow to believe that this old sentiment of patriotism has utterly died out. I believe that there are yet many who reverence and love the Union, and stand by the old flag that has never known dishonor. To all such I am authorized to say that the United States will extend to every one full and complete protection and support; but they, as lovers of the Union, must express by words and by acts, that love and regard. They must organize themselves, and take their part and share in reconstructing the frame of society. They must make their sympathy known by their actions, if they seek to be of use in these times of trial. No peaceable citizen who remains in the discharge of his ordinary duties shall be molested by troops under my command with impunity, but so far as the power vested in me is concerned, he shall be fully protected. Those, on the contrary, who neglect their private offices to do mischief to the common country, to instigate sedition, and to promote rebellion, must take the consequences which their acts draw upon them; for, as treason is the highest of crimes-as it involves every other crime as it is in this country not only a crime against the Government, but against civilization and the hope of the world-it needs, and must have, peremptory and effective chastisement, that will follow as inevitably as fate. I therefore call upon all citizens of Northeastern Missouri to devote themselves to their ordinary business pursuits; to all irregular and unlawful assemblies to lay down arms, if taken up against the Government, and to be fully assured that the United States, though preferring a quiet and uniform obedience to the laws, is yet ready and abundantly able to enforce compliance, and to inflict, if it be necessary, the extreme penalty on all

active and known traitors.

STEPHEN A. HURLBURT,

Brig. Gen. U. 8. Volunteers.

Doo. 94.

SPEECH OF J. C. BRECKINRIDGE, IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, JULY 16, 1861. MR. BREOKINRIDGE (Ky.) proceeded to speak | at length in opposition to the resolution. He said, under ordinary circumstances he might content himself simply with a vote, but now he thought it required to give expression to his views. It was proposed, by resolution, to declare the acts of the President approved. The resolution, on its face, seems to admit that the acts of the President were not performed in accordance with the Constitution and laws. If that were the case, then he would be glad to have some reason assigned, showing the power of Congress to indemnify the President for a breach of the Constitution. He denied that one branch of the Government can indemnify public officers in another branch for violation of the Constitution and laws. The powers conferred on the Government by the people of the States are the measures of its authority. These powers are confided in different departments, and their boundaries are determined. The President has rights and powers conferred, and the legislative department its powers, and the judicial department its powers, and he denied that either can encroach on the other, or indemnify the other for usurpations of the powers confided by the Constitution. Congress has no more right to make constitutional the unconstitutional acts of the President than the President to make valid the act of the Supreme Court encroaching on the executive power, or the Supreme Court to make valid an act of the executive encroaching on the judicial power.

The resolution substantially declares that Congress may add to the Constitution or take from it in a manner not provided by that instrument; that her bare majority can, by resolution, make that constitutional which is unconstitutional by the same authority; so, in whatever view, the power granted by this resolution is utterly subversive of the Constitution. It might be well to ask if the President had assumed power not conferred. He should confine himself to the acts enumerated in the resolution-acts which he declared to be usurpations on the part of the executive; and, so far from approving the acts, he thought this high officer should be rebuked by both houses of Congress. The President had just established blockades. Where is the clause in the Constitution which authorizes it? The last Congress refused to confer authority, and by what authority did the President do it after they refused? The Constitution declares that Congress alone has power to declare war, yet the President has made war. In the last session the Senator from Illinois (Douglas) delivered a speech, on the 15th of March, which he would read. He then read an extract of Mr. Douglas's speech, declaring that the President had

no right to make a blockade at New Orleans | Congress, and, in the long debates which folor Charleston more than at Chicago. He also read from a speech of Daniel Webster, delivered in 1832, declaring that General Jackson had no right to blockade Charleston. He said he approved these sentiments, uttered by these emi-construction of the instrument itself, what part nent statesmen, who were formerly regarded as sound, and thought the time would again come when it would not be thought treason to maintain them. The resolution proceeds to approve the act of the President enlisting men for three and five years. By what authority of the Constitution and law has he done this? The power is not in the Constitution, nor granted by law. Therefore, it must be illegal and unconstitutional. Again, the President, by his own will, has added immensely to the army, whereas the Constitution says Congress only have power to raise armies. He has also added to the navy against the warrant of the Constitution. These acts are not defended on constitutional or legal grounds, and Mr. Breckenridge pronounced them usurpations.

This resolution goes on to recite that the President has suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and proposes to ratify and make that valid. We have a great deal to talk about rights-the rights of States, the rights of individuals, and some of them have been said to be shadowy and imaginary, but the right of every citizen to be arrested only by a warrant of law, and his right to have his body brought before a judicial authority, in order that the grounds of that arrest may be determined on, is a real right. There can be no dispute about that. It is the right of rights to all, high, low, rich, or poor. It is especially the right of that class which his Excellency, the President, calls plain people. It is a right, the respect for which is a measure of progress and civilization. It is a right that has been struggled for, fought for, guarded by laws, and backed up in constitutions. To have maintained it by arms, to have suffered for it, then to have it established on foundations so immutable that the authority of the sovereign could not shake it, is the chief glory of the British people, from whom we derive it. In England the legislative power alone can suspend that right. The monarch of England cannot suspend it. But the trans-Atlantic freemen seem to be eager to approve and ratify acts which a European monarch dare not perform. It needs no legal argument to show that the President dare not, cannot, suspend the writ of habeas corpus. I content myself with referring to the fact, that it is classed among the legislative powers by the Constitution. And that article conferring powers on the President touches not the question. I may add that upon no occasion has it ever been asserted in Congress, so far as I recollect, that this power exists on the part of the executive. On one occasion Mr. Jefferson thought the time had arrived when the writ might be suspended, but he did not undertake to do it himself, and did not even recommend it. He submitted it to

lowed, tliere was not the least intimation that the power belonged to the executive. I then point to the Constitution and ask Senators from what clause they deduce the right, by any fair confers the power on the President? Surely not that clause which enjoins him to take care of the Constitution and the laws, and faithfully to execute them. The most eminent commentators of the Constitution declare it to be a legislative right. The opinion of the present Chief-Justice, which has never been answered, makes all further argument idle and superfluous; and one of the worst signs of the times is the manner in which that opinion has been received. A subordinate military officer in Baltimore arrests a private citizen and confines him in a fortress. His friends get a writ of habeas corpus, but it cannot be executed. The Chief-Justice then gives an opinion, which is commended, not only by the profession of which he is so great an ornament, but by all thoughtful men in the country. The newspapers of the country, and the men excited by violent passions, have denounced the ChiefJustice, but have not answered his opinion. There it stands, one of those productions which will add to his renown. The abuse of the press, and the refusal to respect just authority, and the attempt to make that high judicial officer odious, will yet recoil on these men. I honor him for the courage with which he did his duty, as well as for the calm and temperate manner in which he performed it. I am glad he yet remains among us, a man so remarkable for his honored length of years, and his eminent public services, and for the rectitude of his private life, that he may be justly ranked among the most illustrious Americans of our day. You propose to make this act of the President valid without making a defence of it, either on legal or constitutional grounds? What would be the effect? In thus approving what the President has done in the past, you invite him to do the like in the future, and the law of the country will lie prostrate at the feet of the executive, and in his discretion he may substitute the military power for judicial authority. Again, Mr. President, although there are few of us here who take the view of the Constitution by this right which I am advocating to-day, I trust we will not, under any circumstances, fail to protest in temperate but manly language against what we consider a usurpation of the President. Let me call the attention of the Senate briefly to other acts against which I protest in the name of the Constitution, and the people I represent. You have practically martial law all over this land. The houses of private citizens are searched without warrant of law. The right of the citizen to bear arms, is rendered nugatory by their being taken from him without judicial process, and upon mere suspicion. Individuals are seized without legal warrant, and imprisoned. The other day, since

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