Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no single reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulties. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellowcountrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government; while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and de fend" it. I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. The habitual tone of this remarkable paper is deprecatory, not to say apologetic. Mr. Lincoln evidently composed it under the fixed impression that the South' needed but to be disabused of her impressions and apprehensions of Northern hostility to restore her to loyalty and the whole land to peace. If she can be made to feel that the new rule does not desire to meddle with Slavery in the States which cherish it, but will hunt and return fugitive slaves to the extent of its ability, then Secession will be given up, and the country restored to peace and harmony! That, certainly, is an amiable view of the situation; but it was not justified by a close study and thorough comprehension of our recent political history. Mr. Lincoln's suggestion that the dictum of the Supreme Court, though law to the suitor whom it bore hard upon, does not bind the people not to, entertain and vote in conformity to an adverse conviction, though in full accordance with the action of 'the South' in regard to the Alien and Sedition laws, the Creek and Cherokee treaties," etc., and, in fact, to the action of all parties when overruled by that Court, was not calculated to please and conciliate 'the South.' Yet no adversary of a United States Bank ever felt himself restrained from opposing and voting against such a Bank as unconstitutional by the fact that the Court had adjudged it otherwise. No one imagines that a decision by that Court that Slavery had no right to enter the territories would have been regarded and treated by 'the South' as the end of controversy on that point." But, having obtained, in the Dred Scott case, an opinion that slaveholders might take their human chattels to any territory, and there hold them, claiming ample protection from the Government in so doing, they were fully resolved to make the most of it, and not at all disposed to acquiesce in the suggestion that, on questions essentially political, the American People are a higher authority than even their Supreme Court. The weakest portion of this document is its inconsiderate talk about an "invasion" of the States by the Federal Government, and its quasi pledge not to appoint Federal offi 213. For Mr. Jefferson's views, see pages 83-4; for Gen. Jackson's, see pages 104-6. THE UNION NOT A MERE LEAGUE. 427 try'-made so by God and His Providence, revealed through the whole of its recorded history; its 'more perfect Union' is but a step in its development-not the cause of its existence. Hence, Secession is not "the dissolution of a league," as Mr. Jefferson Davis asserts, but a treason ize and destroy a nation. cers for communities unanimously hostile to the authority of the Union. A surgeon who should volunteer a pledge not to disturb or meddle with any proud flesh he might find in his patient's wounds, would hardly expect to augment thereby that patient's confidence in his skill; nor could a priest who should stipulate never to assailable, though futile, effort to disorganany other than unpopular and repudiated sins, expect to win a high regard either for his authority or his sanctity. The fact that the sovereignty of the Union is coëxtensive, and, at least, coördinate with that of the States, is here clearly lost sight of. To say, in effect, to rebels against the National authority, "You may expel that authority wholly from your vicinage by killing a few of its leading upholders, and thus terrifying the residue into mute servility to your will," is not the way to suppress a rebellion. The strong point of this Inaugural is its frank and plump denial of the fundamental Secession dogma that our Union is a league," formed in 1787. "The Union is much older than the Constitution," says Mr. Lincoln, truly and pertinently. Had the Constitution been rejected by the States, the Union would nevertheless have subsisted. Ours is one coun 21 "The New York Herald of November 9th, contained an instructive letter dated Charleston, November 5th, 1860, from which the following is an extract: "It must be understood that there is a radical difference in the patriotism of a Northerner and a Southerner. The Northerner invariably considers himself as a citizen of the Union; he regards the Federal army and navy as his country's army and navy, and looks upon the Government at Washington as a great consolidated organization, of which he forms an integral part, and to which whatever love of country he may possess is directed. Beyond paying the State taxes, voting for State officers, and seeking redress primarily in the State courts, he has very little idea of any special fealty being due to his own particular State. Mr. Lincoln's rejection of Disunion as physically impossible-as forbidden by the geography and topography of our country-is a statesmanlike conception that had not before been so clearly apprehended or so forcibly set forth. And, in truth, not one-tenth of the then active Secessionists ever meditated or intended Disunion as permanent. They proposed to destroy the Union in order to reconstitute it according to their own ideas, with Slavery as its corner-stone. To kick out the New England States, rural New York, and that 'fanatical' section of the West that is drained by the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence-such was the constant inculcation of pro-Slavery journalists and politicians throughout that eventful Winter and Spring. Free States were to be admitted into the Confederacy, on condition of their fully "The Southerner, on the other hand, generally (and the South Carolinian always) repudiates this theory of consolidation. He feels that he owes allegiance to his own State, and to her alone; he is jealous of her rights and honor, and will never admit that any step taken in obedience to her mandate can involve the idea of treason. The Federal Government is, in his eyes, but the embodiment of certain powers delegated by the States from motives of policy. Let those motives be once removed or counterbalanced, and he holds that the State has no longer any reason for maintaining a connection which it was her right, at any time, to have dissolved. These being the views of the people of South Carolina, the threats of Douglas and the Black Republicans have only served to confirm the wavering and knit together the citizens of the various sections of the State." abjuring all manner of anti-Slavery | the olive-branch to 'the South'; the sentiment and inculcation evermore, conspirators everywhere interpreted and becoming Slave States. A few it as a challenge to war." And when Southern fanatics, who deemed no- the former had taken the oath, solthing needed but the reopening of emnly administered to him by Chief the African Slave-Trade to render Justice Taney, the two Presidents 'the South' the mistress of the world, wended their way back, duly eswished to be rid of all Yankee' as- corted, to the White House, at whose sociation and contamination ever- door Mr. Buchanan bade Mr. Linmore; but the great mass, even in coln a cordial good-by, retiring to the Cotton States, regarded Secession the residence of his friend and benefibut as a device for bringing the North ciary, Robert Ould, whom he had to its knees, and binding it over to made U. S. District Attorney, and future docility to every exaction of who, though from Maryland, soon the Slave Power. after fled to Richmond, and entered at once the military service of the Confederacy. Mr. Lincoln fondly regarded his Inaugural as a resistless proffering of XXVII. OMINOUS PAUSE. PRESIDENT LINCOLN, on the day after | press warrant in the Constitution, his his inauguration, submitted to the new Senate the names of those whom he had chosen to preside over the several Departments, and who thus became, by a usage which has no ex 22 It were idle to quote the Disunion press, even of the yet unseceded States, to prove this; since their strictures may well be imagined. The following, from professedly loyal journals, are worth recording: "The Inaugural, as a whole, breathes the spirit of mischief. It has only a conditional conservatism-that is, the lack of ability or some inexpediency to do what it would. It assumes despotic authority, and intimates the design to exercise that authority to any extent of war and bloodshed, qualified only by the withholding of the requisite means to the end by the American people. The argumentation of the address is puerile. Indeed, it has no quality entitled to the dignity of an argument. It is a shaky specimen of special pleading, by way of justifying the unrighteous character and deeds of the fanaticism which, lifted into power, may be guilty, as it is capable, of any atrocities. official counselors. They were WILLIAM H. SEWARD, of New York, Secr'y of State; There is no Union spirit in the address, it is sectional and mischievous, and studiously withholds any sign of recognition of that equality of the States upon which the Union can alone be maintained. If it means what it says, it is the knell and requiem of the Union, and the death of hope."-Baltimore Sun. "Mr. Lincoln stands to-day where he stood on the 6th of November last, on the Chicago Platform. He has not receded a single hair's breadth. He has appointed a Cabinet in which there is no slaveholder-a thing that has never before happened since the formation of the Government; and in which there are but two nominally Southern men, and both bitter Black Republicans of the radical dye. Let the Border States ignominiously submit to the Abolition rule of this Lincoln Administration, if they like; but don't let the miserable submissionists pretend to be deceived. Make any base or cowardly excuse but this."-Philadelphia Pennsylvanian. CIVIL WAR NOT APPREHENDED. 429 Mr. Jefferson Davis, ruling at | Destiny' and the unparalleled ration Montgomery, had already constituted his Cabinet, which consisted of ROBERT TOOMBS, of Georgia, Secretary of State; CHARLES G. MEMMINGER, of South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; LEROY POPE WALKER, of Alabama, Secretary of War; to which were afterward added STEPHEN R. MALLORY, of Florida, Secry of the Navy; JOHN H. REAGAN, of Texas, Postmuster-General, Thus the two Governments stood face to face, holding positions and maintaining assumptions so palpably, utterly incompatible as to necessitate an early collision; and that collision must, in the nature of things, produce a crash that would shake the continent. Still, there was great and wise reluctance, at least on this side, to precipitate or to initiate hostilities. In spite of appearances, President Lincoln,' and the advisers in whom he most trusted, seemed still incredulous as to the inevitability and imminence of a clash of arms. Gov. Seward, the new Secretary of State, had for months been apparently the most resolute of optimists with regard to a happy issue from our internal complications. At the New England Dinner in New York, he had confidently predicted a settlement of all our troubles within the ensuing sixty days. That term had sped; yet his faith in a peaceful solution of our differences appeared as buoyant as ever, and seemed to be shared by the President, whose "Nobody hurt as yet" had become a watchword among the obstinate believers in Manifest 1 The writer revisited Washington for a day or two, some two weeks or more after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, and was surprised to see and hear on every hand what were, to him, convincing proofs that an early collision with the 'Confederates' was not seriously apprehended in the highest quarters. 2 Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, December 22, 1860. 3 In 1786-7. ality, wisdom, intelligence, and self control, of the peerless American People. Does this look like infatuation? If the wisdom that comes to-morrow were the genuine article, every man would be a Solomon. Remember that, for more than seventy years, no man had seen an American hand lifted against the symbol of our Nationality. Neither Shays's Rebellion,' in Massachusetts, nor the Whisky Rebellion,* so called, in western Pennsylvania, had really purposed aught beyond the removal or redress of temporary grievances which were deemed intolerable. Even old John Brown-fanatic as he was; madman as many held him-never dreamed of dividing the country which he sought to purge of its most flagrant wrong; his Canada Constitution expressly stipulated that the Union should be preserved, and its flag retained and cherished by his adherents. Since the close of our Revolutionary struggle, no man had seen, in the Free States, any other banner floating over a regiment of our people than the Stars and Stripes; though the waves of party spirit had often run mountain high, and we had seemed just on the brink of disruption and civil war, yet the dreaded collision had always been somehow averted, and the moment of fiercest excitement, of widest alienation, had often been the immediate precursor of a halcyon era of reconciliation, peace, and fraternal harmony. It for Northern men, espewas not easy cially those who had never visited and sojourned at the South, to comprehend and reälize the wide prevalence and intensity of anti-National sentiment and feeling in those localities whose social order, industry, and business, were entirely based on Slavery. Neither envying nor hating the Southerners, while lamenting their delusions and resisting their exactions, it was hard indeed for many, if not most, of the citizens of the Free States to realize that we stood on the brink of a volcano whose rumblings preluded an eruption of blood as well as ashes. Scarcely a week after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, his Secretary of State was served with the following: "WASHINGTON, March 12, 1861. "Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State of the United States: "SIR:-The undersigned have been duly accredited by the Government of the Confederate States of America as Commissioners to the Government of the United States, and, in pursuance of their instructions, have now the honor to acquaint you with that fact, and to make known, through you, to the President of the United States, the objects of their presence in this Capital. "Seven States of the late Federal Union having, in the exercise of the inherent right of every free people to change or reform their political institutions, and through Conventions of their people, withdrawn from the United States, and reässumed the attributes of sovereign power, delegated to it, have formed a Government of their own. The Confederate States constitute an independent nation, de facto and de jure, and possess a Government perfect in all its parts and endowed with all the means of self-support. "With a view to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of this political This reply was withheld, upon consultation with John A. Campbell, of Alabama, (then and till May 2d thereafter a Justice of the US. Supreme Court,) until twenty-three days subse separation, upon such terms of amity and good-will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare, of the two nations may render necessary, the undersigned are instructed to make to the Government of the United States overtures for the opening of negotiations, assuring the Government of the United States that the President, Congress, and people of the Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceable solution of these great questions; that it is neither their interest nor their wish to make any demand which is not founded in strict justice, nor do any act to injure their late confederates. obedience to the instructions of their Gov"The undersigned have now the honor, in ernment, to request you to appoint as early a day as possible, in order that they may present to the President of the United States the credentials which they bear and the objects of the mission with which they are charged. "We are, very respectfully, "Your obedient servants, "MARTIN J. CRAWFORD." To this virtual Declaration of War, under the guise of an overture looking to negotiation, settlement, and amity, Gov. Seward responded as follows:" "Memorandum. } "DEPARTMENT of State, "WASHINGTON, March 15, 1861.) "Mr. John Forsyth, of the State of Alabama, and Mr. Martin J. Crawford, of the State of Georgia, on the 11th inst., through the kind offices of a distinguished Senator, submitted to the Secretary of State their desire for an unofficial interview. This request was, on the 12th inst., upon exclusively public considerations, respectfully declined. "On the 13th inst., while the Secretary was preoccupied, Mr. A. D. Banks, of Virginia, called at this Department, and was received by the Assistant Secretary, to whom he delivered a sealed communication, which he had been charged by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford to present to the Secretary in person. "In that communication, Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford inform the Secretary of State that they have been duly accredited by the Government of the Confederate States of America as Commissioners to the Govern quent to its date. Judge C. would seem to have been, even then, acting as a Confederate, despite his oath of office, though misunderstood by Gov. S. as laboring to preserve the Union. |