DECLARATION OF GRIEVANCES. 297 that were never fought and victories that were never won; by false accounts as to the purposes of the President; by false representations as to the views of Union men, and by false pretenses as to the facility with which the secession troops would take possession of the Capital and capture the highest officers of the Government. The cause of secession or rebellion has no charms for us, and its progress has been marked by the most alarming and dangerous attacks upon the public liberty. In other States, as well as our own, its whole course threatens to annihilate the last vestige of freedom. While peace and prosperity have blessed us in the Government of the United States, the following may be enumerated as some of the fruits of secession : "It was effected without consultation with all the States interested in the slavery question, and without exhausting peaceable remedies. "It has plunged the country into civil war, paralyzed our commerce, interfered with the whole trade and business of our country, lessened the value of our property, destroyed many of the pursuits of life, and bids fair to involve the whole nation in irretrievable bankruptcy and ruin. "It has changed the entire relations of States, and adopted Constitutions without submitting them to a vote of the people, and where such a vote has been authorized, it has been upon the condition prescribed by Senator Mason, of Virginia, that those who voted the Union ticket must leave the State.' "It has advocated a constitutional monarchy, a king and a dictator, and is, through the Richmond press, at this moment recommending to the Convention in Virginia a restriction of the right of suffrage, and in severing connection with the Yankees, to abolish every vestige of resemblance to the institu tions of that detested race.' Declaration of Griev ances. "It has called upon the people in the State of Georgia, and may soon require the people of Tennessee, to contribute all their surplus cotton, wheat, corn, bacon, beef, &c., to the support of pretended governments alike destitute of money and credit. "It has attempted to destroy the accountability of public servants to the people by secret legisla tion, and set the obligation of an oath at defiance. "It has passed laws declaring it treason to say or do anything in favor of the Government of the United States, or against the Confederate States, and such a law is now before, and we apprehend will soon be passed by, the Legislature of Tennessee. "It has attempted to destroy, and we fear will soon utterly prostrate the freedom of speech and of the press. "It has involved the Southern States in a war whose success is hopeless, and which must ultimately lead to the ruin of the people. "Its bigoted, overbearing and intolerant spirit has already subjected the people of East Tennessee to many petty grievances: our people have been insulted; our flags have been fired upon and torn down; our houses have been rudely entered; our families subjected to insult; our peaceable meetings interrupted; our women and children shot at by a merciless soldiery; our towns pillaged; our citizens robbed, and some of them assassinated and murdered. "No effort has been spared to deter the Union men of East Tennessee from the expression of their free thoughts. The penalties of treason have been threatened against them, and murder and assassination have been openly encouraged by leading secession journals. "As secession has been thus overbearing and intolerant while in the minority in East Tennessee, nothing better can be expected of the pretended majority than wild, unconstitutional and oppressive legislation; an utter contempt and disregard of "It has formed military leagues, passed military law; a determination to force every Union man in bills, and opened the door for oppressive taxation, the State to swear to the support of a Constitution without consulting the people; and then, in mock- he abhors; to yield his money and property to aid ery of a free election, has required them by their a cause he detests, and to become the object of votes to sanction its usurpations, under the penalties scorn and derision as well as the victim of intoleraof moral proscription or at the point of the bayonet.ble and relentless oppression." "It has offered a premium for crime in directing the discharge of volunteers from criminal prosecutions, and in recommending the Judges not to hold In view of these considerations, and of the fact that the people of East Tennessee had declared their fidelity to the Union by a majority of nearly twenty thousand votes, the Convention resolved and declared their wishes and purposes as follows: "1. That we do earnestly desire the restoration of peace to our whole country, and most especially 2. That the action of our State Legislature in passing the so-called 'Declaration of Independence' and in forming the 'Military League' with the Confederate States, and in adopting other acts looking to a separation of the State of Tennessee from the Government of the United States, is unconstitutional and illegal, and therefore not binding upon us as loyal citizens. 3. That in order to avert a conflict with our brethren in other parts of the State, and desiring that all constitutional means shall be resorted to for the preservation of peace, we do, therefore, constitute and appoint O. P. Temple, of Knox, John Netherland, of Hawkins, and James P. McDowell, of Greene, commissioners, whose duty it shall be to prepare a memorial and cause the same to be presented to the General Assembly of Tennessee, now in session, asking its consent that the counties composing East Tennessee, and such counties in Middle Tennessee as desire to co-operate with them, may form and erect a separate State. 4. Desiring, in good faith, that the General Assembly will grant this our reasonable request, and still claiming the right to determine our own destiny, we do further resolve that an election be held in all the counties of East Tennessee, and in such other counties in Middle Tennessee adjacent thereto as may desire to co-operate with us, for the choice of delegates to represent them in a General Convention, to be held in the town of Kingston at such time as the President of this Convention, or, in case of his absence or inability, any one of the VicePresidents, or, of this Convention may designate; and the officer so designating the day for the assembling of said Convention shall also fix the time for holding the election herein provided for, and give reasonable notice thereof. The Resolutions. requested to open and hold The Closing Scene. Vain protest! It was not long before those Unionists and protestants against wrong were flying for their lives, and were hunted down like wild beasts. The leaders disappeared from observation, and the people could only acquiesce in a state of affairs which, in the presence of the armed minions of the Southern Confederacy, they were powerless to prevent. Exiled, outlawed, scourged, imprisoned, consigned to the gallows in companies, the story of East Tennessee is written in tears and in like case with them, the Secretary blood; and if all other records of the wrong and outrage perpetrated by the Confederacy on Southern citizens were blotted out, the persecutions inflicted upon loyal men in Tennessee would suffice to consign the memory of the secession movement and its leaders to eternal infamy. 5. In order to carry out the foregoing resolution, the sheriff's of the different counties are hereby Alas that deliverance was so long delayed! CHAPTER VI CONGRESS. OPERATIONS ACT AGENTS IN MEETING OF THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS AT RICHMOND. THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS LAID BEFORE THE INGTON. TO WASHEUROPE. OF ALIENS. THE adjourned session lation of his forces on the Po Davis' Message of tomac sufficiently demonstrated Davis' Message of of the Confederate Congress July 20th, 1861. was resumed at Richmond July 20th, when Jefferson Davis laid before the assembled members important documents. His Message-forming, as it does, an import-id ant link in the chain of history of the Rebellion—we give at length : progress of events, for the last few weeks, has fully sufficed to lift the veil, behind which the true policy and purposes of the Government of the United States Gentlemen of the Congress of the Confederate States of had been previously concealed. Their odious fea America: "My message addressed to you at the commencement of the last session contained such full inform ation of the state of the Confederacy as to render it unnecessary that I should now do more than call your attention to such important facts as have occurred during the recess, and the matters connected with the public defense. "I have again to congratulate you on the accession of new members to our Confederation of free and equally sovereign States. Our loved and honored brethren of North Carolina and Tennessee have consummated the action foreseen and provided for at your last session, and I have had the gratification of announcing, by proclamation, in conformity with law, that these States were admitted into the Confederacy. The people of Virginia, also, by a majority previously unknown in our history, have ratified the action of her Convention uniting her fortunes with ours. The States of Arkansas, North Carolina and Virginia have likewise adopted the permanent Constitution of the Confederate States, and no doubt is entertained of its adoption by Tennessee, at the election to be held early in next month. tures now stand fully revealed. The message of their President and the action of their Congress during the present month, confess their intention of the subjugation of these States, by a war, by which it is impossible to attain the proposed result, while its dire calamities, not to be avoided by us, will fall with double severity on themselves. "Commencing in March last, with the affectation of ignoring the secession of seven States, which first organized this Government; persevering in April in the idle and absurd assumption of the existence of a riot, which was to be dispersed by a posse comitatus ; continuing in successive months the false representation that these States intended an offensive war, in spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary, furnished as well by official action as by the very basis on which this Government is constituted, the President of the United States and his advisers succeeded in deceiving the people of those States into the belief that the purpose of this Government was not peace at home, but conquest abroad; not defense of its own liberties, but subversion of those of the people of the United States. The series of manoeuvres by which this impression was created; the "I deemed it advisable to direct the removal of art with which they were devised, and the perfidy the several executive departments, with their ar- with which they were executed, were already known chives, to this city, to which you have removed the to you, but you could scarcely have supposed that seat of Government. Immediately after your ad- they would be openly avowed, and their success journment, the aggressive movements of the enemy made the subject of boast and self-laudation in an required prompt, energetic action. The accumu-executive message. Fortunately for truth and his "In this war, rapine is the rule; private houses, in beautiful rural retreats, are bombarded and burnt; grain crops in the field are consumed by the torch, and, when the torch is not convenient, careful labor is bestowed to render complete the destruction of every article of use or ornament remaining in private dwellings after their inhabitants have fled from the outrages of brute soldiery. In 1781, Great Britain, when invading the revolted colonies, took possession of every district and county near Fortress Monroe, now occupied by the troops of the United States. The houses then inhabited by the people, after being respected and protected by avowed invaders, are now pillaged and destroyed by men who pretend that Virginians are their fellowcitizens. Mankind will shudder at the tales of the outrages committed on defenseless families by sol diers of the United States, now invading our homes; yet these outrages are prompted by inflamed passions and the madness of intoxication. But who shall depict the horror they entertain for the cool and deliberate malignancy which, under the pretext of suppressing insurrection, (said by themselves to be upheld by a minority only of our people,) makes special war on the sick, including children and wo men, by carefully devised measures to prevent them from obtaining the medicines necessary for their cure. The sacred claims of humanity, respect tory, however, the President | the inhabitants of this ConfedDavis' Message. Davis' Message. of the United States details, eracy are still citizens of the with minuteness, the attempt to reenforce Fort United States; for they are waging an indiscrimin Pickens, in violation of an armistice of which ate war upon them all, with savage ferocity, unhe confessed to have been informed, but only by known in modern civilization. rumors; too vague and uncertain to fix the attention of the hostile expedition dispatched to supply Fort Sumter, admitted to have been undertaken with the knowledge that its success was impossible; the sending of a notice to the Governor of South Carolina of his intention to use force to accomplish his object; and then quoting from his inaugural address the assurance that there could be no conflict unless these States were the aggressors,' he proceeds to declare his conduct, as just related by himself, was the performance of a promise, so free from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the world hould not be able to misunderstand it and in defiance of his own statement that he gave notice of the approach of a hostile fleet, he charges these States with becoming the assailants of the United States, without a gun in sight, or in expectancy, to return their fire, save only a few in the fort. He is, indeed, fully justified in saying that the case is so free from the power of ingenious sophistry that the world will not be able to misunderstand it. Under cover of this unfounded pretense, that the Confederate States are the assailants, that high functionary, after expressing his concern that some foreign nations had so shaped their action as if they supposed the early destruction of the National Union probable, abandons all further disguise, and proposes to make this contest a short and decisive one, by placing at the control of the Government for the work at leasted even during the fury of actual battle, by careful four hundred thousand men and four hundred millions of dollars. The Congress, concurring in the doubt thus intimated as to the sufficiency of the force demanded, has increased it to half a million of men. diversion of attack from hospitals containing wounded enemies, are outraged in cold blood by a Government and people that pretend to desire a continuance of fraterhal connections. All these outrages must remain unavenged by the universal reprehension of mankind. In all cases where the actual perpetrators of the wrongs escape capture, they admit of no retaliation. The humanity of our people would shrink instinctively from the bare idea of urging a like war upon the sick, the women and the children of an enemy. But there are other savage practices which have been resorted to by the Government of the United States, which do admit of repression by retaliation, and I have been driven to the necessity of enforcing the repression. The prisoners of war taken by the enemy on board the armed schooner Savannah, sailing under our commission, were, as I was "These enormous preparations in men and money, for the conduct of the war, on a scale more grand than any which the new world ever witnessed, is a distinct avowal, in the eyes of civilized man, that the United States are engaged in a conflict with a great and powerful nation. They are at last compelled to abandon the pretense of being engaged in dispersing rioters and suppressing insurrections, and are driven to the acknowledgment that the ancient Union has been dissolved. They recognize the separate existence of these Confederate States, by an interdictive embargo and blockade of all commerce between them and the United States, not only by sea, but by land; not only in ships, but incredibly advised, treated like common felons. cars; not only with those who bear arms, but with the entire population of the Confederate States. Finally they have repudiated the foolish conceit that put in irons, confined in a jail usually appro priated to criminals of the worst dye, and threatened with punishment as such. I had made applica MESSAGE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 301 Davis' Message. Davis' Message. tion for the exchange of these assertion that the States have prisoners to the commanding no other power than that reofficer of the enemy's squadron off Charleston, served to them in the Union by the Constitubut that officer had already sent the prisoners tion. Now, one of them having ever been a to New York when application was made. I there- State of the Union, this view of the constitutional fore deemed it my duty to renew the proposal for relations between the States and the General the exchange to the constitutional commander-in- Government is a fitting introduction to another aschief of the army and navy of the United States, the sertion of the message, that the Executive possesses only officer having control of the prisoners. To power of suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and this end, I dispatched an officer to him under a flag of delegating that power to military commanders at of truce, and, in making the proposal, I informed their discretion. And both these propositions claim President Lincoln of my resolute purpose to check a respect equal to that which is felt for the addiall barbarities on prisoners of war by such severity tional statement in the same paper, that it is prop of retaliation on prisoners held by us as should se- er, in order to execute the laws, that some single cure the abandonment of the practice. This com- law, made in such extreme tenderness of citizens' munication was received and read by an officer in liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty command of the United States forces, and a message than the innocent, should to a very limited extent was brought from him by the bearer of my combe violated. We may well rejoice that we have formunication, that a reply would be returned by Presiever severed our connection with a Government dent Lincoln as soon as possible. I earnestly hope that thus trampled on all principles of constitutional this promised reply (which has not yet been receiv-liberty, and with a people in whose presence such ed) will convey the assurance that prisoners of war will be treated, in this unhappy contest, with that regard for humanity, which has made such conspicuous progress in the conduct of modern warfare. As measures of precaution, however, and until this promised reply is received, I still retain in close custody some officers captured from the enemy, whom it had been my pleasure previously to set at large on parole, and whose fate must necessarily depend on that of prisoners held by the enemy. I append a copy of my communication to the President and commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the report of the officer charged to deliver my communication. There are some other passages in the remarkable paper to which I have directed your attention, having reference to the peculiar relations which exist between this Government and the States usually termed Border Slave States, which cannot properly be withheld from notice. The hearts of our people are animated by sentiments towards the inhabitants of these States, which found expression in your enactment refusing to consider them enemies, or authorize hostilities against them. That a very large portion of the people of these States regard us as brethren; that, if unrestrained by the actual presence of large armies, subversion of civil authority, and declaration of martial law, some of them, at least, would joyfully unite with us; that they are, with almost entire unanimity, opposed to the prosecution of the war waged against us, are facts of which daily recurring events fully warrant the assertion that the President of the United States refuses to recognize in these, our late sister States, the right of refraining from attack upon us, and justifies his refusal by the avowals could be hazarded. The operations in the field will be greatly extended by reason of the policy which heretofore has been secretly entertained, and is now avowed and acted on by us. The forces hitherto raised provide amply for the defense of seven States which originally organized in the Confederacy, as is evidently the fact, since, with the exception of three fortified islands, whose defense is efficiently aided by a preponderating naval force, the enemy has been driven completely out of these stations; and now, at the expiration of five months from the formation of the Government, not a single hostile foot presses their soil. These forces, however, must necessarily prove inadequate to repel invasion by the half million of men now proposed by the enemy, and a corresponding increase of our forces will become necessary. The recommendations for the raising of this additional force will be contained in the communication of the Secretary of War, to which I need scarcely invite your earnest attention. "In my message delivered in April last, I referred to the promise of the abundant crops with which we were cheered. The grain crops, generally, have since been harvested, and the yield has proven to be the most abundant ever known in our history. Many believe the supply adequate to two years' consumption of our population. Cotton, sugar, tobacco, forming a surplus of the production of our agriculture, and furnishing the basis of our commercial interchange, present the most cheering promises ever known. Providence has smiled on the labor which extracts the teeming wealth of our soil in all parts of our Confederacy. "It is the more gratifying to be able to give you |