AGAINST THE ARREST OF BRITISH SUB-
JECTS. MR. SEWARD'S SPIRITED REPLY.

LORD LYONS TO MR. SEWARD.

and treat with said Confederate States for the earli- | THE BRITISH MINISTER'S REMONSTRANCE est practicable admission of Kentucky into the Government of said Confederate States of America, who shall report the result of their mission to the Governor and Council of this Provisional Government, for such future action as may be deemed advisable ; and should less than the full number attend, such as may attend may conduct such negotiation.

Sec. 10. So soon as an election can be held, free from the influence of the armies of the United States, the Provisional Government shall provide for the assembling of a Convention to adopt such measures as may be necessary and expedient for the restoration of a Permanent Government. Said Convention shall consist of one hundred delegates, one from each representative district in the State, except the counties of Mason and Kenton, each of which shall be entitled to two delegates.

Sec. 11. An Auditor and Treasurer shall be appointed by the Provisional Government, whose duties shall be prescribed by law, and who shall give bond, with sufficient security, for the faithful discharge of the duties of their respective offices, to be approved by the Governor and Council.

Sec. 12. The following oath shall be taken by the Governor, members of the council, judges and all other officers, civil and military, who may be commissioned and appointed by this Provisional Gov

ernment:

I,

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14th, 1861. Sir: Her Majesty's Government were much concerned to find that two British subjects, Mr. Patrick and Mr. Rahming, had been subjected to arbitrary arrest; and although they had learned from a telegraphic dispatch from me that Mr. Patrick had been released, they could not but regard the matter as one requiring their very serious consideration.

Her Majesty's Government perceive that when British subjects, as well as American citizens, are arrested, they are immediately transferred to a military prison, and that the military authorities refuse to pay obedience to a writ of habeas corpus.

Her Majesty's Government conceive that this practice is directly opposed to the maxim of the Constitution of the United States "that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

Her Majesty's Government are willing, however, to make every allowance for the hard necessities of a time of internal trouble; and they would not have been surprised if the ordinary securities of personal liberty had been temporarily suspended; nor would they have complained if British subjects falling under suspicion had suffered from the consequences of that suspension.

But it does not appear that Congress has sanction

do solemnly swear, or affirm, in the presence of Almighty God and upon my honor, that I will observe and obey all the laws passed by the Provisional Government of Kentucky, so helped in this respect any departure from the due course me God. of law and it is in these circumstances that the law officers of the Crown have advised her Majesty's Governmant that the arbitrary arrests of British sub

:

Sec. 13. The Governor shall receive as his salary, two thousand dollars per annum, and the Councilmen five dollars per diem while in session, and thejects are illegal. salary of the other officers shall be fixed by law.

Sec. 14. The Constitution and laws of Kentucky not inconsistent with the act of this Convention and the establishment of this Government, and the laws which may be enacted by the Governor and Council, shall be the laws of this State.

Sec. 15. Whenever the Governor and Council shall have concluded a treaty with the Confederate States for the admission of this State into the Confederate Government, the Governor and Council shall elect two Senators and provide by law for the election of members of the House of Representatives in Congress. Sec. 16. The Provisional Government, hereby established, shall be located at Bowling Green, Kentucky, but the Governor and Council shall have power to meet at any other place that they may consider appropriate.

Done at Russelville, in the State of Kentucky, this 20th day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1861

So far as appears to her Majesty's Government, the Secretary of State of the United States exercises, upon the reports of spies and informers, the power of depriving British subjects of their liberty, of retaining them in prison, or liberating them by his own will and pleasure.

Her Majesty's Government cannot but regard this despotic and arbitrary power as inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, as at variance with the treaties of amity existing between the two nations, and as tending to prevent the resort of British subjects to the United States for purposes of trade and industry.

Her Majesty's Government have therefore felt bound to instruct me to remonstrate against such irregular proceedings, and to say that, in their opinion, the authority of Congress is necessary in order to justify the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of British subjects.

MINISTER AND MR. SEWARD.

I have the honor to be, sir, with the highest con- | against such irregular proceedings, and to say that, sideration, your most obedient humble servant. in their opinion, the authority of Congress is necessary in order to justify the arbitrary arrest and im. prisonment of British subjects.

My Lord: I have the honor to acknowledge your country to the Executive at Washington showed Icrdship's note of the present date.

of that month the prisoner, after due inquiry was | Majesty residing in the United States, and under released from custody, on his executing a bond in their protection, are treated during the present the penalty of two thousand five hundred dollars, troubles in the same manner and with no greater or with a condition that he should thereafter bear true less rigor than American citizens. allegiance to the United States, and do no act hostile or injurious to them, while remaining under their protection.

I have to regret that, after so long an official intercourse between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain, it should be necessary now to inform her Majesty's Ministers that all executive proceedings, whether of the Secretary of War or of the Secretary of State, are, unless disavowed or revoked by the President, proceedings of the President of the United States.

The military prison which was used for the temporary detention of the suspected parties is a fort, constructed and garrisoned for the public defense. The military officer charged with their custody has declined to pay obedience to the writ of habeas corpus; but the refusal was made in obedience to an express direction of the President, in the exercise of his functions as Commander-in-Chief of all the land and naval forces of the United States. Although it is not very important, it certainly is not entirely irrelevant, to add that, so far as I am informed, no writ of habeas corpus was attempted to be

half of either of the persons named; although in a case not dissimilar the writ of habeas corpus was isissued out in favor of another British subject, and was disobeyed by direction of the President.

Certainly it is not necessary to announce to the British Government now that an insurrection, at-served, or was even sued out or applied for, in betended by civil and even social war, was existing in the United States when the proceedings which I have thus related took place. But it does seem necessary to state, for the information of that Government, that Congress is by the Constitution invested with no executive power or responsibility whatever, and, on the contrary, that the President of the United States is, by the Constitution and laws, invested with the whole executive power of the Government, and charged with the supreme direction of all municipal or ministerial civil agents, as well as of the whole land and naval forces of the Union, and that, invested with those ample powers, he is charged by the Constitution and laws with the absolute duty of suppressing insurrection, as well as preventing and repelling invasion, and that for these purposes he constitutionally exercises the right of suspending the writ of habeas corpus, whenever and wheresoever and in whatsoever extent the public safety, endangered by treason or invasion in arms, in his judgment requires.

The proceedings of which the British Government complain, were taken upon information conveyed to the President by legal police authorities of the country, and they were not instituted until after he had suspended the great writ of freedom in just the extent that, in view of the perils of the State, he deemed necessary. For the exercise of that discretion he, as well as his advisers, among whom are the Secretary of War and the Secretary of State, is responsible by law before the highest judicial tribunal of the republic, and amenable also to the judgment of his countrymen and the enlightened opinion of the civilized world.

The British Government have candidly conceded, in the remonstrance before me, that even in this country, so remarkable for so long an enjoyment by its people of the highest immunities of personal freedom, war, and especially civil war, cannot be conducted exclusively in the forms and with the dilatory remedies provided by municipal laws which are adequate to the preservation of public order in a time of peace. Treason always operates, if possi ble, by surprise, and prudence and humanity there. fore equally require that violence concocted in se cret shall be prevented, if practicable, by unusual and vigorous precaution. I am fully aware of the inconveniences which result from the practice of such precaution, embarrassing communities in social life, and affecting, perhaps, trade and intercourse with foreign nations. But the American people, after having tried in every way to avert civil war, have accepted it at last as a stern necessity. The chief interest, while it lasts, is not the enjoyments of society, or the profits of trade, but the saving of the national life. That life saved, all the other blessings which attend it will speedily return, with greater assurance of continuance than ever before. The safety of the whole people has become, in the present emergency, the supreme law, and so long as the danger shall exist, all classes of society equally, the denizen and the citizen, cheerfully acquiesce in the measures which that law prescribes. This Government does not question the

A candid admission contained in your letter re-learning of the legal advisers of the British Crown, lieves me of any necessity for showing that the two persons named therein were neither known nor supposed to be British subjects when the proceedings occurred, and that in every case subjects of her

or the justice of the deference which her Majesty pays to them. Nevertheless, the British Govern ment will hardly expect that the President will ac cept their explanations of the Constitution of the

REPORT OF THE VIRGINIA COMMITTEE.

519

66

United States, especially when the Constitution, | It is the office of enlightened statesmanship to sethus expounded, would leave upon him the sole ex- cure to each its appropriate influence, but to give ecutive responsibility of suppressing the existing the absolute control to neither. insurrection, while it would transfer to Congress the most material and indispensable power to be employed for that purpose. Moreover, these explanations find no real support in the letter, much less in the spirit, of the Constitution itself. He must be allowed, therefore, to prefer and be governed by the view of our organic national law which, while it will enable him to execute his great trust with complete success, receives the sanction of the highest authorities of our own country, and is sustained by the general consent of the people for whom alone that Constitution was established.

I avail myself of this opportunity to offer to your lordship a renewed assurance of my very high consideration.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

The RIGHT HON. LORD LYONS, &C.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY
THE VIRGINIA STATE CONVENTION TO
SUGGEST AMENDMENTS TO THE STATE
CONSTITUTION.

The Virginia State Convention reassembled in Richmond, November 19th, 1861. In its former session it adopted (May 1st, 1861) the following resolution:

"Resolved, That a committee of seven members be appointed by the President of the Convention, whose duty it shall be to consider and report to the Convention, at its adjourned session, such amendments to the Constitution of Virginia as may be necessary and proper under existing circumstances."

Before reassembling in November, the Committee through its Chairman, Sandy Stuart, (once Secretary of the Interior) submitted its majority report of which the following extracts are the material por

tions:

"Governments are instituted for the protection of the rights of persons and property; and any system must be radically defective which does not give ample security to both. The great interests of every community may be classed under the heads of labor and capital, and it is essential to the well being of society that the proper equilibrium should be established between these important elements. The undue predominance of either must eventually prove destructive of the social system. Capital belongs to the few-labor to the many. In these systems in which capital has the ascendency, the Government must, to some extent, partake of an oligarchy, whilst in those in which labor is predominant, the tendency is to what Mr. John Randolph graphically described as the despotism of king numbers.'

The political condition of the Northern States presents a striking illustration of the evils incident to the preponderance of the element of labor. In the early periods of their history these evils were not so apparent as they have since become. Their population was sparse, and the Western Territories afforded a convenient outlet for their restless citizens; labor was in demand at high wages; proper ty was easily acquired, and consequently the line of demarcation between labor and capital was not strictly drawn, because the laborer of to-day might rapidly become the capitalist of to-morrow. But within the last twenty years a marked change has taken place in the North. Population has become dense, and the safety-valve afforded by emigration to the Western Territories has been greatly obstructed. Wages have not kept pace with the cost of subsistence, and the difficulty of acquiring property has increased. The tendency of this new condition of things has been to divide society into two distinct classes, and to array the one against the other.

"This tendency to a conflict between labor and capital has already manifested itself in many forms, comparatively harmless, it is true, but nevertheless clearly indicative of a spirit of licentiousness which must, in the end, ripen into agrarianism. It may be seen in the system of free schools, by which the children of the poor are educated at the expense of the rich; in the various forms of exemp tion and homestead bills; in the popular cry of 'lands for the landless,' and 'homes for the homeless;' in Fourierism and communism; in the habitual disregard of the ordinances of religion, and of the institution of matrimony; and, more distinctly, in the form of abolitionism.

"In the opinion of your committee, no system of Government can afford permanent and effectual security to life, liberty and property, which rests on the basis of unlimited suffrage and the election of officers of every department of the Government by the direct vote of the people. The tendency of such a system is to demoralize the masses; to encourage the habit of office-seeking; to foster corruption at the polls, and to place unworthy and incompetent men in positions of trust and responsi bility. These, however, are the vital principles of the social organization of the North, and, as before stated, their bitter fruits are already in a course of rapid development.

"In the Southern States more conservative and rational principles still prevail. This is due mainly

to the institution of slavery, which constitutes a partial restriction on the right of suffrage. In the North men of every class and condition of life are entitled to vote. In the South, all who are in a condition of servitude are necessarily excluded from the exercise of political privileges, and the power of the country is wielded by the more intelligent classes, who have a permanent interest in the wellbeing of society.

people to elect, in the mode prescribed by law, representatives in whose ability, integrity and patriotism they could confide, and leave to them the duty, not merely of framing the laws, but also of selecting the higher officers, to expound and execute them."

This remarkable document was a fair exponent of the principles of the ruling class in the South, and of the tendencies of the revolution-a revolution not only against the United States, but against the democratic principle of all Southern State Constitutions. It was one of the secret purposes of this

"Slavery also constitutes an effectual barrier against that tendency to antagonism between labor and capital which exists in the North. There, capital is the casual employer of labor, and is interest-" ruling class" to disfranchise the non-property ed in diminishing its wages. Here, capital is the owner of labor, and, naturally, seeks to enhance its rewards.

"Material changes seem, also, to be necessary in regard to the selection of various classes of public officers. Under the Constitution, as it now stands, no discrimination is made in the mode of choosing public agents, founded on a consideration of the nature of the functions they have to perform. A mistaken desire to propitiate popular favor, rather than a wise and well-considered purpose to give security to individual rights, and stability and dignity to the Government, seems to have controlled the action of the Convention of 1850. The selection of almost every officer has been referred to the people, and by shortening the official term, as far as possible, the officers are made dependent on the people.

"In determining the mode of selecting officers, it seems to your committee that some regard ought to be had to the nature of the duties they will be required to discharge. No rule can be prescribed which will be free from all objection, but your committee believe that it would be safe to assume that all legislative officers should be elected by the people, but that those who are to fill executive or judicial trusts should be chosen by intermediate agents. There seems to be a good reason for this distinction. Legislation affects the rights and liberties of the whole people collectively.

holders of the Confederacy. So long as a state of war existed, it was not policy to announce the programme for the future Government of the Souththe "poor whites" might rebel. But the Conventions acted out the principle of exclusive rule, by themselves appointing members of Congress, and Congress acted out its exclusive authority by appointing the Executive officers of Government.

PORTIONS OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR'S

REPORT (DECEMBER 2D, 1861) DISCARDED
BY THE PRESIDENT.

On page 436 we refer to the fact that the President objected to a portion of the Report of Mr. Cameron, and that, the Secretary refusing to discard or to modify it, Mr. Lincoln assumed the responsibility of expungement. The following is the conclusion of the document as written by Mr. Cameron. See page 446 for its modified form. It may here be said that Mr. Cameron, like Fremont in Missouri, and Hunter in South Carolina, seemed to err by anticipating the order of administration, for the President, upon the issue of his succeeding annual message virtually embraced all of Mr. Cameron's views:

46

It has become a grave question for determination, what shall be done with the slaves abandoned by their owners on the advance of our troops into the Southern territory, as in the Beaufort district "Hence, those who exercise legislative powers of South Carolina. The whole white population should be elected by a direct vote of the people, therein is 6,000, while the number of negroes exand be dependent, for their continuance in office, on ceeds 32,000. The panic which drove their masters the will of the people. But judicial and executive in wild confusion from their homes, leaves them in officers, being intrusted with the duty of expound- undisputed possession of the soil. Shall they, araiing and administering the public will, as expresseded by their masters, be placed in the field to fight through the Legislature, and in applying law to individual cases, have functions to perform which do not concern the people at large, and ought not to be affected by their wishes.

*

against us, or shall their labor be continually employed in reproducing the means for supporting the armies of rebellion?

"The war into which this Government has been forced by rebellious traitors, is carried on for the

"As a general rule, it would be much safer for the purpose of repossessing the property violently and