Page images
PDF
EPUB

the united voices of all the North; and, for the purpose of making their work sure, they have determined to hold Washington City as the point whence to carry on their brutal warfare. Our people can take it-they will take it --and Scott, the arch-traitor, and Lincoln, the Beast, combined, cannot prevent it. The just indignation of an outraged and deeply injured people will teach the Illinois Ape to repeat his race and retrace his journey across the borders of the Free Negro States still more rapidly than he came. Great cleansing and purification are needed and will be given to that festering sink of iniquity, that wallow of Lincoln and Scott-the desecrated city of Washington; and many indeed will be the carcasses of dogs and caitiffs that will blacken the air upon the gallows before the great work is accomplished. So let it be !"

*

*

*

But despite all this fanfaronade of brutal bluster, and various movements that looked somewhat threatening, and this complete isolation for more than a week from the rest of the World, the city of Washington was not seized by the Rebels, after all.

This nervous condition of affairs, however, existed until the 25th—and to General Benjamin F. Butler is due the chief credit of putting an end to it. It seems he had reached the Susquehanna river at Perryville, with his Eighth Massachusetts Regiment on the 20th-the day after the Sixth Massachusetts had been mobbed at Baltimore-and, finding his further progress to Washington via Baltimore, barred by the destruction of the bridge across the Susquehanna, etc., he at once seized a large ferry steamer, embarked his men on her, steamed down the river and Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, took possession of the frigate Constitution, the Naval Academy, and the city itself, gathered supplies, and being reinforced by the arrival by water of the famous New York Seventh, and other regiments, repaired the branch railroad to Annapolis Junction (on the main line of railroad between Baltimore and Washington), and transferred his column from thence, by cars, on the 25th, to the National Capital-soon thereafter also taking military possession of Baltimore, which gave no fur

ther trouble to the Union Cause. In the meantime, however, other untoward events to that Cause had happened.

Two days after the Call for troops, the Virginia Convention (April 17th) secretly voted to Secede from the Union. An expedition of Virginia troops was almost at once started to capture the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, which, as has already been intimated, was evacuated hastily on the night of the 18th, by the handful of Union regulars garrisoning it, after a futile effort to destroy the public property and stores it held. Another expedition was started to seize the Federal Navy Yard at Norfolk-a rich prize, containing as it did, between 2,000 and 3,000 pieces of heavy ordnance (300 of them Dahlgrens), three old line-of-battle ships and a number of frigates, including the Cumberland and the fine forty-gun steam frigate Merrimac, together with thousands of kegs of powder and immense stores of other munitions of war, and supplies-that had cost in all some $10,000,000. Without an enemy in sight, however, this fine Navy Yard was shamefully evacuated, after partly scuttling and setting fire to the vessels-the Cumberland alone being towed away-and spiking the guns, and doing other not very material damage.

So also, in North Carolina, Rebel influence was equally active. On the 20th of April Governor Ellis seized the Federal Branch Mint at Charlotte, and on the 22d the Federal Arsenal at Fayetteville. A few days thereafter his Legislature authorized him to tender to Virginia-which had already joined the Confederacy-or to the Government of the Confederate States itself, the volunteer forces of North Carolina. And, although at the end of January the people of that State had decided at the polls that no Secession Convention be held, yet the subservient Legislature did not hesitate, on demand, to call one together which met in May and ordained such Secession.

Thus, by the end of May, 1861, the Confederacy had grown to comprise nine instead of seven States, and the Confederate troops were concentrating on Richmond-whither the Rebel Government was soon to remove, from Montgomery. By this time also not only had the ranks of the regular

Union Army been filled and largely added to, but 42,000 additional volunteers had been called out by President Lincoln; and the blockade of the Southern ports (including those of Virginia and North Carolina) that had been proclaimed by him, was, despite all obstacles, now becoming effectual and respected.

Washington City and its suburbs, by the influx of Union volunteers, had during this month become a vast armed camp; the Potomac river had been crossed and the Virginia hills (including Arlington heights) which overlooked the Federal Capital, had been occupied and fortified by Union troops; the young and gallant Colonel Ellsworth had been killed by a Virginia Rebel while pulling down a Rebel flag in Alexandria; and General Benjamin F. Butler, in command at Fortress Monroe, had by an inspiration, solved one of the knottiest points confronting our armies, by declaring of three Negroes who had fled from their master so as to escape working on Rebel fortifications, that they should not be returned to that master-under the Fugitive Slave Law, as demanded by a Rebel officer with a flag of truce—but were confiscated "property," and would be retained, as "contraband of war."

It was about this time, too, that the New Orleans Picayune fell into line with other unscrupulous Rebel sheets, by gravely declaring that: "All the Massachusetts troops now in Washington are Negroes, with the exception of two or three drummer boys. General Butler, in command, is a native of Liberia. Our readers may recollect old Ben, the barber, who kept a shop in Poydras street, and emigrated to Liberia with a small competence. General Butler is his son." Little did the writer of that paragraph dream how soon New Orleans would crouch at the very feet of that same General!

And now, while the armed hosts on either side are assembling in hostile array, or resting on their arms, preliminary to the approaching fray of battle, let us glance at the alleged causes underlying this great Rebellion against the Union.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CAUSES OF SECESSION.

66

66

66

ABOUNDING EVIDENCES OF CONSPIRACY-MACLAY'S UNPUBLISHED
DIARY 1787-1791-PIERCE BUTLER'S FIERCE DENUNCIATION OF
THE TARIFF SOUTH CAROLINA WILL LIVE FREE OR DIE GLO-
RIOUS"-JACKSON'S LETTER TO CRAWFORD, ON TARIFF AND SLA-
VERY-BENTON'S TESTIMONY-HENRY CLAY'S EVIDENCE-NA-
THAN APPLETON'S-A TREASONABLE CAUCUS OF SOUTHERN CON-
GRESSMEN-ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS'S EVIDENCE ON THE
CAUSES OF SECESSION-WIGFALL'S ADMISSIONS-THE ONE RE-
GRETTED" CLAUSE IN THE CONSTITUTION PRECLUDING MONARCH-
IAL STATES-ADMISSIONS OF REBEL COMMISSIONERS TO WASH-
INGTON-ADMISSIONS IN ADDRESS OF SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE
SLAVE-HOLDERS JEFFERSON DAVIS'S STATEMENT IN SPECIAL
MESSAGE OF APRIL 29, 1861-DECLARATIONS OF REBEL COM-
MISSIONERS, TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL-HIGH TARIFF AND NOT
SLAVERY THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE-PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS-
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S DECLARATION OF THE UNDERLYING
CAUSE OF REBELLION-A WAR UPON LABOR AND THE RIGHTS
OF THE PEOPLE-ANDREW JOHNSON ON THE "DELIBERATE DE-
SIGN FOR A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT
TIRED OF FREE
GOVERNMENT -DOUGLAS ON THE "ENORMOUS CONSPIRACY'
—THE REBEL PLOT TO SEIZE THE CAPITOL, AND HOLD IT—MC-
DOUGALL'S GRAPHIC EXPOSURE OF THE TREASONABLE CONSPI-
RACY-YANCEY'S FAMOUS "SLAUGHTER LETTER-JEFFERSON
DAVIS'S STANDARD OF REVOLT, RAISED IN 1858-LAMAR'S LET-
TER TO JEFF. DAVIS (1860)—CAUCUS OF TREASON, AT WASHING-
TON-EVANS'S DISCLOSURES OF THE CAUCUS PROGRAMME OF SE-
CESSION-CORROBORATING TESTIMONY-YULEE'S CAPTURED LET-
TER-CAUCUS RESOLUTIONS IN FULL....... Pages 215 to 254.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors]

66

وو

N preceding Chapters of this work, it has been briefly shown, that from the very hour in which the Republic of the United States was born, there have not been wanting, among its own citizens, those who hated it, and when they could not rule, were always ready to do what they could, by Conspiracy, Sedition, Mutiny, Nullification, Secession,

or otherwise, to weaken and destroy it. This fact, and the processes by which the Conspirators worked, is very well stated, in his documentary "History of the Rebellion," by Edward McPherson, when he says: "In the Slaveholding States, a considerable body of men have always been disaffected to the Union. They resisted the adoption of the National Constitution, then sought to refine away the rights and powers of the General Government, and by artful expedients, in a series of years, using the excitements growing out of passing questions, finally perverted the sentiments of large masses of men, and prepared them for Revolution."

Before giving further incontestable proofs establishing this fact, and before endeavoring to sift out the true cause or causes of Secession, let us first examine such evidences as are submitted by him in support of his proposition.

The first piece of testimony, is an extract from an unpublished journal of U. S. Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania, from March 4, 1789, to March 3, 1791-the period of the First Congress under the Federal Constitution. It runs thus:

"1789, June 9.-In relation to the Tariff Bill, the affair of confining the East India Trade to the citizens of America had been negatived, and a committee had been appointed to report on this business. The report came in with very high duties, amounting to a prohibition. But a new phenomenon had made its appearance in the House (meaning the Senate) since Friday.

"Pierce Butler, from South Carolina, had taken his seat, and flamed like a meteor. He arraigned the whole Impost law, and then charged (indirectly) the whole Congress with a design of oppressing South Carolina. He cried out for encouraging the Danes and Swedes, and foreigners of every kind, to come and take away our produce. In fact he was for a Navigation Act reversed.

"June 11.-Attended at the hall as usual.

"Mr. Ralph Izard and Mr. Butler opposed the whole of the drawbacks in every shape whatever.

"Mr. (William) Grayson, of Virginia, warm on this subject, said we were not ripe for such a thing. We were a

« PreviousContinue »