of the Republicans that no compromise | longer than the interests, honor and fracould endure, however earnest its advo- ternity of the people of the several States cates from the Border States, and this are satisfied. Being a Government created earnestness was unquestioned. Besides by opinion, its continuance is dependent their attachment to the Union, they knew upon the continuance of the sentiment that in the threatened war they would be which formed it. It cannot be preserved the greatest sufferers, with their people di- by coercion or held together by force. A vided neighbor against neighbor, their resort to this last dreadful alternative lands laid waste, and their houses destroy- would of itself destroy not only the Goved. They had every motive for earnest-ernment, but the lives and property of the 'ness in the effort to conciliate the disagree-people. ing sections.

If these forebodings shall be realized,

The oddest partisan feature in the en- and a separation of the States shall occur, tire preliminary and political struggle was momentous considerations will be prethe attempt, in the parlance of the day, of sented to the corporate authorities of this New York to secede from New York". city. We must provide for the new rean oddity verified by Mayor Wood's recom-lations which will necessarily grow out of mendation in favor of the secession of New the new condition of public affairs. York city, made January 6th, 1861. The document deserves a place in this history, as it shows the views of a portion of the citizens then, and an exposition of their interests as presented by a citizen before and since nained by repeated elections to Congress.

It will not only be necessary for us to settle the relations which we shall hold to other cities and States, but to establish, if we can, new ones with a portion of our own State. Being the child of the Union, having drawn our sustenance from its bosom, and arisen to our present power and strength through the vigor of our mother-when deprived of her maternal advantages, we must rely upon our own resources and assume a position predicated upon the new phase which public affairs will present, and upon the inherent strength which our geographical, commercial, political, and financial pre-eminence imparts to us.

Mayor Wood's Secession Message. To the Honorable the Common Council : GENTLEMEN:-We are entering upon the public duties of the year under circumstances as unprecedented as they are gloomy and painful to contemplate. The great trading and producing interests of With our aggrieved brethren of the not only the city of New York, but of the Slave States, we have friendly relations entire country, are prostrated by a mone- and a common sympathy. We have not tary crisis; and although similar calami- participated in the warfare upon their conties have before befallen us, it is the first stitutional rights or their domestic institime that they have emanated from causes tutions. While other portions of our State having no other origin than that which have unfortunately been imbued with the may be traced to political disturbances. fanatical spirit which actuates a portion Truly, may it now be said, “We are in the of the people of New England, the city of midst of a revolution bloodless AS YET." New York has unfalteringly preserved the Whether the dreadful alternative implied integrity of its principles in adherence to as probable in the conclusion of this pro- the compromises of the Constitution and phetic quotation may be averted, "no hu- the equal rights of the people of all the man ken can divine." It is quite certain States. We have respected the local inthat the severity of the storm is unexam-terests of every section, at no time oppresspled in our history, and if the disintegra-ing, but all the while aiding in the develtion of the Federal Government, with the opment of the resources of the whole consequent destruction of all the material country. Our ships have penetrated to interests of the people shall not follow, it will be owing more to the interposition of Divine Providence, than to the inherent preventive power of our institutions, or the intervention of any other human agency.

It would seem that a dissolution of the Federal Union is inevitable. Having been formed originally on a basis of general and mutual protection, but separate local independence each State reserving the entire and absolute control of its own domestic affairs, it is evidently impossible to keep them together longer than they deem themselves fairly treated by each other, or

every clime, and so have New York capital, energy and enterprise found their way to every State, and, indeed, to almost every county and town of the American Union. If we have derived sustenance from the Union, so have we in return disseminated blessings for the common benefit of all. Therefore, New York has a right to expect, and should endeavor to preserve a continuance of uninterrupted intercourse with every section.

It is, however, folly to disguise the fact that, judging from the past, New York may have more cause of apprehension from the aggressive legislation of our own State

than from external dangers. We have city, instead of supporting by her contrialready largely suffered from this cause.butions in revenue two-thirds of the exFor the past five years, our interests and penses of the United States, become also corporate rights have been repeatedly equally independent? As a free city, with trampled upon. Being an integral portion but nominal duty on imports, her local of the State, it has been assumed, and in Government could be supported without effect tacitly admitted on our part by non- taxation upon her people. Thus we could resistance, that all political and govern- live free from taxes, and have cheap goods mental power over us rested in the State nearly duty free. In this she would have Legislature. Even the common right of the whole and united support of the taxing ourselves for our own government, Southern States, as well as all the other has been yielded, and we are not permit-States to whose interests and rights under ted to do so without this authority.* **the Constitution she has always been true. Thus it will be seen that the political It is well for individuals or communiconnection between the people of the city ties to look every danger square in the and the State has been used by the latter face, and to meet it calmly and bravely. to our injury. The Legislature, in which As dreadful as the severing of the bonds the present partizan majority has the that have hitherto united the States has power, has become the instrument by been in contemplation, it is now apparwhich we are plundered to enrich their ently a stern and inevitable fact. We speculators, lobby agents, and Abolition have now to meet it with all the consepoliticians. Laws are passed through their quences, whatever they may be. If the malign influence by which, under forms of Confederacy is broken up the Government legal enactment, our burdens have been is dissolved, and it behooves every distinct increased, our substance eaten out, and community, as well as every individual, to our municipal liberties destroyed. Self- take care of themselves. government, though guaranteed by the State Constitution, and left to every other county and city, has been taken from us by this foreign power, whose dependents have been sent among us to destroy our liberties by subverting our political sys

tem.

When Disunion has become a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master-to a people and a party that have plundered her revenues, attempted to ruin her commerce, taken away the power of self-government, and How we shall rid ourselves of this odi- destroyed the Confederacy of which she ous and oppressive connection, it is not was the proud Empire City? Amid the for me to determine. It is certain that a gloom which the present and prospective dissolution cannot be peacefully accom- condition of things must cast over the plished, except by the consent of the country, New York, as a Free City, may Legislature itself. Whether this can be shed the only light and hope of a future obtained or not, is, in my judgment, doubt-reconstruction of our once blessed Conful. Deriving so much advantage from federacy. its power over the city, it is not probable that a partizan majority will consent to a separation-and the resort to force by violence and revolution must not be thought of for an instant. We have been distinguished as an orderly and law-abiding people. Let us do nothing to forfeit this character, or to add to the present distracted condition of public affairs.

But I am not prepared to recommend the violence implied in these views. In stating this argument in favor of freedom, "peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must,' let me not be misunderstood. The redress can be found only in appeals to the magnanimity of the people of the whole State. The events of the past two months have no doubt effected a change in the popular sentiment of the State and National politics. This change may bring us the desired relief, and we may be able to obtain a repeal of the law to which I have referred, and a consequent restoration of our corporate rights.

FERNANDO WOOD, Mayor. January 6th, 1861.

Much, no doubt, can be said in favor of the justice and policy of a separation. It may be said that secession or revolution in any of the United States would be subversive of all Federal authority, and, so far as the Central Government is concerned, the resolving of the community into its original elements-that, if part of the States form new combinations and Governments, other States may do the same. California and her sisters of the Pacific will no doubt set up an independent Republic and husband their own rich min- the propositions, whether for compromise, eral resources. The Western States, equally authority to suppress insurrection, or new rich in cereals and other agricultural pro- laws to collect duties, had to be considered ducts, will probably do the same. Then by the Second Session of the 36th Conit may be said, why should not New York gress, which was then, with the exception

Congress on the Eve of the Rebellion.
It should be borne in mind that all of

South Carolina John McQueen, Wm. Porcher Miles, Lawrence M. Keitt, Milledge L. Bonham, John D. Ashmore, Win. W. Boyce.

North Carolina-W. N. H. Smith, Thos. Ruffin, W. Winslow, L. O'B. Branch, John A. Gilmer, Jas. M. Leach, Burton Craige, Z. B. Vance.

Georgia-Peter E. Love, M. J. Crawford, Thos. Hardeman, Jr., L. J. Gartrell, J. W. H. Underwood, James Jackson, Joshua Hill, John J. Jones.

Alabama-Jas. L. Pugh, David Clopton, Sydenh. Moore, Geo. S. Houston, W. R. W. Cobb, J. A. Stallworth, J. L. M. Curry. Mississippi-L. Q. C. Lamar, Reuben Divis, William Barksdale, O. R. Singleton, John J. McRae.

MR. LINCOLN'S VIEWS.

While the various propositions above given were under consideration, Mr. Lin

coln was of course an interested observer from his home in Illinois, where he awaited the legal time for taking his scat as President. His views on the efforts at compromise were sought by the editor of the New York Tribune, and expressed as follows:

"I will suffer death before I will consent or advise my friends to consent to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege of taking possession of the Government to which we have a constitutional right; because, whatever I might think of the merits of the various propositions before Congress, I should reLouisiana-John E. Bouligny, Miles gard any concession in the face of menace Taylor, T. G. Davidson, John M. Landrum. as the destruction of the government itOhio-G. H. Pendleton, John A. Gur-self, and a consent on all hands that our ley, C. L. Vallandigham, William Allen, system shall be brought down to a level James M. Ashley, Wm. Howard, Thomas with the existing disorganized state of afCorwin, Benj. Stanton, John Carey, C. A. fairs in Mexico. But this thing will hereTrimble, Chas. D. Martin, Saml. S. Cox, after be, as it is now, in the hands of the John Sherman, H. G. Blake, William Hel-people; and if they desire to call a convenmick, C. B. Tompkins, T. C. Theaker, S. tion to remove any grievances complained Edgerton, Edward Wade, John Hutchins, of, or to give new guarantees for the perJohn A. Bingham. manence of vested rights, it is not mine to oppose.'

Kentucky-Henry C. Burnett, Green Adams, S. O. Peyton, F. M. Bristow, W. C. Anderson, Robert Mallory, Wm. E. Simms, L. T. Moore, John Y. Brown, J. W. Stevenson.

Tennessee-T. A. R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, R. B. Brabson, William B. Stokes, Robert Hatton, James H. Thomas, John V. Wright, James M. Quarles, Emerson Etheridge, Wm. T. Avery.

Indiana-Wm. E. Niblack, Wm. H. English, Wm. M'Kee Dunn, Wm. S. Holman, David Kilgore, Albert G. Porter, John G. Davis, James Wilson, Schuyler Colfax, Chas. Case, John U. Pettit.

Illinois-E. B. Washburne, J. F. Farnsworth, Owen Lovejoy, Wm. Kellogg, I. N. Morris, John A. McClernand, James C. Robinson, P. B. Fouke, John A. Logan.

Arkansas-Thomas C. Hindman, Albert

Rust,

JUDGE BLACK'S VIEWS.

Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, was then Buchanan's Attorney General, and as his position has since been made the subject of lengthy controversy, it is pertinent to give the following copious extract from his "Opinion upon the Powers of the President," in response to an official inquiry from the Executive :

The existing laws put and keep the Federal Government strictly on the defensive. You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property, and aid the courts in the performance of their duty. If the means given you to collect the revenue and execute the other laws be insufficient for that purpose, Congress may extend and make them more effectual to that end.

Missouri-J. R. Barrett, T. L. Anderson, If one of the States should declare her John B. Clark, James Craig, L. H. Wood-independence, your action cannot depend son, John S. Phelps, John W. Noell. Michigan-William A. Howard, Henry Waldron, F. W. Kellogg, De W. C. Leach. Florida George S. Hawkins. Texas-John H. Regan, A. J. Hamilton. Iowa-S. R. Curtis, Wm. Vandever. California-Charles L. Scott, John C.

upon the rightfulness of the cause upon which such declaration is based. Whether the retirement of a State from the Union be the exercise of a right reserved in the Constitution or a revolutionary movement, it is certain that you have not in either case the authority to recognize her independence or to absolve her from her Wisconsin-John F. Porter, C. C. Wash-Federal obligations. Congress or the burne, C. H. Larrabee.

Burch

Minnesota-Cyrus Aldrich, Wm. Win

dom.

Oregon-Lansing Stout.

other States in convention assembled must take such measures as may be necessary and proper. In such an event I see no course for you but to go straight onward

Kansas-Martin F. Conway, (sworn Jan. in the path you have hitherto trodden,

30th, 1861).

that is, execute the laws to the extent. of

the defensive means placed in your hands, and enmity, and armed hostllity, between and act generally upon the assumption different sections of the country, instead of that the present constitutional relations the domestic tranquillity which the between the States and the Federal Gov- Constitution was meant to insure, will not ernment continue to exist until a new order all the States be absolved from their of things shall be established, either by Federal obligations? Is any portion of law or force. the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?

The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers, cannot be denied. But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State governments, or to prevent a threatened violation of the Constitution, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme. The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are

now connected.

If this view of the subject be as correct as I think it is, then the Union must totally perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise of its proper constitutional functions. I am, very rcspectfully, yours, etc.,

Whether Congress has the constitutional right to make war against one or more States, and require the Executive of the Federal Government to carry it on by means of force to be drawn from the other States, is a question for Congress itself to consider. It must be admitted that no such power is expressly given; nor are there any words in the Constitution which imply it. Among the powers enumerated in article I. section 8, is that "to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to make rules concerning captures on land and water." This certainly means nothing more than the power to commence, and carry on hostilities against the foreign enemies of the nation. Another clause in the same section gives Congress the power to provide for calling forth the militia," and to use them within the limits of the State. But this power is so restricted by the words which immediately follow, that it can be exercised only for one of the following purposes: 1. To execute the laws of the Union; that is, to aid the Federal officers in the performance of their regular duties. 2. To suppress insurrections against the States; but this is confined by article IV. section 4, to cases in which the State herself shall apply for assistance against her own people. 3. To repel the invasion of a State by enemies who come from abroad to assail her in her own territory. All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve their peace, and not to plunge them into civil war. Our forefathers do not seem to have thought that war was calculated "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." There was undoubtedly a This step (of secession) once taken can strong and universal conviction among the never be recalled; and all the baleful and men who framed and ratified the Constitu- withering consequences that must follow, tion, that military force would not only be will rest on the convention for all coming useless, but pernicious as a means of hold-time. When we and our posterity shall ing the States together.

If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the central government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the Union. Being treated as an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly. And if Congress shall break up the present L-- «xannstitutionally putting strife

J. S. BLACK.

To the President of the United States.

The above expressions from Lincoln and Black well state the position of the Republican and the administration Democrats on the eve of the rebellion, and they are given for that purpose. The views of the original secessionists are given in South Carolina's declaration. Those of the conservatives of the South who hesitated and leaned toward the Union, were best expressed before the Convention of Georgia in the

SPEECH OF ALEX. H. STEPHENS.

see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will ineritably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us; who but this Convention will be held responsible for it? and who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise