While the Democratic party was timidly protesting in the Northern States, Mr. Lincoln had prefaced the farce of the fall elections in the North by an outrage upon the ballot in Kentucky, which Yankee Democrats were too weak or too dishonest to resent. A history of the Kentucky troubles, in some details, is the best commentary we can choose from events, upon the condition to which the whole system of political liberty had fallen in the North. THE POLITICAL TROUBLES IN KENTUCKY. In the last days of August, 1862, the Hon. Beriah Magoffin resigned his office as Governor of the State of Kentucky. From causes into which it is not necessary now to enter, he had incurred the suspicion of a great majority of the Union party, and through the Legislature they had succeeded in divesting him of all real power in the government. The executive control of the State had rapidly fallen into the hands of the military officers of the United States, and for months the people had been subject to martial law in all its oppressiveness, without its declaration in form. Under these circumstances, and for the purpose of relieving the people, and especially that portion of them known as "Southern-rights Men," who had been the peculiar objects of persecution, Mr. Magoffin, in a published letter, declared his willingness to resign whenever he could be assured of the election of a successor of conservative views, who, commanding the confidence at the same time of the Administration at Washington and of the people of Kentucky, would be able and willing to secure every peaceful citizen in the exercise of the rights guaranteed to him by the Constitution and laws. James F. Robinson, then a member of the Senate, was indicated to him, and he consented to resign in his favor. For the August election of 1863, Thomas E. Bramlette was offered as a candidate for governor. Mr. Bramlette maintained generally the rightfulness of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and the extension of martial law over States where war did not exist, and gave in a quasi adhesion to Mr. Lincoln's policy. A number of Kentucky Democrats presented a ticket in opposition, headed by C. A. Wickcliffe for governor, and published the following expressions of their views, as comprising the issues of the approaching election. "We cannot consent to the doctrine that the Constitution and laws are inadequate to the present emergency; that the constitutional guarantees of liberty and property can be suspended by war. "Our fathers certainly did not intend that our Constitution should be a fairweather document, to be laid away in a storm, or a fancy garment to be worn only in dry weather. On the contrary, it is in times like the present that constitutional restraints on the power of those in authority are needed. "We hold the Federal government to be one of limited powers, that cannot be enlarged by the existence of civil commotion. "We hold the rights reserved to the States equally sacred with those granted to the United States. The government has no more right to disregard the Constitution and laws of the States than the States have to disregard the Constitution and laws of the United States. "We hold that the Administration has committed grave errors in confiscation bills, lawless proclamations, and military orders setting aside constitutions and laws, and making arrests outside of military lines where there is no public danger to excuse it. "It is now obvious that the fixed purpose of the Administration is to arm the negroes of the South to make war upon the whites, and we hold it to be the duty of the people of Kentucky to enter against such a policy a solemn and most emphatic protest. "We hold as sacred and inalienable the right of free speech and a free press-that the government belongs to the people and not the people to the government. "We hold this rebellion utterly unjustifiable in its inception, and a dissolution of the Union the greatest of calamities. We would use all just and constitutional means adapted to the suppression of the one and the restoration of the other." Notwithstanding these resolutions, which so carefully sounded in "loyalty," and exhibited the usual ambidexterity of the War Democracy, it soon became evident that the authorities at Washington were determined to interfere in the Kentucky election, and force it exactly to their purpose. Messrs. Wolfe and Trimble, candidates for Congress in the First and Fifth districts, and Mr. Martin, candidate for the Legislature in Lyon and Livingston counties, were arrested by the provost-marshals. On the 31st of July, Burnside declared martial law in Kentucky. The following is a summary of the most outrageous of the despotic orders which followed in quick succession the declaration of martial law. 1. By way of precaution, the people are informed that whenever any property is needed for the use of the United States army, it will be taken from rebel sympathizers, and receipts given for the same marked "disloyal," and to be paid at the end of the war, on proof that the holder is a loyal man. 2. Rebel sympathizers are defined to be not only those who are in favor of secession, but also those who are not in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, and of furnishing men and money unconditionally for that purpose. "Loyalty" is to be proved by the vote given at the election. 3. County judges are required to appoint none but "loyal" men as judges of election, notwithstanding the provisions of our laws, which require the officers of election to be taken equally from each political party. 4. Persons offering to vote, whose votes may be rejected by the judges, are notified that they will be immediately arrested by the military. 5. The judges of election are notified that they will be ar rested and held responsible by the military, should they permit any disloyal men to vote. In addition to all this there was at work beneath the surface a potent machinery, whose labors could be traced only by results, for the work was done in darkness and in secret. In every city, town, and considerable village in the commonwealth, there had long been organized, under the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury, a body of men known as a "Board of Trade," an innocent title, little expressive of their true functions. Under the same regulations of the Secretary, no shipments of goods to the interior of the State could be made without the permit of the United States custom-house officers at Cincinnati or Louisville. In order to obtain such a permit, the individual applying must have procured the recommendation of the "Board of Trade" located nearest to his place of business, and the recommendation was given to none but "loyal" men, each Board establishing its own test of "loyalty." Without such recommendation no merchant could hope to add to his stock by importation-no mechanic to replenish the materials necessary in his calling. These inquisitorial bodies, therefore, held in their hands the absolute fate of every tradesman and mechanic in the State. The prosperous merchant and needy shopkeeper were alike at their mercy. The tradesman and mechanic were thus left to choose between a vote for Bramlette and the utter ruin of their business. Such were the circumstances under which the election of August 3d was begun. In twelve counties not a single vote was permitted to be cast for Wickliffe. In eight others he received less than ten votes to the county. In fifteen others he received less than fifty votes to the county. In sixteen others he received less than one hundred votes to the county. These fifty-one counties embraced many of the strongest Democratic counties in the State. In only twenty-eight counties of the State did Bramlette receive a majority of the population entitled to vote. Less than two-fifths of the population entitled to vote made him Governor of Kentucky. Thus was the fate of Kentucky sealed, and, on the 1st of September, Bramlette entered upon the duties of the office into which he had been foisted by bayonets. We have briefly seen what little comfort there was for the Confederates in the fall elections of 1863, and the contemporary political movements in the North. We naturally glance from this part of the situation, external to the military campaigns, to the European relations of the Confederacy. Here there was quite as little encouragement for the South as in that other alternative of hope outside the war--Yankee politics. OUR EUROPEAN RELATIONS. Some feeble attempt was made by the Confederacy in the fall of 1863 to reassert its dignity by the dismissal of the foreign consuls, who had been, oddly enough, allowed for nearly three years to reside in the Confederate States, and exercise super-consular powers under authority granted by the government with which we were at war. The force of this proceeding was, however, much impaired by the fact that it was attributed to certain objectionable action of the British consuls in the Confederacy, and not based, as it should have been, upon the conduct and bearing towards us of the British Government itself. Put upon that ground, the dismissal would have marked distinctly our sense of British injustice. We have referred in former pages to the prejudicial effect of so-called British "neutrality" with respect to the Confederate States. Another instance was now to be afforded of its unequal and unjust disposition in the seizure by the British Government of two two-thousand-ton iron-clads, combining the ram and monitor principles, which were being built for the Confederacy by the Messrs. Laird, at Birkenhead. The seizure was made without any evidence to justify it. The Messrs. Laird were forbidden to allow these vessels to leave their yard "without an ample explanation of their destination and a sustainable reference to the owner or owners for whom they are constructed." It was curiously held by Lord Russell that "Messrs. Laird were bound to declare-and sustain on unimpeachable testimony such declaration-the government for whom the steam rams have been built." In other words, without an affidavit or other legal foundation for proceedings against them, these gentlemen were required to come forward and prove their innocence. The animus displayed in this proceeding was in keeping with the whole conduct of the British ministry towards this country. They suspended, to our great detriment, the law of nations which allowed captures at sea to be taken into neutral ports for condemnation. They ignored and violated their own solemn engagement in the Treaty of Paris, requiring that a blockade, to be acknowledged and binding, should be such as actually to exclude ships from ingress or egress. They allowed their Foreign Enlistment Act to be inoperative against our enemy, permitting them not only to supply themselves with vast quantities of arms and ammunition, but even to recruit their armies from British dominions. But they had revived against us a law practically obsolete, and, in order to give it force and make it applicable, they had reversed a principle of law to be found in the codes of all free countries. But, notwithstanding the invidiousness of foreign powers, especially against the naval efforts of the Confederacy, it was a matter of surprise how much we had accomplished upon the sea against an enemy whose navy was his particular boast. A few solitary ships, hunted by vast navies, had maintained in foreign seas a warfare that required not only the loftiest courage, but the most consummate skill, the most sleepless vigilance, and the most perfect self-reliance. |