Of these 60,878 were deposited in the arsenals of South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana, and are in the possession of the authorities of those States, reducing the number in possession of the United States to 480,687.

Since the date of said communication, the following additional forts and military posts have been taken possession of by parties acting under the authority of the States in which they are respectively situated, viz:

Fort Moultrie, South Carolina.
Fort Morgan, Alabama.

Baton Rouge Barracks, Louisiana.
Fort Jackson, Louisiana.
Fort St. Philip,

Fort Pike, Louisiana.
Oglethorpe Barracks, Georgia.

advised that the arsenal at Chattahoochee,
And the department has been unofficially
Forts McRea and Barrancas, and Barracks,
have been seized by the authorities of

Florida.

To what further extent the small arms in possession of the United States may have been reduced by these figures, your committee have not been advised.

The whole number of the sea-board forts in the United States is fifty-seven; their appropriate garrison in war would require 26,420 men; their actual garrison at this time is 1,334 men, 1,308 of whom are in the forts at Governor's Island, New York; Fort McHenry, Maryland; Fort Monroe, Virginia, and at Alcatraz Island, California,

in the harbor of San Francisco.

The arms were all flint-lock muskets altered to percussion, and were all sold at $2.50 each, except those purchased by Captain G. Barry and by the Phillips county volunteers, for which $2 each were paid.

The Mobile Advertiser says: “During the past year 135,430 muskets have been Southern States. We are much obliged to quietly transferred from the Northern Arsenal at Springfield alone, to those in the Secretary Floyd for the foresight he has thus displayed in disarming the North and There is no telling the quantity of arms equipping the South for this emergency. and munitions which were sent South from other Northern arsenals. There is no doubt but that every man in the South who can carry a gun can now be supplied from private or public sources. The Springfield contribution alone would arm all the militiamen of Alabama and Mississippi."

General Scott, in his letter of December 2d, 1862, on the early history of the Rebeland Texas had not drawn, at the end of lion, states that "Rhode Island, Delaware 1860, their annual quotas of arms for that year, and Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Kentucky only in part; Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kansas were, by order of the Secretary of War, supplied with their quotas for 1861 in advance, and Pennsylvania and Maryland in part.

From the facts elicited, it is certain that the regular military force of the United States, is wholly inadequate to the protection of the forts, arsenals, dockyards, and other property of the United States in the present disturbed condition of the country. The regular army numbers only 18,000 men when recruited to its maximum strength, and the whole of this This advance of arms to eight Southern force is required for the protection of the States is in addition to the transfer, about border settlements against Indian depredathe same time, of 115,000 muskets to Southtions. Unless it is the intention of Con-ern arsenals, as per Mr. Stanton's report. gress that the forts, arsenals, dock-yards and other public property, shall be exposed to capture and spoliation, the President must be armed with additional force for their protection.

In the opinion of the Committee the law of February 28th, 1795, confers upon the President ample power to call out the militia,to execute the laws and protect the public property. But as the late Attorney-General has given a different opinion, the Committee to remove all doubt upon the subject, report the accompanying bill, etc.

Governor Letcher of Virginia, in his Message of December, 1861, says, that for some time prior to secession, he had been engaged in purchasing arms, ammunition, etc.; among which were 13 Parrott rifled cannon, and 5,000 muskets. He desired to buy from the United States Government 10,000 more, when buying the 5,000, but

he says

"the authorities declined to sell them to us, although five times the number were then in the arsenal at Washington.

purchase of arms become a law, the result might have been different.

Had Jefferson Davis' bill relative to the

This and similar action on the part of the South, especially the attempted seizure and occupation of forts, convinced many

of the Republicans that no compromise | longer than the interests, honor and fra could 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 named by repeated elections to Congress.

Mayor Wood's Secession Message. To the Honorable the Common Council:

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.

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 disintegration of the Federal Government, with the consequent destruction of all the material 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

ing, but all the while aiding in the development of the resources of the whole country. Our ships have penetrated to 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 & 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 connection between the people of the city and the State has been used by the latter to our injury. The Legislature, in which the present partizan majority has the power, has become the instrument by which we are plundered to enrich their speculators, lobby agents, and Abolition politicians. Laws are passed through their malign influence by which, under forms of legal enactment, our burdens have been increased, our substance eaten out, and our municipal liberties destroyed. Selfgovernment, 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.

It is well for individuals or communities to look every danger square in the face, and to meet it calmly and bravely. As dreadful as the severing of the bonds that have hitherto united the States has been in contemplation, it is now apparently a stern and inevitable fact. We have now to meet it with all the consequences, whatever they may be. If the Confederacy is broken up the Government is dissolved, and it behooves every distinct community, as well as every individual, to take care of themselves.

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 destroyed the Confederacy of which she was the proud Empire City? Amid the gloom which the present and prospective condition of things must cast over the country, New York, as a Free City, may shed the only light and hope of a future reconstruction of our once blessed Confederacy.

How we shall rid ourselves of this odious and oppressive connection, it is not for me to determine. It is certain that a dissolution cannot be peacefully accomplished, except by the consent of the Legislature itself. Whether this can be obtained or not, is, in my judgment, doubtful. Deriving so much advantage from its power over the city, it is not probable But I am not prepared to recommend that a partizan majority will consent to a the violence implied in these views. In separation-and the resort to force by vio- stating this argument in favor of freedom, lence and revolution must not be thought" peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must," 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.

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 mineral resources. The Western States, equally rich in cereals and other agricultural products, will probably do the same. Then it may be said, why should not New York

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.

Congress on the Eve of the Rebellion.

It should be borne in mind that all of the propositions, whether for compromise, authority to suppress insurrection, or new laws to collect duties, had to be considered by the Second Session of the 36th Congress, which was then, with the exception

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

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 Davis, William Barksdale, O. R. Singleton, John J. McRae.

MR. LINCOLN'S VIEWS.

While the various propositions above given were under consideration, Mr. Lincoln was of course an interested observer from his home in Illinois, where he awaited the legal time for taking his seat 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,

son,

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 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.

Burch.

Wisconsin-John F. Porter, C. C. Washburne, C. H. Larrabee.

Minnesota-Cyrus Aldrich, Wm. Win

dom.

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 in-
dependence or to absolve her from her
Federal obligations. Congress or the
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

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

30th, 1861).

that is, execute the laws to the extent of