'Home and our country, - Liberty and Law,' - Truth will prevail, and Heaven defend the right!" WHEN the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, pledged to resist the extension of slavery into the Territories, and to confine it to constitutional limits, was ascertained, the existence of a well-organized conspiracy against the unity of our republic was revealed. The leaders of this attempt to blot from our banner and escutcheon the stars of their States had chosen their time well; but in the providence of God, Old Glory, as our flag was baptized by our soldiers, emerged from the smoke and fire of four years of civil conflict with the lustre of its constellation increased,1 and its galaxy brightened and strengthened from the experiences of the war. The choice of the presidential electors took place Nov. 6, 1860, when Mr. Lincoln received 180 of the 303 votes of the electoral college, or 123 over all opponents. But of the national popular vote he was in a minority 979,163. This fact, and that in the nine slave. States no Republican electoral ticket was elected, gave a degree of plausibility to the unfounded assertion that he would be a sectional ruler, and was pledged to wage a relentless war upon slavery and 1 West Virginia was admitted as the thirty-fifth State of the Union on the 3d of June, 1863, by an act of Congress approved Dec. 31, 1862. Nevada was admitted October, 1864. Nebraska and Colorado have been admitted since the close of the war. the rights of the slave States. That his election had been fairly and legally conducted was undenied, or that he was pledged to non-interference with the rights and domestic policy of the States; but these facts were studiously concealed from the Southern people by their political leaders. Robert Barnwell Rhett, one of the Hotspurs of South Carolina, declared that "all true statesmanship in the South consisted in forming combinations and shaping events, to as speedily as possible bring about a dissolution of the Union, and a Southern confederacy." Lawrence M. Keith, a representative from South Carolina to the United States Congress, about the same time publicly declared that "South Carolina would shatter the accursed Union." Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, wrote a Northern friend: "The South will not wait for the 4th of March. We will be well under arms before then." Howell Cobb, of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury, while on a visit to New York, pending the canvass, said, at a public meeting, " he did not believe another Congress of the United States would meet ;" and in an address to the people of Georgia, " on the 4th of March, 1861, the federal government will pass into the hands of the Abolitionists, it will then cease to have the slightest claims either upon your confidence or your loyalty, and, in my honest judgment, each hour that Georgia remains thereafter a member of the Union will be an hour of degradation, to be followed by speedy and certain ruin. I entertain no doubt either of your right or duty to secede from the Union." Two days after this treasonable address he resigned his place as a cabinet officer of the United States. On November 20, 1860, Jacob Thompson, the Secretary of the Interior, wrote: "My allegiance is due to Mississippi. A confederacy of the Southern States will be strong enough to command the respect of the world, and the love and confidence of the people at home." Mr. Johnson, of Georgia, in the United States Senate, Dec. 5, 1860, announced that the slave States intended to revolt. "We intend to before the 4th go out of the Union." "I speak what I believe, of March five of the Southern States at least will have declared their independence. We intend to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must. If five or eight States go out of this Union, I would like to see the man who would propose a declaration of war against them; but I do not believe with the senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Hale, that there is going to be any war." were treasonable These and there were many more like them utterances, but were considered by the people of the Northern and Western States as the intemperate outpourings of disappointed poli ticians. They could not realize that there was any fixed design to break the bands of our glorious Union. The governors and legislatures of the slaveholding States took early action against the national government. South Carolina led in the movement. In 1852, that State in convention had declared, "that a State had a right to secede from the confederacy whenever the occasion should arise justifying her, in her judgment, in taking the step;" and now her legislature in extraordinary session, the day before the election of Mr. Lincoln, recommended preparations for revolt. On the 7th of November, 1860, when Lincoln's election was telegraphed over the length and breadth of the land, palmetto flags were everywhere unfurled in South Carolina. Speeches, harangues, and salutes of cannon followed, and in the evening the city of Charleston was illuminated by bonfires. The bark James Gray, lying at one of the Charleston wharves, hoisted the palmetto flag and fired a salute of fifteen guns. Palmetto cockades were generally worn in the streets. On the 9th of November, a bill passed the South Carolina Senate calling a convention, for the purpose of secession, which was concurred in by the House on the 12th. Georgia was next to follow South Carolina, her legislature by a heavy majority voting that a sovereign State had a right to secede from the Union. On the 13th of November, the military convention by a large majority voted in favor of secession, and its action had great weight with the legislature and people. The following day, the legislature voted a million dollars for arming and equipping the militia of the State. On the 7th of December, the legislature passed an act providing for the election of delegates, who were to assemble on the 16th of January following. The preamble asserted the “ present crisis in national affairs demands resistance, and that it was the privilege of the people to determine the mode, measure, and time of such resistance." The legislature of Mississippi assembled early in November, and adjourned on the 30th, its special object being to make preparations for the secession of the State. The southern portion of Alabama was strongly in favor of secession, while the northern portion was as strongly in favor of union. At the opening of the Florida legislature, the governor, in his message, declared the peace and future prosperity of the State depended upon secession. Governor Moore called an extra session of the legislature of Louisiana on the 10th of December, assigning the election of Mr. Lincoln by a party hostile to the people and institutions of the South as a reason. In his message he said he did not think it comported with the honor and self-respect of Louisiana, as a slaveholding State, to live under the government of a black Republican President, although he did not dispute the fact that Mr. Lincoln had been legally elected. South Carolina seceded in convention, Dec. 10, 1860, and declared, "The union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved." A placard, printed half an hour after the vote was taken, being a copy of the secession ordinance, and headed in large letters THE UNION IS DISSOLVED,' was scattered broadcast through the town, and hailed with joy. Florida, which had been bought and paid for with the money of the United States, followed on the 7th of January, 1861, and ungratefully declared, "The State of Florida hereby withdraws herself from the confederation of States existing under the name of the United States of America,' and the State of Florida is hereby declared a sovereign and independent nation." Mississippi, next in order, on the 9th of January, 1861, declared all the laws and ordinances, by which the State became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America, repealed. Alabama, on the 11th of January, declared that the State of Alabama withdraws from the Union known as "The United States of America," and henceforth ceases to be one of the said United States, and is, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and independent State. Georgia, on the 19th of January, declared and ordered that her union with the United States of America was dissolved, and "that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State." On the same day that Georgia seceded from the Union, General John A. Dix took charge of the United States Treasury Department, and sent William Hemphill Jones, the chief clerk in the first comptroller's office, to New Orleans and Mobile, to save, if possible, the two revenue cutters on service at those ports. Captain Morrison, a Georgian, had surrendered the Lewis Cass at Mobile before Jones's arrival. On his reaching New Orleans, he telegraphed to General Dix that Captain Breshwood, of the Robert McClelland, positively refused, in writing, to obey any instructions of the department, and that this refusal was by the advice of the collector of the port, and asked, "What he should do." On the receipt of this message, General Dix left the White House, where he was staying temporarily, went to his room in the treasury building, and, obeying the impulse of the moment, wrote the following famous despatch, addressed to William Hemphill Jones, New Orleans: Dan. 89, 1861 Tele Lient. Caldwell to anest ugly. If any one attempts to haul Some Aan The letter was copied by a clerk, and the copy sent to the telegraph office; the original was thrown into a drawer reserved for the purpose. The original draft, which, General Dix says, "was written in haste and with a bad pen," is now, together with the flag that was hauled down and the State flag which replaced it, in the possession of his son, the Rector of Trinity Church, New York. This despatch was intercepted and withheld from Mr. Jones, and thus the treason of Captain Breshwood was consummated, and the flag of Louisiana - a |