game of "solitaire" that did not cheat himself; and it appears to me that this game of war is like the game of “solitaire,” at which every body has tried to cheat himself first, and then cheat his neighbors; it is time this was done with, and men looked at things as they really are. Four years ago your Vice-president, Mr. Stephens, said in the Georgia Convention, "When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon war, which this act of yours will inevitably 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 desolation 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 and illtimed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetuate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments. What reasons can you give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity it will bring upon us? What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case, and what cause or overt act can you name or point to on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what claim, founded in justice and right, has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government at Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. "Leaving out of view for the present the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition—and for what, we ask again? Is it for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity? And, as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest statesmen and patriots of this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government, the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men that the sun of Heaven ever shone upon. Now for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three quarters of a century, in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity, accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed, is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my voe." Such was the language, and such the testimony of this high official, who was within three weeks from that time, and now is the Vice-president of the Southern Confederacy; and it was at such a time, and under such circumstances that the South entered upon this war against the United States, then as now, and now as then, the richest and most powerful nation on the face of the globe, and before which, as your own papers almost daily assure us, both France and England now stand trembling in their shoes. Four years ago, then, the South commenced this war for the establishment of their independence, and for four years has it been carried on with alternate victory and defeat; but now, at the expiration of these four years, ask yourself the questions, first, What advances have been made toward the accomplishment of the end? They have invaded your territory, and you have invaded theirs. How many of their states have you taken, and how many of yours have they taken? What portion of their territory do you hold, and what portion of yours do they hold? How many of their native population have you killed or disabled, and how many of your native population have they killed or disabled? (Some idea of this may be formed from the fact that the vote at the Presidential election last fall was every where larger than it was in 1860 before the war, and that the vote of the entire Army of the Potomac was only some eighteen thousand, showing that an overwhelming proportion of that army is composed of unnaturalized foreigners and negroes.) How near a state of exhaustion are their materials for war, and how near are yours, when you have to rely upon arming the slaves to fight against those who come to set them free? Draw this contrast, and then ask yourself the one other question, whether the Southern Confederacy is in a condition to prosecute this war to a successful issue with a government whose resources are scarcely half developed, notwithstanding what may have been said to the contrary? There has not been, and will not be a real anxiety for an immediate peace at the North until this whole slavery question can be forever settled. Your relations with the government of the United States at one time ought to enable you to know what its resources are when all its energies are put forth for their development, which I know (and for reasons that I could give you) have never yet been exercised. Now if, upon review of the actual situation, you can persuade yourselves that there is a reasonable prospect of ultimate success, then there may be some justification for a farther trial at arms; but if no such reasonable hope can be indulged, then, in my opinion, it is both wicked and criminal to prosecute the war any farther at the bidding of those men who would sacrifice what is left of the country to take the chance of saving themselves. You must have observed one thing-that those men who would adopt a universal system of abolition have no slaves to set free; that those who would set fire to the cities on the approach of the enemy have no houses to burn; that those who would die in the last ditch, and live on roots and berries in the mountains, are the men who do not take their places in the ranks of the army; and those who would take all the cotton, tobacco, and gold in the country for the use of the government, have neither cotton, nor tobacco, nor gold to be taken; these are not the men who have the largest stake in the country, and are not the men who should control it; and, as far as Congress is concerned, they pass their conscript laws, their impressment bills, and levy their taxes, when a majority of that body not only have no constituencies upon whom their laws can operate, but who are not themselves subject to the provisions of their own laws, even to the payment of a tax that they unconstitutionally, fraudulently, and impudently impose upon others. What conscript officers, what impressment agents, and what tax-gatherers have you in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Western Virginia, and other portions of the South? And what right have a body of refugees, who have neither constituents nor homes to which they dare go, to assemble in Richmond and keep us in an eternal war to save themselves from harm and find themselves a home at the public expense. It is supposed that because the people are afraid to speak out that they do not grumble and complain of this, or that it has not weakened their confidence in the authorities by which they are oppressed? If so, let me assure you it is a woeful mistake. I have written to you freely, and in a spirit of confidence and friendship, and marked it private, because I have no opinions for public use, which would only subject me to unmeasured denunciation and abuse by those who have every thing to gain and nothing to lose by a continuation of the war; but if I were a member of the Confederate Congress, these are the views I would enlarge and enforce, because I know they represent the views and feelings of seven tenths of the people of this state, who think the experiment of separate independence is a failure, and has been carried quite far enough, but among whom are those who would be the first to cry out "treason" until they knew they were safe in proclaiming their true and honest sentiments-if there is any honesty left in them. I am very respectfully and truly yours, THE CONGRESSIONAL TEST-OATH. JOHN M. Borts. The oath required (by the Act of 1862) to be administered to all officers of the Federal government, but which is more generally known as the congressional test-oath, has given rise to a good deal of feeling in the South, and its constitutionality has been assailed with some bitterness, especially by those against whom it operates, and who are thereby disappointed in their confident anticipations of being able to slide out of office in one government into office under another, and, like other weak vessels, be kept "RIGHT SIDE UP WITH CARE" all the time. In regard to this question a number of gentlemen of intelligence and respectability did me the honor to seek my views, which will be found in the following correspondence: Hon. JoHN M. BOTTS: Charlottesville, September 5, 1865. DEAR SIR,-The undersigned voters of the county of Albemarle, sincerely desirous of being represented in the next Congress of the United States, naturally feel much anxiety as to the probable effect upon their chances of representation of the congressional test-oath. We are not unmindful of the grave questions that may be raised as to the power of one Congress to bind another by the prescription of tests of membership, or the still higher question as to the right of that body to add to the constitutional tests of eligibility; but the crisis is one of too much moment to authorize us to trust our dearest rights and interests to a favorable solution of these problems, and we therefore deem it expedient to seek for some explicit information in regard to them. Confiding in your judgment of public affairs, and your facilities for a fuller knowledge of the probable course of events than we possess, we re spectfully ask your opinion as to the chances of the repeal or relaxation of the existing test-oath in favor of Southern delegates. We know full well that, in the peculiar circumstances of our case, inability to take the congressional oath may well consist with the most thorough loyalty; but this may not be enough for those who have our destiny in their hands, and we do not want to throw our votes away. Very respectfully, your obedient servants, W. H. SOUTHALL, J. J. BowcoCK, WILLIAM T. EARLY, G. PEYTON, C. H. PRICE, T. W. WOOD. Auburn, near Brandy Station, September 12, 1865. GENTLEMEN,-Your letter of the 5th was not received until the 8th, in which you ask my opinions on the several points therein contained touching the elections and qualifications of members to the next Congress. The presence of a houseful of visitors, together with a correspondence with which I am literally overwhelmed, and which it would require half a dozen secretaries to keep up with, has, until this moment, put it out of my power to give you an answer. Each of the points presented, and all of which I have seen raised by one or more of the candidates who offer their services to the country, are, I think, not well taken, and are of plain, clear, and easy solution. 1st. As to the power of one Congress to bind another Congress by the prescription of tests of membership. It is difficult to perceive under what strange delusion the idea could have arisen that one Congress could not bind a succeeding Congress by any law it might choose to pass until that law was either repealed by the succeeding Congress or pronounced unconstitutional by the proper judicial tribunals of the country. If Congress can not bind its successors, then we should have no laws beyond the period for which Congress was elected, and there would be an absence of all law until each was re-enacted by the succeeding Congress. And if this be true, which no man can deny, in what consists the difference between this and any other law? Even if it be admitted to be unconstitutional, still it is the law of the land until repealed or declared null and void by the tribunals constituted for that purpose. And the next question is, Is the act of July 2, 1862, requiring each member of Congress to take the oath therein prescribed |