in suppressing the greatest insurgency known to history, shall be entirely ruled out by a statute of limitations. Whether in the field or at the depot, there was no intermission to the labor and responsibility of Montgomery C. Meigs, the Quartermaster-General of the Union Army. He is not generally reckoned among the heroes of the war, and many regard him as only a little higher than the Chief Commissary, and perhaps the latter not much above the sutler. But the record of merits and services of the officers in this department during the war, in caring for the material and the men, and the money for the support and sustenance of the armies in every part of their wonderful and wide field of operation, over the period of four years, is a history of faithful, laborious, zealous, successful, and honorable labor, which has no parallel in the annals of other wars, in other ages and other countries.

It is almost impossible for human calculation to estimate even approximately the waste, losses, and miseries attendant upon the civil conflict of which the author has attempted a faint sketch in this and the three preceding chapters. These can be understood only by looking, not merely at the immense columns of the Union army and its 2,800 battles, but at the immense columns of figures which indicate the immensity of the expenditure. The number of men in the United States armies from 1861 to 1865 was 2,859,132. This, of course, includes terms of service as short as thirty days, a large proportion of "three months" men, and two years' terms, besides an immense number of veteran re-enlistments, after three years' service. The amount of bounties paid was $285,941,036. The number of casualties in the volunteer and regular armies reported by the Provost-Marshal-General was 61,362 killed in battle, 34,727 died of wounds, 183,287 died of disease, making the total number of deaths 278,386. The total number of desertions was 199,105. These figures are taken from the official report on the subject. A partial statement of the number of casualties in the Confederate service shows the number of deaths from wounds or disease to have been 133,821; and a partial statement of the number of desertions shows the total loss from that cause to have been 104,428. The number of United States soldiers captured was 212,608, and the number of Confederates captured, 476,169. The number of United States soldiers paroled in the field was 16,437, and the number of Confederate soldiers paroled in the field, 248,599. The number of United States soldiers who died as prisoners of war was 29,725, and of Confederates, 26,774. A special report of the Secretary of the Treasury to the United States Senate, dated June 10, 1880, gives an itemized statement of the gross expenditures of the government from July 1, 1861, to June 30, 1879; showing the expenditure other than for the war, and the expenditure growing out of the war.

The gross expenditure was

The ordinary expenditure was

The war expenditure was, therefore,

$6,844,571,431 $654,641,522

. $6,189,929,909

ESTIMATED ECONOMICAL COST OF THE WAR.

217

The aggregate, of course, includes the public debt, and interest on it for that period, but not the interest paid since June 30, 1879. Nor does it include the vast sums paid since June 30, 1879, for pensions and arrears of pensions, and for pay of retired army and navy officers. These additional expenditures will amount to at least $800,000,000 more.

The average number of men in the United States service during the four years of war would fall but little below one million. They mostly belonged to the class of laborers and mechanics; and nearly all had been contributing to the common weal by occupations of one kind or another. Their earnings, in peaceful avocations, would have averaged $1.50 per day, and for 312 working days, $468,000,000, or $1,872,000,000, during their four years

in the army.

An approximate statement of the cost of the Civil War may, therefore, be given thus:

Expenditures prior to June 30, 1879, .

Interest on public debt, pensions, etc., since June 30, 1879,
Producing capacity of 1,000,000 laborers for four years,

Total expenditure and waste,

$6,189,929,909

800,000,000 1,872,000,000

$8,861,929,909

To this sum must be added the accounts for the destruction of property North and South, and for the producing capacity lost in the South of at least three-quarters of a million of men for four years. It will be safe to state the losses on these accounts at $2,000,000,000. This gives a grand total of national loss, amounting to $10,861,929,909! This estimate leaves out of view the losses of the white people of the South by the overthrow of slavery, as the effect of abolition was not to destroy property, but merely to transfer the title to the slave and make him his own man.

It has been thought by sanguine men, looking for the dawn of a better and millennial day, that arbitration would be the grand factor in the arrangement of disputes among nations, but it does not appear that the great wars have made the ambitions of kings and princes more peaceful and virtuous. The making of great guns which are outdoing and penetrating the thickest armor, and the appliances of steam and chemistry for explosive purposes, may lead to such a destruction of human life and human property as to halt the movement of the nations in their warlike designs. The refinement of horrors and blood may lead the nations to peace. But no element should be so important in estopping these preparations and conflicts as the mighty cost in money as well as of life. The Austro-Prussian war destroyed forty-five

thousand men at an expense of three hundred and fifty millions of dollars; the Italian war the same number of men at almost the same cost; the Crimean war destroyed seven hundred and eighty-five thousand men at an expense of seventeen hundred millions. The war which is approaching in

Europe or Asia, or both, may, as some one has said, confound all statistics and appall all arithmetic. The war in our country from 1861 to 1865 may yet appear no larger than a speck on the horizon - no larger, perhaps, than Herat appears to-day in Central Asia, around which are mustering the hordes of India and England, and of Russia and her confederate tribes. When the war-cloud appeared upon our horizon, in 1861, there were men and the author was among them who preferred the bonds of love without the armor of force; who found in the Sermon on the Mount a wisdom beyond that of President or priest. The author never went so far, perhaps, as Charles Sumner, in his speech on the true grandeur of nations, when he pronounced all international war to be civil war, and the partakers in it to be traitors to God and enemies to man; or when he quoted Cicero to show that he preferred an unjust peace to a just war, and Franklin to show that there never was a good war nor a bad peace. Mr. Sumner declared that in this age there can be no peace that is not honorable. In carrying out this comprehensive and Christian thought, the writer was living up to a democratic principle laid down by Madison before the War of 1812. It was this: That war is only rarely tolerable as a necessary evil, to be kept off as long as, and when it takes place, to be closed as soon as possible.

In closing this chapter, the writer would fain inculcate the teachings of the Prince of Peace. Him who spake from the mountains of Judea, as never man spake. Nay, not from the mountains, but from one lone, unknown mountain. All lights are but subordinate around the central light which came from the mountain whence the great Sermon was spoken. Its name is unknown; its locality has no geography. All we know is, that it was "set apart." The mountains of our Scriptures are full of inspiration for our guidance. Their teachings may well be carried into our political

ethics.

Along with these teachings and to the same good end, are the teachings of history, patriotism, chivalry, and even economic selfishness. Yet these worldly teachings are often blind guides to duty. They are but mole-hills compared with the lofty mountain whose spiritual grandeur sheds the light of peace, order, and civilization to a suffering world. When these principles obtain in our hearts, there will come a glorious era for the world. Then, the reminders of our sad and bloody strife will not be in vain, if they cause the Nation to rise in supernal dignity above the party passions of the day. Then, that party which vindicates right against might, freedom against force, popular will against lust of power, rest against unrest, and God's goodness and mercy around and above all, will, in that sign, sway and direct the destinies of America.

CHAPTER XI.

PERSONAL LIBERTY ABUSED AND VINDICATED.

A WAR FOR THE CONSTITUTIONAL UNION

RADICAL OPPOSITION - PERSECUTIONS BY ANTI-SLAVERY RADICALS – GENERAL GRANT'S LETTER OF 1861HIS DOCTRINE OF NON-INTERFERENCE WITH SLAVERY A WAR OF SUBJUGATION THE EXTREMES SOUTH AND NORTH PROCLAMATION OF MARTIAL LAW IN 1861 — ARBITRARY ARRESTS IN 1862 AND AFTERWARDS— HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENDED OUTRAGEOUS ORDERS OF SECRETARIES STANTON AND SEWARD - ARRESTS - MARSHALS, SPIES, AND COMMISSIONS

- STANTON DICTATOR

GRESS · DARK HOURS FOR THE REPUBLIC - CAPITAL FATTENING ON CONTRACTS AND SPOILS, AND LEAGUED WITH FANATICS — GOVERNOR SEWARD IN HOME AFFAIRS - PERSONAL LIBERTY DISCUSSED BINNEY'S PAMPHLETS AND THE RESPONSES - THE MILLIGAN CASE -THE SUPREME COURT AS A BREAKWATER-MILLIGAN SENTENCED TO DEATH-VALLANDIGHAM'S CASE PARALLEL - HIS PROTEST - THE TRUMBULL LAW-GRAND ARRAY OF COUNSEL IN MILLIGAN CASE-LOGIC OF THE DECISION THE MRS. SURRATT TRAGEDY VIOLATIVE OF THE DECISION GENERAL BUTLER DENOUNCES IT MILITARY ARRESTS IN CONGRESS GALLANT FIGHT OF HENRY WINTER DAVIS FOR PERSONAL LIBERTY – HE SUCCEEDS — LIBERTY DEATHLESS MAGNA CHARTA - DAVIS ITS CHAMPION SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND SERVICES-THE OLIVE-BRANCH NOT OFFERED YET - LESSONS OF HISTORY SPURNED-THE WAR LIKELY TO END WITH PRACTICAL DISUN. ION -THE SECOND DECADE BEGINS WITH RECONSTRUCTION OF DISMANTLED STATES - HOPE FOR THE PEOPLE BEAUTY FOR ASHES.

N this chapter will be presented the attitude and action of the two great political parties of the North during the Civil War, in regard to the liberty and rights of American citizens.

It has been shown in preceding chapters that the war could have been avoided by the adoption of the Crittenden proposition in the Thirty-sixth Congress. It was not out of any regard for slavery as an institution that the friends of peace and Union offered to amend the Constitution in the mode proposed by Mr. Crittenden. The purpose of those who favored such an amendment was to eliminate from national discussion all questions relating to slavery. They desired to leave that decaying institution to exhaust its

vitality in a natural death. They were content, as a famous Ohio platform said, to live in the hope of its ultimate extinction. Being incompatible with the enlightening influences of a progressive age, it could not long survive. Its death being a question of a few years, or at most a generation, was it not wise statesmanship to seek to avoid a conflict that might dismember the Union? Such a conflict must imbrue the whole land in blood, and certainly maintain, if not generate, sectional animosities both bitter and lasting.

The conflict of arms was far from being irrepressible, whatever might be the character of the moral conflict between the spirit of liberty and the spirit of slavery. And even after it had commenced, its continuance was not, at any time, an absolute necessity for accomplishing a peace with union - if slavery were left as for seventy-five years of constitutional government it had existed, namely, a state institution a domestic relation. These are the views which actuated the Democracy of the North in accepting the Crittenden proposition. They sought above all things to avert a war of sections. It became a capital tenet of Democratic faith, that war could be avoided, and, after the war came, that peace and union were at all times within reach, on terms of compromise honorable and equitable to both sections. It is in this light that the course of the Northern Democrats is to be judged, preceding and during the secession war. They would shed no blood either to maintain or to destroy the institution of slavery; but all that they had would be freely given to maintain the Union, and the supremacy of the Constitution of their fathers. They ask no special credit for destroying slavery, - the war effectually did that, and they were not aloof from its perils. They scorn the charge that they desired to maintain it as an institution. They wanted slavery to die in peace, rather than in war. The idea of a temporary sacrifice to slavery with a view of maintaining the Union, was always paramount in the Democratic councils. It would be waste and excess, to detail the acts of the factions which precipitated the whole people into a state of war. It is sufficient to say that war was forced upon the country, while the great mass of the people desired peace. Is evidence required on this point? Let the letter of General Grant-just published -dated, Galena, April 19, 1861, speak the sentiments of the party of which he then was a member. After referring to the reprehensible conduct of the states in so prematurely seceding, he says: "In all this I can but see the doom of slavery. The North does not want, nor will they want, to interfere with the institution, but they will refuse for all time to give it protection, unless the South shall return soon to their allegiance." The Democratic party felt that each ́ ́age would work out its own reforms; and that those which come according to general desire are the best and most enduring.

The rising generation have often heard it charged that the Democratic party gave its sympathy to secession. Was there any justification for that charge? Had the seceding states any grounds for expecting that North