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feelings of the Southern people;" | the United States might interpose;

proposed a voluntary Convention of all the States, to devise "measures of peaceable adjustment;" and indicated what those measures should be, by gravely recommending

"First: That Congress shall at once propose such constitutional amendments as will secure to slaveholders their legal rights, and allay their apprehensions in regard to possible encroachments in the future.

"Second: If this should fail to bring about the results so desirable to us, and so essential to the best hopes of our country, then let a voluntary Convention be called, composed of delegates from the people of all the States, in which measures of peaceable adjustment may be devised and adopted, and the nation rescued from the continued horrors and calamities of civil war."

While 'conservatives' were thus discoursing, the bolder traitors went on arming and drilling, until the southwestern half of the State was virtually subject to their sway; while, from every quarter, troops were forwarded to their armies in the field; and the triumphant Secessionists of Tennessee, from their grand camp at Nashville, were threatening to open the road to Louisville, whence supplies were not sent them so freely as they deemed required by their needs or their dignity.

The climax was reached when Gen. Buckner proclaimed that he had entered into a compact with Gen. McClellan, commanding the Federal department of the Ohio, whereby the latter stipulated that no Union troops should press the soil of Kentucky, which State should be sustained in her chosen attitude of neutrality; and, in case 'the South' should plant an army on her soil, Kentucky should be required to show them out-if they did not go, or, if she failed to expel them, then

but our forces must be withdrawn so soon as the Rebels had been expelled! Gen. McClellan promptly denied that he had made any such treaty-or, in fact, any treaty at all. He had had an interview with Buckner, at the request of the latter, who had promised to drive out any Confederate force that should invade Kentuckythat was all. No doubt remained that Buckner had drawn largely on his imagination; proclaiming, as agreed on, much that he had scarcely ventured to propose.

Gov. Magoffin having appointed June 20th as the day for electing Representatives in Congress, in deference to the President's call of an Extra Session, the election was held accordingly, and resulted in the choice of nine Unionists to one Secessionist (H. C. Burnett, who fled to the Rebels, after serving through the called session.)

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The vote of the State showed an aggregate of 92,365 for the Union' to 36,995 for the Secession candidates, giving a majority of 55,370 for the former. And this election was held when no Federal soldier trod the soil of Kentucky; under a Governor at heart with the Rebels; and after every effort had been exhausted to win her to the side of treason. The Southern frenzy had affected but a small minority of her people; while the terrorism which had coërced so many States. into submission to the will of the conspirators was rendered powerless by the proximity of loyal and gallant communities. Kentucky voted as nearly every Slave State would have done, but for the amazing falsehoods

48 June 10th, 1861.

JEFFERSON DAVIS ON 'PEACE.'

497

which were diffused among their | Slave Power stood ready to execute people, while none dared to contra- its condign vengeance on all who dict them—while thousands dared dared oppose its darling project, or not be loyal to their country, because who should in any manner dispute the more reckless minions of the its sway.

XXXI.

THE FORCES IN CONFLICT.

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS, in his Spe- | the Union, in their respective States cial Message to his Congress,' wherein he asserts that war has been declared against the Confederacy by President Lincoln's Proclamation of April 15th, heretofore given, with more plausibility asserts that the Democratic party of the Free States stands publicly committed to the principles which justify the secession and confederation of the States owning his sway, by its reïterated affirmation and adoption of "the Resolutions of '98 and '99," and that the whole country had ratified this committal by large majorities, in the reëlection as President of Mr. Jefferson, in the first election of Mr. Madison, and in the election of Gen. Pierce. Assuming this as a basis, Mr. Davis had no difficulty in convincing those whom he more immediately addressed, that, for his confederates to surprise, capture, or otherwise obtain, through the treachery of their custodians, the forts, arsenals, armories, custom-houses, mints, sub-treasuries, etc., etc., of

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Montgomery, April 29, 1861.

2 He says:

"From a period as early as 1798, there had existed in all the States a party, almost uninterruptedly in the majority, based upon the creed that each State was, in the last resort, the sole judge, as well of its wrongs as of the mode and measure of redress. *** The Democratic

even (as in the case of North Carolina and Arkansas) those which had not seceded-was a peaceful, regular, legitimate, legal procedure; while to resist such spoliation and maintain the right of the Union to possess and control the property it had created and hitherto enjoyed, was unjustifiable aggression and unprovoked war. Mr. Lincoln (said Mr. Davis) had no constitutional right to issue "the declaration of war against this Confederacy which has prompted me to convoke you." It was his duty to have quietly let the Confederates help themselves, by virtue of shot and shell, to such portions of the property of the Union as they should see fit to touch and take. In fact, this whole Message, like several which succeeded it, evinces the consciousness of its author that he had no longer to square his assertions by what was regarded, out of the Confederacy, as historic truth, or his deductions by what the civilized world had estab

party of the United States repeated, in its successful canvass of 1836, the declaration, made in numerous previous political contests, that it would faithfully abide by and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia Legislatures of [1798 and] 1799, and that it adopts those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its political creed."

lished as the dictates of human rea- | son. Thus, he does not hesitate to assert that

"In the Inaugural Address delivered by President Lincoln, in March last, he asserts a maxim, which he plainly deems to be undeniable, that the theory of the Constitution requires, in all cases, that the majority shall govern."****

"The climate and soil of the Northern States soon proved unpropitious to the continuance of Slave Labor; while, the reverse being the case at the South, *** the Northern States consulted their own interests by selling their Slaves to the South and prohibiting Slavery within their limits.”

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fulfilled. When Mr. Davis was next' called to address his Congress-which had meantime adjourned from Montgomery to Richmond-in announcing the transfer of the Executive departments likewise to the new capital, he said:

"Gentlemen of the Congress of the Confederate States of America :

"My Message addressed to you at the commencement of the last session contained such full information of the state of the Confederacy as to render it unnecessary that I should now do more than call your attention during the recess, and the matters connected to such important facts as have occurred with the public defense.

accession of new members to our Confedera"I have again to congratulate you on the tion of free and equally sovereign States. Our beloved and honored brethren of North Carolina and Tennessee have consummated the action foreseen and provided for at your last session; and I have had the gratification of announcing by Proclamation, in conforinmity with the law, that these States were admitted into the Confederacy. The people slaveholders.mity with the law, that these States were of Virginia also, by a majority previously unknown in our history, have ratified the action of her Convention uniting her fortunes with ours. The States of Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia, have likewise adopted the permanent Constitution of the Confederate States; and no doubt is entertained of its adoption by Tennessee, at the election to be held early in next month."

Now, not one-fifth of the slaves held in the Northern States, just before or at the time they respectively abolished Slavery, were sold to the South-as hundreds of them, still living, can bear witness; nor is it true that Slavery was ever proved unsuited to or unprofitable in the North, in the judgment of her slaveholders. Had the slaveholding caste been as omnipotent here as in the South, controlling parties, politics, and the press, Slavery would have continued to this day. It was by the non-slaveholding possessors of influence and power, here as everywhere else, that Slavery was assailed, exposed, reprobated, and ultimately overthrown. No class ever yet discovered that aught which ministered so directly and powerfully to its own luxury, sensuality, indolence, and pride, as Slavery does to those of the slaveholders, was either unjust, pernicious, or unprofitable.

With greater truth and plausibility, Mr. Davis assured his Congress that

'There is every reason to believe that, at no distant day, other States, identical in political principles and community of interest with those which you represent, will join this Confederacy."

This expectation was, in good part,

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EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY IN OUR STRUGGLE.

hered to the Union, while, of the Slave States, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri' did not unite with the Confederacy, the preponderance of population in the adhering over that of the seceded States was somewhat more than two to one. The disparity in wealth between the contending parties was at least equal to this; so that there was plausibility in the claim of the Confederates to that sympathy which the generous usually extend to the weaker party in a life-and-death struggle. In Manufactures, Commerce, Shipping, etc., the preponderance was immensely on the side of the Union.

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came mere geographical designations of portions of the nation 'one and indivisible.' Italy, through her at length half-realized aspirations of so many weary centuries- Germany, still in fragments, in defiance of her ardent hopes and wishes, the imposing and venerable anarchy that Voltaire pronounced her, four genera| tions back-Poland, through her lamentable partition—and nearly every great calamity which modern history had taught mankind to deplore—protested against such disintegrations as the Confederacy had initiated, and not less against the principles on which they were justified. And especially did the Democracy of Europe-the party of Progress and Reform of whatever country-instinctively revolt against doctrines and practices which tended unmistakably backward to the ages alike of national and of individual impotence, wherein peoples were weak, though castes were strong; to the ages of barbarism and of feudalism, wherein nobles and chieftains were mighty, but laws and

II. The prestige of regularity, of legitimacy, and of whatever the Old World implies by the comprehensive term 'Order,' was likewise on the side of the Union. The Confederacy appeared as a disturber of preexisting arrangements, and thus of the general peace. Its fundamental theories of State Sovereignty, Right of Secession, etc., were utter novelties to the mass of mankind, and were at war with the instincts and prepossessions | magistrates of small account. The of nearly all who could understand them. The greatness and security, wealth and power, of England were based on the supersedure of the Heptarchy by the Realm, and on the conversion of Scotland and Ireland, respectively, from jealous and hostile neighbors into integral portions of the British commonwealth. France, feeble and distracted while divided into great feudatories, became strong and commanding from the hour that these were absorbed into the power and influence of the monarchy, and Burgundy, Picardy, Anjou, etc., be

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Democracy of Europe were never for
one moment misled or confused by
the Confederates' pretensions as to
reserved rights and constitutional
liberty. Their instinct at once rec-
ognized their deadly foe through all
his specious disguises. Men who
had, as conspirators and revolution-
ists, been tenanting by turns the dun-
geons and dodging the gibbets of
'Divine Right' from boyhood, repu-
diated with loathing any affiliation
with this rebellion; and no word of
cheer ever reached the ears of its.
master-spirits from Kossuth, Mazzini,

from an early day, in the Confederate Congress.
But the claim is baseless and impudent.

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Victor Hugo, Ledru Rollin, Louis | the North and East had known very Blanc, Garibaldi, or any other of those little of war but by hearsay since the who, defying the vengeance of des- peace which secured our independpots, have consecrated their lives and ence, eighty years ago. sacrificed personal enjoyment to the championship of the Rights of Man.

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III. The Confederates had vastly the advantage in the familiarity of their people with the use of arms, and in their addiction to and genius for the art of war. The Northern youth of 1860 were not nearly so familiar with the use of the hunter's rifle or fowling-piece as were their ancestors of 1770. The density of our population had expelled desirable game almost entirely from all the NewEngland States but Maine; in the prairie States, it rapidly disappears before the advancing wave of civilized settlement and cultivation. Our Indian wars of the present century have nearly all been fought on our western and south-western borders; our last war with Great Britain was condemned as unwise and unnecessary by a large proportion of the Northern people; so was the war upon Mexico: so that it may be fairly said that, while the South and South-West had been repeatedly accustomed to hostilities during the present century,

A Southern gentleman, writing from Augusta, Ga., in February, 1861, said:

"Nine-tenths of our youth go constantly armed; and the common use of deadly weapons is quite disregarded. No control can be exercised over a lad after he is fourteen or fifteen years of age. He then becomes Mr.' so-and-so, and acknowledges no master."

The street-fights, duels, etc., so prominent among the 'peculiar institutions' of the South, doubtless conduced to the ready adaptation of her whites to a state of war.

9 Pollard, in his "Southern History" of our struggle, smartly, if not quite accurately, says:

"In the war of 1812, the North furnished 58,552 soldiers; the South 96,812-making a majority of 37,030 in favor of the South. Of the number furnished by the North

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IV. The Rebels had a decided advantage in the fact that, on the main question underlying the great issue they had made up-the question of upholding, strengthening, extending, and perpetuating Slavery, or (on the other hand) restricting, confining, weakening it, with a view to its ultimate extinction-they had the active sympathy of a decided majority of the American people. The vote for President in 1860 had shown that scarcely more than two-fifths of the American People were even so far hostile to Slavery to wish its farther diffusion arrested. Had political action been free in the Slave States, they would probably have swelled Mr. Lincoln's poll to fully Two Millions; but, on the other hand, the hopeless distraction and discouragement of the pro-Slavery forces so paralyzed effort on that side, by demonstrating its futility, as seriously to diminish the anti-Lincoln vote. Had there been but one instead of three pro-Slavery tickets in the field, its vote in Maine, New Hampshire,

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