The same writer says, "One arrest of this character illustrates the method employed in nearly all. On August the 14th the New York police received a dispatch from the Secretary of War, ordering the arrest of Robert Muir, who was expecting to depart for Europe that day on the steamer Africa, of the Cunard line.

"Detectives sent to the pier found that Mr. Muir was already on board the ship. One of them approaching near enough to overhear his conversations, and satisfying himself he had found his man, said: 'Is your name Mr. Robert Muir?' Receiving an affirmative answer, the detective said, 'Will you be kind enough to step out on the deck? There is a gentleman there who wishes to say a word to you.'

After a few other explanatory words, the writer continues: "At this announcement,' states a reporter. 'Muir seemed taken aback, but soon remarked that he would not go; that he was on board a British ship; that he was a British subject, and claimed the protection of the British flag."

He was arrested-illegally and arbitrarily arrested-and thrown into "Fort Lafayette by an order from Washington. And his baggage was seized." He had important letters, intended for his personal benefit in Europe. "Many of his letters were copied and some of them printed in the New York newspapers."

Remember that the writer of "The Civil War Fifty Years Ago To-Day" referring to the 22nd of Auguts 1861, says:

"The implied charge against them, being that they intended giving aid and comfort to the enemy." Referring to the 27th of August, 1861, he says of Mr. Seward: "He was quoted as saying that he had only to tap a bell on his desk to cause the arrest of any person he might designate.... Suspicion was all that was required. Then came the arrest-sudden, genreally secret, often at night—and removal to one of the several prisons-Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Fort Lafayette in the New York harbor, Fort Warren at Boston. Once taken, there was no appeal, and in the prison the man might stay until the Secretary saw fit to release him." All this in free America! All this, because the South and prominent men in all the States preferred the Fathers' construction of the Constitution to that of Abraham Lincoln !

"The American Bastile"

is the very appropriate and significant title given Fort Lafayette in the New York harbor. It takes its name from the unjustifiable tyranny which is comparable only to the acts of the despotic monarchs of France. Let us compare the bastiles-that of France and that of North America-of imperial France and of free North America.

The Bastile of France was not built for a State prison; nor was that of free America. The Bastile of France was strongly fortified, but it was not as impregnable as that of America. The Bastile of France had forty rooms in its eight towers, besides a number of basement rooms. The prisoners were kept partly in the towers and partly in the basement. The American Bastile The cahad only six rooms. Prisoners were kept in all these. pacity of the French Bastile was "70 or 80 prisoners," not an One hundred and seventeen (117) average of two to a room. prisoners were actually crowded into the six rooms of the American Bastile, an average of nineteen and one-half (19 1-2) to a room. The writer is not informed as to how well the bastile of France was lighted, but he is informed that four rooms of the American Rastile "were casemated, low-roofted, brick-floored, 14 by 22 feet inside, with two very small slots in the walls for "These windows and no ventilation when the door is closed." rooms had each from nine to fifteen occupants-at times even more-until they almost equalled the Black Hole of Calcutta." Another room in the American Bastile was 68 ft. by 22 ft. In this room were "thirty-eight (38) people, 38 beds, three washstands, five 32-pound guns and their carriages, so that elbow room was at a premium." "To light this room by day were five port holes and two doors, each port hole being 18 inches by 24 inches. The illumination at night consisted of three "The water was bad, frecandles, divided among 38 persons." quently full of small tadpoles." In both bastiles "the medical attention was insufficient."

In the French Bastile the prisoners "rarely consisted of persons of lower ranks, or such as were guilty of actual crimes, but of those who were sacrificed to political despotism, Court intrigue

and ecclesiastical tyranny-Among these were noblemen, authors, savons, priests, and publishers." In the Ameriacn Bastile the prisoners were "not guilty of actual crimes" but consisted of persons of unimpeachable characters in all the walks of life, "who were sacrificed to political despotism" and executive "intrigue." The Hon. Lawrence Langston, member of the Maryland Legislature, and incarcerated in Fort Lafayette in September 1861, thus testifies:

"The prisoners are those who have been or are now governors, foreign ministers, members of Congress, of different legislatures, Mayors, Police Commissioners, Officers of the army from colonel to lieutenants, of the Navy of all grades, doctors, lawyers, farmers, merchants, editors, sailors and private oarsmen."

What matchless despotism is this? Of what parentage was it born? It was not the legitimate child of the American Constitution, nor of the American Declaration of Independence. It was not born of American Liberty, nor of American institutions. It is the child of a false "Higher Law" and a false "Constitution," a false necessity.

In both the French and the American bastiles "the discipline and police regulations were of the strictest kind." Both were regarded with mingled feelings of awe and horror. Once within the walls of either all hope seemed left behind. Bancroft tells us in his "Life of Seward," that when a prisoner "desired to send for an attorney he was informed that attorneys were entirely excluded, and the prisoner who sought their aid would greatly prejudice his case........If a prisoner wrote a personal letter to the Secretary the letter was usually filed. A second, third, or fourth petition for liberty was usually sent to the Department, but with no result save that the materials for study of history or human nature was enlarged."

Why were attorneys excluded? To admit them would be to advertise the horrors of the American Bastile to the world. This could not be. Crime stalks in the night.

The utmost secrecy alike was maintained in both Bastiles. "To every letter" in the American Bastile, "even if only a note asking for soap or shoes, the prisoners were required to add: "It is my desire that this letter or any part of it shall not be published in

any newspaper."

All this in our own free America! America never had but two despotisms-that of the war period and that of the Reconstruction period. It is difficult to tell which was the greater of the two.

When we read of the horrors of Fort Lafayette, Fort McHenry, and Fort Lawrence is it any wonder that the historian tells us, "Secretary Seward and the President were alike denounced as tyrants more dreadful than darkest Russia had known, and the principal, Fort Lafayette, was termed 'the Bastile of North America?'"

Nothing now remains of the Bastile of France but a bronze column to mark its site. It was razed to the ground on the 14th of July by 12,000 indignant citizens, and its seven prisoners set free. The Bastile of North America, rechristened to the cause of Liberty, still stands in the New York harbor, as a perpetual witness to deeds of awe and horror indellibly written by the finger of despotism upon the dark and "retributive page of history."

The angry Paris mob demolished the structure of the Bastile of France, but no mob, no violence can erase from the page of history the just retribution it receives at the hands of all coming generations. The North American Bastile in the future, may stand a mighty fortress to eternal liberty--God grant that it may: -but the cruel hand of the despot has marred its form, and written a dark page of awe and terror in its history that will forever be a black record of shame amid its glorious deeds of human rights and human liberty.

Upon what ground did this unbridled, this audaciuos despotism leap all constitutional limits, and write so disgraceful a page of awe and terror and blood and agony in the book of American history? The defenders and applauders of this rank despotism have given a false answer to this question-false to sacred pledges, false to sacred ties,-ties binding equal States into a Union of their own free choice, on equal terms; an answer false to these terms; and therefore an answer false and traitorous to the compact that bound the several States together.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AN EFFORT TO UNITE THE NORTH, RETAIN THE BORDER STATES, AND RECONCILE THE FOREIGN NATIONS:

THE TRENT AFFAIR.

At first the gravity of the situation did not appeal either to Lincoln or his Cabinet. Although the problems of the hour were most momentous, yet, as we are informed by Edward Everett Hale, Jr., (American Statesman-Wm. H. Seward), that "at first Seward was so unwilling to acknowledge the possibility of war that it is doubtful if he had been able to form a foreign policy." When war became a possibility the call for only 75,000 men for only 90 days tells what Lincoln and his Cabinet thought of it. They attempted at first, to treat it as "a mere insurrection"-"a mere domestic affair," of little concern to the Government and of no concern whatever to the Nations.

But when it developed on a vast scale it became a war of public concern,—a war that concerned all nations, for all nations had citizens in one or both sections, and more or less commercial dealings with one or both. The South's cotton. figured mightily to the alarm of the Administartion, for it was a product in which all nations had an interest. Lincoln and his Cabinet

now looked with great alarm on the mighty struggle they had recklessly inagurated. They had denounced the South as efeminate and weak till they believed it, and far underrated her strength.

With this introduction let us now glance at the beginning of Lincoln's administration and note his gradual encroachments upon Constitutional rights, and the search for winning issues.

It was the 9th of March, 1861, just five days after Lincoln's inauguration, when an important Cabinet meeting was held. The momentous question for discussion was Fort Sumter. As we shall see, Lincoln had planned to make this fort one of the allimportant issues necessary to unite the North. He now urged