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eral authority, to interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control of the subject in each case to the State, and its people immediately interested."

5. The act of Congress of the 6th of August, 1861, emancipated only the slaves of "rebels" employed in the "rebellion," and submitted the decision of such cases exclusively to the courts. Major-General Fremont, on the 30th of that month, being then in command in Missouri, by proclamation declared free all the slaves within the State. This, as soon as it came to Mr. Lincoln's knowledge, he disapproved, and declared it, in a formal order of 11th of September, to be void as far as it transcended the provisions of the act of Congress. And in a letter of Mr. Joseph Holt to President Lincoln, of the 22d of the month, that person, being alarmed for the effect of Fremont's order, stated that "the act of Congress was believed to embody the conservative policy of your administration." This statement Mr. Lincoln never denied.

6. On the 9th of May, 1862, Major-General Hunter, military commander of the department of the South, embracing Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, by an order of that date, declared all slaves within such States free. On the 19th of the month, even before he was officially advised of the measure, Mr. Lincoln, by proclamation, declared the same "whether genuine or false," to be "altogether void." In neither of these instances was there the slightest intimation of a change of opinion by Mr. Lincoln, either on the question of policy or of power. As to both, he then entertained the same opinion that he had announced in his inaugural.

7. On the 22d of July, 1862, Mr. Crittenden proposed, in the House of Representatives at Washington, a resolution which, after stating that the war was "forced upon the country by the disunionists" of the Southern States, declared that it "is not waged, on our part, in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights of the established institution of these States (the seceded), but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and the rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease." In the House only two votes were cast against it, and in the Senate but one Republican

vote, and it was at once and without hesitation approved by the President. No pretence was here suggested that slavery was to be abolished, or that any of the rights of the States in regard to it were to be interfered with.

Yet, in the face of all this accumulation of precedents, we find Emancipation proclamations put forward under the claim of executive power-the first on the 22d of September, 1862, and the second on the first day of the succeeding year. In the last, all slaves in certain States or parts of States were declared free; it mattered not whether the territory or the slaves should fall within the military occupation of the United States or

not.

But it has been said that the emancipation proclamation was a military measure, and to be justified as such from necessities outside of the Constitution. It is difficult to find patience to reply to such nonsense. The plea is the most absurd stuff that was ever put in the mouth of fool or knave, to brazen out against the good sense and conscience of the world his fraud and outrage. Absurd, because we know, and all the world. knows, that it was at the dictation and under the influence of a purely political party that the emancipation proclamation was issued by Mr. Lincoln. Absurd, because we knew, and had had recent assurance from Mr. Lincoln himself, that he did not intend emancipation of the negro to end with the war, which it would do ipso facto if a mere military measure, but had made the abandonment or extirpation of slavery the preliminary condition for peace, and thus, therefore, a primary object of the war.

It was this same dogma of "military necessity," applied to the slavery question, that Mr. Lincoln had used to fasten upon the necks of the white citizens of the North a heavy yoke of intolerance. It was only necessary to look upon what was every day passing before the eyes.

There was seen this despotism in the unreasonable searches and seizures of persons and papers, in direct violation of the Constitution.

It was seen in arrests of obnoxious individuals, and their imprisonment without warrant or charges preferred, and in some instances cut off from all communication with family, friends, or counsel.

It was seen in the suppression of newspapers, and wanton arrest of editors.

It was seen in the assumption, by the President, of the power to regulate the right of suffrage in the States, and establish minority and aristocratic governments under the pretext of guaranteeing republican governments.

These are not fancy sketches, or the exaggerations of a narrative written with passion. It was notorious that such things had occurred in Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New York; and yet even to question their legality was deemed disloyal, and men who maintained their inherited freedom in doing so, were designated by scurrilous abuse, and threatened with the penalties of a despot's all-powerful displeasure.

To compare the falsehoods and crimes of the Washington record with that rigor of measures in the Confederacy, which was really nothing more than the logical incident and the proper expression of resolute patriotism, is an outrage upon history. The noble memorials of self-sacrificing patriotism are very different from the scarlet record of ruthless despotism.

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CHAPTER V.

The business of blockade-running.-Its risks.-Interesting statistics.-Value of the port of Mobile.-NAVAL FIGHT AND CAPTURE OF THE FORTS IN MOBILE BAY.-A frightful disparity of force.-Heroic fight of the ram Tennessee.-Absurd boasts of the Yankees.-Surrender of Fort Gaines.-Fall of Fort Morgan.-THE GEORGIA CAMPAIGN.-Its importance.-Johnston's situation at Atlanta.-His removal by President Davis.-A fatal error.--Lieutenant-General Hood.-THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. THE FALL OF "THE GATE CITY."-Reckless and desperate fightingYankee raid on the Macon road.-Hood's "magnificent advance."-Bombardment of Atlanta.-Hood's fatal mistake.-Sherman's new movement.-He "cuts the Confederates in two."--The Yankees in Atlanta.-Sherman's cruelties.-His depopulation of Atlanta.-Enormity of the order.--Sherman as a pacificator.Governor Brown's letter.-Position of Vice-President Stephens.-Effects of the fall of Atlanta.--President Davis's Macon speech.-Its swollen tone.---CAPTURE of THE CONFEDERATE PRIVATEER FLORIDA.-Its cowardice and outrage.-Yankee idea of glory.-THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CONFEDERATE RAM ALBEMARLE.- -Yankee estimation of the exploit.-The North Carolina Sounds.-THE ST. ALBANS RAID.Stories of the savage vengeance of the Confederates.-How much truth there was in them.

A LARGE capital in the Confederacy was engaged in running the blockade. The risks of this business were by no means so great as generally supposed; and it had made a steady and valuable contribution to the war. The London insurance offices had been in the habit of charging sixty per cent. premium for policies on vessels and goods running the blockade. This was a rate adopted at the beginning of the war, before any facts had been developed to establish the real average of risk. But persons engaged in the business soon found that the real risk was by no means commensurate with the nominal risk as established by the London offices, and they consequently ceased to insure; or, in other words, adopted the plan of being their own insurers. This is naturally the case when the true risk is much below the nominal risk. That such was the case in the blockade-running business was clear from the fact that those engaged in it no longer insured.

A correspondent of the London Index gave a list of vessels employed in running the blockade from the port of Nassau, between November, 1861, and March 10, 1864. The list com

prised eighty-four vessels. Of these, thirty-seven had been captured, twenty-five had been lost or beached, one foundered at sea, one condemned, two converted into Confederate gunboats, and the rest were supposed to be still in the business or laid up. The total number of losses which can be ascribed to causes connected with blockade-running was sixty-two. The number of successful round trips, made by these vessels was two hundred and fourteen. Thus the risk to the vessels on the round trip was twenty-nine per cent. The percentage on goods was not by any means so great. If the risks out and in had been equal, it would have been fourteen and a half per cent. each way. But the inward risk was much greater than the outward. We are perhaps justified in assuming, on the whole, that the real risk on goods imported into the Confederacy through the blockade was not higher than twenty per cent.

Mobile was one of the principal ports for the blockade-running trade. It was guarded at its entrance by two imposing fortifications; it was difficult to blockade; it was a nursery of the Confederate navy; and vessels were already being constructed there with a view of raising the blockade. It had been the steady purpose of the Yankees to get possession of Mobile Bay as soon as operations on the Mississippi would permit the detachment of a sufficient co-operating military force for the expedition.

NAVAL FIGHT AND CAPTURE OF THE FORTS IN MOBILE BAY.

In the early part of August, Admiral Farragut, who commanded the Yankee fleet off Mobile, secured the military cooperation of General Canby for attacking and investing the forts in the harbor of Mobile. On the morning of the 5th of August, the Yankee fleet, numbering fourteen steamers and four monitors, carrying in all more than two hundred guns, and manned by twenty-eight hundred men, made their entrée into Mobile Bay. The entire Confederate naval force that was to encounter this huge armada was composed of one iron-clad and three wooden vessels. Such was the frightful disparity of force in a fight which the Yankees afterwards claimed to take rank with the victories of Nelson!

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