Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

Languages Used:

• English

LC Subject Headings:

• Almanacs, American -- Confederate States of America.
• Confederate States of America -- History.
• Confederate States of America -- History, Military.
• Confederate States of America -- History -- Chronology.
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Almanac.
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Chronology.
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns.
• Shiloh, Battle of, 1862.

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DIARY
OF THE
WAR FOR SEPARATION,
A DAILY CHRONICLE
OF THE
PRINCIPAL EVENTS AND HISTORY OF THE PRESENT REVOLUTION,
TO WHICH IS ADDED
NOTES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL THE GREAT BATTLES
INCLUDING WALKER'S NARRATIVE OF THE BATTLE OF SHILOH.

BY

H. C. CLARKE,
VICKSBURG, MISS.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862,
BY H. C. CLARKE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, District of the Confederate
States, for the District of Mississippi. AUGUSTA, GA.:
STEAM PRESS OF CHRONICLE & SENTINEL,
1862.

PREFACE.

        The following compendium of the principal events in the History of the old Union have been gathered from reliable data. The matter was originally prepared for the "Confederate States Almanac," for 1862, and is now re-published with some corrections, and many additions.

        The Diary of the War has been compiled with care and considerable labor, having to search and sift out dates and facts from the often-times contradictory statements of dispatches and correspondence. Great pains have been taken to avoid errors; and we believe that the facts are correct, although in many instances an approximation to correctness is all that can be obtained in a matter like this, made up from the sources at hand. The losses of the Confederates in battle was made from official Reports, whenever such reports have been published, and from reliable correspondence. The Federal losses in battle have been taken from the reports of Confederate officers, as no reliance can be placed in Federal accounts. It is a notorious fact that they are always underrating their losses in every engagement with the Southern forces. Their official Reports are seldom, if ever, published.

        The Narrative of the Battle of Shiloh was written by Alexander Walker, of the New Orleans Delta. The sketch was published in parts, in the columns of the Delta, and is now published complete for the first time. It is one of the most graphic descriptions of a battle ever written.

POLITICAL REVIEW OF THE OLD UNION

        The movement that threw off the rule of the mother country began in the New England Colonies. These were settled by those Puritans who effected the revolution of 1620, and decapitated Charles I. The Southern colonies were occupied by a more loyal class. To the noble family of Baltimore was granted, by Royal Charter, the province of Maryland. To other staunch adherents of the crown were accorded grants and privileges in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.

        With antecedents so opposite, both North and South joined heartily in the War of Independence, making equal sacrifices and dividing fairly its triumphs. In 1781, the struggling States formed a Confederation, and essayed self-government. The written Charter of 1789 followed the form and usages of the British Constitution. Supreme power was divided between the executive and legislative branches; but all were elective. The executive power was vested in one person for a term of four years, with special duties assigned. The Legislature was divided into two Houses, with separate prerogatives. All power not positively delegated to the Federal Government was reserved to the States.

        George Washington was the first Federal magistrate, chosen from a list of twelve candidates.

        Up to this period, the politicians of the country had, first, contended in a body against the supremacy of the

mother country; and, next, had united their energies in the structure of a Republican Constitution.

        During President Washington's term, they divided into two hostile parties, each striving for office through the profession of opposite principles. The New England States, led by John Adams, advocated the power of the Federal Government, even to straining the Constitution. This was the Federal party. The Southern States, led by Thomas Jefferson, maintained State rights against Federal encroachment. This was the Democratic party.

        In 1797, John Adams, of Massachusetts, was elected President of the Confederacy. During his term the Alien^*

        * By the Alien law, June, 1800, the President might order all such aliens as he deemed dangerous, to quit the country, on pain of three years' imprisonment and civil disability.

        In 1801, Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, was elected President. During this term, the New England States displayed a bitter animosity to the South, which arose, chiefly, from the South having put a limit to the slave-trade, in which these States were profitably engaged. When, therefore, President Jefferson proposed the purchase of Louisiana from France, the Eastern States violently resisted, because it increased the territory and power of the South. Congress empowered the purchase, April, 1803.

        In 1805, Thomas Jefferson was re-elected to the Presidency. His second term was troubled by the war between

England and France. The Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon, and the Orders in Council of the British Government, equally assailed American interests. Our vessels, bound either to English or French ports, incurred capture and confiscation. This left but one alternative, either to abandon our trade with Europe, or go to war to protect it. To escape the latter, President Jefferson recommended an Embargo Act, to put a temporary stop to all our foreign trade. This was vehemently opposed by the New England States, because their interests, being chiefly commercial, were seriously damaged. The Embargo Act was passed by Congress in December, 1807; whereupon the Eastern States threatened to secede from the Union, and form a Northern Confederacy.

        In 1809, James Madison, of Virginia, was elected President. Soon after his accession, March, 1809, the Embargo Act was repealed, to appease the New England States; and a less stringent law, the Non-intercourse Act, was passed by Congress, May, 1809, which prohibited trade with England and France. New England, however, carried on an indirect trade with Europe, through Canada. In spite of all these precautions by the Government, our interests and dignity were incessantly outraged by England. Finally, the indignation of the country compelled Congress to declare war, May, 1812.

        In 1813, James Madison was re-elected President. During the war, the Government was supported by direct taxes and requisitions upon the States; but the New England States refused for the most part, to contribute.^*

        * Niles' Register.

of South Carolina, went so far as to introduce a minimum rate for ad valorem duties, that is, a rate below which the duties should not fall. A new National Bank act was also passed, April, 1816; the old one having expired in 1811.

        In 1817, James Monroe, of Virginia, was elected President. During this term, the interests of the country prospered. No struggle occurred between the politicians of New England and the South, till 1820, when Missouri applied for admission into the Union as a slave State. The Eastern States opposed it violently, on the ground of extending slavery. The Union was in danger of dissolution, when, finally, Missouri was admitted by Congress as a Slave State, on the compromise that thereafter no Slave States should be created north of 36° 30' parallel of latitude.

        In 1821, James Monroe was re-elected President. During this term, a new conflict arose between the politicians of New England and those of the South, on the subject of the Tariff policy inaugurated at the peace. New England demanded more protection for her manufactures. This the South opposed, on the ground that her manufactures had protection enough, and next, because an increase of the Tariff was seriously detrimental to the interests of the South.

        In 1825, John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, was elected President.^*

        * This election was made by the House of Representatives, as provided in the Constitution, in default of an election by the people.

        In 1829, Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, became President. During this term, the extreme Tariff policy of New

England led to violent remonstrance in South Carolina, whose interests were seriously injured. She alleged that a policy to enrich one section of the country at the expense of another was unjust and unconstitutional. She threatened to resist this policy by force. A compromise was effected, March, 1833, by which the obnoxious Tariff was modified by Congress.

        In 1833, Andrew Jackson was re-elected President. During this term an acrimonious struggle was carried on between the politicians of the North^*

        * The Northern politicians dropped the title of "Federalist" in 1824, and assumed that of "Whig" in 1828.

        In 1837, Martin Van Buren, of New York, was elected President. During this term, great financial disorder prevailed in the country. The Northern politicians proposed, as a panacea, a new National Bank, a higher Tariff, and a Bankrupt Law. The South opposed them all, as unnecessary and sectional in their tendency.

        In 1841, William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was elected President. He died soon after his accession to office. The Presidency was then administered by the Vice-President, John Tyler, of Virginia, as provided by the Constitution. During this term, Northern policy mostly prevailed. The Tariff was augmented, September, 1841, and August, 1842. A Bankrupt Law was passed, August, 1841.^**

        ** By this act, private debts to the amount of $440,000,000 (£88,000,000) were cancelled.

carried through Congress, July, 1841, dividing the public domain to the respective States, in proportion to their population. The effect of this was favorable to the manufacturing States of New England; for, by cutting off from the Federal Treasury the receipts from the public lands, it made a higher Tariff imperative, to insure a sufficient revenue. The new bank charter failed. At the end of eighteen months, the Bankrupt Act was repealed 1843. A new slave State, Texas, was admitted to the Union, March 3, 1845. The act for dividing the public lands was repealed, January, 1842, as it was found necessary to retain them as security for Federal loans.

        In 1845, James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was inaugurated President. During his term, the Tariff, which was pressing heavily on the interests of the South, was modified July, 1846. The President, in a special message to Congress, May, 1846, announced that the Government of Mexico had committed an act of war against the Confederacy. On this occasion, all sections of the country, North and South and West, united in declaring war against Mexico. The war closed February, 1848. The treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which followed, ceded California and New Mexico to the United States.

        In 1849, Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, beeame President. During this term, the old issues between the politicians of the North and South were abandoned, to wit: the Tariff policy, a National Bank, a system of Internal Improvements, a Division of the Public Lands. The recent acquisitions of territory, however, afforded the public men of both sections a fertile field of discussion. The North contended against admitting slavery into the new territory. The South declared that its right to joint occupation was incontestible, both in law and equity, and proposed that the compromise of 1820 should be renewed, by extending the Missouri line of 36° 30' to the Pacific Ocean. This the politicians of the North refused. The controversy became

so violent that a separation of the North and South seemed imminent. A compromise, however, took place in 1850, which stopped the discussion, but did not settle the main point in dispute, namely: the right of the South to joint occupation of all new territory.

        In 1853, Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, became President. During this term, the discussion on slavery was renewed. A portion of western territory, named Nebraska, was divided into two territories. One of these was called Kansas, and the other Nebraska. The compromise line of 36° 30' ran to the south of these territories, which would have given Kansas as well as Nebraska, the largest, to the North. On the proposition of the Senator from Illinois, Stephen A Douglas, the compromise^*

        * The Missouri Compromise line.

        In 1857, James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, was inaugurated President. The whole of this term was disturbed by a heated contest between the politicians of the North, on the subject of slavery in the territories. Towards the close of this Presidency, the prolonged strife between the politicians,

on the topic of slavery, was taken up by the people of the two sections, in an election for a new President, November, 1860. The Northern States, being in the majority, pronounced in favor of Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, the exponent of their sectional views. Under these circumstances, the Southern States have dissolved their connection with the Union. The civil compact they made with the Northern States, in 1789, guaranteeing equal rights to both, and equal protection to all, had been violated. Being in a minority in the Confederacy, they could oppose no legal barrier to the anti-slavery sentiments of the North, which, carried into legislation, would confiscate their property, and even involve their lives.

RESUME.

        This closes the brief retrospect of our Federal history. I trust it is lucid, as I believe it to be unbiassed. It thus appears that, from the first Presidency to the last, the public men of the North and South have differed in their notions of policy.

        It also appears that these differences ran so high in the case of the Embargo Act, 1807, that the New England States, whose commercial interests were injured, were on the verge of seceding from the Confederacy.

        It likewise appears that the Southern States, to the detriment of their interests, voted for a Tariff and a Bank, 1816, in order to resuscitate the Federal Government and conciliate the Eastern States.

        It furthermore appears that the Southern States, finding themselves oppressed by the extreme Tariff policy of the North, threatened, through South Carolina, 1832, to nullify the Federal laws.

        It finally appears that the various points of national policy discussed by our public men of the North and South, having been successively disposed of by the popular voice, the politicians of the North, in spite of compromises, thought fit to re-open the abstract question of slavery, in 1854.

HISTORY OF
ABOLITIONISM IN THE NORTHERN STATES.

        AGGRESSIONS OF THE ABOLITIONISTS AND FANATICS OF THE NORTH ON THE
RIGHTS AND PROPERTY OF THE SOUTH, SHOWING THE CAUSES
THAT LED TO THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.

        Abolitionism, under the guise of philanthropic reform, has pursued its course with energy, boldness and unrelenting bitterness, until it has grown from "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand" into the dimensions of the tempest which is to-day lowering over the land, charged with the elements of destruction. Commencing with a pretended love for the black race, it has arrived at a stage of restless, uncompromising fanaticism, which will be satisfied with nothing short of the consummation of its wildest hopes. It has become the grand question of the day at the North--of politics, of ethics, of expediency, of justice, of conscience, and of law, covering the whole field of human society and divine government.

        In this view of the subject, and in view also of the surrounding circumstances of the country, which have their origin in this agitation, we give below a history of abolitionism from the period it commenced to exist, as an active element in the affairs of the nation, down to the present moment.

ABOLITIONISTS AND THEIR OBJECTS.

        The real ultra abolitionists, who comprise the larger body of the people of the North--the "reformers," in the language of Henry Clay, are "resolved to persevere at all hazards, and without regard to any consequences, however calamitous they may be. With them, the rights of property are nothing; the deficiency of the powers of the

general government is nothing; the acknowledged and incontestable powers of the States are nothing; civil war, a dissolution of the Union, and the overthrow of a government, in which are concentrated the fondest hopes of the civilised world, are nothing. they are for the immediate abolition of slavery, the prohibition of the removal of slaves from State to State, and the refusal to admit any new State comprising within its limits the institution of domestic slaves--all these being but so many means conducive to the accomplishment of the ultimate end at which they avowedly and boldly aim--so many short stages, as it were, in the long and bloody road to the distant goal at which they would ultimately arrive. Their purpose is abolition, 'peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must.' "

        Utterly destitute of constitutional, or other rightful power; living in totally distinct communities, as alien to the communities in which the subject on which they would operate resides, as far as concerns political power over that subject, as if they lived in Asia or Africa, they nevertheless promulgate to the world their purpose to immediately convert, without compensation, four millions of profitable and contented slaves into four millions of burdensome and discontented negroes.

        This idea, which originated, and still generally prevails, in New England, is the result of that puritanical frenzy which has always characterized that section of the country, and made it the natural breeding-ground of the most absurd "isms" ever concocted. The Puritans of to-day are not less fanatical than were the Puritans of two centuries ago. In fact, they have progressed, rather than retrograded. Their god then was the angry, wrathful, jealous god of the Jews--the Supreme Being, now, is the creation of their own intellects, proportioned in dimensions to the depth and fervor of their individual understandings. Then, the Old Testament was their rule of faith. Now, neither old nor new, except in so far as it accords with their consciences, is worth the paper upon which it is written. Their creeds

are begotten of themselves, and their high-priests are those who best represent their peculiar "notions." The same spirit which, in the days of Robespierre and Marat, abolished the Lord's day and worshipped Reason, in the person of a harlot, yet survives to work other horrors. In this age, however, and in a community like the present, a disguise must be worn; but it is the old threadbare advocacy of human rights, which the enlightenment of the age condemns as impracticable. The decree has gone forth which strikes at God, by striking at all subordination and law, and under the specious cry of reform, it is demanded that every pretended evil shall be corrected, or society become a wreck--that the sun must be stricken from the heavens if a spot is found upon his disc.

        The abolitionist is a practical atheist. In the language of one of their congregational ministers--Rev. Henry Wright, of Massachusetts:

        "The God of humanity is not the God of slavery. If so, shame upon such a God. I scorn him. I will never bow to his shrine; my head shall go off with my hat when I take it off to such a God as that. If the Bible sanctions slavery, the Bible is a self-evident falsehood. And, if God should declare it to be right, I would fasten the chain upon the heel of such a God, and let the man go free. Such a God is a phantom."

        The religion of the people of New England is a peculiar morality, around which the minor matters of society arrange themselves like ferruginous particles around a load-stone. All the elements obey this general law. Accustomed to doing as it pleases, New England "morality" has usually accomplished what it has undertaken. It has attacked the Sunday mails, assaulted Free Masonry, triumphed over the intemperate use of ardent spirits, and finally engaged in an onslaught upon the slavery of the South. Its channels have been societies, meetings, papers, lectures, sermons, resolutions, memorials, protests, legislation, private

discussion, public addresses; in a word, every conceivable method whereby appeal may be brought to mind. Its spirit has been agitation!--and its language, fruits, and measures, have partaken throughout of a character that is thoroughly warlike.

        "In language no element ever flung out more defiance of authority, contempt of religion, or authority to man. As to agency, no element on earth has broken up more friendships and families, societies and parties, churches and denominations, or ruptured more organizations, political, social, or domestic. And as to measures! What spirit of man ever stood upon earth with bolder front and wielded fiercer weapons? Stirring harrangues! Stern resolutions! Fretful memorials! Angry protests! Incendiary pamphlets at the South! Hostile legislation at the North! Underground railroads at the West! Resistance to the Constitution! Division of the Union! Military contribution! Sharpe's rifles! Higher law! If this is not belligerence enough, Mohammed's work and the old Crusades were an appeal to argument and not to arms."

        It is a very common error that the Puritans persecuted themselves for opinion's sake, sought liberty of conscience in the wilderness of America, and there erected its altar. To Sir George Calvert belongs the imperishable glory of first establishing a government of which universal toleration and religious freedom were the chief foundation stones. It is a remarkable fact that the same spot--the shores of Maryland--which-was thus embalmed in the affections of freemen, should, after the lapse of a little more than two centuries and a quarter, be the first territory of the great republic desecrated by the foot of the tyrant, and the extinction of political and civil liberty.

        It is true that the Puritans fled from England on account of violent opposition, amounting to persecution. In thus expatriating these schismatics, the English of that day, as subsequent developments have demonstrated, exhibited a

thorough insight into the nature and tendencies of their principles and character. One of their first acts, after their colony had assumed some form and substance, was the establishment of a spiritual despotism and religious intolerance as cruel and relentless as the Roman Inquisition in Spain. Professing to be themselves religious refugees, they denounced a dreary banishment against all heretics and non-conformists. Every student of American history is familiar with the sad but ever-glorious story of Roger Williams. He was a fugitive from the persecutions of the old world, but, unlike his fellow-sufferers, comprehended the nature and wrong of intolerance, and proposed the true remedy. He taught that "the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion; should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul." He contended for the abolition of all laws punishing non-conformists, requiring the performance of religious duties, enforcing pecuniary contributions to the support of the church; and that equal protection should be extended to every religious belief--the peace of the State, like the vital fluid we breathe, surrounding and gathering alike over mosque, synagogue, cathedral, and the humble "house of God" of the Protestant, securing to their respective worshippers unmolested sanctity of conscience. For holding and advocating these just and truly sublime doctrines, now fully recognized and enforced by the free Constitution of the Confederate States, this "young minister, godly and zealous, having precious gifts," and whose opinions and teachings we have given in almost the identical language of a Yankee historian, was most cruelly persecuted by the Puritans, and forced to hide himself in the recesses of the howling wilderness "in winter snow and inclement weather, of which he remembered the severity even in his late old age." "Often," says Bancroft, "in the stormy night he had neither fire, nor food, nor company; often he wandered without a guide, and had no house but a hollow tree." The savage of the forest, more tolerant than these narrow bigots, and who knew not his

God at all, kindly rescued him from the dread doom to which he had been consigned, to find a new home, and found a new State, by the undisturbed waters of the Narragansett. Mrs. Hutchinson, a most pure and excellent woman, for the same crime, suffered the same miserable persecutions. There is no more infallible criterion of the tone of a people than the position occupied by the weaker sex. Gallantry was the guiding-star of returning light in the mediæval ages. Devotion to women makes gentlemen. And where gentlemen inhabit, there woman "rules the court, the camp, the grove;" her refined presence elevates him above his more grovelling nature; and in return he is in every truth her slave, and with life and limb and manly honor devoted to her service. The historical fact which we last mentioned, therefore, truly illustrates Yankee character. Heavens! what a spectacle! A horde of mean-spirited, whining Yankees pelting a shivering, defenceless woman into a rigorous exile, for entertaining a peculiar opinion, or not conforming to some rite of public worship. And with what unutterable indignation does the Southern blood boil at the hanging of Mary Dyer, simply because she was a Quaker. This was her only offence. She died, and died upon the gallows, because she held a faith different from those people who had devoted themselves a sacrifice on the altar of religious liberty. The ferocious and bloody fanaticism of the witchcraft persecutions is too revolting for statement. It is enough to recur to it.

                         And what man, seeing this,
                         And having human feelings, does not blush,
                         And hang his head, to think himself a man."

        Glance for a moment at the Puritans in power in the colony of Maryland, in the year 1676. We have already alluded to the fact that the Roman Catholics had there established perfect freedom of conscience, and opened an asylum for the persecuted and proscribed of every faith. Availing themselves of this liberality of religious jurisprudence, many Puritans from New England entered the

colony, and in the course of a revolution, in the year we have named, mounted into political power. The earliest exercise of sovereignty by this new and godly regime was an edict prohibiting the freedom of public worship to all papists and prelatists. Here we see manifested the same despicable spirit that now animates the Lincoln government. Indeed, the Yankee is the same animal in all ages, and in all situations. He is "universal."

        The great fathers of the State were convinced that the heterogeneous peoples, whom they had bound together, would not long dwell in peace. Washington sincerely desired the perpetuation of the Union, but he died in the belief that, in the course of time, his tomb would become the exclusive property of the South. And John Adams, perhaps the next man to Alexander Hamilton, among the Northern patriots, had a clear and unclouded vision of the great rupture, though he was somewhat deceived as to its proximity to his own day. The following passage from Mr. Jefferson's diary, presents the views of Mr. Adams upon this subject, and is also interesting as another illustration of the supreme meanness of Yankee sentiment, even in its most exalted type.

        "December the 30th, 1803. The Rev. Mr. Coffin, of New England, who is now here, soliciting donations for a college in Green county, in Tennessee, tells me that when he first determined to engage in this enterprise, he wrote a paper, recommendatory of the enterprise, which he meant to get signed by clergymen, and a similar one for persons in a civil character, at the head of which he wished Mr. Adams to put his name, he being then President, and the application going only for his name, and not for a donation. Mr. Adams, after reading the paper and considering, said 'he saw no possibility of continuing the union of the States; that their dissolution must necessarily take place; that he, therefore, saw no propriety in recommending to New England men to promote a literary institution in the South; that it was, in fact, giving strength to those who were to be

their enemies, and therefore he would have nothing to do with it."

        What was philanthropy in our forefathers has become misanthropy in their descendants, and compassion for the slave has given way to malignity against the master. Consequences are nothing. The one idea pre-eminent above all others is abolition!

        It is worthy of notice in this connection that most abolitionists know little or nothing of slavery and slaveholders beyond what they have learned from excited, caressed, and tempted fugitives, or from a superficial, accidental, or prejudiced observation. From distorted facts, gross misrepresentations, and frequently malicious caricatures, they have come to regard Southern slaveholders as the most unprincipled men in the universe, with no incentive but avarice, no feeling but selfishness, and no sentiment but cruelty.

        Their information is acquired from discharged seamen, runaway slaves, agents, factious politicians, and scurrilous tourists; and no matter how exaggerated may be the facts, they never fail to find willing believers among this class of people.

        In the Church, the missionary spirit with which the men of other times and nobler hearts intended to embrace all, both bond and free, has been crushed out. New methods of Scriptural interpretation have been discovered, under which the Bible brings to light things of which Jesus Christ and his disciples had no conception. Assemblings for divine worship have been converted into occasions for the secret dissemination of incendiary doctrines, and thus a common suspicion has been generated of all Northern agency in the diffusion of religious instruction among the slaves. Of the five broad, beautiful bands of Christianity thrown around the North and the South--Presbyterian, old school and new, Episcopalian, Methodist, and Baptist, to say nothing of the divisions of Bible, tract, and missionary societies--three are already ruptured--and whenever an anniversary brings together the various delegates of these

organizations, the sad spectacle is presented of division, wrangling, vituperation, and reproach, that gives to religon and its professors any thing but that meekness of spirit with which it is wont to be invested.

        Politically, the course of abolition has been one of constant aggression upon the South.

        At the time of the Old Confederation, the amount of territory owned by the Southern States was 647,202 square miles; and the amount owned by the Northern States, 164,081. In 1783, Virginia ceded to the United States, for the common benefit, all her immense territory northwest of the river Ohio. In 1787, the Northern States appropriated it to their own exclusive use, by passing the celebrated ordinance of that year, whereby Virginia and all her sister States were excluded from the benefits of the territory. This was the first in the series of aggressions.

        Again, in April, 1803, the United States purchased from France, for fifteen millions of dollars, the territory of Louisiana, comprising an area of 1,189,112 square miles, the whole of which was slaveholding territory. In 1821, by the passage of the Missouri Compromise, 964,667 square miles of this was converted into free territory.

        Again, by the treaty with Spain, of February, 1819, the United States gained the territory from which the present State of Florida was formed, with an area of 59,268 square miles, and also the Spanish title of Oregon, from which they acquired an area of 341,463 square miles. Of this cession, Florida only has been allowed to the Southern States, while the balance--nearly six-sevenths of the whole--was appropriated by the North.

        Again, by the Mexican cession, was acquired 526,078 square miles, which the North attempted to appropriate under the pretence of the Mexican laws, but which was prevented by the measures or the Compromise of 1850. Of slave territory cut off from Texas, there have been 44,662 square miles.

        To sum this up, the total amount of territory acquired under the Constitution has been, by the

• Northwest cession . . . . . 286,681 square miles.
• Louisiana cession . . . . . 1,189,112 square miles.
• Florida and Oregon cession . . . . . 400,731 square miles.
• Mexican cession . . . . . 626,078 square miles.
• Total . . . . . 2,402,602 square miles.

        Of all this territory, the Southern States have been permitted to enjoy only 283,713 square miles, while the Northern States have been allowed 2,083,889 square miles, or between seven and eight times more than has been allowed to the South.

        The following are some of the invasions that have been, from time to time, proposed upon the Constitution, in the halls of Congress, by these agitators:

        1. That the clause allowing the representation of three-fifths of the slaves shall be obliterated from the Constitution; or, in other words, that the South, already in a vast and increasing minority, shall be still further reduced in the scale of insignificance, and thus, on every attempted usurpation of her rights, be far below the protection of even a Presidential veto.

        Next has been demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, in the forts, arsenals, navy yards and other public establishments of the United States. What object have the abolitionists had for raising all this clamor about a little patch of soil ten miles square, and a few inconsiderable places, thinly scattered over the land--a mere grain of sand upon the beach--unless it be to establish the precedent of Congressional interference, which would enable them to make a wholesale incursion upon the conttitutional rights of the South, and to draln from the vast ocean of alleged national guilt its last drop? Does any one suppose that a mere microscopic concession like this would alone appease a conscience wounded and lacerated by the "sin of slavery?"

        Another of these aggressions is that which was proposed under the pretext of regulating commerce between the States--namely, that no slave, for any purpose and under any circumstances whatever, shall be carried by his lawful owner from one slaveholding State to another; or, in other words, that where slavery now is there it shall remain forever, until, by its own increase, the slave population shall outnumber the white race, and thus by a united combination of causes--the fears of the master, the diminution in value of his property, and the exhausted condition of the soil--the final purposes of fanaticism may be accomplished.

        Still another in the series of aggressions, was that attempted by the Wilmot Proviso, by which Congress was called upon to prohibit every slaveholder from removing with his slaves into the territory acquired from Mexico--a territory as large as the old thirteen States originally composing the Union. It appears to have been forgotten that whether slavery be admitted upon one foot of territory or not, it cannot affect the question of its sinfulness in the slighest degree, and that if every nook and corner of the national fabric were open to the institution, not a single slave would be added to the present number, or that, if excluded, their number would not be a single one the less.

        We might also refer to the armed and bloody opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, to the passage of Personal Liberty Bills, to political schemes in Congress and out, and to systematic agitation everywhere, with a view to stay the progress of the South, contract her political power, and eventually lead, at her expense, if not of the Union itself, to the utter expurgation of this "tremendous national sin."

        In short, the abolitionists have contributed nothing to the welfare of the slave or of the South. While over one hundred and fifty millions have been expended by slaveholders in emancipation, except in those sporadic cases where the amount was capital invested in self-glorification, the abolitionists have not expended one cent.

        More than this: They have defeated the very objects at which they have aimed. When Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, or some other border State has come so near to the passage of gradual emancipation laws that the hopes of the real friends of the movement seemed about to be realized, abolitionism has stepped in, and, with frantic appeals to the passions of the negroes, through incendiary publications, dashed them to the ground, and producing a reaction throughout the entire community that has crushed out every incipient thought of future manumission.

        Such have been the obvious fruits of abolition. Church, State, and society!--nothing has escaped it. Nowhere pure, nor peaceable, nor gentle, nor easily entreated, nor full of mercy and good fruits; but everywhere forward, scowling, uncompromising and fierce, breaking peace, order and structure, at every step, crushing with its foot what would not bow to its will; defying government, despising the Church, dividing the country, and striking Heaven itself, if it dared to obstruct its progress; purifying, pacifying, promising nothing, but marking its entire pathway by disquiet, schism and ruin.

        We come now to the train of historical facts upon which we rely in proof of the foregoing assertions.

        From what I have already stated, it may be seen that during the colonial existence of this country, African slavery had been introduced and overspread its whole surface. The Southern Colonies had, from the fertility of the soil and the value of their productions, become the most profitable mart for black labor; but the influx gradually outstripped their productive powers, and began, as elsewhere, to inspire the leading men of this section with serious alarm.^*

        * On account of the immense number of slaves imported by the North.

the Southern Colonies were thus suffering, at this early date, both inconvenience and detriment from the blacks who were forced upon them, the Northern or New England Colonies, were driving a brisk and profitable business upon the solitary basis of the African Slave Trade. The principal occupations of these Colonies consisted of Commerce and the Fisheries. The New England ships made the voyage to England with tobacco, rice and other Southern products, and then took in British manufactures for the Gold Coast, which exchanging for blacks, they returned them to the Southern colonies, and reloaded with tobacco, etc., for the North and Europe, as before, thus completing the round voyage. The fisheries employed a considerable number of persons, and the cured fish found sale chiefly in the Catholic countries of Europe, mostly in exchange for coin,^*

        * These were almost the only coins that circulated in those Colonies at that time, and consisted of Joes, Half-Joes, Pistoles, etc.

the excessive flow of blacks into their section, and New England persisting in the importation for the profits of the trade. The South was anxious to stop the Slave Trade and manumit their Blacks, but New England, like the mother country, was not disposed to listen to them, and abandon so lucrative a traffic.

        Mr. Jefferson, of Virginia, seems to have been one of the most earnest advocates of the Southern sentiment. In 1777, being then a member of the Virginia Legislature, he brought in a bill which became a law, "to prevent the importation of slaves." He also proposed a system of general emancipation, as a preliminary to which he introduced a bill to authorize manumission, and this became a law. In these efforts he had the support and sympathy of the slave-holding States, who were overrun with slaves, that returned no adequate remuneration. At this period their numbers reached some 600,000, a part of whom were employed in raising tobacco and rice. The majority of them, however, were occupied in domestic farm-labor, producing no exportable values. Hence there was no profit in slavery at the South, while at the North it was even a greater burden. Massachusetts found it so unproductive that, in 1780, she abolished it in her own borders, but she did not cease for that reason to force it, by her importations, on the South.

        In the Congress of the Confederation, the views of the North and South on the subject of slavery, founded on interests so antagonistic, frequently came into collision. It was at this epoch, too, that Virginia, Georgia and other Southern States ceded to the Federal Government for the common benefit of all the States, their immense Western Territories. All the States were then slave-holding, and the idea that a man could not hold his slaves in any part of the territory of the United Stares, had never yet been broached. On the contrary, the right to carry them every-where was undoubted. The policy of Virginia, however, was manumission; and Mr. Jefferson, in 1784, prepared in the Congress of the Confederation a clause preventing

slaves being carried into the said territories ceded to the United States, north of the Ohio river. This was a part of the Southern scheme of manumission, which was meant as a check to the trading in Negro slaves, carried on by Massachusetts with unabated activity. This clause did not pass at the time, but in 1787, it was renewed by Nathan Dane, in the Federal Convention. The clause enjoining the restitution of fugitive slaves was then added and it passed unanimously. By a unanimous vote, it became a vital part of the Federal Constitution, and without it, this compact could never have gone into effect. The slave trade carried on by the North became also the theme of much sharp discussion in the Convention. The North was not disposed, of course, to give it up, but with the South it had become an intolerable grievance. They had long and earnestly protested against it when carried on by the mother country, but their minds were now made up to break with the North rather than submit further to this traffic. The North then demanded compensation for the loss of this very thriving trade, and the South readily conceded it by granting them the monopoly of the coasting and carrying trade against all foreign tonnage. In this way it was settled that the Slave Trade should be abolished after 1808.^*

        * In corroboration of the above, I append the following extract from the sermon of Rev. Dr. N. Adams, of the Essex Street Church, Boston, delivered on Fast Day, January 4, 1861:

        "We at the North are certainly responsible before God for the existence of slavery in our land. The Committee of the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, consisted of Messrs. Rutledge, of South Carolina, Randolph, of Virginia, and three from the Free States, viz: "Messrs. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, Gorham, of Massachusetts, and Ellsworth, of Connecticut. They reported, as a section for the Constitution, that no tax or other duty should be laid on the migration or importation of such persons as the several States should think proper to admit; not that such migration or importation should be prohibited. This was referred by the Convention to a committee, a majority of whom being from the Slave States, they reported that the Slave Trave be abolished after 1800, and that a tax be levied on imported slaves. But in the Convention, the Free States of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, voted to extend the trade eight years, and it was accordingly done; by means of which it is estimated there are now at least three hundred thousand more slaves in the country than there would otherwise have been."

clause, the South would never have consented to enter into a Confederacy with the North. The Federal Constitution, with these essential clauses, having passed into operation, it became, henceforth, a certainty that the Slave Trade would finally expire in the United States at the close of 1808. This left it still a duration of nineteen years, and the North seemed determined to reap the utmost possible advantage from the time remaining. The Duke de Rochefoucault-Liancourt, in his work on the United States, 1795, states that "twenty vessels from the harbors of the North are engaged in the importation of slaves into Georgia; they ship one negro for every ton burden." Thus we see, that while New England was vigorously engaged in buying and selling negro slaves, Virginia, on the other hand, was steadfastly pursuing her theory of manumission.

        In 1793, Congress, on the recommendation of President Washington, passed an act to put in force the clause of the Constitution enjoining the restoration of fugitive slaves. It seems evident they were regarded by the Constitution in the light of property only. It likewise provided for taxing them, and ordained that three-fifths of their number should be a basis of representation. This was, certainly, the view taken by the framers of the Constitution, in their intercourse with foreign nations. John Adams, afterwards President, and Doctor Franklin, signed, in 1783, the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, which contained provision for payment of "Slaves and other Property" carried away during the war. These Treaties were examined and approved by the Government, composed also of the very men who had taken the leading part in drafting the Constitution. In the Treaty of Peace at Ghent, in 1815, the

same clause recurred, and the British Government paid a million and a half of dollars for slaves that had been carried off by the enemy. The accounts of Hon. Richard Rush, when Secretary of the Treasury, contain the various sums paid by the United States Government to the "Owners of Slaves and other Property." Our Government has also made frequent demands for the payment of Slave property since the Peace. Some twenty years since, the American Minister, Mr. Andrew Stevenson, conducted a negotiation with England for the payment of sundry slaves that had been cast ashore from wrecked American vessels, and set free by the authorities of Bermuda. The demand was finally acknowledged, and the sum of £23,500 was paid as an indemnity. In a word, the action of the Federal Government has been uniform and consistent in asserting and protecting the rights of our slave-owners against all foreign Powers. The right to this property has been just as positively recognized in our domestic relations. In all the State Conventions held to discuss the Federal Constitution prior to adopting it, the right of property in slaves was never contested. The law at that time for recovering that property was of a summary nature. The owner might seize his property wherever he found it, and on making an affidavit before a Federal Judge, a warrant was issued for the removal of it. There was no provision for trial by jury, or for writ of habeas corpus, which would be indispensable if black slaves were considered as persons.

        In 1797, John Adams, who signed the Treaty of Peace, and was the leader of the New England or Federal party, succeeded Washington in the Presidential chair. At this period the Slavery question was frequently agitated by the Democratic party of the South, with a view to its modification. In 1800, January 2, Mr. Waln, of Philadelphia, presented a petition to Congress, from the free blacks of Philadelphia, praying for a revision of the Fugitive Slave Law. On this occasion, Mr. Harrison Gray Otis, a leader of the Federal party, thus expressed himself: "Although he possessed

no slaves himself," he said, "yet he saw no reason why others might not; and that their owners and not Congress, were not the fittest persons to regulate that species of property." Mr. Brown, of Rhode Island, on the same occasion, declared that the petition was not from negroes, but was the contrivance of a combination of Jacobins, (meaning the Democratic party) who had troubled Congress for many years, and he feared would never cease to do so. He therefore moved that the petition be taken away by those who had brought it there. The motion being supported by Messrs. Gallatin, Dana, and other Northern members, the petition was withdrawn. In this debate, the Northern members who represented the slave-trading interests, naturally adhered to the property in blacks, although the new doctrine of the British Abolitionists began to make converts in this country, outside of the body of Quakers, who had always opposed slavery.

        It may be as well to remark here, that it does not appear any laws were ever enacted in Great Britain authorizing the trading in, or possession of black slaves as property. Nevertheless, that they were so regarded, is evident from the opinion of the Eleven Crown Judges, given in pursuance of an Order in Council, and in consequence of which the Navigation Act was extended to the Slave Trade, to the exclusion of Aliens. The laws by which England allowed the holding of slaves, extended, of course, to the Colonies; and all those of North America held slaves, without any special enactments for that purpose. The right was inherent, like that to any property; and when the separation of the Colonies from the mother country took place, that legal right, like the Common Law of England, survived the Revolution, and remained in force in all parts of the country.

        It is claimed by the anti-slavery party that slavery exists by local law only, and cannot exist out of the State sanctioning it. Whereas, it is maintained by their opponents that it originally existed all over the land, whether as Colonies

or States, and that it required a special law to exclude it. This fact is beyond cavil.^*

        * Among other authorities on this question of the day, may be cited that of Chief Justice Parker, of Massachusetts, the leading Abolition State. In 2 Pickering, he says: "We thus, in making the Constitution, entered into an agreement that slaves should be considered as property," etc.

        To return to the record of events. During Mr. Jefferson's first term of office, the State of Virginia proposed to the Federal Government that the proceeds of the public lands that had been ceded to it should be appropriated to the manumission and removal of slaves, with the sanction of the respective States. This movement was not successful.

        It is necessary to notice two very important events that occurred during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, which wholly changed the destiny of black slavery in the United States. The first was the invention of the cotton-gin, which gave great additional value to this staple, and hence opened a broader field to the employment of the Blacks. The next was the purchase of Louisiana, which added new and valuable territory to the South and its special products. These two events revolutionized completely the value of slave labor in the South, and the Blacks, instead of continuing a burden, as hitherto, became henceforward a source of profit.

        On the other hand, the approaching termination of the Slave Trade, which had profitably employed for so many years the commercial interests of New England, rendered that section not only indifferent to the prolongation of slavery, but even out of chagrin from having been forced by the opposition of the South to give it up, they began to

nourish a species of spite against it, and which has since manifested itself with uninterrupted bitterness.

        The cessation of the Slave Trade, and the purchase of Louisiana, both of which were so distasteful to the North, were followed, as already stated, by the Embargo Act, in Mr. Jefferson's administration; and all this together, gave nearly a quietus to the commercial interests of New England. The exasperation which followed these measures, that seemed to threaten ruin to this section, led shortly to a desire to break up the Confederacy. In February, 1809, the Governor-General of Canada, Craig, deputed his agent, John Henry, to go to Boston and treat with the leading Federalists there; and by the arrangement then made, Massachusetts was to declare itself independent, and invite a Congress to erect a separate Government. Mr. John Q. Adams, Ex-President, in a letter to Mr. Otis, 1828, states that the plan had been so far matured, that proposals had been made to a certain individual to put himself at the head of the military organization. These schemes went on until they resulted in the Hartford Convention, 1814, where the subject of a Northern Confederacy, in all its bearings, underwent discussion. The sentiment of the North at that time may be seen in the party cry: "The Potomac for a boundary--The Negro States to themselves." This was the favorite phrase of the day all over the Eastern States. The peace with Great Britain soon afterwards occurred, and the stimulus this gave to business of all kinds, together with the conciliatory conduct, as stated of Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, diverted New England from her resolute menace to break up the Union.

        While this irritation was still lingering in the Northern mind a bill was introduced into Congress, 1818, to authorize the people of Missouri to form a Constitution, preparatory to admission into the Union. This territory was a portion of that same Louisiana whose purchase had been so vehemently resisted by New England. During its ownership by Spain, and afterwards by France, slavery had

existed in the whole of this territory, and it remained undisturbed after it its purchase by the United States; nevertheless its admission into the Union as a slave State, was violently opposed by the Eastern States. An ardent political struggle ensued that threatened the safety of the Confederacy, but which was, finally, allayed by admitting Missouri as a slave State, but on condition that no more Slave States should exist north of the 36° 30 parallel of latitude. This is the well-known Missouri Compromise. It was at this time, also, that the slave trade was declared to be piracy, and punishable with death.

        Meanwhile, slavery had become so manifestly unprofitable at the North that most of these States abolished it. New York did so in 1826, and many other States, even Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, were moving in the same direction. New Jersey, Ohio and Delaware passed resolutions desiring Congress to appropriate the proceeds of the public lands to the manumission of slaves, with the consent of the slave States. In 1825, Rufus King; of New York, made the same proposition in Congress, where it had been originally introduced by Virginia. At this period, in the Southern States, the utmost favor was extended to Emancipation. Societies for this purpose were formed to co-operate with the Colonization Society, then in full vigor, and whose object was to free blacks and transport them to Liberia. In March, 1825, Virginia passed an act to furnish the Colonists in Liberia, under the direction of the "Richmond and Manchester (England) Colonization Society," with implements of husbandry, clothing, etc. The emancipation of blacks to be sent to Liberia, were frequent all over the Southern States, and on a liberal scale. Alabama, Louisiana and Missouri passed laws prohibiting slaves to be brought within their borders for sale, and further enacting that those brought in by settlers should not be sold under two years.

        The sentiment of Emancipation was making steady progress; but, at the same time, a decided repugnance to free

blacks began to manifest itself. Ohio, Illinois, and other Northwestern States, forbade by law free blacks coming into the State, under any pretence; and a white person who brought one in, was required to give bonds in $500. They were not regarded as citizens of the United States, and from their idle habits, were considered as a nuisance everywhere. The Southern States also enacted that free blacks arriving there as seamen, should be under surveilance while in port. In consequence of this general antipathy to free blacks, and in view of the difficulty of deporting them, Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, proposed in Congress, 1825, to set off the territory west of the Rocky Mountains as a Colony for free blacks. This effort failed; but all the leading statesmen of the South, Mr. Mangum, Mr. McDuffie, etc., urged the adoption of some scheme of emancipation.

        About this time a new movement was initiated in New England. The doctrine of Abolition was then at the zenith of its popularity in England, where it was already proposed to transplant it to our Southern States, which would then be converted into a great free black cotton-growing country. This utterly impracticable idea was seized upon by various individuals of the New England States, who forthwith began to sow the seeds of agitation, It is impossible to attribute to them any very philanthropic motive; for only twenty years had elapsed since Massachusetts had been forced to give up her slave trading, and it is not at all credible that the tastes thus acquired should, in so short a time have been supplanted by so ardent a love for the negro of the South as to desire his manumission at the risk of breaking up the Confederacy. No; it really looked more like the renewed expression of that old grudge which the Eastern States have for so many years nourished against the South.

        In 1828, a Mr. Arthur Tappan subscribed, with the aid of friends in Boston, sufficient funds to establish a newspaper in New York, called the "Journal of Commerce," whose object was to promote the borrowed English theory

of Abolition. Its editor was a certain David Hale, an auctioneer of Boston, and a teacher in the Presbyterian Sunday-school there. At the same juncture, the Baltimore "Genius of Emancipation" fell into the hands of another Abolition, named W. Lloyd Garrison. This individual was the grandson of what was known as a "Tory" during our Revolutionary War, and who, at the Peace, was compelled to fly the country to Nova Scotia, whence his widowed daughter and her only son returned, some years after, to Boston to seek a livelihood. The young Garrison readily caught up the doctrine of Abolition, as most congenial to his English antecedents and education, and set to work with baleful energy to urge its propagation, fraught with so many dangers to the country of his adoption. On assuming the editorship of the Baltimore paper, he instantly assailed both Colonization and Emancipation as only obstructions to Abolition, and openly avowed that the Union of the States was equally an obstacle to Abolition. By some it was supposed that this treasonable denunciation of the Union was out of deference to the memory of his Tory grandfather, who had done all he could to prevent it.

        It may easily be imagined that the startling proclamation of such ultra views as these, led rapidly to a complete revolution of feeling at the South. The excitement against Garrison spread far and wide. The Manumission Society of North Carolina demanded his imprisonment, and the State of Georgia set a price upon his head. The emancipation societies at the South began to suspend their operations and to break up. The Baltimore journal mentioned, it was necessary to suppress. The people of the South generally, becoming more and more alarmed at the aggressive attitude of the Abolitionists, began to ponder over some means of defence.

        In the year 1830, the same Garrison founded a new journal in Boston, called "The Liberator," whence he propounded his extreme views in the most extravagant language. In the following year the "New England Anti-Slavery

Society" was formed. This was followed in due course by the "American Anti-Slavery Society," under the leadership of Messrs. Garrison, Tappan and Birney. The Sunday-schools of the Eastern States became active coadjutors in the same cause. These societies adopted precisely the same tactics as their British prototypes. They circulated tracts and books, full of inflammatory appeals. Highly-colored engravings, too, representing the blacks undergoing every kind of torture, were distributed for those who could not read. These were meant more especially to excite the blacks at the South, and were sent through the mails. These proceedings were considered, at the time so dangerous to the peace of the community and to the integrity of the Union, that popular indignation frequently broke out into riot. In New York, in 1832, the dwelling of Arthur Tappan and the church of Dr. Cox were both demolished by a mob. Many influential citizens sanctioned these violent demonstrations of public feeling, and the well-known Editor of the "Courier and Enquirer," Mr. James Watson Webb boasted of his share in this vindication of Southern rights.^*

        The Abolitionists of Boston, meanwhile, continued their operations with all the ardor of their puritanical descent. Garrison was sent to England, to obtain funds by the Anti-slavery societies; and in 1834 he returned home with Mr. George Thompson, a Member of Parliament at that time, and an Abolition lecturer. This led to so violent an outcry, that Thompson, alarmed for his safety, went back to England. A new mode of excitement was then devised by the Abolitionists, who got up a clamor against South Carolina for detaining free Blacks who came into her ports. Massachusetts claimed that free blacks were her citizens, and that as such they had a right to go to South Carolina;

but as she made no complaint against Ohio, Illinois and other States who also excluded free blacks, it was evident that she sought a quarrel with South Carolina, for the very purpose of spreading the Abolition infection.

        A Mr. Hoar was sent by Massachusetts as an agent to Charleston to make a formal complaint of her alleged grievance, and, as was anticipated, Mr. Hoar was summarily dismissed. Upon this the Abolitionists professed great indignation, and the Legislature was appealed to for a measure of retaliation, which was soon got up under the title of a "Personal Liberty Bill," which was designed, under a transparent plea, to obstruct the restoration of fugitive blacks.

        Up to this time, Abolition had been discussed merely as a moral question, but the agitation had gained such strength among its unsuspecting converts, that it was thought high time by its designing leaders to carry it into the political arena, where they anticipating making it a stepping-stone to power and emolument.

        It will be seen in the sequel that these ingenious schemers were doomed to disappointment, and that the spolia optima of the agitation they began were destined to be gathered by the hand of the professional politician, leaving but "a barren sceptre in their gripe."

        In 1838, the Abolition party was too weak and too ignorant of political strategy to dare to take the field in person; therefore, they began coquetting with the prominent politicians of the day. Mr. Marcy and Mr. Seward were, at that time, the candidates of the two rival parties for Governor of the State of New York, and perhaps the two most influential men of the North. The occasion was the opportune by Messrs. Smith and Jay, the New York sponsors for the untoward bantling of Abolition to put these gentlemen to the test. It happened that there existed a statute in New York, called the "Sojournment Law, which allowed a slaveholder to bring his black servant with him, and remain there nine months, without prejudice to his rights;

for it had been decided in the Federal Courts that a slave taken voluntarily into a free State could not be recovered. When Mr. Seward was interrogated in relation to this law, he sustained it as "a becoming act of hospitality to Southern visitors." Mr. Marcy made no reply. Mr. Seward, however, changed his views afterwards on this subject, and refused in 1840, while Governor, to restore a fugitive slave on the requisition of Virginia.

        The evil results of this sectional issue were foreseen by many States; and among others, Ohio, in 1840, passed resolutions in her Legislature, to the effect that "Slavery was an institution recognized by the Constitution," and that the unlawful, unwise and unconstitutional interference of the fanatical abolitionists of the North with the institutions of the South were highly criminal. The violent proceedings of the Northern Abolitionists did not escape the attention of the South, where they created not only alarm, but aroused a deep and natural feeling of indignation. The change of sentiment that had occurred may be seen in an act of the State of Alabama, to the effect that "all free Blacks remaining in the State after August 1, 1840, should be enslaved."

        At the very close of 1839, a handful of Abolitionists met in Warsaw, N. Y., and decided formally to transform their doctrine from a moral into a political question; and they set to work at once on a political organization. Determined to eschew any affiliation with the parties of the day, they selected one of their own band, Mr. Birney, as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. It was now evident to all dispassionate observers, that the motives of the founders of Abolition were not so much the emancipation of the blacks, as their own elevation to place and power. It is clear enough the North regarded them with just suspicion at that day, for in the Federal election of 1840, Birney received but 7,000 votes.

        The agitation of the Slavery question received a new stimulus at this period, from the discussions awakened by a revolt of Texas. This fine country had once formed

part of Louisiana, was ceded by France to Spain, and then became a part of Mexico. In 1836, an insurrection, headed by Americans, broke out, and was soon followed by the independence of Texas. Speculations now ran high in the price of her lands, and the project was broached of re-annexing her to the United States. The celebrated Daniel Webster, among others, favored this scheme; but he was afterwards induced to change his views and oppose it. Just as in the case of Louisiana, in 1805, the New England States resisted the Annexation of Texas, during the Presidency of Mr. Tyler, on the same pretext of extending slavery, but on the real ground of jealousy of the South. The leading politicians of the day were sorely embarrassed whether to support Annexation or not; and by opposing it, Mr. Clay lost his election in 1844; and for the same reason, Mr. Van Buren failed to obtain his renomination by the Democratic party. The difficulty was terminated by the admission of Texas, March 3, 1845, but on the agreement that four States should be formed out of the Territory besides the one existing, and that the States so formed south of the line 36° 30' should be admitted with or without slavery, as their inhabitants should decide, but that slavery should not exist north of that line.^*

        A temporary lull followed; but the slavery question was soon again evoked to gratify a political grudge. The rejection of Mr. Van Buren as the Democratic candidate in 1844, by Southern influence, in consequence of his opposition to Texas, led him, from motives of irritation, to raise up a new party in New York, on the cry of "Free Soil, or no more Slave States." This act was a violation of the agreement made with the South on the admission of Texas, and was frowned upon by the Democratic party; but the

issue started by Mr. Van Buren was successful enough to divide the party in the State of New York, and to give the election to the Northern party. This incensed and alarmed the South, who were at last pacified by the Compromise measures of 1850, which, however, were stoutly opposed by Mr. W. H. Seward, who had become already the chosen and wily representative of the anti-slavery sentiments of the North.

        I may as well observe here, what I have already stated elsewhere, that the politicians of the North found themselves in the sad predicament of having no political principles to advocate. The settlement of the Tariff question in '46, on the demand of the commercial interests of the North, left them wholly destitute of any policy by which they might hope to ride into power. Under these circumstances, it was natural they should follow with a wistful eye the labors of the Abolitionists, who had certainly succeeded in working up the feelings of the North to a lively pitch of excitement on Southern slavery. They were not, of course, disposed to borrow the extreme views of these zealots, which were wholly incompatible with the existence of the Union; but they thought they might venture to utilize to their advantage the anti-slavery sentiments that had been so skilfully aroused. They set about this very adroitly by raising a cry against extending slave territory, which it was supposed would please the susceptibilities of the North, and not too much exasperate the South. Thus we find that eminent politician, Mr. Seward, already at work in 1850, sowing the seeds of the new anti-slavery party of the North, by opposing the healing policy of Mr. Clay, on the ground of its fostering slavery and increasing its area.

        One of the prominent measures of the Compromise of 1850, was the new Fugitive Slave Law, which Daniel Webster declared to be far more favorable to the blacks than that recommended by Washington in 1787. Yet it was seized upon by the cunning of the anti-slavery politicians to keep up the subsiding agitation, and several of the

Legislatures of the Northern States were induced to pass "Personal Liberty Bills," in imitation of the example set by Massachusetts.

        I must not omit to remark that the Abolitionists still kept on the even tenor of their way, and were as active as ever in promulgating their impracticable theory by secretly circulating tracts, books and pictures, harping on slavery and all its fancied horrors. They still kept possession of the political field, and still hoped to make a ladder of their hobby by which to ascend to power. In 1852, they dropped Mr. Birney, and selected for their Presidential candidate Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire. He received 1 57,000 votes, against the 7,000 thrown for Birney, in 1840.

        Among other ingenious modes of excitement, a discussion was regularly kept alive at the North as to the citizenship of free blacks. Several States bestowed the suffrage upon them, as a practical proof of their right to rank as citizens. This controversy was rather inflamed than otherwise, by a decision of the Federal Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, 1853, which settled that no blacks are citizens of the United States. In 1854, the slavery question re-appeared in Congress, and the action of the North on this occasion was pregnant with serious consequences. Two new territories of the West were pronounced sufficiently occupied to render legislation necessary, and a bill to create a territorial government in Kansas and Nebraska was reported by Mr. Douglas, of Illinois. His bill contained a clause to repeal the famous Missouri line of 36° 30', running south of the territories in question. This line was the basis of compromise in 1820, and was again a means of adjusting the dispute that arose on the admission of Texas in 1845. The constitutionality of this line was, however, more than doubtful, for the reason that Congress never had any power conferred on it by the Constitution to legislate on slavery; nor was it at all necessary, since individual States could retain or exclude slavery, according to their pleasure. Besides, the line in question was really a nullity,

because slavery was so unprofitable to the north of it that it would never be carried there. It was only to the south of this line that the cotton culture made slavery a profit and a necessity. Hence the South made no objection to its repeal, in 1854; but it is difficult to perceive what motive Mr. Douglas could have had in proposing this repeal, unless it was merely to fan the glowing embers of the slavery question.

        No sooner was this Missouri line revoked, than a prompt and significant movement was made in the New England States. Emigrant Aid Societies were formed, as already mentioned; and settlers for Kansas, one of the territories just organized, were lustily summoned as recruits in the new crusade against slavery, and funds in the way of bounty were liberally distributed. This unusual means to stimulate emigration was designed to secure Kansas as a free State, by obtaining a majority for the Northern people. Such an attempt made with demonstrations of vehement hostility to the South, was sure to provoke anger and resistance. This, of course, was calculated upon by the anti-slavery propaganda, and they were not disappointed. The slave State of Missouri, directly adjoining Kansas, was not disposed to be forestalled, and, as it were, forced out of their legal share to territory in such close proximity; so they did their best to encourage emigration too, but the slaveholders were naturally chary to carry their blacks with them, as they were sure to be tempted away. As a matter of course, it was impossible for the people of the two opposite sections, in their intemperate state of mind, to live long in peace together. Collisions occurred, and occasional loss of life ensued. The Abolitionists were eagerly waiting for some such news as this, for it was rightly anticipated that a conflict, sooner or later, was inevitable.

        When the looked-for intelligence at last arrived, a wild and furious shriek for "bleeding Kansas" vibrated in a thousand echoes through all the valleys of New England. The organs of the Abolitionists teemed with the most discordant

appeals to the passions of the people, and nothing but imprecations of the most startling description, were launched against the "Border Ruffians," as the settlers from Missouri were forthwith christened. Public meetings were called in the Eastern States, and the pulpit soon became a rostrum for clerical agitators. Subscriptions were rapidly set on foot to buy arms and ammunition for the sacred defenders of anti-slavery in Kansas, whose brows were encircled with the halo of martyrdom. Speculators in "Sharpe's rifles" joined in the well-sustained chorus of the Abolitionists, and a considerable profit was the result. At a public meeting in New Haven, a well-known Abolitionist, Rev. H. Ward Beecher, of Brooklyn, and brother of the authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," aided by his presence and language to swell the clamor fast rising in the North. He desired his name to be subscribed for "twenty-five Sharpe's rifles," and announced he would collect the money to pay for them, in his church, the following Sabbath, which was done.

        Such ingenious modes as these, and so skilfully handled, could not fail to excite the sympathies and stir the passions of any community. Ever since 1828, the Abolition party had been laboriously engaged in sapping the mind of the North on the subject of black slavery; nor must it be forgotten that they appealed to something more than its philanthrophy, when they raised the cry of "No more slave territory," which simply meant that all that vast extent of country stretching from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, should be given up to Northern emigration. It was natural, certainly, that so palatable a doctrine should be acceptable at the North; but just as natural that it should be unwelcome at the South, whose equal claims were so unceremoniously ignored.

        The harvest so industriously tilled by the Abolitionists, was now ripe; and the leaders of the old Whig, or Northern party, experienced, astute, and with an organization extending over the entire North, stepped forward, and brushing

from their path the noisy fanatics who had sown the seed, they gathered for their own garners the luxuriant crop of anti-slavery sentiment now sprouting all over the North. They met in convention in Philadelphia, June, 1856, and unfurling the flag of the "Republican Party," made, for the first time, a sectional issue the basis of party action. They selected for their Presidential candidate Mr. John C. Fremont, known in the country as an officer of the army, but without any political antecedents. It was thought judicious not to nominate a politician too closely identified with the anti-slavery movement, lest the possible consequences might alarm the "sober second thought" of the North. Thus accoutred, the Republican party went to the polls, November, 1856, and brought off a vote of 1,334,553. They were defeated by the Democratic party, which was now the only link between North and South; but the Republican leaders felt quite sanguine that, with the tactics their experience would suggest, they would carry off the Presidential prize in 1860. It was thus that the moral question as to the sin of slavery, borrowed from England by our Abolitionists, and kept alive by their address till the North was thoroughly infected by it, was at last, converted into a political question and made party issue:

        The Republican politicians felt a dread, lest the Northern masses, who had conscientiously imbibed the anti-slavery poison, might force them reluctantly to carry their unconstitutional theories into legislation. It is certain they had their misgivings, but there was no alternative. Without a principle or a measure to brandish against their political opponents, there was nothing but to abandon the hope of office, or to do battle with the dangerous arm they had taken from the hands of the Abolitionists. Ambition outweighed patriotism; and during the four years just elapsed, the country has been distracted with the din of the antislavery propaganda. Orators, writers, lecturers, and preachers, have all joined in the melee, and their united efforts were directed to the apotheosis of the negro, and the excommunication

of the slaveholder. Every church, public hall, and hustings through the North, has rung with anathemas against the vilified South; and it is not strange, therefore, that people accustomed to this unbroken strain of vituperation, should begin to believe, at last, that slavery was quite as hideous as it was painted.

        In October, 1859, an event occurred which amazed the whole country. We allude to the invasion of the State of Virginia, by John Brown and his retinue of men. This man Brown had figured in "bleeding Kansas" as a daring ring-leader of the anti-slavery bands that had contended for the mastery there. When these bloody contests subsided, he was reduced to inaction; and he chafed at the loss of the stern excitement congenial to his fierce nature. Whether it was fanaticism or ambition that inspired him, no one can say; but he conceived the horrible project of setting on foot a servile insurrection. Followed by a handful of desperate men, he suddenly entered the State of Virginia, seized the arsenal of the Federal Government, to obtain the arms he needed, and raised the cry of "Freedom to Slaves." To his astonishment, no doubt, the affrighted blacks ran to their masters for protection, and some were shot in seeking to escape. This nefarious attempt was quelled by the arrest of Brown and his confederates, and their subsequent trial and execution.

        One thing was proved by the utter failure of this daring outrage, for it showed that the blacks were contented with their homes, and desired not the emancipation of the sword. Another thing, if not quite so clear, at least looked ominous. This madman, Brown, had been known as an efficient instrument in the hands of the anti-slavery party of New England; and it was, therefore a matter of conjecture at the South how far he was incited to this fearful attempt against their very existence. Had they not some reason to think the act met the approval of the Abolitionists of the North, when 300 bells tolled for the fate of Brown, and

when the organs of the party honored his memory, while affecting to disapprove his conduct?

        This event sunk deep into the mind and heart of the Southern States. They were led to believe, for the first time, that the ultra wing of the Republican party contemplated the confiscation of their property and the destruction of their lives.

        Another incident occurred in the summer of 1860, which deepened their conviction that the Northern States had entered into a dark conspiracy to desolate their land with fire and sword. It was discovered that a book, called the "Impending Crisis," was being secretly circulated all over the North as a "campaign document." The purport of this volume was to show, by assertion, as well as by figures, that the free labor of the North was more profitable than the black labor of the South. The tone of the book was violent in the extreme. We will add a few extracts, which will enable the reader to form a correct opinion of the character and object of the work:

        "Slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and political evil, to be got rid of at the earliest practical period."--(page 168.)

         "Three-quarters of a century hence, if the South retains slavery, which God forbid! she will be to the North what Poland is to Russia, Cuba to Spain, and Ireland to England."--(p. 163.)

         "On our banner is inscribed--No co-operation with Slaveholders in Politics; no Fellowship with them in Religion; no Affiliation with them in Society. No Recognition of Pro-slavery men, except as Ruffians, Outlaws, and Criminals."--(p. 156.)

         "We believe it is, as it ought to be, the desire, the determination, and the destiny of the Republican party to give the death-blow to slavery."--(p. 234.)

         "In any event, come what will, transpire what may, the institution of slavery must be abolished."--(p. 180.)

         "We are determined to abolish slavery at all hazards--in defiance of all the opposition, of whatever nature, it is possible for the Slavocrats to bring against us. Of this they may take due notice, and govern themselves accordingly."--(p. 149.)

         "It is our honest conviction that all the Pro-slavery Slaveholders deserve to be at once reduced to a parallel with the basest criminals that lie fettered within the cells of our public prisons."--(p. 158.)

        "Shall we pat the bloodhounds of slavery? Shall we fee the curs of slavery? Shall we pay the whelps of slavery? No, never."--(p. 329.)

         "Our purpose is as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of heaven; we have determined to abolish slavery, and, so help us God! abolish it we will."--(p. 187.)

        The volume containing the above quotations, not by any means the most bitter, was endorsed by 68 members of Congress of the Republican party, whose names were given for publication. The South, under manifestations like these, felt they had a right to infer that, if a party making such declarations of hostility were elected to power by the North, they must either consent to the early abolition of black slavery, or retain it by seceding from the Union.

        When the British Government emancipated the blacks in her colonies, she acted with the strictest commercial equity; but the book in question repudiates any compensation to the "curs and whelps of slavery." One more extract:

        Now, the writer is ignorant that the South protested for years, first, against the mother country, and, next, against New England, importing slaves within her borders. However, the object of the book was to inflame the mind of the North against the South, and therefore falsehood was just as good as truth.

        In April, 1860, the delegates of the Democratic party met in Convention at Charleston, South Carolina, to make their nomination for the Presidency. The Northern wing of the party proposed Senator Douglas as the most eligible candidate at the North, from his doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty."^*

        * Mr. Douglas proposed giving the people of a Territory the right to retain or exclude slavery, instead of reserving the decision till the Territory was admitted as a State, the practice hitherto.

rupture of the party ensued. The Northern delegates nominated Mr. Douglas, in Baltimore, June 18; and on the same occasion, the Southern delegates nominated Vice-President Breckinridge.

        This schism doubled the chances of the Republican party, which met in convention to select their candidate at Chicago, Illinois, May, 1860. It was generally supposed that Mr. W. H. Seward, the acknowledged leader of the Anti-slavery party at the North, an able and wily statesman, would be its chosen champion in the electoral lists about to open; but, to the surprise of all, an almost unknown politician of the West, Mr. Abraham Lincoln, was selected as its standard-bearer.

        On the 6th of November, 1860, the long agitation on the slavery question, that began in 1803, ended with the election to the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the representative of the Republican party, but which contained within its bowels, like the Trojan horse of old, the armed men of the Abolition party. Shortly after this event, Gov. Andrew, of Massachusetts, declared at a public meeting, that "the election of Mr. Lincoln was only the first step towards forcible emancipation."

RESUME.

        The whole territory of the States, North and South, was originally slaveholding--English, Spanish, and French. Not from any local law, but from the laws of the mother country.

        Slaves were regarded only as property in all the thirteen States that formed the Union; since it would have been a manifest absurdity for the slaveholders who made the Declaration of Independence, to declare "all men were born free and equal," had they not considered their slaves as property.

        In forming the Union, the thirteen slave States conferred upon the Federal Government the power to tax slave property; to protect it from foreigners, as well on the national

territories as at sea, and also from domestic escape; and conferred no other power, either to prohibit or to extend it.

        The North clung to the profits of the Slave Trade as long as possible, and attacked the slave system when they were deprived of those profits.

        The territory that was once all slave, has become free;--1st, by the Ordinance of 1787, prohibiting slaves north of the Ohio; 2d, by eight Northern States abolishing slavery in their borders; 3d, by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, prohibiting slaves north of 36° 30'; 4th, the act admitting Texas re-enacting that line. Thus the North has driven slaves out of half the Territories of the United States, showing a constant and large aggression upon the South.

        The duty of the Government is undoubtedly to protect the property upon the Territories, until people there settled form their own laws.

        The agitation of the slave question grew originally out of the chagrin of New England, at being deprived of the slave trade and its profits. It was prolonged by the mutual irritation that the opposition of Massachusetts to the purchase of Louisiana occasioned.

        Emancipation made steady progress in all the States, until Abolition forced the slaveholders upon the defensive.

        Abolition made little progress, until unscrupulous partisans coquetted with it for party issues.

        The question of the power of the Government to exclude slavery from the Territories, has been blended with the moral question as to the "sin of slavery."

        The cry of "Free Soil" was raised in 1848, by Mr. Van Buren, to avenge his non-nomination by the South, at Baltimore.

        The compromise measures of 1850, were carried by the influence of Henry Clay.

        Violation of these compromises, by the "Personal Liberty Bills" of the Northern States, soon followed.

        Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in 1854.

        Attempt, by the Abolition party, to make Kansas a Free State by force, which was resisted by the South.

        Rise of Republican party, under the lead of Mr. W. H. Seward, and its defeat in 1856.

        Violent agitation of the slavery question at the North, followed by the invasion of Virginia by John Brown, in 1859, and the circulation of the Helper Book, in 1860.

        The theory of a "Higher Law" at the North, to justify resistance to the Constitution and laws of Congress, has begotten the Higher Law of self-preservation at the South, to justify resistance to a dominant party, which embraces the "sin of slavery" among its tenets.

        The Southern States have been for nearly sixty years the object of political persecution by the North, which they have borne with patience and returned with kindness. In 1820, the North entered into a compromise, which has been broken. In 1850 they made new agreements, which have since been violated. In 1860 a legal majority elected a President on the "Platform" that "slavery must be restricted to its present limits." Outraged in our rights, and threatened in our interests, what course is left the South? To fold their arms and await more injury and endure more obloquy? Would this check the aggressions of the North till both North and South were swallowed up in the vortex of ruin? It is clear that the South has no alternative. Far better they should have abandoned the Confederacy than remain only to engage in bitter feuds that compromise the dignity of the country, and sow the seeds of undying hatred.

        In 1789, according to our view, the South entered into a civil compact with the North, on certain conditions and guarantees. These have been broken, and the South returns, in her opinion, to her original sovereignty.^*

        * This principle of sovereignty was repeatedly asserted by New England during the last war, and on January 4, 1815, a report of a committee was made in the Hartford Convention, in favor of immediate secession from the Union, on the plea that the Constitution had been violated by the Embargo Act, and the ordering of the militia into the service of the United States. The report defended the right of secession as follows:

        "That Acts of Congress, in violation of the Constitution, are absolutely void, is an undeniable position. . . . . But in cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of a State and liberties of the people, it is not only the right, but the duty, of such State to interpose its authority for their protection, in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur, which are either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire, must be their own judges and execute their own decisions. The States should so use their power as effectually to protect their own sovereignty and the rights and liberties of their citizens."

were it otherwise--were it true that the South owed allegiance to the Federal Government--still, she asserts our own Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the present practice of Europe justify all people in repudiating a government which assails their rights and sacrifices their best interests. If the Northern States do not acknowledge these truths, then are they false to their origin, and seek to substitute for a government of opinion the tyranny of force. The South will adhere to its rights of secession at all hazards, and at every sacrifice.

        A few general considerations, and we conclude our narrative. After tracing the course of events recorded in the foregoing pages, the questions naturally arise--What has been the result? What have the Abolitionists gained? The answers may be briefly summed up as follows:

        1. They have put an end to the emancipation which originated among the real philanthropists of the South. In their wild and fanatical attempts they have counteracted the very object at which they have aimed. In the language of another, "The worst foes of the black race are those who have intermeddled in their behalf. By nature, the most affectionate and loyal of races beneath the sun, they are also the most helpless; and no calamity can befal them greater than the loss of that protection they enjoy under

this patriarchal system. Indeed, the experiment has been tried of precipitating them upon a freedom which they know not how to enjoy; and the dismal results are before the world in statistics that may well excite astonishment."^*

        In striking confirmation of the above, we extract from the mortuary records of the last year the following cases of Negro slaves who lived to over a hundred years:

• 1860--February 2. Female slave, Virginia . . . . . 105
• 1860--February 15. Milly Lamar, Georgia . . . . . 135
• 1860--March 25. Sam, Georgia . . . . . 140
• 1860--April 17. Glasgow, Kentucky . . . . . 112

        "With the fairest portions of the earth in their possession, and with the advantage of a long discipline as the cultivators of the soil, their constitutional indolence has converted the most beautiful islands of the sea into howling wastes. It is not too much to say, that if the South should at this moment, surrender every slave, the wisdom of the entire world, united in solemn council, could not solve the question of their disposal. Freedom would be their doom. Every Southern master knows this truth and feels its power."

        2. Touch the negro, and you touch cotton--the mainspring that keeps the machinery of the world in motion. In teaching slaves to entertain wild and dangerous notions of liberty, the Abolitionists have thus jeopardized the commerce of the country and the manufacturing interests of the civilized world. They have likewise destroyed confidence. In short, all the kind relations that have ever existed between the North and the South have been interrupted,

and a barrier erected, which, socially, commercially, and politically, has separated the heretofore united interests of the two sections.

        3. They have held out a Canadian Utopia, where they have taught the slaves in their ignorance to believe they could enjoy a life of ease and luxury, and having cut them off from a race of kind masters, and separated them from comfortable homes, left the deluded beings, incapable of self-support, upon an uncongenial soil, to live in a state of bestiality and misery, and die cursing the Abolitionists as the authors of their wretchedness.

        4. They have led a portion of the people of the North, as well as of the South, to examine the question in all its aspects, and to plant themselves upon the broad principle that that form of government which recognizes the institution of slavery in the United States, is the best, the condition of the two races, white and black being considered, for the development, progress, and happiness of each. In other words, to regard servitude as a blessing to the negro, and, under proper and philanthropic restrictions, necessary to their preservation and the prosperity of the country.

        5. Step by step they have built up a party upon an issue which has led to a dissolution of the Union. They have scattered the seeds of Abolitionism until a majority of the voters of the Free States have become animated by a fixed purpose to prevent the further growth of the slave power.

        The power of the North has been consolidated, and, for the first time in the history of the country, it is wielded as a sectional weapon against the interests of the South. The Government is now in the hands of men elected by Northern votes, who regard slavery as a curse and a crime, and they will have the means necessary to accomplish their purpose.

        The utterances that have heretofore come from the rostrum, or from irresponsible associations of individuals, now come from the throne. "Clad with the sanctities of office, with the anointing oil poured upon the monarch's head, the

decree has gone forth that the institution of Southern slavery shall be constrained within assigned limits. Though Nature and Providence should send forth its branches like the banyan tree, to take root in congenial soil, here is a power superior to both, that says it shall wither and die within its own charmed circle."

        Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, says:

        "I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

         "I have always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. I have always been an old line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should."

        "Abolitionism and fanaticism is a blood-hound that never bolts its track when it has once lapped blood. The elavation of their candidate is far from being the consummation of their aims. It is only the beginning of that consummation; and if all history be not a lie, there will be coercion enough till the end of the beginning is reached, and the dreadful banquet of slaughter and ruin shall glut the appetite."

        And now the end has come. The divided house, which Lincoln boastfully said would not fall, has fallen. The ruins of the Union are at the feet as well of those who loved and cherished it as of those who labored for its destruction. The Constitution is at length a nullity.

THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

        The secession from the old Union, or the dissolution of the United States, which has resulted in the formation of a new Republic called "The Confederate States of America," commenced by the withdrawal of the sovereign State of South Carolina from the Union. The Ordinance of Secession was passed on the 20th December, 1860. The secession movement thus inaugurated, was taken up and followed by other States. Mississippi passed Ordinance of Separation on January 9th, 1861; Florida, January 11th, 1861; Alabama, January 11th, 1861; Georgia, January 19th, 1861; Louisiana, January 25th, 1861, declaring their sovereign independence and separate existence from the Union.

        A Convention of Delegates from the six seceding States was called, and assembled in Congress at Montgomery, Ala., to organize a Provisional Government. The assembly met on the 4th day of February, 1861. A Provisional Constitution for the States was adopted on the 8th day of February. On the 9th day of February Congress proceeded to the election of a President and Vice President. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, as President, and Alex. H. Stephens, of Georgia, as Vice-President, were unanimously elected for the term of one year. On the 18th day of February, President Davis was inaugurated. On February 1st, 1861, the State of Texas passed an Ordinance of Secession, which was followed by the following States: Virginia, April 17th, 1861; Tennessee, May 6th, 1861; Arkansas, May 6th, 1861; North Carolina, May 20th, 1861; Missouri, October 28th, 1861; Kentucky, November 20th, 1861.

        The Permanent Constitution was adopted, and approved by the President on the 11th March, 1862.

        An election for President and Vice President was held on the 6th day of November, 1861, for the first regular term of six years under the permanent Constitution.

        The Provisional Government ended on the 18th day of February, 1862.

        The permanent Government was organised on the 22nd of February, 1862, by the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, as President, and Alex. H. Stephens, as Vice President for the first regular term of six years.

CHRONICLE OF EVENTS
AND
DIARY OF THE PRESENT REVOLUTION.

1860.

^* November 6. Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, the Republican candidates for President and Vice-President were elected by a sectional vote of the United States.

* The election for President and Vice-President was held in the States, and resulted as follows:

• Total number of votes in Southern States . . . . . 1,310,907
• Total number of votes in Northern States . . . . . 3,429,075
• Whole number of votes in the Union . . . . . 4,739,982
• Vote for Lincoln . . . . . 1,865,840
• Vote against Lincoln:--
• Douglas received . . . . . 1,288,043
• Breckinridge . . . . . 836,801
• Bell . . . . . 742,747
• 2,867,591
• Majority in the Union against Lincoln . . . . . 1,872,391

        November 13. Georgia Legislature appropriated one million dollars to arm the State.

        November 19. A detachment of State troops ordered to guard the arsenal at Charleston, S C.

        December 14. Cass, Secretary of State, resigned, because President Buchanan refused to reinforce Fort Sumter.

        December 17. The Convention of the people of South Carolina, called together by the Legislature of the State, meets in Columbia, S. C., to decide on measures relative to the aspect of affairs, arising from the election of a President and Vice President who were known enemies of the South. The Convention adjourned to meet in Charleston.

        December 20. The South Carolina Convention, on the second day of its session in Charleston, with but few dissenting votes, passed an ordinance

of secession, declaring the State free and independent from the Federal Union.

        December 26. Sudden evacuation of Fort Moultrie by Major Anderson, United States army. He spikes the guns, burns the gun-carriages and retreats to Fort Sumter, which he occupies.

        December 27. Capture of Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney by the South Carolina troops. Captain Coste surrenders the revenue-cutter Aiken.

        December 29. Gov Floyd, Secretary of War, resigned because President Buchanan sustained Anderson's occupation of Fort Sumter, after pledges that the previous status should be preserved.

        December 30. The U[.] S[.] Arsenal in Charleston, S[.] C[.], taken possession of by Carolina troops, the Federal troops evacuating it by agreement. The arsenal contained a large number of arms and military sto