The Great Conspiracy Part 26

"These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men; and we could not have had them without the measure.

"And now let any Union man who complains of this measure, test himself by writing down in one line, that he is for subduing the Rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking one hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be best for the measure he condemns. If he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because he cannot face the truth.

"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now at the end of three years' struggle, the Nation's condition is not what either Party, or any man, devised or expected. G.o.d alone can claim it.

"Whither it is tending seems plain. If G.o.d now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new causes to attest and revere the Justice and goodness of G.o.d.

"Yours truly, "A. LINCOLN."

The 8th of April (1864) turned out to be the decisive field-day in the Senate. Sumner endeavored to close the debate on that day in a speech remarkable no less for its power and eloquence of statement, its strength of Const.i.tutional exposition, and its abounding evidences of extensive historical research and varied learning, than for its patriotic fervor and devotion to human Freedom.

Toward the end of that great speech, however, he somewhat weakened its force by suggesting a change in the phraseology of the proposed Thirteenth Amendment, so that, instead of almost precisely following the language of the Jeffersonian Ordinance of 1787, as recommended by the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, it should read thus: "All Persons are Equal before the Law, so that no person can hold another as a Slave; and the Congress may make all laws necessary and proper to carry this Article into effect everywhere within the United States and the jurisdiction thereof."

Mr. Sumner's idea in antagonizing the Judiciary Committee's proposition with this, was to introduce into our Organic Act, distinctive words a.s.serting the "Equality before the Law" of all persons, as expressed in the Const.i.tutional Charters of Belgium, Italy and Greece, as well as in the various Const.i.tutions of France-beginning with that of September, 1791, which declared (Art. 1) that "Men are born and continue Free and Equal in Rights;" continuing in that of June, 1793, which declares that "All Men are Equal by Nature and before the Law:" in that of June, 1814, which declares that "Frenchmen are Equal before the Law, whatever may be otherwise their t.i.tle and ranks;" and in the Const.i.tutional Charter of August, 1830 in similar terms to the last.

"But," said he, "while desirous of seeing the great rule of Freedom which we are about to ordain, embodied in a text which shall be like the precious casket to the more precious treasure, yet * * * I am consoled by the thought that the most homely text containing such a rule will be more beautiful far than any words of poetry or eloquence, and that it will endure to be read with grat.i.tude when the rising dome of this Capitol, with the Statue of Liberty which surmounts it, has crumbled to dust."

Mr. Sumner's great speech, however, by no means ended the debate. It brought Mr. Powell to his feet with a long and elaborate contention against the general proposition, in the course of which he took occasion to sneer at Sumner's "most remarkable effort," as one of his "long illogical rhapsodies on Slavery, like: '-a Tale Told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.'"

He professed that he wanted "the Union to be restored with the Const.i.tution as it is;" that he verily believed the pa.s.sage of this Amendment would be "the most effective Disunion measure that could be pa.s.sed by Congress"-and, said he, "As a lover of the Union I oppose it."

[This phrase slightly altered, in words, but not in meaning, to "The Union as it was, and the Const.i.tution as it is," afterward became the s.h.i.+bboleth under which the Democratic Party in the Presidential Campaign of 1864, marched to defeat.]

He endeavored to impute the blame for the War, to the northern Abolitionists, for, said he: "Had there been no Abolitionists, North, there never would have been a Fire-eater, South,"-apparently ignoring the palpable fact that had there been no Slavery in the South, there could have been no "Abolitionists, North."

He heatedly denounced the "fanatical gentlemen" who desired the pa.s.sage of this measure; declared they intended by its pa.s.sage "to destroy the Inst.i.tution of Slavery or to destroy the Union," and exclaimed: "Pa.s.s this Amendment and you make an impa.s.sable chasm, as if you were to put a lake of burning fire, between the adhering States and those who are out. You will then have to make it a War of conquest and extermination before you can ever bring them back under the flag of the Government. There is no doubt about that proposition."

Mr. Sumner, at this point, withdrew his proposed amendment, at the suggestion of Mr. Howard, who expressed a preference "to dismiss all reference to French Const.i.tutions and French Codes, and go back to the good old Anglo-Saxon language employed by our Fathers, in the Ordinance of 1787, (in) an expression adjudicated upon repeatedly, which is perfectly well understood both by the public and by Judicial Tribunals-a phrase, which is peculiarly near and dear to the people of the Northwestern Territory, from whose soil Slavery was excluded by it."

[The following is the language of "the Ordinance of 1787" thus referred to: "ART. 6.-There shall be neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: * * *."]

Mr. Davis thereupon made another opposition speech and, at its conclusion, Mr. Saulsbury offered, as a subst.i.tute, an Article, comprising no less than twenty sections-that, he said, "embodied in them some things" which "did not meet his personal approbation," but he had consented to offer them to the Senate as "a Compromise"-as "a Peace offering."

The Saulsbury subst.i.tute being voted down, the debate closed with a speech by Mr. McDougall-an eloquent protest from his standpoint, in which, after endorsing the wild statement of Mr. Hendricks that 250,000 of the people of African descent had been prematurely destroyed on the Mississippi, he continued.

"This policy will ingulf them. It is as simple a truth as has ever been taught by any history. The Slaves of ancient time were not the Slaves of a different Race. The Romans compelled the Gaul and the Celt, brought them to their own Country, and some of them became great poets, and some eloquent orators, and some accomplished wits, and they became citizens of the Republic of Greece, and of the Republic of Rome, and of the Empire.

"This is not the condition of these persons with whom we are now a.s.sociated, and about whose affairs we undertake to establish administration. They can never commingle with us. It may not be within the reading of some learned Senators, and yet it belongs to demonstrated Science, that the African race and the European are different; and I here now say it as a fact established by science, that the eighth generation of the Mixed race formed by the union of the African and European, cannot continue their species. Quadroons have few children; with Octoroons reproduction is impossible.

"It establishes as a law of nature that the African has no proper relation to the European, Caucasian, blood. I would have them kindly treated. * * * Against all such policy and all such conduct I shall protest as a man, in the name of humanity, and of law, and of truth, and of religion."

The amendment made, as in Committee of the Whole, having been concurred in, etc., the Joint Resolution, as originally reported by the Judiciary Committee, was at last pa.s.sed, (April 8th)-by a vote of 38 yeas to 6 nays-Messrs. Hendricks and McDougall having the unenviable distinction of being the only two Senators, (mis-)representing Free States, who voted against this definitive Charter of American Liberty.

[The full Senate vote, on pa.s.sing the Thirteenth Amendment, was: YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Conness, Cowan, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harding, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Nesmith, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Wilkinson, Willey, and Wilson-38.

NAYs-Messrs. Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle, and Saulsbury.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

TREASON IN THE NORTHERN CAMPS.

The immortal Charter of Freedom had, as we have seen, with comparative ease, after a ten days' debate, by the power of numbers, run the gauntlet of the Senate; but now it was to be subjected to the much more trying and doubtful ordeal of the House. What would be its fate there? This was a question which gave to Mr. Lincoln, and the other friends of Liberty and Union, great concern.

It is true that various votes had recently been taken in that body, upon propositions which had an indirect bearing upon the subject of Emanc.i.p.ation, as, for instance, that of the 1st of February, 1864, when, by a vote of 80 yeas to 46 nays, it had adopted a Resolution declaring "That a more vigorous policy to enlist, at an early day, and in larger numbers, in our Army, persons of African descent, would meet the approbation of the House;" and that vote, although indirect, being so very nearly a two-thirds vote, was most encouraging. But, on the other hand, a subsequent Resolution, squarely testing the sense of the House upon the subject, had been carried by much less than a two-thirds vote.

This latter Resolution, offered by Mr. Arnold, after conference with Mr. Lincoln, with the very purpose of making a test, was in these direct terms: "Resolved, That the Const.i.tution shall be so amended as to Abolish Slavery in the United States wherever it now exists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof forever."

The vote, adopting it, was but 78 yeas to 62 nays. * This vote, therefore, upon the Arnold Resolution, being nowhere near the two-thirds affirmative vote necessary to secure the pa.s.sage through the House of the Senate Joint Resolution on this subject amendatory of the Const.i.tution, was most discouraging.

It was definite enough, however, to show the necessity of a change from the negative to the affirmative side of at least fifteen votes. While therefore the outlook was discouraging it was far from hopeless. The debate in the Senate had already had its effect upon the public mind. That, and the utterances of Mr. Lincoln-and further discussion in the House, it was thought, might produce such a pressure from the loyal const.i.tuencies both in the Free and Border Slave-States as to compel success.

But from the very beginning of the year 1864, as if instinctively aware that their Rebel friends were approaching the crisis of their fate, and needed now all the help that their allies of the North could give them, the Anti-War Democrats, in Congress, and out, had been stirring themselves with unusual activity.

In both Houses of Congress, upon all possible occasions, they had been striving, as they still strove, with the venom of their widely-circulated speeches, to poison the loyal Northern and Border-State mind, in the hope that the renomination of Mr. Lincoln might be defeated, the chance for Democratic success at the coming Presidential election be thereby increased, and, if nothing else came of it, the Union Cause be weakened and the Rebel Cause correspondingly strengthened.

At the same time, evidently under secret instructions from their friends, the Conspirators in arms, they endeavored to create heart-burnings and jealousies and ill-feeling between the Eastern (especially the New England) States and the Western States, and unceasingly attacked the Protective-Tariff, Internal Revenue, the Greenback, the Draft, and every other measure or thing upon which the life of the Union depended.

Most of these Northern-Democratic agitators, "Stealing the livery of Heaven to serve the Devil in," endeavored to conceal their treacherous designs under a veneer of gus.h.i.+ng lip-loyalty, but that disguise was "too thin" to deceive either their contemporaries or those who come after them. Some of their language too, as well as their bl.u.s.tering manner, strangely brought back to recollection the old days of Slavery when the plantation-whip was cracked in the House, and the air was blue with execration of New England.

Said Voorhees, of Indiana, (January 11, 1864) when the House was considering a Bill "to increase the Internal Revenue and for other purposes:"

"I want to know whether the West has any friends upon the floor of this House? We pay every dollar that is to be levied by this Tax Bill. * * * The Manufacturing Interest pays not a dollar into the public Treasury that stays there. And yet airs of patriotism are put on here by men representing that interest. I visited New England last Summer, * * * when I heard the swelling hum of her Manufactories, and saw those who only a short time ago worked but a few hands, now working their thousands, and rolling up their countless wealth, I felt that it was an unhealthy prosperity. To my mind it presented a wealth wrung from the labor, the sinews, the bone and muscle of the men who till the soil, taxed to an illegitimate extent to foster and support that great System of local wealth. * * * I do not intend to stand idly by and see one portion of the Country robbed and oppressed for the benefit of another."

And the same day, replying to Mr. Morrill of Vermont, he exclaimed: "Let him show me that the plethoric, bloated Manufacturers of New England are paying anything to support the Government, and I will recognize it."

Washburne, of Illinois got back at this part of Mr. Voorhees's speech rather neatly, by defending the North-west as being "not only willing to stand taxation" which had been "already imposed, but * * * any additional taxation which," said he, "may be necessary to crush out this Rebellion, and to hang the Rebels in the South, and the Rebel sympathizers in the North." And, he pointedly added: "Complaint has been made against New England. I know that kind of talk. I have heard too often that kind of slang about New England. I heard it here for ten years, when your Barksdales, and your Keitts's, and your other Traitors, now in arms against the Government, filled these Halls with their pestilential a.s.saults not only upon New England, but on the Free North generally."

Kelley of Pennsylvania, however, more fitly characterized the speech of Voorhees, when he termed it "a pretty, indeed a somewhat striking, paraphrase of the argument of Mr. Lamar, the Rebel Agent,-[in 1886, Secretary of the Interior]-to his confreres in Treason, as we find it in the recently published correspondence: 'Drive gold coin out of the Country, and induce undue Importation of Foreign products so as to strike down the Financial System. You can have no further hope for Foreign recognition. It is evident the weight of arms is against us; and it is clear that we can only succeed by striking down the Financial System of the Country.' It was an admirable paraphrase of the Instructions of Mr. Lamar to the Rebel Agents in the North."

The impression was at this time abroad, and there were not wanting elements of proof, that certain members of Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Arch-copperhead and Outlaw, Vallandigham. Certain it is, that many of these leaders, six months before, attended and addressed the great gathering from various parts of the Country, of nearly one hundred thousand Vallandigham-Anti-War Peace-Democrats, at Springfield, Illinois-the very home of Abraham Lincoln-which adopted, during a lull, when they were not yelling themselves hoa.r.s.e for Vallandigham, a resolution declaring against "the further offensive prosecution of the War" as being subversive of the Const.i.tution and Government, and proposing a National Peace Convention, and, as a consequence, Peace, "the Union as it was," and, substantially such Const.i.tutional guarantees as the Rebels might choose to demand! And this too, at a time (June 13, 1863), when Grant, after many recent glorious victories, had been laying siege to Vicksburg, and its Rebel Army of 37,000 men, for nearly a month, with every reason to hope for its speedy fall.

No wonder that under such circ.u.mstances, the news of such a gathering of the Northern Democratic sympathizers with Treason, and of their adoption of such treasonable Resolutions, should encourage the Rebels in the same degree that Union men were disheartened! No wonder that Lee, elated by this and other evidences of Northern sympathy with Rebellion, at once determined to commence a second grand invasion of the North, and on the very next day (June 14th,) moved Northward with all his Rebel hosts to be welcomed, he fondly hoped, by his Northern friends of Maryland and elsewhere! As we have seen, it took the b.l.o.o.d.y Battle of Gettysburg to undeceive him as to the character of that welcome.

Further than this, Mr. c.o.x had stumped Ohio, in the succeeding election, in a desperate effort to make the banished Traitor, Vallandigham-the Chief Northern commander of the "Knights of the Golden Circle" (otherwise known as the "Order of the Sons of Liberty," and "O. A. K." or "Order of American Knights")-Governor of that great State.

[The Rebel General Sterling Price being the chief Southern commander of this many-named treasonable organization, which in the North alone numbered over 500,000 men.

August, 1864.-See Report of Judge Advocate Holt on certain "Secret a.s.sociations," in Appendix,]

And it only lacked a few months of the time when quant.i.ties of copies of the treasonable Ritual of the "Order of American Knights"-as well as correspondence touching the purchase of thousands of Garibaldi rifles for transportation to the West-were found in the offices of leading Democrats then in Congress.

When, therefore, it is said, and repeated, that there were not wanting elements of proof, outside of Congressional utterances and actions, that leading Democrats in Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Supreme Commander of over half a million of Northern Rebel-sympathizers bound together, and to secrecy, by oaths, which were declared to be paramount to all other oaths, the violation of which subjected the offender to a shameful death somewhat like that, of being "hung, drawn, and quartered," which was inflicted in the middle ages for the crime of Treason to the Crown-it will be seen that the statement is supported by circ.u.mstantial, if not by positive and direct, evidence.

Whether the c.o.xes, the Garret Davises, the Saulsburys, the Fernando Woods, the Alexander Longs, the Allens, the Holmans, and many other prominent Congressmen of that sort,-were merely in close communion with these banded "Knights," or were actual members of their secret organizations, may be an open question. But it is very certain that if they all were not oath-bound members, they generally pursued the precise methods of those who were; and that, as a rule, while they often loudly proclaimed loyalty and love for the Union, they were always ready to act as if their loyalty and love were for the so-called Confederacy.

Indeed, it was one of these other "loyal" Democrats, who even preceded Voorhees, in raising the Sectional cry of: The West, against New England. It was on this same Internal Revenue Bill, that Holman of Indiana had, the day before Voorhees's attack, said: "If the Manufacture of the Northwest is to be taxed so heavily, a corresponding rate of increase must be imposed on the Manufactures of New England and Pennsylvania, or, will gentlemen tax us without limit for the benefit of their own Section? * * * I protest against what I believe is intended to be a discrimination against one Section of the Country, by increasing the tax three-fold, without a corresponding increase upon the burdens of other Sections."

But these dreadfully "loyal" Democrats-who did the bidding of traitorous masters in their Treason to the Union, and thus, while posturing as "Patriots," "fired upon the rear" of our hard-pressed Armies-were super-sensitive on this point. And, when they could get hold of a quiet sort of a man, inclined to peaceful methods of discussion, how they would, terrier-like, pounce upon him, and extract from him, if they could, some sort of negative satisfaction!

Thus, for instance, on the 22nd of January, when one of these quiet men -Morris of New York-was in the midst of an inoffensive speech, Mr. c.o.x "bristled up," and bl.u.s.teringly asked whether he meant to say that he (c.o.x) had "ever been the apologist or the defender of a Traitor?"

And Morris not having said so, mildly replied that he did "not so charge"-all of which little bit of by-play hugely pleased the touchy Mr. c.o.x, and his clansmen.

But on the day following, their smiles vanished under the words of Spalding or Ohio, who, after referring to the crocodile-tears shed by Democratic Congressmen over the Confiscation Resolution-on the pretense that it would hunt down "innocent women and children" of the Rebels, when they had never a word of sympathy for the widows and children of the two hundred thousand dead soldiers of the Union-continued: "They can see our poor soldiers return, minus an arm, minus a leg, as they pa.s.s through these lobbies, but their only care is to protect the property of Rebels. And we are asked by one of my colleagues, (Mr. c.o.x) does the gentleman from New York intend to call us Traitors? My friend, Mr. Morris, modestly answered no! If he had asked that question of me, he knows what my answer would have been! I have seen Rebel officers at Johnson's Island, and I have taken them by the hand because they have fought us fairly in the field and did not seek to break down the Government while living under its protection. Yes, Sir, that gentleman knows that I would have said to him that I have more respect for an open and avowed Traitor in the field, than for a sympathizer in this Hall. Four months have scarcely gone by since that gentleman and his political friends were advocating the election of a man for the Gubernatorial office in my State, who was an open and avowed advocate of Secession-AN OUTLAW AT THAT!"

And old Thaddeus Stevens-the clear-sighted and courageous "Old Commoner"-followed up Spalding, and struck very close to the root and animus of the Democratic opposition, when he exclaimed: "All this struggle by calm and dignified and moderate 'Patriots;' all this clamor against 'Radicals;' all this cry of 'the Union as it Was, and the Const.i.tution as it Is;' is but a persistent effort to reestablish Slavery, and to rivet anew and forever the chains of Bondage on the limbs of Immortal beings. May the G.o.d of Justice thwart their designs and paralyze their wicked efforts!"

CHAPTER XXV.

"THE FIRE IN THE REAR."

The treacherous purposes of professedly-loyal Copperheads being seen through, and promptly and emphatically denounced to the Country by Union statesmen, the Copperheads aforesaid concluded that the profuse circulation of their own Treason-breeding speeches-through the medium of the treasonable organizations before referred to, permeating the Northern States,-would more than counteract all that Union men could say or do. Besides, the fiat had gone forth, from their Rebel masters at Richmond, to Agitate the North.

Hence, day after day, Democrat after Democrat, in the one House or the other, continued to air his disloyal opinions, and to utter more or less virulent denunciations of the Government which guarded and protected him.

Thus, Brooks, of New York, on the 25th of January (1864), sneeringly exclaimed: "Why, what absurdity it is to talk at this Capitol of prosecuting the War by the liberation of Slaves, when from the dome of this building there can be heard at this hour the booming of cannon in the distance!"

Thus, also, on the day following, Fernando Wood-the same man who, while Mayor of New York at the outbreak of the Rebellion, had, under Rebel-guidance, proposed the Secession from the Union, and the Independence, of that great Metropolis,-declared to the House that: "No Government has pursued a foe with such unrelenting, vindictive malignity as we are now pursuing those who came into the Union with us, whose blood has been freely shed on every battle-field of the Country until now, with our own; who fought by our side in the American Revolution, and in the War of 1812 with Great Britain; who bore our banners bravest and highest in our victorious march from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico, and who but yesterday sat in these Halls contributing toward the maintenance of our glorious inst.i.tutions."

Then he went on, in the spirit of prophecy, to declare that: "No purely agricultural people, fighting for the protection of their own Domestic Inst.i.tutions upon their own soil, have ever yet been conquered. I say further, that no revolted people have ever been subdued after they have been able to maintain an Independent government for three years." And then, warming up to an imperative mood, he made this explicit announcement: "We are at War. * * * Whether it be a Civil War, Rebellion, Revolution, or Foreign War, it matters little. IT MUST CEASE; and I want this Administration to tell the American People WHEN it will cease!" Again, only two days afterward, he took occasion to characterize a Bill, amendatory of the enrollment Act, as "this infamous, Unconst.i.tutional conscription Act!"

C. A. White, of Ohio, was another of the malcontents who undertook, with others of the same Copperhead faith, to "maintain, that," as he expressed it, "the War in which we are at present engaged is wrong in itself; that the policy adopted by the Party in power for its prosecution is wrong; that the Union cannot be restored, or, if restored, maintained, by the exercise of the coercive power of the Government, by War; that the War is opposed to the restoration of the Union, destructive of the rights of the States and the liberties of the People. It ought, therefore, to be brought to a speedy and immediate close."

It was about this time also that, emboldened by immunity from punishment for these utterances in the interest of armed Rebels, Edgerton of Indiana, was put forward to offer resolutions "for Peace, upon the basis of a restoration of the Federal Union under the Const.i.tution as it is," etc.

Thereafter, in both Senate and House, such speeches by Rebel-sympathizers, the aiders and abettors of Treason, grew more frequent and more virulent than ever. As was well said to the House, by one of the Union members from Ohio (Mr. Eckley): "A stranger, if he listened to the debates here, would think himself in the Confederate Congress. I do not believe that if these Halls were occupied to-day by Davis, Toombs, Wigfall, Rhett, and Pryor, they could add anything to the violence of a.s.sault, the falsity of accusation, or the malignity of attack, with which the Government has been a.s.sailed, and the able, patriotic, and devoted men who are charged with its Administration have been maligned, in both ends of the Capitol. The closing scenes of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, the treasonable declarations there made, contain nothing that we cannot hear, in the freedom of debate, without going to Richmond or to the camps of Treason, where most of the actors in those scenes are now in arms against us."

With such a condition of things in Congress, it is not surprising that the Richmond Enquirer announced that the North was "distracted, exhausted, and impoverished," and would, "through the agency of a strong conservative element in the Free States," soon treat with the Rebels "on acceptable terms."

Things indeed had reached such a pa.s.s, in the House of Representatives especially, that it was felt they could not much longer go on in this manner; that an example must be made of some one or other of these Copperheads. But the very knowledge of the existence of such a feeling of just and patriotic irritation against the continued free utterance of such sentiments in the Halls of Congress, seemed only to make some of them still more defiant. And, when the 8th of April dawned, it was known among all the Democrats in Congress, that Alexander Long proposed that day to make a speech which would "go a bow-shot beyond them all" in uttered Treason. He would speak right out, what the other Conspirators thought and meant, but dared not utter, before the World.

A crowded floor, and packed galleries, were on hand to listen to the written, deliberate Treason, as it fell from his lips in the House. His speech began with an arraignment of the Government for treachery, incompetence, failure, tyranny, and all sorts of barbarous actions and harsh intentions, toward the Rebels-which led him to the indignant exclamation: "Will they throw down their arms and submit to the terms? Who shall believe that the free, proud American blood, which courses with as quick pulsation through their veins as our own, will not be spilled to the last drop in resistance?"

Warming up, he proceeded to say: "Can the Union be restored by War? I answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately, No, never; 'War is final, eternal separation.'"

He claimed that the War was "wrong;" that it was waged "in violation of the Const.i.tution," and would "if continued, result speedily in the destruction of the Government and the loss of Civil Liberty, and ought therefore, to immediately cease."

He held also "that the Confederate States are out of the Union, occupying the position of an Independent Power de facto; have been acknowledged as a belligerent both by Foreign Nations and our own Government; maintained their Declaration of Independence, for three years, by force of arms; and the War has cut asunder all the obligations that bound them under the Const.i.tution."