The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government Volume II Part 62

I will not pursue these odious details further. Suffice it to say that Texas and Arkansas, having pa.s.sed through the same military process as their sister Confederate States, were admitted to representation in Congress, the former in 1870 and the latter in 1868.

It will be seen that the power usurped by Congress was without a limitation, and extended to all the political, civil, and social relations. Many of the military commanders seem to have regarded their authority as equally comprehensive. The Attorney-General of the United States, in his official opinion on these acts of Congress, addressed to the President on June 12, 1867, says:

"It appears that some of the military commanders have understood this grant of power as all-comprehensive, conferring on them the power to remove the executive and judicial officers of the State, and to appoint other officers in their places; to suspend the legislative power of the State; to take under their control, by officers appointed by themselves, the collection and disburs.e.m.e.nt of the revenues of the State; to prohibit the execution of the laws of the State by the agency of its appointed officers and agents; to change the existing laws in matters affecting purely civil and private rights; to suspend or enjoin the execution of the judgments and decrees of the established State courts; to interfere in the ordinary administration of justice in the State courts, by prescribing new qualifications for jurors; and to change, upon the ground of expediency, the existing relations of the parties to contracts, giving protection to one party by violating the rights of the other party."

Many instances are then related by the Attorney-General to confirm his statements. Some of these are worthy of the attention of the reader, although they may have been mentioned on a preceding page. In one district the so-called Governor of a State was deposed under a threat of military force, and another person, called a Governor, appointed by the military commander to fill the place--thus presenting the strange spectacle of an official intrusted with chief power to execute the laws of a State, whose authority was not recognized by the laws he was called on to execute.

In the same district a Judge was, by military order, ejected from his office, and a private citizen was appointed Judge in his place by military authority, and exercised criminal jurisdiction "over all crimes, misdemeanors, and offenses" committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the court. This military appointee was certainly not authorized, as a member of a military tribunal, to try any one for an offense; and he had just as little authority, as a Judge of a criminal court of the State, to try and punish any offender. This person was sole judge in a criminal court whose jurisdiction extended to the life of the accused. In capital cases he might well change places with the criminal, for, if the latter had unlawfully taken life, so too did the Judge.

In another district, a military order commanded the nominal Governor of the State to forbid the a.s.sembling of the Legislature, and thus suspended the proper legislative power of the State. In the same district an order was issued "to relieve the Treasurer of the State from the duties, bond, books, papers, etc.", appertaining to his office, and to put an "a.s.sistant quartermaster of the United States Volunteers" in place of the removed Treasurer. The duties of this quartermaster-treasurer were thus summed up: He was to make to the headquarters of the district "the same reports and returns required from the Treasurer, and a monthly statement of the receipts and expenditures; he will pay all warrants for salaries which may be or become due, and legitimate expenditures for the support of the Penitentiary, State Asylum, and the support of the provisional State government; but no scrip or warrants for outstanding debts of other kind than those specified, will be paid without special authority from these Headquarters. He will deposit funds in the same manner as though they were those of the United States." These instances will suffice, although many more might be related.

Illegal, unjust, and vindictive as were these gross usurpations of the Congress of the United States in their immediate results, the consequences which followed were still more disastrous. When the late Confederate States were restored to representation in Congress, a large portion of their white citizens remained disfranchised, and the political power of each was in the hands of the blacks and the remnant of the whites. Nor was the military force withdrawn, but it was placed in convenient localities, under the pretext of maintaining order, but in reality to sustain the new rulers. It must be manifest that the sovereignty of the people was now extinct, and those ruled who had the bayonets on their side. With the disfranchised were the intelligence, the virtue, and the political experience; with the voters were the ignorance, the lawless pa.s.sions, and soon a body of political adventurers from the Northern States, greedy for power and plunder. These quickly won for themselves the distinctive epithet of "carpet-baggers". The governments under the control of such popular sovereigns demonstrated the vindictiveness rather than wisdom of Congress, and soon brought forth their natural fruits of anarchy, fraud, and crime. One or two examples must suffice in which to exhibit these results.

The debt of the ten Confederate States in 1874 was as follows:

Virginia, funded and unfunded ... ... . . $45,718,119.73 North Carolina ... ... ... ... ... 38,921,848.05 South Carolina ... ... ... ... ... 9,866,627.35 Florida ... ... ... ... ... ... . 1,620,809.27 Georgia ... ... . . $8,105,500 funded 8,000,000 fraudulent 16,105,500.00 Alabama $10,452,593.30 15,051,000.00 railroad endors.e.m.e.nt 15,503,593.30 Mississippi ... ... ... ... ... . . 3,558,629.24 Louisiana ... ... ... ... ... ... 23,933,407.90 Texas ... ... ... ... ... ... . . 4,012,421.00 Arkansas ... ... ... ... ... ... 9,561,000.00 --------------- $148,801,955.80

It is not claimed that all this amount of indebtedness had been acc.u.mulated since the close of the war. Some of the States had debts previous to the war, but a large proportion of the amount had been contracted by the spendthrift governments inst.i.tuted by Congress, and very little could be found to offset the expenditure.

Again, in Arkansas, on April 16th, Governor Brooks seized and occupied the State-House with a body of armed men and two cannon. On the same day, Governor Baxter proclaimed martial law, and marched with a body of armed men from St. John's College to the Anthony House, and established his headquarters there. Guards were placed along the princ.i.p.al streets, and the State-House was completely surrounded by a cordon of sentinels. Subsequently, he marched to attack the State-House, but a body of troops belonging to the Government of the United States appeared before it. Two so-called Republican Governors of the State, with their troops, were about to fight for the executive office.

In Louisiana, on January 4, 1875, a body of troops of the Government of the United States, on the order of Governor W. P. Kellogg, marched into the hall of the House of Representatives of the State Legislature, while that body was in session, and forcibly seized and took out five members as not ent.i.tled to seats. The General in command (De Trobriand) then proceeded to eject the Clerk, and arrested the proceedings of the House. When expostulated with by the Speaker, he replied: "I am but a soldier. These are my orders." The members then retired.

In Mississippi, on December 7, 1874, a serious conflict occurred in Vicksburg between whites and blacks, which resulted in great loss of life and caused a widely-spread alarm. It grew out of frauds committed by public officers.

Again, during the exciting contest in Arkansas, the Congress of the United States appointed a committee to investigate the affairs in that State, and "whether said State had now a government republican in form, the officers of which are duly elected, and, as now organized, ought to be recognized by the Government of the United States."

On December 24, 1874, the Congress of the United States appointed a committee to proceed to New Orleans, and investigate the state of affairs in Louisiana. This committee reported on January 14, 1875, that "they could not agree upon any recommendation; but, upon the situation in Louisiana, as it appeared before us, we are all agreed."

The same Congress, before its adjournment, appointed a committee to proceed to Mississippi and make an investigation of the state of affairs there. Thus committees were kept quite busy in traveling back and forth to these States, and much of the time of Congress was occupied in discussing their affairs, and in efforts to reconcile the quarreling factions of so-called Republicans in them, to the great detriment of the public interests.

Where now were the unalienable rights of man, and sovereignty of the people, with their safeguards; a Const.i.tution with limited powers, the reserved rights of the States, and the supremacy of law equally over both rulers and ruled? All were gone.

It will be seen that, through all these proceedings, the Government of the United States controlled as the sovereign, and sovereignty of the people was extinct. The measures adopted were those prescribed by the Government of the United States; and, subordinate to these and subject to the conditions of these, such others were permitted as the necessities of the people required. Affairs were not in such disorder when the Const.i.tution of the United States was adopted. The uppermost then had come to be the undermost now, and that which was nothing then had grown to be over all now. Will it always be thus? Was the inherent sovereignty of the people destroyed by shot and sh.e.l.l?

The intelligent reader must perceive that this invasion of the natural and unalienable rights of man, the subjugation of the sovereignty of the people, the monstrous usurpations of powers not granted in the Const.i.tution, the trampling under foot of the reserved rights of the States, the disregard of the supremacy of law, and the a.s.sumption of the sovereignty of the Government of the United States as the corner-stone of our future political edifice, is a revolution in our system of Government, deep-seated, reaching to the foundations, and sending the poisonous waters of despotism throughout all the branches fed from this fountain. The Confederate States resisted it from the beginning. They drew their swords for the sovereignty of the people, and they fought for the maintenance of their State governments in all their reserved rights and powers, as the only true and natural guardians of the unalienable rights of their citizens, among which the most sacred is, that only the consent of the governed can give vitality and existence to any civil or political inst.i.tution.

This overthrow of the rights of freemen and the establishment of such new relations required a complete revolution in the principle of the government of the United States, the subversion of the State governments, the subjugation of the people, and the destruction of the fraternal Union. The work has been done. Will it stand? Have the eternal principles of the Declaration of Independence been hid from our sight for ever? Or, will they again come forth, "redeemed, disenthralled, regenerated," and rally the reunited people to shout in thunder-tones for sovereignty of the people and the unalienable rights of man?

It has been shown in previous pages that the State governments were inst.i.tuted to be the special guardians of these unalienable rights of man; but henceforth they must be the sworn defenders of the Government of the United States, not of the Const.i.tution and laws enacted in pursuance thereof, but of such interpolations and perversions of them as, in cases of necessity, that Government should find it convenient to make. Whenever it pleases, it can set them aside; and, whenever it wills, it can destroy them. Unalienable rights are unknown to this war-begotten theory of the Const.i.tution.

The day has come in which mankind behold this Government founding its highest claims to greatness and glory upon deeds done in utter violation of those rights which belonged to its own citizens in every State, North and South. The palladium of the freeman, the Bills of Rights, the limitations of power, the written Const.i.tutions, have all lost their sacred authority, and not a man or a State dare, single-handed, gainsay the will of the agency which, feeling power, has forgotten right. It has put its hand on the ballot-box, and the declaration is made that it is not safe to trust the people to vote, except under the inspection of its authority, after the example set by the Roman emperors. When the cause was lost, what cause was it?

Not that of the South only, but the cause of const.i.tutional government, of the supremacy of law, of the natural rights of man.

[Footnote 131: This incident in the conduct of the Judge recalls a like exhibition of judicial purity and independence which occurred in the colonial history of South Carolina, and which I present by extracts from the charge of Judge William Henry Drayton, delivered November, 1774. Referring to the nature of the civil liberties of the Carolina colonists, he said: "This is the distinguis.h.i.+ng character: English people can not be taxed, nay, they can not be bound by any law unless by their consent, expressed by themselves or their representatives of their own election. This colony was settled by English subjects; by a people from England herself--a people who brought over with them, who planted in this colony, and who transmitted to posterity the invaluable rights of _Englishmen_--rights which no time, no contract, no climate can diminish... . By all the ties which mankind hold most dear and sacred; your reverence to your ancestors; your love to your own interests; your tenderness to your posterity; by the lawful obligations of your oath, I charge you to do your duty; to maintain the laws, the rights, the Const.i.tution of your country, even at the hazard of your lives and fortunes.

"Some county judges style themselves the King's servants, a style which sounds harshly in my ears, inasmuch as the being a servant implies obedience to the orders of the master, and such judges might possibly think that, in the present situation of American affairs, my charge is inconsistent with my duty to the King. But for my part, in my judicial character, I know no master but the law; I am a servant, not to the King, but to the Const.i.tution." ... In the course of his charge, he quotes a "learned judge" as saying: "Every new tribunal erected for the decision of facts, without the intervention of a jury, is a step toward aristocracy, the most oppressive of absolute governments; and it is therefore a duty which every man owes to his country, his friends, his posterity, and himself, to maintain to the utmost of his power this valuable Const.i.tution in all its rights, to restore it to its ancient dignity, if at all impaired; to amend it wherever it is defective, and, above all, to guard with the most jealous circ.u.mspection against the introduction of new and arbitrary methods of trial, which, under a variety of plausible pretenses, may in time perceptibly undermine this best preservative of English liberty."--("American Archives," Fourth Series, vol. i, pp. 959, 960.)]

CONCLUSION.

My first object in this work was to prove, by historical authority, that each of the States, as sovereign parties to the compact of Union, had the reserved power to secede from it whenever it should be found not to answer the ends for which it was established. If this has been done, it follows that the war was, on the part of the United States Government, one of aggression and usurpation, and, on the part of the South, was for the defense of an inherent, unalienable right.

My next purpose was to show, by the gallantry and devotion of the Southern people, in their unequal struggle, how thorough was their conviction of the justice of their cause; that, by their humanity to the wounded and captives, they proved themselves the worthy descendants of chivalric sires, and fit to be free; and that, in every case, as when our army invaded Pennsylvania, by their respect for private rights, their morality and observance of the laws of civilized war, they are ent.i.tled to the confidence and regard of mankind.

The want of s.p.a.ce has compelled me to omit a notice of many n.o.ble deeds, both of heroic men and women. The roll of honor, merely, would fill more than the pages allotted to this work. To others, who can say _cuncta quorum vidi_, I must leave the pleasant task of paying the tribute due to their a.s.sociate patriots.

In a.s.serting the right of secession, it has not been my wish to incite to its exercise: I recognize the fact that the war showed it to be impracticable, but this did not prove it to be wrong; and, now that it may not be again attempted, and that the Union may promote the general welfare, it is needful that the truth, the whole truth, should be known, so that crimination and recrimination may for ever cease, and then, on the basis of fraternity and faithful regard for the rights of the States, there may be written on the arch of the Union, _Esto perpetua_.

Note.--The publishers are responsible for the orthography of these volumes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of Yorktown & Williamsburg, Virginia]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of Operations in Kentucky and Tennessee]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of Battle of Gettysburg]

INDEX TO VOL. II.

_Abandonment of the Peninsula_, recommended by General J. E.

Johnston, 86; a defensive position nearer to Richmond proposed, 86; the question discussed in a conference of officers, 87; plan of General Johnston, 87; concentration of all troops, 87; objections, 87; not adopted, 87; measures determined on, 87.

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY, Secretary of State, correspondence with the British Secretary of State relative to the deportation of slaves in war, 8, 9; on the restoration of slaves captured in war, 163; says private property, including slaves, can not be taken by the usages of war, 170.

_Agents of the State of New York_ to take the vote of her soldiers at the Presidential election, 492; seized with the votes and locked up in prison by the orders of the Government of the United States, 492; the description of the imprisonment, 493.

_Aggressions_, the authors of, having acquired power, were eager for the spoils of victory, 160; the series of, about to be consummated, 182.

_Alabama_, the cruiser, her condition when leaving Liverpool, 250.

_Alarm at Was.h.i.+ngton_, created by the operations of Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, 105.

ALDRICH, Judge A. P., arrested, 741; removed by a military officer, 744.

ANDERSON, General G. B., in command at Sharpsburg, 336.

ANDERSON, General J. R., placed in observation before General McDowell be fore Fredericksburg, 101.

ANDERSON, General R. H., in command at Sharpsburg, 336.

_Andersonville_, occasion for its selection for the confinement of prisoners of war, 596; its location, 596; preparations, 596; treatment, 597.