CEIMES OF THE CIYIL WAR. AN D CURSE OF THE FUNDING SYSTEM. BY HENRY CLAY DEAN. BALTniOEE: PRINTED FOR THE PUBLISHER, BY INNES & COMPANY 1868. PEDICATION, To tlie brave men. who, unmoved by the violence of party; unsedueed by the temptations of wealth, and unawed by the cruelty of war, defended the priceless treasures of Constitutional Liberty; endured banishment, tortures, and death, rather than surrender theii birthright, transmitted by the Fathers of 1770— To those upright soldiers, who, through five years of carnage, corruption, plunder, rapine, and desolation preserved their hands unstaiLcd with innocent blood, their souls unpolluted willi plunder, and maintained their manhood in-, violate- To the laboring poor, whose subsistence is devoured by the combinations of Monopoly, Bankruptcy, Usury, Extortion, Standing Armies, Tax-gatherers and Usurpation— To the immortal dead, who surrendered their lives in defence of the honor and safety of ttieir homes, and poured out their blcod in rich libations to the God of l^iberty- is this book dedicated by THE AUTHOR. Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 186S, by WILLIAM T. SMITHSON, Jn the Clerk's Office of the District Court of tlie District Of Maryland, Stereotyped by BY AN & niCKETTS. PTJBLISHEE^S PREFACE. "The Crimes of the Civil War and Curse of the Funding System," which is now presented to the American people, is a most remarkable book. It is a plain rehearsal of thrilling inci- dents which have occurred in this country within the past few years ; it is a record of some of the basest crimes ever inflicted upon man by his fellow ; it graphically depicts many heart- rending outrages perpetrated upon humanity, in the name of lib- erty, by the unbridled passions of a fanartical despotism ; it is a faithful chronicle of passing events and coiitemplates the char- acter of men as photographed by themselves in the sun-light of heaven — it views things as they really exist — fairly, honestly and openly ; it withdraws the veil of mystery which conceals the hideous form of a ruined government and an oppressed peo- |.le. History is made to repeat itself, although upon a grander scale ihan the world ever before contemplated. Every page has been nibjected to an unscrupulous inquisition; facts and figures are made to speak the untrammelled truth, and the entire testimony is unquestionable. The style is terse and the diction uncom- promising, and every sentence is clothed in a strong lucid lan- guage which has the impress of the masterly hand and spirit of the distinguished author. The work is gotten up in a plain, neat form, sufficiently cheap to be in reach of the general reader ; typographical errors have been avoided as far as possible, and we trust it will find its way to the offices, shops and firesides of the great masses of the labor- ing and over-taxed people of the United States. It is the cham- pion of truth and justice, and we send it forth on its mission, with full confidence in its power, to defend the right and maintain its principles. Wm. T. Smithson, Publisher. ''3 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGK Crimes of the Civil War and Curse of the Fundiug System - Reasons for the Publication of this Book — 1st, General — 2d, Personal. . 1 BOOK FIEST. CHAPTER I. Destruction of Self-Government ... 35 CHAPTER II. Destruction of Civilization by Mongrelism , 09 CHAPTER III. Invasion of Personal Rights .31 CHAPTER IV. Violation of the Rights of the States by the Federal CTOverument 41 CHAPTER V. Instituting Retrospective Test Oaths to Destroy the Freedom of the Elective Franchise 50 CHAPTER VI. Destruction of Fair and Free Elections 54 CHAPTER VII. Disintegration of Congress dO CHAPTER VIII. The Duress of Congress 72 CHAPTER IX. The Character of Congress that Robs us of Liberty 7.5 CHAPTER X. The Corruption of Congress in Creating the Debt 80 CHAPTER XI. Driving the Poor into the Meshes of the Flesh Dealers and Blood Market % CHAPTER XII. Violation of the Laws of Nations lOr. CHAPTER XIII. Torture, Cruelty, and Outrage 130 CHAPTER XIV. Overthrow of the Constitution of the United States 142 CHAPTER XV. Degradation of the Judiciary 145 CHAPTER XVI. The New Nation 151 CHAPTER XVII. Infidelity of the Clergy 175 BOOK SECOXD. CHAPTER I. The Conspiracy of the Treasury Department 184 CHAPTER II. The Manner in which the Loan was Obtained ISf) VI CONTENTS. PAGE. CHAPTER III. The War Debt is not a Just Debt , 201 CHAPTER IV. The War Debt is Unconstitutional — 20G CHAPTER V. The War Debt is a Breach of Trust 212 CHAPTER VI. We are Unable to Pay this Debt 211 CHAPTER VII. Constitutional Amendments cannot Enforce the Payment of such a Debt 222 CHAPTER VIII. No one Generation can Bind its Successors to Pay its Debts 220 CHAPTER IX. The Duty of the Friends of Peace to Repudiate War Debts 2:>2 CHAPTER X. A Plan for the Payment of the Debt 338 CHAPTER XI. Correspondence between the Author and Hoi'ace Greeley , 212 CHAPTER XII. The Sacred Debt 251 CHAPTER XIII. Repudiation tlie last Refuge of Profligacy , 2(11 CHAPTER XIV. The Character of tlie I-oan which Constitutes the Debt . 209 BOOK THIRD. CHAPTER I. Usury 27;') CHAPTER II. Curse ol the Funding System ,,321 CHAPTER III. Debt is Slavery .'i2S CHAPTER IV. Bondholders and Bondmen 332 CHAPTER V. The Funding System Destroys a Stable Currency 839 CHAPTER VI. The Funding System will Concentrate the Landed Estates of the Country 311 CHAPTER Vn. The Funding System Creates Distrust between Capital and Labor .'!)" CHAPTER VIII. The Sectional Character of the Funding System 351 BOOK FOURTH. CHAPTER I. Mr. Jefferson's Objections to National Banks SG6 CHAPTER II. National Banks Unnecessarj' 371 CHAPTER III. No Banking System can be made Secure 37S CHAPTER IV. The First Great Crime of the Chase Banking System 383 CONTENTS. VI I PAGK. CHAPTER V. The Second Great Crime of Chase's Banking System 386 CHAPTER VI. The Tliird Great Crime of Chase's Banking System 391 CHAPTER VII. The Expiring Crime of Chase's Banking System 405 CHAPTER VIII. Jolin LaAV and Chase, witli tlieir Respective Systems Compared 412 CHAPTER IX. Squandering the Public Lands the Basis of Stock-Gambling 420 CHAPTER X. French Assignats and National Bank Notes 424 BOOK FIFTH. CHAPTER I. Unhealthy Condition of the Public Mind in Regard to Public Assistance..,. , 430 CHAPTER 11. Prevailing Ignorance of the Nature i if Tariffs , , . . 436 CHAPTER III. Devices to Obstruct Trade , 441 CHAPTER IV. No one Nation can Produce Everytliing 445 CHAPTER V. The two Principles in Favor of a Protective Tariff Contradicted each Other. . .\ 447 CHAPTER VI. The Tariff rests upon Endless Contradiction 450 CHAPTER VII. How Protective Tariffs make Goods ( 'heap 4.57 CHAPTER VIII. Protective Tariffs are in Conflict with the Genius of our Government 460 CHAPTER IX. High Tariffs Beget Smuggling 465 CHAPTER X. High Revenue Tariffs Unjust 468 CHAPTER XI. Villainies of the Tariff 477 CHAPTER XII. Character of Manufacturers 481 CHAPTER XIII. Curse of Manufacturing Monopolies 487 BOOK SIXTH. CHAPTER I. The Curse of the Debt Greater than the Debt Itself 493 CHAPTER II. The Tax-Gatherer 499 CHAPTER III. The Spies 507 CHAPTER I\'. Military Usurpers 509 Re ASCIIS FOE THE PUBLIC ATIOIST OF THIS Work. 1st. general. The truth needs neither eulogy nor apology, whilst the most extravagant praises and pretensions are powerless to shield false- hood from exposure. A review of the unfortunate condition of the country presents but little to captivate the reader and even less to stimulate the \n-iter to a style which may entertain the mind Avhich does not at the same time mantle the soul with unutterable shame. Reckless tyrants have trampled down the rights and manhood of the people together, and the poor privilege of complaint con- ceded to the dying culprit and not denied to the rich man in hell, prohibited in one-half of the United States. Our Government is in nothing uniform except its coutem^it of law, and powerful only for the oppression of the people. Every officer seems to contemplate his office as an engine of destruction in which he is engaged to work the ruin of the partic- ular department of government entrusted to his care. The Postmaster General for the last five years has been violat- ing the mails. The Secretary of the Treasury has been squandering the public wealth. The Secretary of the Navy has been enfeebling our Naval power. The Secretary of War, all crimsoned with innocent blood, is employing the army for the destruction of the country. 1 2 GEXEEAL EEASOXS FOR PUBLICATION. The Secretary of State has been subverting constitutional law, and cli-;o;racing our form of government at home and abroad. The Secretary of the Interior has been conniving with public jobbers to defraud the government of its most valuable lands. The Attorney General is gravely burlesquing nonsense itself by defining the Constitutional construction of unconstitutional laws, and is in conspiracy with Military Commissions to murder inno- cent women. The President is administering the government through Mili- tary Satraps in a manner unknown to Eepublican systems and diso-raeeful to despotisms which regard tlie character of those en- trusted with power. "VVe now witness among our kindred the debasement of a civilized people who are forced to submit to the insult and domination of barbarian negroes and foreign vagabonds. Tlie Courts of the country are infamously corrupt. The State Legislatures and Congress are flagrantly accessible to bribes, which have become the only tangible basis of special and an essential necessity in general legislation. The people of the late Confederate States, after encountering the terrible vicissitudes of war, were overtaken by a famine which inflicted frightful forms of starvation, and are now overrun and robbed by predatory invasions, and endangered by the insurrec- tion of domestic savages incited by foreign incendiaries. Each step of advancing usurpation upon the part of these tvrants has been met by a receding cowardice upon the part of the people, which has yielded to Its behests. Capital has availed itself of the general distress to combine its powers to oppress labour ; labour has conceded and begged in the vain hope of appeasing capital, until Banks, Tariffs and Usury, the three great criminals of all governments, are now employed l)v the funded system to create revenues, keep uj) military estab- lishments and enslave the people. This enquiry into the causes and remedy of the condition of the GENERAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 3 country is prepared for the plain tliinking people, who determine to be free from the dangerous errors of demagogues and the over- shadowing power of capital. AYhile a people should not be insensible to the glory, grandeur, and power of a good government, and should duly aAvard its just meed to courage, it should never be forgotten that there can be no glory won by self-destruction ; that civil wars should find no last- ing place in our records; that magnanimity to a fallen victim who has proven his courage on the battle field, should consign to oblivion his faults. Upon the other hand, the thief, robber, murderer or incendiary who, loaded down v\dth the plunder of defenceless families and leaving a desert waste in his bloody trail, fled before avenging armies, should be held up to mankind on the gibbet of history to v\^arn others who have started upon the mistaken road to glory, not to strew their pathway with the relics of virtue and prosperity, nor pave their line of march with human skulls. The people yet, have it within their power to restore their free- dom, retrieve their lost character, though unable to bring back the dead, or efface those terrible scars inflicted upon the violated person of liberty in her contests Avith arbitrary power. The people can no longer look for safety in mercenary party organiza- tions, or rely for relief upon demagogues. The freemen of Amer- ica must learn to think for themselves. These following questions must be searchingly put to the people : I. By what right can any generation contract to enslave suc- cessive generations, and mortgage the labor of future centuries to pay the debt created to satiate hate and aggrandize a lawless cupid- ity? II. Can any government justly IcAy a tax upon the labor of the country to support and increase its untaxed capital, and en- slave industry to speculation ? III. By ivliat earthly poioci^ can such a claim be enforced upon 4 GEXEEAL REASONS FOE PUBLICATION. » a people who are aroused to a sense of its injustice, and shrinl' with horror from the recollection of the bloody crimes ivhich en- tailed it upo7i us f IV. Can any government retain its freedom and continue sub- ject to subsidies more than equivalent to ordinary rents, wliicli are levied for the benefit of a privileged class upon the labouring and agricultural classes, making the distinction between the rich and the poor clearly marked and indelibly drawn ? V. Is it profitable, is it desirable, nay, is it possible, to over- throw our present system of poj)ular government and substitute for it an arbitrary government, or a monied aristocracy or limited monarchy, for the enforcement of a debt which has been contrac- ted for the most part without tlie authority of law ? VI. Will the people of this country give organic guarantees for the payment of a debt due to citizens of this and other coun- tries, the payment of which is subject to the action of the courts, simply to avoid the faithful interpretation of the law by judicial tribunals to which every other claim is legally subjected ? VII. Is it possible for any popular government, in violation of all historical precedent, to long continue the victim of this un- just and arbitrary power, administered by a few through combi- nations of force, fraud and fanaticism ? VIII. If any future Congress should refuse to make appro- priations for the liquidation of such debt, or for the payment of standing armies to enforce it, how then could constitutional guar- antees protect capital from taxation, or make labor support idle- ness in her exorbitant demands ? IX. Were the powers which created this debt legally elected by free and fair elections ? X. A^'^ere the Legislative bodies which made the appropriations legally constituted ? XI. In Avhat manner, for what purposes and by what author- ity was the money spent which had been thus appropriated ? GENERAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 5 XII. "What must be the relative condition of capital and labor under the direction and control of the funding system ? XIII. By what authority and under what pretense was the present compound system of fraudulent Banking — the illicit oif- spring of Financial debauchery, imposed upon the country ? XIV. Why are the systems of duties, excises and direct taxes levied for the purpose of oppressing the poor and aggrandizing the rich, to create a hateful monicd Oligarchy in the land ? XV. Why have the resources of the country, the business of the people, the harmony of society, and the hopes of civilization and Christianity been swept from the land ? XVI. What shall be done to restore our lost liberties? All of these questions are now upon us. They are awaiting that careful canvass which ultimately overtakes every subject among thinking people in an enlightened age. The issue may be protracted but cannot be doubtful. God and justice are upon the side of the good and just. Intellect will struggle with intellect, and cultivated reason will reassert her dominion over King Mob and his disgusting retinue of drunken and debauched demagogues, with the multitude of infuriated rabble, drunk with blood and rioting in crime. Socie- ty will make her requisitions upon her Jeffersons and Franklins, her Miltons and Lockes, to reconstruct injustice the great super- structure of liberty which has been laid in ashes by incendiary fires, and determine questions which have been raised by the passionate fanatics and mercenary tricksters who ascribe to government no higher object than to furnish support to malignant partizans, and aspire to no higher position for themselves than to gather up the fly-blown offal from the table of political power, and boldly avow no other object in political contests than the acquisition of political ascendency. In this contest between idle capital and active labor, each of the contestants will summon all of their ancient allies to their support. G GENERAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. Capital will ardently espouse the cause of standing armies, strong governments, the union of Church and State, the growth of mo- nopolies, the funding system and arbitrary power. Upon the other hand, labor has no allies but the justice of her cause, the intelligence of her people and the strong arm of self defence. It is refreshing to turn the eye backward through the dim track of centuries, and behold the manly self-respect of our hardy an- cestors who suffered not majesty itself to trifle M'ith their liberties or the servants of the king to trample upon the privacy of his subjects. The heavens are darkened with the lowering clouds of a finan- cial hurricane which no power can arrest. AVhen the storm comes in its terrible desolation, it will sweep down every thing before it. Standing armies cannot enforce the obligations of such a debt, although they may increase it, and thereby hasten repudiation ; which they are now doing by the establishment of military gov- ernment in the South, and which they are proposing in every part of the country. Constitutional amendments cannot enforce the debt. When adopted they will be futile in the hands of revolutionists, who have set the example of repudiating constitutions without amend- ments, and all other obligations. We most respectfully commit the public debt to time, which outlaws all claims by limitation. The debt cannot reach the next generation, and if it does it will not be bound by the foolish contracts of this, and will do well if it meets its own obligations. We wish bondholders no worse luck than to fall into the hands of negroes, who want cheap food and raiment, and will vote down tariffs and taxes. Then what becomes of the public debt ? Leaving all these questions to time, the arbiter of events, cast your eyes to the coming storm. GENEKAL REASONS FOK PUBLICATION. 7 We have a high duty to perforin, which is to restore the Consti- tutional obligations of the Government, to secure the rights of tlie States and the liberties of the people. And if villainous ca[)ital or overbearing monopoly stands in the way, it will not impede our progress or arrest our purpose. It were better that every man in America were bankrupt, than that we be crushed by perpetual debt. The character of the funding system has been examined and exposed because, since the commencement of the war the triple swindle of the banking system has transferred at least $300,000,- 000 of the property and labor of the poor to the coffers of the rich. 1. By inflating the currency from 1862 to 1864, from par to $2 89 100 premium, advancing the price of every article used by the poor in this ratio, and enhancing the value to the extent of the hoarded money in the coffers of the rich. 2. Securing this enhanced value to the rich by funding at par the inflated paper to be paid in gold under pretense of reducing the volume of paper money. 3. When the funding was secured, then renewing the inflation through the National Banks, and giving to corporations a double interest — interest on the bonds and discount upon the bank notes, which are untaxed and depreciating The tariff, under pretext of protecting manufactures, has been an instrument in the hands of the rich to oppress the poor. It is a decree passed to' limit the amount and quality of the food and raiment of the consumer, for the benefit of the producer. The extent and atrocity of our taxation defies comment. It has placed over us an army of spies, detectives, contractors, general and sub- ordinate officers, who meet us at every corner of the street, and in every avenue of business. Placing a money-grabber between the mouths of the poor and the butcher shop — a stamp between the medicine and your dying 8 GENEEAL EEASOjSTS FOR PUBLICATION. cliild — a tariff between your shivering body and the clothing- store — between the muslin shroud and the corpse of your wife. We may be charged with a purpose to repudiate this debt. Upon this subject I have but a few words — The collection of this debt is a question for the determination of the courts. I shall not, therefore, more than refer it to those courts. Are we bound for this debt ? If so, how and by what law? We are not bound by the Constitution to pay it; because it was contracted in a war to overthrow the Constitution and destroy the system of government under it. We are not bound by the theory of^ our Government to pay it, because the debt was contracted in the destruction of the Ameri- can theory of government. We are not bound by the laws of civilized warfare to pa}- it ; because these laws, as understood by Americans and laid down by our treaty with JNIexico, were violated at every step of the war from its inception to its conclusion. AVe are not bound in justice to pay this debt, for we have re- ceived nothing in return for it. Not only no equivalent, but it has been contracted in the destruction of everything held sacred in property, obligation and security. There has been no qvM pro quo. All this is outside of the consideration of the violence, fraud, opposition and cheats employed in the contraction of the debt. We are not bound in honor to pay this debt. It was contrac- ted without our consent. The Congress was elected under the combinations of force, fraud and corruptions ; legislated under the duress imposed by the bay- onets held by arbitrary power over Congress and Legislatures ; and the Congress thus assuming to' legislate for the country had no constitutional existence. Then there is tlie court of last resort, before whom all these GENERAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 9 questions are to be hereafter tried — the popular will. I need not predict the result of the issue. Such cases have been tried before the same tribunal. No such debt ever has been paid ; no such debt can be paid ; no such debt ought to be paid ; no such debt will be paid. The Jewish year of jubilee was a year of repudiation, divinely appointied for that purpose. The authors of our system, the purest lights in the constella- tions of Liberty, never redeemed their Continental money. But, overlooking the other repudiations of the world, the party in power is a party of repudiation. It repudiated the Constitution of the United States, substituting in its stead edicts, military commissions and proclamations. It repudiated, by positive legislation, the debts due to innocent third persons, corporations and trusts in the Southern States. It repudiated the obligations of servitude, as established by law, between the blacks and whites. The General Government is now officially engaged in the lowest and most dishonorable form of repudiation, by shaving its own paper in the money used. The gold is the only Constitutional form of money for that purpose ; and after carrying on a legisla- tion which is resolvable into no other general principle than that of repudiation, the ballot-box, never in love with monopolies, will master repudiation. The bondholders are provoking repudiation. First — By refusing to submit their bonds to taxation. Second — By making their bonds an instrument of double monopoly, by using them as the capital in banking as well as drawing interest upon their face. Repudiation offers the only hope of relief to the country. First — It takes the corrugating influence of money out of leris- lation. Second — It rids the country of the whole plague and curse of 10 GENERAL RExVSOXS FOR PUBLICATION. assessors' clerks, collectors, spies, pimps, stamps, tariff, excises and excisemen that now enslave ns. It equalizes the general burdens of the war. The poor men gave their lives in battle. This demands that the rich, who grew fat on blood, shall surrender the plunder of war, to save the poor who fought in battle from being further ground by direct and in- direct taxation. Repudiation is a fitting conclusion to a war which has destroyed every thing, and now justly concludes by destroying the destroyer. I urge no repudiation ; I ask no action. This condition of things is slowly but surely coming, like the cloud about the size of a man's hand. It is gathering in the West — the people are pinched for money. This book has been written with a view to public relief and to inspire the laboring people with courage to defend their rights by the adoption of some plan in harmony with those great laws of nature and of God, which are as unchangeable as his Being. The laws of intelligence, wdiich govern the intercourse and determine the relative position of rational creatures in society ; the laws of superiority, which inspire command, and of inferiority, which yield obedience; the laws of commerce, Avhich supply and stimu- late trade ; the laws of finance, which require that the money of the country shall have free circulation from the centres to the far- thest extremities of business, mutually strengthening instead of devouring and destroying each other ; the laws of Capital and Labor, as they reciprocally help each other in the development of the wealth and power of the country, and combine to augment the prosperity and happiness of the people. These immutable laws are coeval and must be coexistent with civilized society, and no mere popular clamor or numerical test of a frenzied multitude, under the fraudulent guidance of unscrupulous leaders, can change one iota of their value or diminish a particle of their strength. AVe must now meet the great issues involved in the terrible PERSONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 11 struggle for the supremacy of law over auareliy, of republican government over arbitrary power. Let us then meet them as true men meet an unscrupulous ene- my. Let us hasten to the conflict, for conflict will give us victory. 2d. personal. To the American People : I have a personal reason for the publication of this book. I suffered under the reign of j\Ir. Lincoln, which was a vibration between anarchy and despotism. AVhy arrested ? I cannot tell. Have never seen anything like charges, and suppose there Avere none in such form as would be recognized in any court of justice under the sun ; and yet I am quite sure there was a cause for it, which is this: I am a Democrat; a devoted friend of the Con- stitution of the United States; a sincere lover of the Government and the Union of the States; am anxious for a reunion, and be- lieve it the right and duty of a freeman, in a calm, candid man- ner, to discuss in a temperate spirit, the best modes of effecting this purpose. I have dared to jjarticipate in these discussions • freely, which I have done from convictions of duty. This loas the cause of my arrest. For months previous, I thought I saw the seed of contention and civil war scattered in every neighborhood in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Such a soil seemed prepared and ready to receive it, just such a soil as forces up noxious weeds of the rankest growth. The season was adapted to and beyond all description fruitful for the growth of just such plants as the stramonium, the poison mushroom, and the deadly night- shade. Weak, wicked men were stirring up strife as a daily avo- cation ; thirsting for blood ; listening with a morbid anxiety for the news ; retailing with insane satisfaction the details of some murder, some heart-rending catastrophe, revolting outrage upon 1^ PERSONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. female purity, or savage slaughter of innocent children. They had learned themselves and were teachins: others to laugh at the conflagration which laid cities in ashes. They felt that nothing had been well done where the black visage of war had not gone, or the track of the bloody foot of desolation had not been well imprinted. Fury seemed to have become a virtue among those who should have been most calm. Violence was the watchword of those whose vocation was to teach meekness as a law of life, and love as the only preparation for the world to come. Ministers of the Gospel of Peace were teaching such lessons of cruelty, in such a spirit of violence, and in such language of intol- erant malice, as made the ordinary mind, yet retaining self con- trol, grow sick. Judges of Courts, whose duty it was to keep the peace, in open defiance of the obligations of their oaths of office, in contempt of the long established conservative character of the honorable profession in which they vfcre educated, and to the great scandal of their ermine, went into the rural districts during the current session of their Courts, and delivered harangues, appeal- ing to the basest passions of human nature, encouraging crimes most obnoxious to the laws of the country, and indulffino; in Ian- guage well calculated to light the whole land in a blaze of furious, endless, lawlessness and civil war. Conservative, quiet, law abiding men of eminence and character in the country, requested me by urgent letters to address the people, and assist them to avert the coming evil among us. With reluctance I entered upon the unthankful task, and commenced an humble argument to the • people, urging them to obey the laws, honor the Government, recognize the existing state of things, and above all to preserve the peace inviolate. This I did in an earnest, Idnd feeling, that aston- ished even the Revolutionists, and left them vibrating between personal malice and silent disappointment. I soon learned, some- what authoritatively, in their own choice language, that I " would be suppressed," my " career would be shortened," &c., &c. In PEESJXAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 13 response to tins purpose, partisan radical papers began to teem "with epithets opprobrious and scandalous, stating groundless, ma- licious and inflammatory falsehoods, personal and political. To these attacks I gave no attention, but still pursued the quiet, even tenor of my way, persuading the people to stand firm by the Con- stitution, to obey the laws, to provoke no violence and be guilty of no outbreak. Wherever I spoke I found that underneath all the party bit- terness and strife, wliich was but momentary, there was a boiling flood of good feeling, as pure as the waters that gush from be- neath the Alpine mountains of perpetiftil snow. The masses of the people still loved each other, but were misled until their pas- sions were hot as the burning sand, and explosive as powder. When I spoke of renewing old associations, reviving Chris- tian fellowship, cultivating brotherly love, cheering smiles would play upon their faces, wild huzzas of good feeling would break forth from their manly lips, and tears would sometimes drive each other down their sunburnt cheeks as they prayed the sweet spirit of friendship to return ; the Angel of Mercy to banish the Angel of Death ; and the Genius of Christianity to again assert her supreme sovereignty over our society, over our divided, dis- tracted, and well nigh ruined country. Encouraged by the feelings of the people responding to my own, I sj)oke. Aroused by this motive alone, I addi-essed the great crowd that listened to me. This is my only offence, clearly and elaborately stated. But all this availed me nothing so long as I was a Democrat, a faitli- ful supporter of the Constitution, and an ardent lover of the Union, and believed and thought tliat the integrity of the one was the only conservative power of the other. 14 PERSONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. THE TLME, THE PLACE, THE MANNER OF MY ARREST. I was on ray way from Quincy, Illinois, to Keosauqna, Iowa, to attend a meeting of the Democratic party. Mobocracy had run riot in Keoknk for many months under the auspices of the officers commanding the post, and having in charge the Medical Department. I had to pass through Keokuk to reach the cars. Before I landed at the wharf, I learned that the " Gate Ciiy" the only paper published in Keokuk, had demanded my arrest. Nearly every Puritan paper in the State had joined in the gen- eral howl. The tone of the press reminded me of the bulletins issued in the dark alleys of Paris, or the hand-bills posted on the front of the buildings early on each morning, containing the death warrant of some intended victim of assassination in the most terrible days of the French Revolution. The requisition of the paper was but the foreshadowing of the intention of the malig- nant citizens of Keokuk. All the details of the arrest are not proper for the public eye. I had often heard an old Indian describe the ceremony of running the gauntlet by prisoners of war. The naked, brawny, cowardly savage painted his cheeks red with blood-root, and blackened liis teeth with soot and charcoal. He made his trem- bling victim shrink as he applied the excrutiating lash, to his uncovered person. An old backwoodsman, now no more, who knew Simon Girty well, once told me how that monster had as- sisted the Indians to burn poor Col. Crawford at the stake. Girty would laugh, and grin, and taunt his victim, as the flames were gathering around him. He would then again break out into a hollow, fiendish chuckle when the blaze was shrieking with horror in the air. The perverted culture of civilization contribute^! its force to add to the brutal barbarity of the merci- less heathens. In my own arrest I had the most vivid picture PERSONAL KEASONS FOll PUiiLTCATiOX. 15 of just such nieu leading a furious hody of a thousand persons in a mob. My arrest had been agreed upon as soon as my name was regis- tered at the Billings House. I could see the Puritans and Roundheads gathering in squads of four or five, talking in a low excited whisper. The fiendish smile was playing on their cheek ; the self satisfied smirk on the lip, and thirst for vengeance was pictured on their countenances. These small gatherings of men embraced the shouting Methodist and witch-burning Puritan, the Universalist and Unitarian, with every intervening class of Fa- natics. I was then and am now unconscious of having ever wronged or justly incurred the ill will of any human being in the city, from any cause whatever. I called to see Hon. T. W. Clagett on business, and whilst sitting upon the porch with the Judge, I saw a crowd approaching near his gate, who inquired for me, calling out my name. I did not, of course, call in ques- tion their authority, for these reasons : First, Every soldier is under a most solemn oath ; a very severe penalty to obey the articles of war, which forbid anything like the semblance of a mob. Second, Every officer is held responsible for the discipline and conduct of his soldiers, and whenever they engage in a mob, the officers are either corrupt or imbecile. Third, A young man of the name of Ball, whilst in the office of the Provost Marshal, informed me, with the grin and very much the tone of a Sioux Indian, that he " wanted the boys to take their satisfiiction out of me," and that he now arrested me in due fi)rm, and handed me over to the Sergeant of the Provost Guard. I have made this fact plain, because these men, having committed an atrocious crime, would well rid themselves of it by any subterfuge. After my arrest, I was placed in the front of the crowd, with a low-bred, insolent man, who commenced asking me offiinsive 16 PERSONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. questions, of which I of course took no notice. After hurrying me through several streets, at length a hollow square was formed, where I Avas taunted, threatened and insulted for a full half hour. I was first informed that death was entirely too mild a punishment to be administered to a " Copperhead," who, in the choice language of their newspaper, was foolhardy and demented enough to venture through Keokuk. The soldiers were all strangers to me, and were led on and prompted to their action by a Puritan clique who had an unset- tled account with me for some very candid talk about the year 1860, when I was a candidate for Elector of the State at large on the Democratic ticket, headed by tlie name of Judge Douglas. These benevolent men thought Nature at fault, that she had not endowed me with at least four separate and distinct lives, that each. of them might be entirely gratified in having me put to death in his own choice way. On the outside of the crowd there stood a merchant of thin visage, sharp nose, red head, and ex- ceedingly thin lips, who cried out at the top of his voice, " He ought to be drowned, seeing the Mississippi so close at hand," when there went up a yell, " droivn him," "drown hoi," " DROWN HIM." Near by another of the malignants spoke up and said, " DroAvning was entirely too easy and speedy a death for a Copperhead," and cried out, " hang him," " hang him," "HANG HIM." Still another commenced, and the cry went up ''shoot him," "shoot him," "SHOOT HIM." ' A fourth, with the murderous laugh of a Pawnee, said burn- ing would better measure out the allotted punishment, — length- en the scene of enjoyment, and minister more thoroughly to the gratification of the executioners. This gentleman found no response. Every manner of insult and opprobrious epithet was used to jeer, mortify and offend. After being thus brutally treated, I addressed the crowd for a few moments, and informed them that I had been sick for nearly PERSONAL EEASOXS FOR PUBLICATION. 17 a week, was then taking medicine, and desired a place to be at rest. After much parleying, Avhooping, yelling and coarse insult, I was marched down to the office of the Provost Marshal, and there commanded by this young man, Ball, to strip myself stark naked, which I had to do in the presence of a large crowed, and remaining in that condition for fifteen minutes, whilst my clothes were searched, and each one of the party had taken his full lib- erty in about the same kind of jesting that had occurred in the street, except that it was coarser and baser in the room. I told this young man. Ball, that I had understood that he was an offi- cer, educated at "West Point, from which I inferred that he was a gentleman. He informed me, however, not to my surprise, that he was not a West Pointer, which I placed to the lasting credit of that institution. After I had been allowed to put on my clothes, my carpet sack was sent for to the hotel, carefully searched, and my private letters and papers read aloud in the presence of the crowd, open to the inspection of everybody. After all this was over, Mr. Ball sent some one of the crowd to inform the soldiers that he would assure them that I would be severely dealt with, and they were permitted to retire. I was soon lodged in the Guard House, where there was neither chair, stool, table nor stand. Sergeant Newport kindly furnished me a cot. One filthy towel was the wij^ing cloth of a large body of men, some with diseased, sore and scrofulous eyes. I cannot better describe the place than I have done in a brief sketch which I wrote whilst there, and which Sergeant Newport, in the pres- ence of John H. Craig, Esq., and Judge Trimble, declared was true to life, and I take here great pleasure in stating that Ser- geant Newport, as well as every soldier of the Provost Guard, treated me with civility, courtesy and respect, for which I am grateful. 18 PEESONAL EEASONS FOR PUBLICATION. THE GUARD HOUSE. I was informed upon my first entrance into the place, that the central idea of a military prison was to make it as nearly the very essence of hell as was possible. In this they made a capi- tal success. The room was about sixteen feet wide by forty-five feet long, with enough taken off of the side to make room for a fliglit of stairs. In this room there were fifty men lying side by side. They were of almost every conceivable grade, gathered from every rank in society, and charged with every manner of offence known to the laws of God and man. Some of them, even in sickness, lawless and ungovernable, had been sent in from the hospital, breathing the deadly malaria of all the diseases generated by the vices of the army. The stench of venereal taint issuing from their putrid breath, would nauseate the stomach of the oldest Bacchanalian. Another squad that contributed to the more dense population of this semi-infernal chamber, which was elevated to the third story of a dilapidated store-house in the rugged suburbs of a dilapidated river town, was a squad of con- valescent soldiers who had been sent up for mobbing a quiet country gentleman to avenge the malice of a drunken Cyprian. In this place there were bushwhackers fresh from the charcoal fields of the guerrilla bands of Missouri, who had stood like hun- gry hyenas over the dying innocent victims of their rapacity and lust. On the floor at the farther end of the room lay a gano- of rowdies, who were snatched up for infesting a low brothel in the purlieus of the city. Very near them was a group of reckless Rounders, reeking with drugged liquors, infuriated with madness, belching forth oaths, and howling obscene songs, compared witli which the jovial scenes of Billingsgate and Fish Market are chaste and. modest. This body of ruffians were placed for safe keeping in the truard House until the whisky had died out on their brain and its putrid fumes began to poison the atmosphere for a full PEESONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 19 city block in every direction around. Intermingled witli the others were deserters, escaping the hardships and duties of the armies, together with rebel prisoners arrested on their way back to take up arms against the Government. These two classes of gentlemen were holding a philosophical argument, discussing the especial merits of their respective armies. There were here con- fined men who had committed rape, horse thieves, watch thieves, murderers, and traitors, in a common nest huddled together. To add to the interest of this society, every evening the Patrol Guard would gather up the beastly drunk and tumble them in. At about 9 o'clock at night the roll was called, and those most able-bodied and desperate were locked in chains, two together. Then the whole crowd would l^reak out in one long, continued hideous yell, compared with which the howls of a gang of half starved prairie wolves is musical and melodious. To add to the attractions of this new habitation, tobacco spittle, the expectora- tion of lungs half rotten with Consumption, the contents of Catarrh nostrils, with the spontaneous relief given by nature to drunken men, were indiscriminately scattered over the floor, whilst every stitch of clothes was literally filled with vermin : And this was the prison into which a free American citizen was placed for daring to be a Democrat. For fourteen long and loathesome dreary days and nights, fe- verish with loss of sleep and gasping for breath, I was confined in this nameless place. Sometimes I would go to the window for a draught of pure air, only to catch the flood of dust that swept through the streets, and was breathed into my nostrils until my lungs became so suffused that I could scarcely inhale or exhale the air, and my tongue became so enlarged at the palate that I could with difficulty swallow my food. The prisoners ate after the soldier, and complained very much of their food. I re- ceived mv meals regularly from Mrs. Reddington, a kind-hearted Democratic lady of great intelligence and worth, whom even mobs could not deter from doing her duty. 20 PERSONAL REASOXS FOR PUBLICATION. Through the day the prisoners, to give exercise to their limbs, would romp and play like wild horses, until the building Avould tremble at its base. The long loss of rest made me faint on each returning evening for the quiet of two o'clock till four in the morning, which promised the only quiet which could be enjoyed, even for sleep, in this pandemonium. All this I patiently en- dured for the sake of the truth. HOW I EMPLOYED MYSELF. These prisoners treated me kindly and respectfully underneath all their infirmities and misfortunes. "With many of these poor fellows there was a great fountain of the pure milk of human kind- ness still flowing, and a tender sensibility, which, when touched, would break forth in tears, or in tones of subdued affection, for home, and family, and God. I duly recognized their sympathy, and addressed myself to its relief, and spent my time in writing letters for unfortunate husbands to their Avives Avho were left in cabins without food or raiment, except as it was earned by moth- ers at the wash-tub or in the broiling sun. Children wrote to their disconsolate parents trembling on the verge of the grave. A v/ild frolicksome fellow who had grown sad, talked to me of his blackeyed Mary of the frontier, her playful eye, her sweet voice and, and the last pledge of love he had made to her before leavino- for the wars. When he spoke, ever and anon a tear would sparkle in his eye, and the innocence of childhood arise in his countenance, checked for a moment by his unfortunate con- dition, as the floating clouds obscure the light in its passage over the sun. There v/ere other poor fellows arraigned for grave offences against God and liberty, law and order, whose cases I assisted to prepare for court. There was no amusement other than the place itself. Our only theatrical enjoyment was the outbursts of fine Irish wit entirely refreshed by such whiskey as would never have found a place in Ireland. PERSONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 21 This place had a Chaplain, of whom the prisoners knew just nothing at all ; as innocent of human nature and its wants as an Enfrlishman's mastiff is of the common law of the land. He never spoke to the prisoners of their real spiritual wants, or assisted them in making their condition happier. Yet I am told, and upon this subject have no doubt, that he drew his salary regularly. I left the place with many kind feelings for the in- mates. I tried to impress each of them with the conviction that whilst any man may be a prisoner, the prisoner should not forget that he is still a man. Weighing two hundred and thirty pounds, suffocation had well nigh exhausted my strength. At the end of fourteen days, my wife, who is a lady of feeble health and was sick, stopped at the Billings House. I obtained a parole of honor, to be confined to that hotel, where I had permission to remain. During this time the United States Circuit Court was in session in Des Moines, for the purpose of finding indictments. Indictments were found against men for various offences. Any kind of indictment would have been a relief to the Puritan persecutors who were hunting me down. The whole country was raked, scraped, canvassed and scoured by spies, pimps, eaves-droppers, and common in- formers in the genuine spirit of Titus Gates. Every effort was used — personal spite, political malice, private conversation, news- paper scraps, written speeches, political associations, and party an- tecedents, were all thoroughly examined for treason, sedition, or anything which would disparage my love of country or prove my sympathies with its enemies. But no indictment could be found in a good season for indictments, when one was needed to cover up the wrongs committed against laAV, order and decency by my assailants. It was unfortunate for the safety of the country that my own is not the only instance of wrong suffered, nor this the only act of violence done in the city of Keokuk. They have been fre- quent and outrageous. 22 PERSONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. The Constitution newspaper office was destroyed. Mr. Hook- er's store was destroyed in the same way. The private dwellings of a number of Democrats were assailed in the dead hour of night by the same persons. Houses were ransacked in the same way ; and a note was sent by this young man, Ball, to an ofiicer, not to attack a private family until the husband returned. Xow, the time has come when it is the duty of the country to enquire who is to blame in this matter. The soldiers are but par- tially accountable. The officers in command are first in fault. A disciplined army, of all other organizations, is not a mob. It cannot be, whether led by officers or carried on by privates. A mob is mutiny, and mutiny is punishable with death. But the very object of an army is to keep down mobs of every kind, and if the army turns mob, then there is nothing left but an anarchy Aviiich endangers everybody and everything. This is especially true where the military is supremely above the civil authority. And the officer who engages in this conduct is an outlaw, a pirate, and an assassin. Keokuk is the residence of Hon. Samuel F. Miller, Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. He might, by his word, have stojjped these things at any moment. I can conceive how the public mind would have been startled to hear John Mar- shall deliver a harangue to a mob in the Public Square of Kich- mond, at three o'clock on the holy Sabbath morning, after it had assailed the private dwellings, and destroyed the private property of his distinguished, peaceable, law-abiding neighbors. Who would have believed such a thing possible of llobert Grier, or Henry Baldwin of Pittsburgh, of Joseph Story, or Judge Curtis in Boston, or Koger B. Taney in Baltimore ? This is not written in malice. Judge INIiller is comparatively a young man, and this gentle hint may arouse his ambition to make himself worthy of the high place he fills. It is just such men as he is that are held responsible to God and the country. PERSONAL EEASONS FOR PUBLICATION. 23 I had not been in the guard house seventy hours for exercising the right of free speech, until Gov. Kirkwood, Congressman Wil- son, and Adjutant General Baker, were posted to speak within hearing where I was guarded, and Mr. Wilson endeavored to convince the people that all arbitrary arrests were right, and were not of sufficient frequency. It is these passionate harangues that demoralized the army, and by a strict and flxir construction of military law, these men are mutineers; and so long as it is done there can be no safety to life, liberty, or property. This much I have said in regard to the authors of my arrest. I have thus written, that the public may know the facts. I shall exaggerate nothing, and write nothing in bad feeling. I make no appeal for sympathy, and have no ambition for martyr- dom. I have simply performed a duty to my countrymen. You see what may, with the utmost impunity, be done to an Ameri- can citizen. I was in danger at any time from assassination from that class of citizens who incite all tlie mobs. One brave soldier told me during my confinement, that a citizen of Keokuk had of- fered him one hundred dollars if he would assassinate me ; and told the soldier that the crime need never be known ; that if ar- rested he would be acquitted at once ; that he might charge me with running guard. The same class of citizens spoke of my assassination in the bar-rooms and elsewhere. Every personal acquaintance among the soldiers, sick, well, and convalescent, treated me with kindness. Every demonstration against any one was instigated by the malignant citizens and the imbecile and cor- rupt officers. This was a part of the machinery for making war on the Copperheads of the North. GEN. J. M. HIATT, The Provost Marshal, was exceedingly tenacious of liis rights and duties as an officer, and showed no disposition to favor or screen me from any charge which any testimony might in any- 24 PERSONAL REASONS FOR PUBLICATION. wise justify or fasten upon me. It is just to liim, however, to say, that at the time of my arrest he was not at home, and was in no wise a party to the personal insults offered me, but has treated me with civility. I was UNCONDITIONALLY released, more firmly than ever con- vinced that the Democratic party should remain united as the only hope of the country. From the eifects of this imprisonment I yet suffer. Crimes of the Civil "War. Booic :pii^;St. CHAPTER I. Destruction of Self-Government. Society Is composed of individuals. The rights and powers of society are the aggregate rights and powers of the individuals that compose it. They can be neither more or less, any more than the whole can be more or less than its parts. Society may not do anything which would be criminal in the individual ; for the same moral laws which govern the individual are carried with him into the social compact. Every man has a right to govern him- self, subject only to the laws of his being. The rights and powers of self-government in society are derived from its individual members who have transferred them to the whole for the benefit and protection of all, and the more perfect security of each. The individual could not transfer more than he possessed nor society receive more than he transferred. All claims to absolute powers in government or arbitrary Powers in the individual are absurd, all transfers of rights and Powers to society by the individual are subject to the supreme laws of the universe to which all men are responsible. Government is a contract entered into among a people. It is of men purely, and cannot be of more binding force than other contracts made in good faith for just purposes involving equal interests. The rights which governments are made to protect are divine — inherent. The powers which governments exercise are 26 CEIMES OP THE CIVIL WAE. purely human — derivative, dependent upon the will of the people who are governed. Man has power to govern himself. More- over, he has no earthly guardian of greater capacity than himself. Self-government then, is not only a right, but a necessity. Man has all of the rights with all of the powers of self-government and self-defence, for the same reasons. All men are capable of self-government, and are the sole judges of its substance, form and details. This is true of the most ignor- ant and barbarous nations. It is not a good argument against this doctrine that since the government of one people is not as good as that of another, therefore the people are not capable of self-government whose system is inferior. It is a sufficient answer that they are satisfied with their system, and others have neither right nor interest in the premises. For example, the government of the Xortli American Indians would not satisfy either the desires or ambition of the people of Paris, New York or London. Yet it is a far better government for them than that of any of those cities or their respective countries. There can be no better evidence of this than the fact that it is impossible to persuade these savages to surrender their systems for any other. Every government is the photograph of the Mill and capacity of the people with whom it originates. What are called improvements in government, no more repre- sent the real wants of all people than the portrait of a Caucassian belle represents the naked squaw or half-dressed negro wench. A violation of this law leads to endless mischief. Again, I cite the Indians who have systems of government and religion adapted to themselves, but not to civilized nations. Civilized nations have therefore foolishly, nay wickedly, — elated with the superiority of their own institutions, framed by the architectural skill of centuries and happily adjusted to every con- ceivable necessity of polished society, — attempted to force them upon uncultivated savages, Mdio have nothing in common with them ; and for the enjoyment of which nature has given them no capacity. Therefore every attempt at projjagandism among the Indians has been not only a failure, but a positive injury and atrocious crime against nature, who has the greatest capa- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 27 citv and most happy flicility for the government of her own chikb'en. God has provided for the Indian a system of government. He worships a being beyond his comprehension, yet assimilated to himself. His worship has been carefully systematized by his ancestors, and is perfectly in itself, adapted to his nature, if not to his Avants. The Indian was not made for the civilization peculiar to the white man. It was a crime to attempt to bestow it upon him with force. The details of the religion and political system of the white race could not be taught to the Indian by persuasion ; nor could it be imposed upon him by any combination of force through the agencies of missionaries, courts or armies. Yet the Indian is capable of self-government, and has a right to govern himself in his own way. There is a very great difference in the degree of the cultiva- tion, refinement, and manner of life of different families of the same race and nation, yet the right of each family to live under its own lawful government is unquestionable; and it must be ad- mitted that this very difference in family government makes it necessary that each family does govern itself in its own way. What is true of the family must be true of the nation; the same principles of right, propriety and law apply in like manner to each and cannot be changed without violence to all. In the en- joyment of the right of self-government, the title of every people is inalienable and supreme. These rights can be destroyed only by destroying the commu- nities which have inherited them. To destroy communities for the enjoyment of their inherent rights, is a crime of nameless atrocity. To kill a people in the defence of their inalienable rights is murder, to burn their prop- erty is arson, to carry it off is robbery, to break open their houses is burglary. Burning up mills, barns and stack-yards, laying plantations waste to starve innocent women, helpless children, and defen(?eless age, is crime in its most revolting form — a shameful retreat from civilization to barbarism, from which there is no safe return. Whatever may be the plausible pretext for the savage cruelty of desolating campaigns, the whole force of suffering falls upon 28 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. the old men tottering over the grave, the sick wlio are nnable to provide for themselves, the half lame, blind, deaf and dumb — the women whom old age and the infirmities of the sex have dis- abled from flight, and children who have neither disposition, intelli- gence or strength to leave their homes. Such are the victims of these crimes against civilization. The soldier in arms who fights will fly from the desolate countries overrun with this barbarism, and seek refuge where plenty abounds. When their own can no longer sustain them, the soldiers will invade the country whence supplies are drawn, and re-enact in retaliation the horrid crimes which have lain their own country in ashes. With the recollection of destitute parents, the piteous cries of heart-broken children, the screams of ravished wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters, echo in their ears and incite them to revenge. As the sight of their burning homes and ruined families arouse them to wild desperation, they leap like wounded tigers into the conflict, unconscious of danger and fearless of death. The burning of raannfhctories falls entirely upon the helpless, who, unable to obtain by industry or reprisal what they have lost, through their inability to protect themselves against the invasion and rapine of military force. How inexcusable is the destruction of that property which God has kindly given us to preserve and minister to our comfort. The orchard and vineyard ought not to be disturbed nor the water coiu'se changed from its bed, nor springs nor wells be pois- oned. These are the common property of the good and the evil upon whom the sun shines, the just and the unjust, upon whom the rain descends. No law can justify nor can any language apologize for these crimes against a people^ struggling to maintain the right of self- government. CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 29 CHAPTER II. The Destruction of Civilization by Mongrelism. The earliest governments originated in the family, and were patriarchal. Nations were amplifications of the family and maintained their identity with their integrity, by refusing to amalgamate with other nations. Jacob refused Dinah to her ravisher, and not only did not al- low him to marry into the family, but his sons slew him. The Ammonites and the Moabites were not allowed to enter into the congregation of the Lord. Leo-itimate governments include nationalitieSj but not diifer- ent peoples ; and must be adapted to the character of the gov- erned. Different and unequal races cannot live happily or safely un- der the same government, upon an equality. 1. This was never attempted before its introduction into South America, Mexico and the West India Islands, and is there an exemplification of all the cruelties of barbarism, di- rected by all of the shrewd villainies of civilization. 2. It is unjust and absurd that people, who require entirely different systems, should be subjected to the same form and de- tails of government. By this unnatural means the more elevated are degraded by leo-al association ; whilst the more degraded cannot be elevated by laws above their moral condition and mental capacity. When such an unnatural condition of things may happen, still the people must be governed to give them protection and security. It is then the duty of the superior race in the spirit of jus- tice, to assume guardianship over the inferior race, and control 30 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. it by such parental regulations as are adapted to its degraded condition. Such were the systems of the two great statesmen of the world, Moses of ancient, and Jefferson of modern times. Moses reduced the Canaanites to chattel slavery, to secure tlieir subservience to the Jewish people. The law-makers un- der the system of Jefferson, having the more difficult task of dealing with three distinct and entirely different races, removed, the Indians from among the whites, and subjected tlic negroes to personal servitude, which in some form or other must exist whilst the races remain in contact, or live in close proximity. When this cannot be done, either through the rebellion of the inferior, or the folly of the superior race, then degradation and anarchy bring both races prostrate together. The remedy for this last condition of things is the removal of the inferior from among the superior, if it be possible. This was the plan adopted for the relief of the Israelites in their subjection to the Egyptians — and offers the only ray of hope for the final preservation of American society, and tlie ultimate re- lief of the blacks of America from annihilation. Tlie negro race is tractable and capable of a superficial and limited improvement; but herein lies the difficulty that they have no capacity for the perpetuity of knowledge or the im- provement of their offspring. An elephant may be taught the performance of the most extraordinary feats, but cannot teach them to its young ; so may the negro receive knowledge from the white man, but will not impart it to his children. Their normal condition can no more be permanently changed than can their climates with its fruit and soil. The peaceful servitude of the blacks of the United States has ended in civil war. Every Christian sentiment revolts at a war of races in which the negro must disappear in universal bloodshed. The emigration of the negro from the United States to Africa or elsewhere, is his last refuge of hope. This must be accom- plished to save both the negroes and the whites from mutual dccn-adation or mutual destruction. Against this it is argued that the negroes were born here, and ought not therefore to be removed or forced to emigrate. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 31 But we may urge that the Israelites, through forty years' march, left Egypt and emigrated to Canaan to secure their free- dom and enjoy their homes and the land of their fathers. That we have removed the Indians from the Atlantic off of their own lands to the farthest verge of the continent, to secure a peaceful separation of the races. The French of South Carolina, the English of North Carolina, "Virginia, and Georgia, the Catholics of Maryland, the Dutch of New York and New Jersey, the Quakers of Pennsylvania and Delaware, the Puritans,^ of New England, the Germans, Celts, Sclavonians, and Scandinavians, all have come from the land of their birth to secure freedom. Every hotel in the cities is filled with white servant girls, who, for the same reason, are saving their weekly pittances to bring their indigent parents, brothers or sis- ters to America. The rapid increase of the white race in the United States makes emigration a necessity. Africa is the only division of the earth that invites emigration and enterprize in vain ; and the negroes the only people who can endure its climate or cultivate its soil. Emigration to Africa secures to the negro self-government. It will secure to him civilization, if he has ca- pacity to civilize ; and if he have, what a future for this unfor- tunate people to go to the land of their fathers, to cultivate the soil, beautify the plains, navigate the rivers, develop the wealth of the mountains, cultivate the rich valleys of the Niger and the Nile, whiten the coasts of Liberia and Guinea with fleets and merchantmen made of their native forests. They can avail themselves of the generosity of nature to their native land and enter the lists with Europe and America in the ao-ricultural staples of the world. They can unfurl the banner of the Holy Cross to their barbarous brethren, and behold Prin- ces come up out of Egypt and Ethiopia and stretch forth her hand to God. This has never yet been, but let it be, if possible. But of it be not possible for a race of people to assume civilization on a conti- nent of which they may have exclusive habitation, assisted by the civilized nations of the earth, then it were a crime against civil- ization to propose to such a people government a partnership with the master race, whose children in the prosecution of busi- 32 ' CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. ness, trade and enterprize penetrate to the remotest parts of the earth. To the people of the country is committed the removal of this unhappy race and the prevention of the debasing crime of mongrel- ism, barbarism, idolatry, and the obliteration of office-government. The Mongolian race representing 560,000,000 of the human family in commercial communication with the United States, tempted by the gold mines of California, are pouring their emi- gration upon the Pacific coast and have it within their easy reach of power to place fifty millions of their population in the United States, where they will work for less wages, live on less food than Americans. Their votes can be purchased for a trifle. Their habits and morals are of the low, heathen type and their worship idolatrous. They must be excluded from the rights of suffrage to preserve the Pacific governments. Could any government outlive this elective influence? These are not only the Chinese, but they are drift-wood of the Chinese. The dangers of this monstrous Mongrel theory is transparent. It would seem superfluous to recite the failures, horrors, anarchies, despotisms, butcheries, cruel- ties, idolatries and recklessness of society consequent upon the Mongrel ized governments of Mexico, South America, and the Islands of the Atlantic. After having robbed the Indians of their lands, home and self- government, despoiled their country, corrupted their morals, and butchered them in their wigwams, to get rid of a degraded race ; it seems incredible that an intelligent people should repeat the experiment upon an even more degraded race than the Indian. This is the more remarkably when they propose the elevation of the negro by the degradation of the white race. If it did not involve the prosperity and glory of a continent, it were laughable to read the legislative edicts against the decrees of nature, the cultivation of negroes by its whites, who are inca- pable of self-support, and by the merest miracle are outside of insane asylums and schools for idiots. The condition of the poor negro remains unchanged ; neither " his color nor his imbecility have yielded to the weekly meetings of the o-rand Army of the Republic ; nor has the thriftless Afri- C CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 33 can been fed by the millions squandered upon the revolutionary vai-abonds who have rioted upon the public property and destroyed the public peace. The black man, after elections as before it, re- mains as ever, the same stupid, stolid creature of circumstance, the victim of chicanery, which impels him to seek shelter under the benign protection of the white man, or perish in his ineffectual attempt to fight climates for which nature has left him literally unprepared. Nature is never defeated^ nor will she suffer in the present conflict. 34 * CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. CHAPTER III. Invasion of Personal Rights. TriErvE are rights older than elections, for the protection of which elections are held, which they cannot destroy and dare not invade. Older and more sacred than constitntions, these rights constitnte the essential elements of our manhood ; with- out wliich we are mere beasts of burden to be driven by the whip of the master-machines, directed by external forces — idiots, lunatics and imbeciles, who tamely yield to the will of their keeper. These rights can be suspended only by the fiat of the Deity, who may hinder our speech, bewilder our understanding, sus- pend our powers of thought, or divest us of those sparkling fires of his own intelligence stamped with his image on our be- ing; or they may be surrendered, by our imbecility and pusil- lanimity, or by our crimes forfeited to society whose equal rights we invade. These rights are sacred as our person: — as the brain which conceives, and the heart which feeds them with its elemental life — are indefeasible. Neither legislatures, courts nor kings can justly divest us of our life, liberty, property or pursuit of happiness, without due process of law, or in punishment of crimes. These rights are inalienable, and may no more be sold or bar- tered to tyrants, than the limbs may be amputated and sold to the surgeon, or the living body be delivered to the dissecting room, for the purposes of anatomy. These rights are indefeasible. No claim of violence or force can be valid against them. Conquest is armed robbery ; government by conquest is usur- pation. CKIMES OF THE CIVIL AVAR. 3j Usurpation is the most enormous crime wliicli can be perpe- trated against society. It is robbery in its most offensive form. Otlier robbers take the property, and sutler the victim to pursue his regular vocation: the usurper absorbs the fountains of life as the sponge drinks up the water, and by one well-directed blow, lays prostrate the great power of a people, that he may enslave talent, and quench the fires of genius in their opening flame. He crushes out liberty with all the noblest elements of a great people who are forced to see through his eyes, hear Avith his ears, and breathe through his nostrils. Drunken with power, the usurper becomes more degraded than his willing victims. It is the trick of usurpers to confound usurpation Avith government, that he may conciliate resistance, and appease the law-abiding. Government is a contract ratified by the people. Usurpation is a forcible entry and detainer upon their rights of goA^ernment. The people of every country are under obligation to obey its laAVS, but are under the same obligation to resist usurpation. The mere violation of laAV by a criminal Avhile endangering the public security, need not impair its majesty, Avhich retains the power to enforce its mandates. But usurpation strikes doAvn the laAV, destroys that house of refuo-e, AAathout AAdiich, society is left to the Avanton inroads of desperate men, and the passionate violence of reckless fanatics, who may choose to forage upon their fields, and prey upon their substance. The ordinary laAV-breaker gratifies some morbid appetite, unbridles some furious passion, or indulges in some A'icious habit: the usurper destroys all security of the people, and becomes the enemy of society, Avhich is imperiled by his existence, and can appeal to no laAV to protect him. When a people haA'e good grounds to belicA'e that their rights will be iuA-aded under cover of the forms of laAV, and resist the initiatory steps of aggression, the laAvful authorities may conduct themselves in such a manner, as to justify the people in prosecu- ting a rebellion, Avhicli in the beginning AA'as unjustifiable. For resistance to laAV, every government has ample power to punish offenders; for usurpation, governments have provided no adequate remedy. 36 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Usurpation is a crime which must be repelled rather than punished. When by common consent, any one is deemed a tyrant or usurper, and resists the ordinary modes of redress obtainable by laAv, or corrupts the fountains of justice, that the people may have no adequate security in the courts, then the people have an undoubted right to repel him as they would a thief in the night, a burglar at their door, or an assassin at their throat. The usur- per is thief, burglar and assassin combined, whose compound felonies against society are alike dangerous to every individual. This law of force is the last terrible remedy against usurpation. Resistance to usurpation is just. The usurper has no claims to the protection of law, because his powers are derived from the suspension of law. He holds his power by force, and cannot complain if force overpowers him. The right to dethrone tyrants and usurpers, and destroy them Avhen they cannot be otherwise removed, has had the sanction of liberal and just men of all times and countries. Brutus removed Csesar by bloody stealth. Although Caesar had interwoven his great name with Roman glory, and added new lustre and renown to tiie science of arms, yet, after the lapse of centuries, Brutus is canouizcd in history as the last immortal patriot of Rome. Tell slew Gesslcr, and the tyrant is indebted to his slayer for a place in history, which is awarded him only to perpetuate the memory of his just death. Our own Indians slay their usurpers "with grave and impos- ing ceremonies, as the only remedy left them to preserve their liberties. The chief heroes of history are rebels, who have resisted unlawful assumptions of power, such as Washington, Henry and JeiFerson : those who have slain the oppressors of their kins- men, as did Moses: those who have avenged their personal Avrongs in the blood of their tyrants, as Charlotte Corday, who slew Marat. Those people have been enbalmed in the hearts of Americans, and elevated to the proudest place in the liberal his- torv of the world, who have executed their kings for the usurp- ation of their rights ; and no executed felons find less sympathy in posterity, than is awarded to the memories of Louis of France and Charles of England. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. o/ The revolution of 177G was a terrible struggle for the main- tenance of personal rights, invaded by political power. Revolutions, or even rebellions, are never purely artificial. A mere irruption upon the surface of society will soon pass away with but slight inconvenience to communities. Revolution is the explosion of society from the presence of in- congruous elements in conflict. Revolutions cannot be causeless, any more than are fevers, earthquakes, volcanoes or hurricanes. The diseased condition of the human system amply explains the fever ; tlie convulsions of the earth as fairly interpret the earth- quake; the insatiable stomach of fire which belches forth its vol- umes of flaming scoriae, duly accounts for the volcano ; the collis- sion of the elements is the solution of the hurricane. The assump- tions of power, trespasses upon liberty, outrages upon rights, with their concomitants, corruptions in oflice, and exacting annoyances of petty officials ; promptly met by tenacity of self-government, maintenance of individuality, love of liberty, and personal rc])ose, are the common and legitimate causes of revolution. The ])eopIe never redress their wrongs too speedily, or punish the usurper too severely. It is the business of usurpers to concentrate power, employ mercenary armies, wring taxes from the people to pay for the usurpation of their government and crushing out liberty. Personal liberty is always in danger. It is the life-blood upon which the tigers of usurpation riot. The only safety is to resist every encroachment upon liberty. The defence of personal rights is a duty tantamount to the preservation of life itself. The quiet surrender of liberty is a crime for which cowardice can offer no satisfactory apology, an enormity that admits of no palliation. The crime is multii)licd in the father, who compromises his children in the transmission 'of his slavery. Such is the depravity of tyrants, that failing to apologize for the wrongs perpetrated upon society, they imagine that the public intelligence has undergone the same changes that their crimes have wrought upon themselves, and exercise usur- pation as a matter of right. The questions of personal liberty admit of no argument, they are self-evident. Whenever a usurper offers a reason why a whole people should be robbed, burned, disfranchised, degraded and destroyed, 38 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. and proceeds to the execution of this horrible work, the people have no remedy left them but the sabre and the musket. Against violent usurpation there is no remedy but resistance ; this is the law of nature which, through the mutations of time, has come down to us unimpaired, maintained by the most astute statesmen, defended by the most heroic warriors, led by the ablest generals, sung by the sublimest poets, in the most inspir- ing song; instituted by God in the liberation of Israel from Egypt, and approved by the just and generous sentiment of mankind. When the liberties of Rome were usurped by Casar, the people had no other remedy than that which brought him to the earth by the dagger of Brutus ; nor had the Swiss any other mode of vindicating their liberty against the cruelty of Gessler, than by the vengeful hand of Tell. History has never murmured against the verdict, nor de- murred to the jurisdiction of the bloody courts. Charles Stuart was not amenable to the courts of common law ; the maxim was imperious that the King could do no wrong, but that very maxim appealed his case to another court, where all maxims were suspended, and passion's fevered lips Avere burning in unquenched thirst for royal blood, and must be satiated. The King had no right to complain. He had first destroyed the law and substituted his arbitrary -will in its stead ; and when in his extremity, he appealed to the British constitution for pro- tection against violence, his remedies failed him. His own vio- lence had prepared the scaifold to consummate his ruin, and end Ills usurpation and his life together. Louis XVI was not the worst of all the European tyrants. His name was endeared to Americans as their fast and oj^portune friend in their infant struggle for liberty. But the sovereignty of Louis was an expense upon the life, liberty and property of ths subject — in Avars, prisons and taxation, the implements of tyrants in CA^ery age Avhich the enlightened people of France could no longer endure — and sought their only relief in his speedy and A'iolent death. It Avas not the A-ersatile pen of A'^oltaire, the KeA'olutionary clociuence of Mirabeau, or the pathetic appeals of Kosseau that CEIMES OP THE CIVIL WAE. od begat the French Eevolution. It was the oppression of the people suflered in their persons, who, after exhausting all other remedies, flew to arms, choosing rather to perish in glorious vindication of their honor and liberty than live iu perpetual bondage. It were the better way to arraign, try, and convict tyrants according to the forms of law, but this can never be done. They always cunningly prevent the possibility of legal trials, and defy legal responsibility. AVhat tribunal dare arraign or arrest Julius Ceesar ? What remedy had the people ? They dared not even speak of their wrongs. This was sedition. Cresar created and demolished courts; called and prorogued councils. Csesar was ruling tyrant; the people were helpless slaves. Brutus slew Csesar; this was the only remedy for the over- shadowing evil — a just j)unishment of his crime. The guilt of his own blood rested on the tyrant's head, which had been justly forfeited to mankind. Assassination is a hideous crime, which undermines the foun- dations of society, and brings the grand old temple of human government toppling to the earth, and makes every man seem prima facie the enemy of mankind. Whether the crime be perpetrated by ruler or citizen, king or subject, it loses none of its innate and ineffable horror. But here arises the startling question which must be carried before the high court of history and the great chancery of God, which will in passionless judgment sit upon our actions. Who is the assassin ? The man M-ho in frenzied madness strikes the fatal bloAv; or the tyrant who overthrows all government — destroys his own safety in his rage to torture his enemies ; or gratifies his spite by plunging the country into civil war and universal anarchy ; who regards nothing of law except its power to punish and inflict its penalties to satiate his malice? A guilty ruler imprisons legislatures, overawes courts by degrading its judges, and gives discretionary license to levy arbitrary taxes, and suspends personal rights ; invites violence and ' destruction from the people and invokes the judgments of God, which fall upon those who exalt themselves above justice and courts. 40 CRIMES OP THE CIVIL WAR. AVhoever may not be tried for his crimes, invokes judgment without trial. Upon these two axioms have we built the Amer- can system : 1. " That all just powers of government are derived FROM the consent OF THE GOVERNED." 2. " Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." CHIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 41 CHAPTER lY. Violation of the Rights of the States r,Y the Federal Govern^.ient. The war between the States of tlie Union was not a riot. It was deliberate, systematic and orderly, upon the part of the Southern States. It was not an insurrection or rebellion, every- thing was done in subordination to the law and sovereign power of the States, in which it transpired with no more of violence than is common to warfare. It was not a revolution. It changed none of the organic laws of the States, the people armed themselves according to law to repel a threatened invasion of their country, overthrow of their government and violations of their political, legal and social rights in which they failed, and are now realizing their worst anticipated fears. It was a war between independent States, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, as interpreted V)y its framcrs ; by the Supreme Court, its legal exponent and the statesmen and publicists, contemporary with its existence. The pretext for the war was the preservation of the Union — an organized Union fighting against organized States, the whole destroying its parts was the monstrous absurdity. Among equal contracting parties, rape was substituted for marriage, or consent was extorted by force as the sublimest spectacle of free government. This doctrine is the fruitful parent of all of the machinery of despotism, standing armies, taxations, corruptions and slavery. The rights of the States and the power of the general govern- ment have been in harmony from the beginning, a combination for protection without the right or power of destruction. I. The original nineteen Colonies were organized under char- ters and contracts from Great Britain, the very terms of which made them separate in their territory, in their estates, franchise 42 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. and colonial existence; no one colony claiming co-ordinate jurisdiction Avitli or supremacy over the others. In so iar as "svas stipulated by contract, Majesty itself did not dare interfere with these charters. Such was the declaration of the Virginia Convention of 1774. The Colonies made their own laws, and colonists held their property by virtue of their inherent right. It may be tedious, but I trust not interesting, to present an epitome of the condition of the settlement of the colonies. This is the most prominent feature of the whole colonization of the American settlement. That they held their rights by contract with the parent Government, and the franchises which they re- ceive w^ere the conditions upon which they accepted their lands ; and these franchises were held by the same tenure, secured in the same instruments with their deeds for their lauds — the title to the one as indefeasible as the title of the other. The Colony of Massachusetts (then embracing the territory of the future States of Connecticut, New Hampshire and Ehode Island ) was settled under compacts of the emigrants of Novem- ber 3cl, 1620, chartered March 4th, 1629; also, by charter of January 15th, 1730, with charters explanatory and confirmatory. New Hamspshire when separated in a distinct colony was chartered, and a separate Government instituted September 18th, 1679. Rhode Island governed her people under her separate charter, granted in July 8th, 1662, until September 1742, unchanged, the original charter being deemed a clear guaranty of sovereignty. Connecticut, withdrawing from the Government of the Colony of Massachusetts, instituted her Government under a separate charter, April 23d, 1662. New York, embracing the East and "West Jerseys, was gov- erned by charter granted March 20th, 1664, April 26tli, 1664, June 24th, 1664, and newly patented on February 9th, 1674. New Jersey was chartered March 3d, 1677, and surrendered the charter to the Crown in 1702. Pennsylvania, including Delaware in its provisions, was char- tered February 28th, 1681. Granted to AVilliam Penn. jSIavvland was chartered June 20th, 1632. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 43 Virginia Mas chartered April lOtli, 1606, May 23cl, 1600, March 12th, 1612. Xorth Carolina, including the territory of South Carolina, was chartered March 20th, 1663, and June 30th, 1665. Soutii Carolina was separated from Korth Carolina in 1729. Georgia was chartered on June 9th, 1732. Tliis brief epitome of the character of the States and their original organization, is very fully explained in the declaration of Independence, w|iicli was the apology offered to mankind by these cliartcrcd and separate colonies fur resisting the authority of Great Britain. The powers of the Colonies are aptly eet forth in the same comprehensive paper. In the whole history of this country, whilst subject to law, there has never been any dispute upon this subject regarding the powers of the States: "AVc, therefore, the Eepresentatives of the United States of America, in Genercd Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly pub- lish and declare that these United Colonies are and ought of right to be free and independent States. * * * * And that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do." By the Articles of Confederation, the true character of the State is set forth in terms so clear that argument or exposition is inaelmissible : " Article I. The style of this Confederacy shall he the United States of America. "Art. II. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and in- dependence, and every })ower and right which is not by tliis Con- federation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress a.ssembled. *' Art. III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship Avith each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general \vel- fare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force ottered to or attack made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, SOVEREIGNTY, trade or any pretense whatever." 44 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. These three articles of the second bond of Union use the very- words of sovereignty, independence, &c., which ignorance has rendered obnoxious to men whose only claim to consideration is their lack of knowledge of the jdainest, simplest principles of free government. Art. IX. Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, declares " The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. " Art. X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It is only necessary here to add that neither the sovereignty nor the independence of the States in any form, or by any impli- cation or expression was in the Constitution delegated to the United States, and of consequence remains Avitli the States and with the people. But no persons more than the Eopublican jmrty believe this ; indeed they concede it when they attempt to force amendments upon it by force, and in such manner as will be reprobated by any court of authority. It seems scarcely possible in the face of the history of our jurisprudence, and the decisions of the courts of the country, that these great truths should be doubted, and an attempt at illustrating these princi- ples would be the folly of attempting to paint the sunbeams. But the philosophy which underlies tins law is even more striking than the law itself. There is quite as much propriety in having all lands in one farm, all workshops in one building, all religion in one Church, or all families in one house, as to place all people under one Government, or all the States under a consolidated system. The people of the States are of different origin, different re- ligion, different manners, customs and habits, and living under different climates, with entirely different vocations, demanding different regulations. Such is this diversity that an attempt to destroy the inherited peculiarities of each would be justly regarded as legitimate grounds of revolution or Avar. The sovereignties of the States rest as a matter of contract upon the charters entered into by the original settlers. But the sovereignties of the new States rest upon a constitutional pro- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 45 vision vliieli pledges that the United States shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government, and shall proteet each of them against invasion, (but certainly does not give the right to invade or devastate them, and thereby destroy a repub- lican form of government,) and on apj)lication of the Legislature, or of the Executive, when the Legislature cannot be convened, against domestic violence. The five new States made out of the bountiful grant of Vir- ginia were ceded under this contract of the Congress of the United States before the adoption of the Constitution. " And u-hencvcr any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free in- habitants therein, such States shall be admitted by its Delegcdes into the Congress of the United States on an equal footing loith the origincd States in cdl respects tchatever." In the treaty by which the Louisiana purchase was ceded to the Government of the United States : "Art. III. IVie inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incoriwreded in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the princMes of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all of the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United Stcdes, and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion ivhich they jirofess^ — Treaty of 1803. Li the cession of the Floridas and other Spanish possessions to the United States, by trenty of February 22, 1819, Article five and six, provides that " The inhabitants of the ceded terri- tories shall be secured in the free exercise of their religion with- out any restrictions ; and all those who may desire to remove to the Spanish dominions, shall be permitted to sell or export their eifects at any time whatever, without being subject, in either case, to duties. — (Art. 5.) The inhabitants of the ceded terri- tories, which his Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States, by this treaty, shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the Federal Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of all the privileges, rights and immunities of the United States." — (Art. 6.) 46 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. The Joint Resolution by which Texas was admitted into the Union was of singuhar significance, as it had been an independent State, with which Ave had diplomatic relations, and was admitted in the following langnagc,. and upon the following terms, namely : "Resolved, By the Senate and House of Bepresentafiirs of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the State of Texas shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one of the States of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, in all re- spects whatever." The treaty by which we acquired California and other jNIcxican Territory is of similar import, and need not be cited. The States made from Southern Territory, like those formed of A^ir- ginia Territory, had the same general rights as those ceded by treaties with foreign powers. Upon these positive compacts the people settled the new States. The law was the written condition of the settlement. Self-gov- ernment was the sine qui non of American emigration, and in- vited the inhabitants from every part of Europe to xYmerica. Ko plantation in America is held by a clearer right, or more definite and indefeasible title than are the sovereign powers of the States. STATES EIGHTS. We must abide the doctrines of the first Kentucky resolution, because its abondonment has cost us the loss of State Courts, State Legislatures, State Conventions, legitimate State remedies, and finally, the States themselves have fallen a prey to our sur- render of their sovereign powers, and only the plain and simple truths of that resolution, vigorously enforced by us, can offer to the people of the smaller and remoter States any remedy whatever for the evils they suifer, and the wrongs inflicted upon them by the larger and richer States of the seaboard. This resolution has not the purpose, spirit or tendency to the dissolution of the Union, as time and transpiring events now fully demonstrate. But upon the contrary, it is the high and holy purpose of the doctrine to preserve the Union forever, and CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 47 extend the area of its glory — not merely by the pliysical freog- raphy of mountains, rivers and lakes, standing armies, tax- gatherers, bank monopolies and consolidated capital, but by that affection, interest and devotion in the States and the people ■which is inspired by justice, equality and free government. The Union was not made to destroy, but to protect free govern- ment and all of the natural rights of the people, to which all government must be subservient. The Union of the States rests upon precisely the same grounds as does that more sacred relation of husband and w'li'e. But no law given could apologize to modern civilization or Christ- ianity for the attempt to bind in perpetual legal bonds the deli- cate, helpless wife, to the strong and cruel husband. Separation is the last remaining remedy of the weak against the strong, of the injured against the aggressor. By common consent all lib- eral governments have interposed divorces and grant alimonies, as the only security of the innocent against the guiltv. The argument is not good, that this would separate all families ; but upon the contrary, it makes tliose who M'ould retain the blessings of the union sacred, more careful of their mutual rights and more diligent to consult their mutual interest, which is the very object of the solemn union. Religious liberty, with all of the hallowed rights of the con- science, draws its entire support from civil liberty. But everv Christian, after the most solemn administration of the sacrament by the consecrated officers of religion, exercise the right to withdraw from the tyranny of church government. What is the Church of England, the Church of Luther, the Church of Calvin, and the Greek Church but a rebellion acrainst. and secession from, the Roman Catholic Church? "What is the Methodist Episcopal Church but a rebellion against, and secession from, the Church of England ? AVhat is the -Protestant IMethodist Church but a rebellion against, and secession from, the Methodist Episcopal Church? What is the Campbellite Church but a rebellion against, and secession from, the Baptist Church ? ' Or, in other words, every subsequent Christian Church, in the full and free exercise of their religious liberty, are obnoxious to the objection of rebellion 48 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL "VVAE. against, and secession from, the parent Church. It were to be desired that all churches should be one, bound in the chains of blessedness and love. But since they will not be, every friend of religious liberty demands for himself and for his Church, the right for separate organization. Civil liberty, the parent of religious liberty, demands the same rights of civil communities which are awarded to religious communities ; and as the church is one by the free government of each separate organization of its members, so is the great union of the States one by the sepa- rate government of all the States, as provided in Mr. Jefferson's resolution of 1798. Just as religion in centralization is the pa- rent of the most horrible persecution, so is civil centralization the source of the most cruel despotism. Now is the time for the appeal to the doctrine of this resolution. The wisdom and foresight of the statesman and patriot in the assertion of the rights of self-government at a time when every American was perilling his life to maintain them inviolate, was not more remarkable than that when at the very time every right of self-government is imperilled, and tyrants are taking advantage of their temporary power, that Democrats should fear to assert, enforce and defend it, when it is, in fact, the only barrier that stands between us and that despotism which is sweeping as a deadly simoon over every hamlet of the most beautiful country of the continent, leaving desolation in its horrible path, and marking its loathsome trail with innocent blood, and enforcing its power in violation of law. The overthrow of civil government in America was the only way in which these doctrines could be overthrown. Upon the question of coercion !Mr. Seward says: " The Federal Government cannot reduce the seceding States to obedience by conquest." " Only an imperial despotic gov- ernment can subjugate thoroughly insurrectionary members of the State." " This Federal Republican system is the very one which is most unfitted for such a labor." The early attempts to fasten odious laws upon the people of the States by the Genera? Government was resisted and con- demned by the people in the election of Thomas Jefferson, and the repeal of the alien and sedition laws. CEI.MES OF THE CIVIL WAR, 49 Tjie doctrines of the Government were well established, and could not have been overthrown except by arbitrary power. This was the accepted theory upon which the Government was successfully administered for three-c^uarters of a century : "Resolved, That the several States composing the United States are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government, but that by compact, under the stvle and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government, for special pur- poses — delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their sejf-government ; and that whenever the General Govern- ment assumes undelegated power, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; That to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other jmrty ; that the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers ; but that, as in all other cases of compact among persons having no common judge, each pjarty has an equal right to judge for itself, as tcell of refractions as of the mode and measure of redress." — The First Kentucky Resolution of 1798. N This doctrine M^as clearly set forth by Daniel Webster in liis declaration that this is a national government : " The Constitution was made by the States, and not bv the people united. It should therefore read, 'We, tlie people of the States United.' It was voted for by the States in the Convention, submitted to the people of each State severally, and became the Constitution only of the States adopting it."^ It is a Federal Constitution, and not a A^ational Government." — Daniel Webster. So generally conceded was the theory of State sovereignty, that the Chicago Convention which nominated Mr, Lincoln to the Presidency, stated it in these words : "Resolved, 1. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions, according to its own judo-- ment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fliith depends." 50 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAPTER V. Instituting Retrospective Test Oaths to Destroy the Freedom of the Elective Franchise. Test oaths in tlieir mildest forms have always been odious to either a free or honest people, as the most ready means of ensla- ving them and corrupting their public officers. In the new system among us the test oath assumed a triple form of enormity against Christianity, civilization, and humanity. These test oaths are retrospective and ex j)ost facto, unconsti- tutional and monstrous. This is the ulterior limit to which des- potism itself may travel. Under this cover every crime may hide in the shadow of power, and every virtue may be crushed out which seeks protection in the temple of Justice. The unreasonable crime of the Roman tyrant who wrote his laws in small letters and placed them out of sight of the people, is exceeded by the Congress which legislates upon the actions of the past; imposes Constitutional amendments to protect infamous criminals from just punishments due to past crimes against ex- isting laws. This test oath is a crime against humanity, which compels men to give testimony against themselves, under jxiins and penalty of perjury, with disfranchisement upon the one hand and the State's prison on the other. No such power can be reposed in courts or legislatures. The common law which came down to us laden with the learning, liberty, and civilization of centuries, revolts at the crime of forcing a man to testify against himself. His attorney, physician, or minister, is not allowed to reveal professional confidence committed to him. This precaution is a necessity to the integ- ritvand success of the profession conceded everywhere and never called in question before CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 51 It is in violation of every theory, maxim and truism of our government, against which the united voices of philosophers, philanthropists, poets, heroes and statesmen of all Christendom come up from the grave and down from heaven with one universal denunciation. How can a man subscribe to a test oath to supjtort the Con- stitution, Avhen the test oath is the most flagrant violation of that instrument ever suggested by the evil genius of tyrants, since the bloody reigns of the English bigots? This has been the chief instrument of the authors of our debt, to commit the government to the hands of a mengre minority of the lowest, most abandoned and abominable of the population of the invaded States. Learning from Congress that the States newly organized and created by its factions, introduced test oaths to control State gov- ernments in the interest of monopolies, after disfranchising the people; test oaths were administered to attorneys to drive able men from the bar, whilst ministers of the Gosjiel vere not al- lowed to perform ceremonies of marriage, bury the dead, baptize families, or preach the word of God without taking this blas- phemous oath; and any drunken magistrate might arrest him in delinquency. To carry the schools with the bar and the pulpit in the interest of the Funding System, schoolmasters were sub- jected to the same oaths. Sisters of Charity in Missouri were arrtsted like felons for teaching orphan children vithout gov- ernment permission, and taken off by beastly constabularies, when engaged in the very act of feeding the hungry and visiting the sick. Test oaths were the natural and necessary accompaniments of the thumbscrew, boot and torture. They are children of dark ages that cannot live in separation. On the 6th day of April, 1789, in the House of Eepresenta- tives, Messrs. White, Madison, Trumbull, Oilman and Cadwal- lader, reported the following form of oath to be taken by the members of Congress, according to the requirements of the Con- stitution : " I, A. B., a Representative of the United States in the Con- gress thereof, do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be,) 52 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. in tlie presence of Almiglity God, that I will support the Consti- tution of the United States. So help me God." This form remained unchanged until tlie beghming of the pres- ent usurpation. The oaths of supremacv, abjuration and allegianee made with all possible legal severity to exclude Catholics and Quakers from the polls, Avere not retrospective. The great offer of repentance under the Christian system, is extended to the Avorst ottenders. The high.cst hope of the ])atriot is that all men shall renew their allegiance and the unh.appy past be forgotten; and oblivion kindly afford a sepulchre for the misery, crime and insanity of the five years which have beclouded the most brilliant era of the liaman race. The Marquis de Concordet defended Voltaire — dissimulation to save him from the penalties of the law was used in these remark- able words : " The necessity of lying in order to disavow any work, is an extremity equally repugnant to conscience and noble- ness of character, but the crime lies with those unjust men Avho render such an avowal necessary to the safety of him whom they force to it. If you have made a crime of Avhat is not one; if by absurd or arbitrary laws you have infringed the natural rights which all men have not only to form an opinion but to render it public, then you deserve to lose the right which every man has of hearing the truth from the mouth of another — a riglit which is the sole basis of that vigorous obligation not to lie. If it is not permitted to deceive the reason, is that to deceive any one, is to do him a Avrong or expose yourself to do him one ; but a wrong supposes a right, and no one has the right of seeking to secure himself the benefit of an injustice." It is a crime to apologize for liars who avow opinions which they do not hold, still more to defend those who take false oaths, but the burden of the falsehood or perjury rests upon those who create the test oaths which make men formally abjure their inher- ent rights. They are accessories of perjury who make perjury a necessity of life. The Catholic member Avho took the test oath was not so guilty of perjury as the tyrant who assumed dominion over the secret crim'es of the civil ^YAn. 53 thoughts of the soul, and radely interfered between mnn and liis Maker, and tli rusts his presence into the avenues of freedom as a hindrance to its existence. The law maker avIio forces men to lie in self-preservation, has no right to hear the truth. We must always distinguish between the crime and the crim- inal. When the highwayman has been killed in the attempt to plunder, he is, notwithstanding his misfortune, the criminal. If the burglar enters your house and demands your money, you arc under no obligation to tell him where it is. You have a right to mislead him, because he has no right to know. ^ou are no more to be ensnared by the wiles of an enemy than to be poisoned by tlie sweetmeats of the incendiary. Ex- torted oaths to make you a ixirticcps crha'uds in your own de- struction or degradation, cannot bind you. An oath is the most solemn sanction that can be given. By invocation of the Deity it is always voluntary, and must be kept sacredly, for the foundation of society rests upon it. Only the most intolerant bigots and besotted atheists create test oaths, and no government outlives them which submits to their exaction. The test oath is but one of a family of the most formidable and ferocious wild beasts that prey upon society. The v.diole brood have been let loose upon us at once. Questions wiiicli have been settled for centuries in favor of liberty, have been reopened in favor of despotism. The whole machinery now employed is identical M'ith that of the Florentine Republic, when one party expelled the other as in turn they regained or usurped power ; until the tenure of every sacred right vacillated with the caprice, passion and interest of the faction successful for the moment. The fruits are upon us. Assassination of private citizens by public officers ; the exaction of test oaths; the exclusion of citi- zens from the polls ; then their exclusion from the Courts. Government by brute force merely always have and always will precede revolution, and be followed by the wildest anarchy or the most heartless despotism. 54 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. CHAPTER VI. Destruction of Fair and Free Election. The Elections do kot bind the people in the conse- quent Legislation of those who are returned as Leg- islators. "An election in its most usual acceptation, signifies the choice which several persons collectively, make of a person to fill an office or place." "These should be free and uninfluenced, either by hope or fear." " And to render this freedom as perfect as possible, electors are generally exempted from arrest in all cases except treason, felon V, or breach of the peace, during their attendance on elections; and in ooino; to and returnino; from them. And provisions are made by law in several States to prevent the interference or ap- pearance of the military, on the election ground." " And as it is essential to the very being of parliament, that elections should be absolutely free, all undue infiuence whatever upon the electors, is illegal and strongly prohibited. As soon, therefore, as the time and place of election within counties or boroughs are fixed, all soldiers quartered in the place are to re- move at least one day before the election, to the distance of two miles or more, and not to return till one day after the poll is ended, except in the liberty of Westminster, or other residence of the royal family, in respect of his majesty's guards, and in fortified places: 8 Geo. 2, c. 30, § 3. Riots, likewise, have been frequently determined to make an election void. By vote, also of the House of Commons, no Lord of Parliament or Lord Lieutenant of a county hath any right to interfere in the elec- tion of commoners; and by statute, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports shall not recommend any members therefor. If any officer of the excise, customs, stamps or certain other branches of the revenue, presume to intermeddle in elections, by persuading any voter or dissuading him, he forfeits one hundred pounds, and is disabled to hold any office, consistently with tlie same principle ; also it has been decided that a Mager between CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAK. 55 two electors upon tlie success of their respective candidates, is illegal and void, for were it permitted, it would manifestly cor- rupt the freedom of elections." — 1 T. 11. 55. Indeed, however, the electors of one branch of the legislature may be secured from any undue influence, from either of the other two, and from all external violence and compulsion. The greatest danger is that in which themselves co-operate by the in- famous practice of bribery and corruption to prevent ; which it is enacted that no candidate shall, after the date (usually called the icstr)) of the writs ; or after the ordering of the writs, that is after the signinc: of the warrant of the chancellor for issiiino; the writs, [Sim 165) or after any vacancy, give any money or enter- tainment to his electors, or promise to give any, either to par- ticular persons or to the place in general, in order to his being elected on pain of being incapable to serve that place in parlia- ment : that is, incapable of ecrving upon that election by 7 and 8 W. 3, c. 4, commonly called the Treating Act. It was decided by one committee, that treating vacates the election only; and that the candidate was disqualified from being re-elected and sitting upon a second return. 3 Lud. 455. But a contrary de- termination was made by the Southwark committee, in the first session of the Parliament called in 1796; who declared a candi- date disqualified on the ground of his having treated at a former election, which -was declared void for such treating. It has been supjioscd that the payment of travelling expenses and a compen- sation for loss of time, were not treating or bribery within this or any other statute ; and a bill passed the House of Commons, to subject such case to the penalties imposed by 2 Geo. 2, e. 24, upon persons guilty of bribery. But this bill was rejected in the House of Lords by the opposition of Lord Mansfield, v/ho strenuously maintained that the bill was superfluous; that such conduct by the laws in being was clearly illegal; and subject in a court of law to the penalty of bribery. 2 Lud. 67. To guard against gross and flagrant acts of bribery, it is en- acted by the 2 Geo. 2, c. 24, (explained and enlarged by the 9 Geo. 2, c. 38 and 16 Geo. 3, c. 11) that if any money, gift, office, employment, or reward be given or promised to be given to any voter, at any time in order to influence him to give or 56 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. withhold his vote, as well as ho tliat takes as he that offers such a bribe, forfeits <£500, and is forever disabled from voting at any election for a member of Parliament and holding any office in any corporation ; unless before conviction, he will discover some other offender of the same kind, and then he is indemnified for his own offence. But these statues do not create any incapacity of sitting in the House ; that depends solely on the Treating Act already mentioned. It has been held that it is bribery if a candidate gives an elec- tor money to vote for him, though he afterwards votes for another. 3 Burr 1235. And there can be no doubt but it would also be bribery in the voter, for the Avords of the statute clearly makes the offence mutual. And it has been decided that such vote will not be available to the person to whom it may afterwards be given gratuitously ; though the propriety of this de- cision has been (picstioned by respectable authority. 2 Dour/. 416. An instance is given in 4 Doug. oGQ, of an action in which twenty-two penalties to the amount of XI 1,000 were recovered against one defendant. By the 49 Geo. 3, c. 118, for better securing the independence and purity of Parliament by preventing the procuring or obtain- ing seats in Parliament by corrupt practices; after reciting or promising any gift, office, place or gratuity, to procure the return of a member, if not made for the use of a returning officer, or votes is not bribery within the meaning of the act, (2 Geo. 2, c. 24,) but that such gifts or promises are contrary to the ancient usage, right, and freedom of election, and contrary to the laws and the Constitution. The following penalties are imposed ou all persons giving or pr^^mising, and on all persons giving or receiving any sum of money, gift or reward, upon any engage- ment to procure or endeavor to procure, the election or return of a member of parliament ; viz : on the party giving or prom- ising if not returned as a member, £1000; and on the party giving or promising, or privy if not returned a member, forfeit- ure of his seat ; and ou the jjarty receiving, forfeiture of the money received, and also £500 to be recovered by any party suino- for the same in the Sui>ei'ior Courts of Pecord in Great Britain or Ireland. § 1. The act contains a proviso for ''any CRIJIES OF THE CIVIL AVAU. 57 legal expense bona fide incurred at or concerning such election." § 2. Penalties are also imposed on any persons who shall j)ro- cure or promise to give, or procure any office, place or employ- ment to any person upon any express contract, to procure a seat in Parliament, viz : on the member returned (so giving or pro- curing, or promising or privy,) loss of his seat; on the receiver of the office, forfeiture, incapacity and £500 ; and on any per- son, (holding any office under the Crown,) who shall give any office, &c., upon any such account, £1000. § 3. mictions on this statute must be brought within two years. § 4. Beside the penalties thus imposed by the Legislature, bribery is a crime at common law, and punishable by indictment or in- formation ; though the Court of King's Bench, will not, in ordi- nary cases, grant an information within tM'O years ; tlie time within which an action may be brought for the penalties, under the statute. 3 Burr 1335, 1337. But this rule does not effect a prosecution by indictment or information by the Attorney Gen- eral, who in one case was ordered by the Plouse to prosecute two persons who had procured themselves to be returned by bribery. They were convicted and sentenced by the Court of King's Bench to pay each a fine of 1,000 marks, and to be imprisoned six months. — 4 Doug., 292. In order to diminish the expenses of elections, it is enacted by 7 and 8 Geo. c. 37, that no person elected to serve in Parliament shall after the teste of the writ of summons or after the place becomes vacant before his election, by himself or his agent, give or allow to any voter or to any inhabitant of city, county town, etc., any cockade, ribbon, or other mark of distinction. Great abuses have existed in several corporations by the appli- cation of the corporate property for electioneei'ing purposes and towards the expenses of the favored candidates. The 2 and 3 W. 4, c. 69, was passed to restrain such aj)plication in future, and a variety of provisions are enacted for that purpose ; and members of corporations ofl'ending against the act are declared guilty of a misdemeanor. Undue influence being thus endeavoured to be elfectually guarded against, the election is to be proceeded with on the day appointed : the Sheriff or other returning officer first taking an 58 CRIMES OF TPIE CIVIL WAR. oath against bribery and for the due execution of his ofiice. As soon as the returning officer lias taken this oath, he must read, or cause to be read, the Bribery Act, under the penalty of £50. The candidates likewise, if required, must swear to their quali- fication, or their election shall be void. — Tonilin's Laic Diction- ary, Vol. 3, page 50 and 51. Fraud vitiates all contracts, but none more clearly than the issue of an election. For the last five years in this country every conceivable mean- ing of the word, election, has been outraged. The work of coercion commenced with the elections in Maryland, after the outbreak of the civil war. Cavalry surrounded the polls to intimidate voters : when this failed, judges of the election were arrested ; sheriiFs and their posses were driven away for executing the laws. I cite but an instance. On the day before the election, in 1863, under the order of Schenck, cavalry and inflmtry Avent to Salisbury, scattered through the counties of Somerset and AVorcester, to spread terror among the people. The proclamation of Gov. Bradford maintaining the law, Avas set at defiance, and military vagabonds joined in an election of representatives, to ruin tlie people and destroy the State, When men of character were elected, they were forced to resign upon pain of imprison- ment. Such was the course of Senator Holland, elected by eight hundred majority, from Dorchester County. For refusing to resign. Waters was di-agged to prison, subjected to every indignity of provost marshals, jailers, and the cruelties suggested by the shallow ingenuity of AYallace, the commander. This was the style and animus of the Congressional election from the Eastern shore to the Youghiogheny. So monstrous and so common were these things, that their detail would be voluminous. In Delaware, the elections employed force in deterring voters from the polls by fraud, in substituting false returns and forged votes. Such were the elections under Schenck on all of the Eastern shore. i CHIMES OF THE CIVIL A\ AK. THE FARCE OF THE LATE ELECTION IN DELAWARE. In a late disciipsion in the United States Senate, Mr. Saulsbuiy, (Opposition,) of Delaware, said : "I have seen the armed soldiery of the 'powers that be' at the polls, and by positive interference drive dozens of voters away. This was in my oMn State (Delaware) no longer ago than last November. The majority of the voters of the State of Delaware at the late election were not allowed to cast their votes at the polls because they did not approve of this Administration. He would ask, Has there ever been any attempt by that State to violate any law of this Government? Has that State ever given any encouragement by any act or deed to those in revolt against the Government ? He defied any Senator on this floor to show where the State of Delaware had attempted to tear down the fabric of this glorious Union, and yet the party in power, finding that they could not send representatives of their own choice to the other branch of the National Legislature, allow a military man* to publish an order that ' no citizen should vote unless he should take an oath such as he prescribed.' The hero of a military operation on a railroad can make his will the supreme law of voting and say, ' You shall not vote unless you become subject to my will.' This was freedom of election, indeed ! The hero of the blood-stained field of Vienna sent his military forces to every election poll in the State of Delaware, authorizing them beforehand what to do, and saying to the people what they must do. A sovereign State thus became a playtliing in the hands of a military officer, Avho has never distinguished himself in any way in tlie service of his country." In New Hampshire, where physical force was unnecessary, arbi- trary power was interposed in a style of which the following is a condensed specimen : " War Department, Adjutant General's Office, ) Washington, March 13, 1863. j Special Order, No. 34. By the direction of the President, the following officers are hereby dismissed the service of the United States: Lieutenant A. J. Edgerly, 4th New Hamnshire Volunteers, for circulating 60 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Copperlieaxl tickets, and doing- all in his power to promote the success of the rel)el cause in his State. By order of the Secretary of AVar. L. Thomas, Adft Gen. To the Governor of Isew Hampshire." The elections in Kentucky were the most horrible pretences for enormous crime. The sickening butcheries of Tayne, Avho dug graves in advance to bury men as they might chance to go by, shocked the people and drove them i'rom the polls. Payne was followed by Burbriuge who, to a contemptible im- becility, added a shameless brutal instinct. In his treatment of his neighbors, Burbridgc vied Mith tlie viper that eats its way into the world through the vitals of its mother. With a bloody cruelty at which savages shudder, he drove the people from the polls. At elections for members of Congress, old and respectable citizens were beaten away by military mobs, for offering an of- fensive ballot; and tied up by the thund)s to limbs of trees for daring to express an opinion at the polls. Judge Duval was expelled the State by military force, because he was a candidate for an office he had honorably filled for many years before. New oaths were administered at will and passion ; military orders were issued to enforce arbitrary power; squads of soldiers were let loose upon the polls in one place and would drive voters from other places, voting over and over again. The frauds were systematized and forces disciplined. Fur- louo-hs and their extension were granted to soldiers upon condi- tions disgraceful to their manly vocation and humiliating to manhood itself, that they might interfere in elections. The old tools of despotism were found to be none the less powerful because they had been employed before ; nor the less dangerous because they were cruel, and employed other unscru- pulous instruments with such covering of fraud and deceit as would escape detection in tlie act. Those entrusted with this Mickcd ^vovk were cold, cunning, sly and cruel, who measured their Avork by the necessities of success. In all of the States where military force dare not be employed, a CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Gl svstcni of ballot fraud was practiced which swept the elections without regard to the uumbcrs p;olled. Wherever the party in power had control of the election board, they M'ould carefully cal- culate the numbers necessary to success on the whole county, or would greatly augment former majorities by this simple plan. The board would adjourn for meals, and during the recess, some one secreted for thepurjiose, remaining in the room with a key to the ballot-box, would unlock it and take out as many Democratic tickets as were necessary to secure the desired majority, and sub- stitute them with Re])ublican ballots. This was generally done in some remote room whither the ballot-box was taken, where detection was avoidable. These frauds wei'e so flagrant as to be demonstrable. In some places the majority appeared greater than the actual vote should have been in a fair election ; in other places the vote embraced more than the entire male population. The soldiers frequently voted without regard to their nativity or domicile, and then voted many times the same day at diiierent precincts. JMoney was employed to buy votes where muskets failed to intimidate voters. Manufactories commanded the votes of their employees with the same facility that the coachman reins his horse, or the shep- herd herds his fold. The daily bread of thousands was withheld as the price of their liberty. The banks employed the double thong of usury and protest with their creditors, to compel them to sustain the funded-banking system. The political churches were pressed into the same unholy ser- vice by the rich pewholders ; and the minister inveighed in terrible style against his political opponents, and terrified the poorer part of his congregation to vote with the rich and sustain monopolies with fanaticism, under no less sanction than the hopes of heaven, the terrors of hell, and immediate excommunication from the church. Landlords made their tenants vote their tickets under penalty of dispossession ; and in the rural districts, executed their purpose with severity. 62 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Such was the comljinations of force and fraud on the elections, where fanaticism and falsehood had failed to secure a controlling influence over the floating vote of the county, which is always necessary to the permanent security of tyrants in ill-gotten power. To cover uj) the enormity of these outrages pretences were made of fears of intention upon the part of the people to interfere with elections, wliich are explained by the following order from Gen. Hooker: Headquarters Northerx Department, | Cincinnati, October '21 , 1864. j ^RCULAR. The commander of tliis department has received information that it is the intention of a large body of men on the northern frontier on each side of the line, open on one side, and in disguise, on the other, to so organize at the ensuing National Election, as to interfere with the integrity of the election, and when in their jjower to cast illegal votes ; in fact, in any Avay interfere Avith the honest expression of the electors. In view of the foregoing facts, it is made the duty of all officers of the Government, both civil and military, as well as loyal citizens, to guard well the integrity of the ballot-box. All military officers, including Provost Marshals and their assistants, will be held to strict accountability for the adoption of such measures within their districts or commands as will not only prevent illegal voting, but to arrest and bring to justice all who attempt such voting, or endeavor to prevent the honest ex- ercise of the elective franchise. The citizens and civil authorities of tlie towns and cities on the Northern frontier are particularly requested to give any in- formation they may have, or may from time to time receive, to the Provost Marshals or military authorities, whose duty it is to inform the nearest Provost Marshal General or other military authority, and to take measures to arrest and confine any and all connected with such organizations. The late raids on the Lakes and in New England are ample evidence that neither life nor jiroperty are safe. AH Provost Marshals and their assistants, and all military commanders, will take measures to obtain and rejx>rt at once any information that may lead to the prevention of this inter- CRIiMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 63 ference with the riglits of the people, or aid in the arrest and pun- ishment of the offenders : they from time to time will leport by telegraph any new facts. Local authorities will receive all the aid within the control of the military commander. By command of Major General HOOKER. Official : Such was the spirit of the elections and the manner of holding them. Under this bold and wicked flirce, Charles Upton, an Ohio adventurer, and William E. Lehman, quite as strange a bird in old Virginia, by a few vagabond civilians and drunken soldiers, were authorized to represent a community of a million of people to whom they were strangers, and fasten a debt of thousands of millions of dollars upon the country. Such elections are ipso facto void. Would any bench of jud- ges that ever sat in chancery over the affairs of men, allow a tax sale made under a law, which worked a forfeiture for delin- quency, if such law had been enacted by men thus elected. If such farces are to be accounted elections, what security have we that monarchy may not supplant our republican form of government. What security have we for religious liberty? What security have the poor against the combinations of Avealth, influence and political power, which may grind them to the earth ? Upon the other hand, if these elections are inaugurated by the rich, why may not the poor who have superior numbers turn upon their oppressors, and bear down all before them. In such a revolution, leaders are always at hand. Wat Tyler, Jack Cade and John Wilkes never die. The very instruments that were used to destroy the freedom of elections, will join any other counter revolution to destroy the destroyer. Thousands of poor fellows, hurried oft* to the field of slaughter, return to their homes made desolate by the hands of those that cheered them on their way froin home — out of employment, or what is worse, disabled. During a relentless revolution, new doctrines have been taught which may not be lost upon them. Equality is a term of broad signification and may be applied to property as well as suffrage. . 64 CrJ]MES OF THE CIVIL WAr.. If men may forcibly or fraudulently vote in an election to destroy the wrongs of which they may complain, then they may declaim against the inequality of property which is held Ify the few and absorbs their substance. They may demand the equal- ity of ownership and enjoyment of property. The toiling millions who fight the battles, build railroads, clear forests, rear cities and cultivate the soil, are never rich; and may be known by their coarse food, rude habitations, plain dress, unlettered tongue ; but they are still men — the best, the proud- est and purest of our race. When these men shiver in the storm and pass by the stores of those that never toil, thousands of substantial garments yet unworn lying loosely on the shelves, tlie tatterdemalions will survey themselves and examine their wardrobe. Their toes are breaking through their boots; their elbows grinning through their sleeves; their knees peeping through their pants; the long cold winter passing slowly with its fruitless labor and heavy de- mand upon the purse ; tlie leader will lift his dissatisfied voice to his companions, crying the greatest good to the greatest num- ber. Here are a hundred of us poor fellows, all covered with rags, and your room is lined with thousands of new suits. We declare for a general divide. The crowd responds and takes a new suit each. The crowd pass on to the grocery and the orator repeats the Agrarian axiom, the greatest good to the greatest number, until the miller and the butcher share the same divis- ion. Once emancipated from the exactions of law, like wild beasts, society will slay and devour its members, and they that appeal to violence shall by violence be destroyed. But to violence was added perjury, as the instrument of suc- cess in these elections. And when the people have introduced these monstrous crimes into society, they must not be surprised that society is destroyed by its vices. This may be accepted as an unchanging axiom that no state ever adopted a false system of government which did not work out an early ruin for herself. No church ever yielded to an in- vasion of doctrine which did not ultimately overthrow its eccle- siastical system. Nor can we hope to be an exception to a rule so general and a law so exacting. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 65 No people ever parted with their liberty without being them- selves responsible as the agents, as well as the victims -of their degradation. History amply vindicates this truth. Cromwell trampled down the people of Great Britain M'ith a meagre, but furious minority. Lincoln at no time had the support of more than one-third of the electoral vote of the country. But his was the spirited and devilish third. Those of the Church embraced in his party, were the fanatics of every faith ; spiritual adventurers who sow dissension among their people, that they may reap harvests of gain from the ripen- ed strife. Of financiers, he gathered around him the stock gamblers ; speculators, usurers and extortioners, who inflame the money market and win the prizes in a general bankruptcy. Of the young, the violent attached themselves to his fortunes. Of the thinking, only the shallow and conceited were con- sulted. Of the philosophers, statesmen, jurists and Christians, there were none whose counsels were sought or whose opinions were followed. This party, consisting of force and vehemence, lasted longer than if it had been directed by prudent men of great knowledge, which would have been fatal to success. The success of such revolutions depends upon a union of just such forces who, well knowing the weakness and stupidity of those remaining, pre- e their own action upon the non-resistance of the oppressed. his was the secret of the growing power of Lincoln and his L who overthrew the government, and perpetuate the usurpa- I of its powers through the imbecite cowardice of those they e robbed of liberty. Che coercion, corruption and control of elections was necessary the usurpation, and it required but short deliberation to deter- uxiiue upon these means to accomplish it. From these elections emanated the public debt ; but the elections were void. I cite alone THE MISSOURI ELECTION. The election in the State of Missouri and city of St. Louis, was 5 6G CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. the first fruits of a system of chicanery without parailei in the history of civilization in any country. Can such elections bind any one? There is not one subtle fraud, or lying subterfuge, or villainous evasion, which has not found its May into the forms of the Constitution of the State of Missouri — to fisten in its body those enormous crimes unknown to the English language, which would have raised a rebellion in any country under heaven. I. Tiic test oaths of the dark ages, which were merely pre- requisite, have been improved upon and made retrospective in their bearing. II. Men were forced to bear testimony against themselves in violation of all the well-known usages of the judiciary in every country. III. Men were disfranchised and robbed of vested rights without trial. These are grounds of resistance held to by people everywhere. To carry this infernal work into complete operation, force and fraud were necessary, indeed indispensable, and the constitution was conformed exactly to it. The legislature of last winter prejiared the programme for carrying on the elections by a ming- ling of force and fraud. The vigilance of the President circum- vented the evil purposes of the Governor, which preserved us from liis mercenary militia, which tlireatened the polls in every precinct in the State, where it became necessary to overawe the people by threats of coercion to drive them into submission. But the removal of the arms from the hands of these vagabonds, made it a necessity that the whole work should be consummated by fraud alone — bald fraud, stark naked — was employed to do the work alone. Fraud was introduced as the chief of ceremo- nies, and commenced the su])erintendence of the whole service. It was adjudged a crime sufficient to disfranchise a man that he had fed the hungry, clothed the naked, ministered to the sick, or cared for strangers — if any of these persons had been in any wise con- nected with the late civil war, though commanded to do these things to all men by the law of God ; the long infernal oaths then administered were so blasphemous, absurd and outrageous, that thousands of good men who love their country and its gov- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. G7 ernmcnt with unfaltering devotion, shrank from the liorrid dose, and scorned to accept their vote upon such terms ; whilst vaga- bonds without homes, foreigners unnaturalized, convicts from prisons, octoroons and Indians, were registered, the only ques- tions put, were whether their votes might be maui[)ulated by the paity in power for their own purposes of evil. But the legist ra- tion was a failure. There Avas a clear majority of the registered voters of every county in the State who would have voted the conservative ticket. In St. Louis county, the Radical voters never amounted to more than 5,500 votes — Avithout importation from other places. AVhen the registration was completed and announced as 26,000 votes in round numbers, which would have left nearly 1 5,000 majority for the conservatives. Such is the con- clusion of figures made by the last five years. On this state of facts the people went to the polls. But here they were met by the Iraud in the intricate system of districting. All the old Avard lines Avere Aviped out, ncAV districts AA^ere formed by obscure streets, alleys, and unusual names, so as to confuse the voter, and not one-half of the voters of the city kncAV Avliere their voting place could be found. And still others could not find their places of registra- tion, and Avhen they Avent to the polls, they Avere required to bring Avitnesses of their registration. Neither time nor space will admit of a detail of the Avrongs and petty annoyances im- posed upon the people to depriA^e them of A^oting. But to croAvn the iniquity, the districts Avere so gerrymandered as to put a number in a polling district impossible to be polled at one bal- lot-box. Then Jiundreds of men Avere standino; in a solid column, from the AvindoAV of the polls into the streets, and no one voting, the judge Avould quibble about the registration for half an hour, and in the meantime the i)olice Avould hustle in some Badical, Avho Avas knoAvn by shoAving his ticket, Avhich had a device upon it, and the police alloAAcd him to pass, and the judges received his vote Avithout question. This Avas done, so that a dozen Radicals Avould vote Avhilst one Democrat Avas in Avaiting to deposit his vote. In the meantime the judges Avould declare that they could not find the name of the Democratic voter. In this Avay at least ] 1,000 Democratic voters Avere dis- franchised openly, shamelessly. But this Avas only a part of the 68 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL "\VAE. villainy resorted to Ly these wicked men. They imported young men from Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania into St. Louis, hid among the confusion of the city, and secretly registered, after the other registrations had ceased, and counted as voters. Iowa con- iributed in the same way to the full extent of her capacity, until the meagre number of voters of the Eadicals were somewhat swelled. The murderer, McNeil, was elected in this way, by about one-fifth of the actual votes of St. Louis county. But when every other subterfuge failed them, they played the villain in counting. They multilated the record, destroyed the tickets, and counted only to suit their fraudulent purposes. This is the farce called an election in the State of Missouri. The people en- dure it. There are in the county of St. Louis, fair estimated, 40,000 voters capable of bearing arras. Of these, 7,000 may be radicals, which leaves 33,000 conservatives and democrats, who will not endure forever these infernal wrongs. This leaves about five to one. These 33,000 votes will not endure disfranchisement. It is only a question of time, and that a very short one, how long this shall be endured by a people born free. It does not help the matter that these 7,000 revolutionary voters are adventurers, strangers and speculators; that the men they elect, are mere hangers-on upon society. There is a lurking danger in these wrongs, that threatens revolution. The fathers of the govern- ment went to war for far less cause, and sensible men ought to know that in a great city like St. Louis, and a great State like Missouri, there can be no security for property Avhere there is no guarantee for liberty, and the seven thousand imported vaga- bonds who disfranchise 33,000 freemen, need not be astonished at any moment to hear of an outbreak. The polls have been closed against them. The courts have become the pitiful tools of the miserable tyrants. CHIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. G9 CHAPTER VII. DiSINTEGKATION OF CONGRESS. A free people may not be enslaved by a ruinous debt r.pon slight pretence or for trivial causes. Such debt must be contracted in strict comformity with law. 1. The Congress must be legally constituted. 2. It must be legally elected. 3. The laws under which a debt is created must be enacted in conformity with the prescribed forms of legislation. 4. The money must be appropriated by law. 5. The purposes for which it is paid out must be legitimate. the legal constitution of congress. 1. "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." 2. " The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature." [Art. I, Sec. 2.) 3. " The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years, and each Senator shall have one vote." {Art. II, Sec. 3.) 4. *• No State shall be deprived of its equal suiJrage in the Senate." [Art. Y, near the last clause.) These organic laws are not only the rules defining the powers of Congress, but they are the source from whence ('ongress de- rives its existence. There can be no Congress except as thus created. Has there been' any such body in the United States within the last six years ? 70 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Has each State at least one representative ? Has tliere Lcen in session a body composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof? Any disfranchisement of the States in either branch of Con- gress divests that body of its power to make laws of binding force upon the people of the States not represented, according to the spirit of the last article of the Constitution — if it does not divest it of its entire law-making power. " A minority of each House may compel the attendance of a])sent members, and under such penalties as each House may provide." But it is abhorent to justice as well as our political system, that a majority in session should expel all tlie absent members, or a part elected organize before the election of the others, expel them as the elections occur and vote to exclude all who difier with them in opinion. Precisely this has been done by the representatives of a part of the States, who have expelled the members of all of the Southern States, and such members of the Northern States as disagree with them in opinion. Upon the same analogy of power the next Congress may expel New York, then Pennsylvania, and successively combining, may expel all of the larger States, until there are none left except those having sufficient numerical strength to expel the rest. Such a body can have no higher legal existence than seven mem- bers of a jury, ^^hobar the door against the entrance of the other five. Such is the glaring usurpation which has created the enormous debt no^v upon us ; which maintains itself by quartering an army upon one part of the country, enslaving the jieople by their presence, and robbing the otlier part in taxation to forage and subsist them. Expulsion of States is the counterpart of secession, resting upon the same thesis. In its organization, Congress is the creature of the Consti- tution, wuth no powers except those derived from the people, clearly set forth in that instrument. There has then bsen no law- making power in organized existence in the United States for some time. There certainly is not such a power now in exist- ence. Any organization pretending to such powers is a usurpa- CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 71 tion, baldly, nakedly, clearly, atrociously a usurpation, without an apology founded in the Constitution, whose authority can command obedience by the sword alone, without possessing a single element of moral power over the people. Congress has been a usurpation in the exercise of its usurped legislative functions. Its whole legislative career has been marked by a perpetual scries of usurpations destructive of the fundamental principles of freedom ; any one of which would overthrow civil government, if permitted without rebuke and all of which combined, have changed the entire character of our institutions. Instances might be cited, but a conformity to the spirit of the laAV is that rare exception to the whole wild and absurd career of that body, whioh can scarcely be noted. The divisions of States, the abrogation of the States, the military rule of States, the duress of courts, the corruption of courts, the destruction of courts, the imprisonment of legislatures, the threatening of legislatures, the destruction of legislatures, the duress of Congress, the corruption, the mutilation of Congress, the destruction of Congress, are but a part of the general usurpation. T2 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAPTER YIII. The Duress of Congress. Congress was in duress during the period of the con- tracting OF the public debt. No body, either corporate or incorporate, private or public, can do any legal act under the restraints of duress. The nominal Congress was for five years under the most care- fully oi'dered duress, the most exacting espionage, the most com- plete terror ever exercised over any deliberative body invested with law-making powers. From the opening of the war until the conclusion of peace, Congress was surrounded with soldiers — menaced by an army, whose bristling bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, flashed upon the windows of the Capitol, and fell upon the eyes of this terri- fied body. The legislation was dictated by the commander-in- chief of the army, who acted in advance of all legislation. The bold men of the opposition were in perpetual danger of assassination or death by the slow torture of the prison. Mobs were organized in every part of the country, and members of Congress were in danger for every word spoken in conflict with the policy of the President, and were imprisoned at his will. Mr. Yallandigham was arrested, imprisoned and banished by a mob of military idiots under the usurpation of a military com- mission. This was inflicted as a punishment for his bold, active, defence of the people whilst iu Congress: as well as to intimi- date others by the example of his punishment. Mr. Wall, of New Jersey, was imprisoned and brutally treat- ed because he was a prominent candidate for United States Senator, a gentleman of great independence and eminent ability. Henry May, of INIaryland, a member of Congress, was im- prisoned whilst attending the funeral of an illustrious brother, CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 73 who liad died of disease contracted in the Mexican war, because he was the luminous mind of the Maryland College in Con- gress, and the leading spirit of her freemen who stood with un- deviating devotion to the government. Willis J. Allen, a Congressman of Illinois, was kept in prison witli felons, under no charge whatever, wliicli an iniquitous Con- gress could make a pretext for his expulsion from that body, be- cause an example was required to trample down the people of Southern Illinois, and force their acquiescence in the general usurpation. In its leo-islation, the President neither consulted or awaited the action of Congress, but anticipated it ; and accepted the rati- fication of their own debasement with avidity. In all of this imbecile, terrified body, there was no man wlio dared prefer articles of impeachment against the President for his crimes, or call in question his actions. The mover of impeachment would have been imprisoned and destroyed. Such men as Yoorhees, Pendleton, Ben. Wood and Long, pro- perly chose, quietly to assist to preserve the remnants of liberty lingering among the people, and expose the outrages daily per- petrated upon their rejjresentatives. Tlie press of Benjamin Wood, another Congressman, had been suppressed by military interference. Such was the terror over the Congress, that its members acted as though their powers were derived from the President, and with disgraceful servility, these miserable slaves and tools of ty- rants for five years, day after day, recorded the edicts of the army. This Congress represented nobody, was phrenzied by the scent of blood like a herd of wild buffaloes stamping the ground and rending the air with their hideous lowing. Having lost their reason, these Congressmen gave vent to the most loathe- some forms of passion to hide the shame of their degradation. A body of men dazzled by the gleaming sabre, ready to be turned at any moment upon them, looking at the vacant seats of members of their body, imprisoned for the legitimate exercise of their Constitutional rights, were under such duress as utterly in- capacitated them for independent legislation. 74 CEIMES OF THE CIVIIi WAR. Their attempt at law-making was a broad farce, exciting ridi- cule and disgust, rather than merriment. No act of such a body of legislators can bind the conscience of the people ; any more than a deed of trust made under duress, can bind the forced grantors, though the body of the deed should declare that it was their voluntary act and deed. In this terrible reign of crime and usurpation, there Avere brave men who defied the arbitrary power of the Adminis- tration. Among the great men who stood unterrified by threats, un- tempted by bribes, and unmoved by persuasion, was Hon. Ben. G. Harris, of Maryland, who stood solitary and alone in his vote against the subjugation of the people of the Southern States ; was at last arrested for feeding two hungry strangers who were sent to him for the purpose. This occurred after the Avar was over, Avhen to do such a charity was a Christian virtue, to be coveted by the purest saint. For giving a dollar to satisfy the cravings of- hunger of these two poor fellows who Avere on their Avay to their desolate homes, after having laid down their arms, after Lee and Johnston had surrendered ; this able statesman, Benjamin G. Harris, Avas ar- rested, confined and dragged before a committee of military A'ag- abonds, declared guilty, and sentenced to three years' imprison- ment in the penitentiary. Like a true Eoraan, he scorned to ask for pardon, and through very shame the President remitted the sentence. But they could neither break the spirit nor sub- due the soul of this upright honest man. Others there Avere Avho quietly yielded their assent to crimes Avhich they abhorred. CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 75 CHAPTER IX. The Character of Congress that Robs Us of Liberty. The fathers were honest men who saerificed themselves for the public good. In the earlier history of the country our statesmen lived and died poor, and only those of large estates and liberal patrimonies when they entered public life, retired with a competency ; and a large number died insolvent. Thomas Jefferson spent much of his life in public business ; investing so much money in such historical and political works as would contribute to the more perfect understanding of our new institution, he died poor, and had to be relieved from want in old age by special legislation ; although he had added the Louisiana territory to the Union. James Monroe was utterly destitute in old age and indebted to the charity of friends for a decent burial, although he had fought through the Revolutionary War and added Florida to the Union. Robert Morris, the great American financier, spent his latter years in prison for debt, though he had bestowed a fortune in the service of his country, only less valuable than that of "VVashiugton. George Washington scorned to grow rich from the public treasury. He freely gave his time to the country, accepting only jjayment for his actual outlays; although he had added a new power to the Governments of the world. Such was the proud, self-sacrificing spirit of the great Republicans who maintained the high character of the Government. Benlon, Clay, Jackson, Webster, Harrison, Scott, Prentiss, the statesmen, heroes, authors and early public men of America, were all i)Oor men, Avho had not large patrimonies. Such were the examplars of our liberty. 76 CRIMES OP THE CIVIL AVAR. The Congressmen we elect leave us poor, sell their votes to Eastern capitalist, come home rich, prepared to buy up our lands when they are sold for taxes. Tiiey would gladly, keep the people cutting each others' throats — quarreling about other men's business ; whilst they sell our birthright for a mess of pottage. In all of the history of deliberative bodies, no more sorrowful exhibition of manhood has ever been made than the composition of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Schuyler Colfax says, " it was the ablest body of men that ever sat in Congress." I may be mistaken, but think not, when I declare it the most imbecile, corrupt and wicked deliberative body of men that ever spoke the English language. Tlie very evidence which so conclusively demonstrates the strength of this body to Mr. Colfax, is that which so conclusively establishes its weakness with everybody else — that he was elected its Speaker. "What a beautifnl specta- cle that would have been to see Henry Clay, or John Lcll, or Andrew Stevenson, traversing the country, whilst Spealcer of the House of Representatives, delivering a catch-penny lecture in the showman's style, at fifty cents a sight ! JNIr. Colfax is not a lawyer that any one ever heard of. He was once a minister, but of such insignificance as to be entirely unknown. He was an editor of a very obscure paper, which has not been extended in circu- lation by the weight of his office, ponderous as he conceives it. In that whole assembly of the Republican party, there was not one eminent lawyer, though it liad many lawyers. The first Cono-ressional District of Iowa furnishes the Chairman of the Judiciary, James F. Wilson, yet at every bar in the District there are much abler lawyers than Mr. AVilson. Mr. Wilson had never been engaged in a first-class civil case, nor a capital case ; and could not at liis peril carry a first-class case through all the courts successfully. In Ohio he was a very respectable saddler ; in Iowa, a county court lawyer and political trickster. The analysis miglit be extended, but we confine it to representa- tive men. The Republican party, who were very fully repre- sented by preachers, had not among their ministers one eminent pulpit orator, able theological controversalist, author, scholar or divine whose threiidbare harangues would not have worn out the patience of the most meek and submissive audience. I'erhaps CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 77 the rakish and shallow Grinnell was the ablest of their divines. But Grimiell could not entertain an intelligent audience for an hour upon any topic; and with all of his shameless impudence, would scarcely venture a religious diatribe among the people of his own State, and surely could not sustain a congregation. About government he knows less than nothing; was flogged for his bad manners and deserted by his friends. The Republicans had generals and military officers in the Thirty-ninth Congress, but among their military officials there was not one distinguished character. Schenck was the recognized leader of this class, but Schcnck was the very weakest and most unfortunate of all the mili- tary men, where military men were chosen for their known inca- 23acity in military affairs. For his butchery at Vienna, in a M'ell- regulated army, he would have been cashiered for his imbecility, or shot for his crime. His rule in Baltimore was the opprobrium of the war, which gave comparative respectability to Butler. There were among the remainder neither historians, ^Joets, nor philosophers ; and the only way in which they were estimated, was by the amount of money which it was supposed neces'sary to buy their votes. They were the offals of every profession. Among the lawyers, there was none such as Judge Black, Attor- ney-General Gushing, Charles O'Connor or Mr. Browning. Thaddeus Stevens, who was a successful advocate and rabble- rouser in early life, never pretended to, nor did his friends claim for him, the rank of the first lawyers of the State; as was award- ed to Buchanan, Boss, Sharswood, Forward, Woodward or Reed. Among the divines in this Congress, there were none such as Bishop Soule, of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; INIeade, of the Episcopal ; Fuller, of the Baptist ; or the abler Presbyterians of former times. Among the generals, there was none such as Scott, Jackson, Lee or Johnston. Never did a more wretched constituency of fanatics elect a representation of more arrant knaves and impracticable fools ; never was there such a hybrid cross between villainy and stupidity. They went to Congress poor ; came back rich. They were cunning villains, who, if ac- cepting bribes, knew how to cover up every trace of their wick- edness and corruption ; defy investigations, investigate their own rascality, and declare themselves acquitted. Stevens, the ablest. CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. worst and wickedest of all, yet eschewing open bribes, liesitales not to tell his own constituency of the bribery in elections of both Representatives and Senators, of bribery, duplicity and cor- ruption in the votes which elected his colleague (Cameron), to the Senate. Our Congressmen grew prematurely rich. One only yesterday was a poor man, a schoolmaster and Methodist preacher. He now lives in a palatial mansion in AA^ashington city, and condescends to visit his home occasionally, to spend a few days in another magnificent baronage. Another was poor, never had heavy cases or large fees ; he is now President of a bank, and very wealthy. Both of these gentlemen were losing money on their salaries, and therefore excused themselves for adding two thousand dollars per annum to their former salaries. This is the history of the whole Congress. How did they make their money ? Where did they get their I'ank stock ? How did they get it? You must ask uianufacturers how they got their tariffs ; you must ask railroads how they got their lands ; that may give you light. Did these gentlemen take open bribes? Certainly not ; they are entirely too shrewd for all that. They saw other gentlemen in Congress get expelled for that folly. But liberal gentlemen always make presents to their friends. It is enough to know that your Congressmen are rich, and you are poor. Before they went to Congress, you were rich and they were poor. Something wrought the change. But they did not get enough to pay tlieir expenses — were actually losing money — and voted themselves four thousand dollars each, for past servi- ces, to pay expenses. But Avhere did they get the money ? I leave this for you to answer. One-half you make has been given to the manufacturer to pay tariffs. Could not the manufacturers afford to make presents to the men who presented them with at least half of all your earnings? The bondholder gets a heavy allowance. Could he notafford to make these gentlemen a present? The railroad companies get manors and millions of acres and bonds, through their votes. Could not they afford to divide out liber- ally with the voter? Steamships get contracts of immense pro- lit. Won't they contribute somewhat? Telegraph companies make fortunes. Won't they contribute to save a poor Congress- man from penury and want? This much, however, you know, CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 79 that you pay taxes and are poor, and they receive salaries, paid •^vith your taxes, and are rich, and make bankers and manufac- turers ricli by their votes. These men, whose sworn duty is to maintain the public peace, after having sold their votes fur gain, fear the inquiry and investigation of the people, and cry offensive names of " copperhead, " " secesh, " " rebel, " &c., to avert the curses of the people from their own to the heads of others. So long as they could keep the country engaged in actual warfare, they had the most perfect immunity of murder, arson and robbery. Peace would promptly arrest their crime and their profit together. But unlike high-minded highwaymen, who rob only their ene- mies, these Congressmen rob their friends whilst they butcher their enemies, and leave devastation in their pathway, to attest their success in the prosecution of the pur^Doses of their ambition. In the present Congress you have no hope. The men who com- pose it have your ruin deliberated. They have sought the pub- lic treasury as a means of enriching their private purse. They have used the public sword to gratify their private personal mal- ice. They have employed the halls of Congress to defame the American .people, and have covertly prostituted every sacred principle of law and liberty, to elevate themselves upon a pedes- tal imbedded in the ashes of the Constitution, sprinkled with the blood of the people. Your only hope is in yourselves — your thorough, and complete, and compact organization ; in send- ing to represent you men of ability and integrity, who love lib- erty and fear God. 80 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. CHAPTER X. The Corruption of Congress in Creating the Debt. The corruptions of Congress are alarming. The black mail, levied by political combination, to secure offices in the larger cities, threatens the entire overthrow of our political system. It is quite as notorious as infamous, that party nominations, equivalent to elections in the larger cities, cost immense sums of money ; sometimes the mayoralty of a city costs the candidates twenty to forty thousand dollars as a condition of nomination. And nearly every officer pays a tribute of his salary, and fees to the combinations from whom he secures his office. Twenty to fifty thousand dollars is regarded a necessity to the candidacy to Congress, and candidates secure it in the same way ; but not by the same honourable means that Englishmen secure positions in the army. Secretaries of the Executive Departments have been engaged in speculations that have secured them immense fortunes sudden- ly, and have scarcely concealed the evidence of their crime. The history of modern legislation is simply the details of cor- ruption, peculation, bribery and black mail, by which constit- uencies are divested of every guaranty of good government. These gentlemen indemnify themselves for outlays in voting millions, in exorbitant tariffs, in voting millions of acres in laud grants to corporations, in voting contractors' claims, hurried like lightning through committees, and passed without examination in the last hours through the House, when the President has scarcely time to read them. The manufacturers can well afford to pay millions to compen- sate for tens of millions dollars voted into their pockets ; nor would the corporations hesitate to hand over thousands of acres of the millions placed in their hands, and contractors willingly divided their spoils with their benefactors. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 81 From tlie most pincliing want and obscure position, these gentlemen emerge into bank presidents, live in splendid houses, drive magnificent turnouts. Their families, covered with silks and jewelry, and living in oriental style, assume aristocratic airs. The Congressmen, not the people, premeditatedly provoked, perpetuated and would yet continue civil war, as a source of profit, power and position. This could only be done by the perpetration of frauds. The Congress still demand armies to overawe the people, and pretend that war exists, and demands armies that frauds be not discovered ; and if discovered, be not exposed ; and if any one dare expose them, that martial law be declared ; and any person testifying against them, may be arrested under any pretence whatever, tried by court martial, convicted without defence, and executed without the privilege of leaving their denial as a legacy to their families and to justice; at every stage of the proceedings deprived of the unquestionable rights of self-defence. For five years these flagrant murders and robberies have been carried to a startling extent, to rid guilty parties of the odium and punishment due to crime, in which members of Congress were partners with sutlers and commissioners of subsistence, holding a percentage in the profits of the business. Every encampment and army store-house burned, as carefully l)urned all books and accounts in a common ash heap. In this destruction of papers, the confusion of martial law, the corruptions of office and peculation, were kept from the pub- lic view. The votes of Congressmen were bought and sold in the mar- ket, as the service of cyprians. The price was regulated by the influence of the member and magnitude of the interest, or the pressing necessity of his vote. So well is the process of corruption understood, that each new member, is beset, by all the blandishments of power, assailing all the weaknesses of human nature. By money and other less reputable means, members of Con- gress were bribed to vote for the late Constitutional amendment, or absent themselves from their seats. 6 82 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Nearly every legislative outrage and usurpation is accomplished in the same way, Avhere money fails. Social and political posi- tions, is used as a part of the standard currency of corruption. Sometimes a great measure, that tenderly touches the destiny of the country, turns upon the secret embraces of an artful courte- zan, who holds at her will the character and social peace of some feeble member of Congress. At other times, a corrupted Con- gressman, with the wages of his iniquity in his pocket, will be seen stepping from the representative seat of a betrayed constit- uency, into the voluptuous court of a foreign despot, to revel in the price of his honor, and hide his shame in foreign lands. This Congressional corruption extended to the army, where it found new and richer fields of plunder. Army officers, without capacity, were appointed and promoted by contract. Superior officers sold their influence, to secure appointments and promo- tions of inferior officers. Heads of Departments of the general government levied black mail of their inferiors, to keep up style and promote the success of elections, until public offices have become matters of mercenary speculations, like bank, railroad, and other stock. The style in the invaded States is well explained in the follow- ing letter : A SOUVENIR OF SHERMAN's BUMMERS. The following letter, says the Columbus (Ga.) Sun and Times, was found in the streets of Columbia, immediately after the army of General Sherman had left. The original is preserved, and can be shown and substantiated, if anybody desires : Camp near Camden, S. C, Feb. 26, 1865. My Dear Wife — I have no time for particulars. AVe have had a glorious time in this State. Unrestricted license to burn and plunder was the order of the day. The chivalry have been stripped of most of their valuables. Gold watches, silver pitch- ers, cu])s, spoons, forks, &c., are as common in camp as blackber- ries. The terms of plunder are as follows : Each company is required to exhibit the results of its operations at any given place — one-fifth and first choice falls to the share of the com- mander-in-chief and staff; one-fifth to the corps commanders and CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 83 staff; one-fifth to field officers of regiments, and two-fiftlis to the company. Officers are not allowed to join these expeditions without dis- guising themselves as privates. One of our corps commanders borrowed a suit of rough clothes from one of my men, and was successful in this place. He got a large quantity of silver (among other things an old-time milk pitcher) and a very fine gold watch from a Mrs. DeSaussure, at this place. DeSaussure was one of the F. F. V.'s of South Carolina, and was made to fork over liberally. Officers over the rank of captain are not made to put their plunder in the estimate for general distribu- tion. This is very unfair, and for that reason, in order to pro- tect themselves, subordinate officers and privates keep back every thing that they can carry about their jjersons, such as rings, ear- rings, breast pins, &c., of which, if I ever get home, I have about a quart. I am not joking — I have at least a quart of jewelry for you and all the girls, and some No. 1 diamond rings and pins among them. General Sherman has silver and gold enough to start a bank. His share in gold watches alone at Co- lumbia was two hundred and seventy-five. But I said I could not go into particulars. All the general officers and many be- sides had valuables of every description, down to the embroid- ered ladies' pocket handkerchiefs. I have my share of them, too. We took gold and silver enough from the d d rebels to have redeemed their infernal currency twice over. This, (the currency,) whenever we came across it, we burned, as we con- sidered it utterly worthless. I wish all the jewelry this army has could be carried to the " Old Bay State." It would deck her out in glorious style ; but, alas ! it will be scattered all over the North and Middle States. The d d niggers, as a general rule, prefer to stay at home, particularly after they found out that we only wanted the able-bodied men, (and, to tell you the truth, the youngest and best-looking women.) Sometimes we took off whole families and plantations of niggers, by way of repaying secessionists. But the useless part of them we soon manage to lose; sometimes in crossing rivers, sometimes in other ways. I shall write to you again from Wilmington, Goldsboro', or some other place in North Carolina. The order to march has arrived, and I must close hurriedly. Love to grandmother and aunt Charlotte. Take care of yourself and children. Don't show this letter out of the family. Your affectionate husband, Thomas J. Myers, Lieut., &c. 84 CEIMES OP THE CIVIL WAR. P. S. I will send this by the first flag of truce to be mailed, unless I have an opportunity of sending it to Hilton Head. Tell Sallie I am saving a pearl bracelet and ear-rings for her; but Lambert got the necklace and breast-pin of the same set. I am trying to trade him out of them. These were taken from the Misses Jamison, daughters of the President of the South Carolina Secession Convention. We found these on our trip through Georgia. This letter was addressed to Mrs. Thomas J. Myers, Boston, Massachusetts. It need not be a matter of wonder how members buy their election to Congress, buy their nomination, live in grandeur, be- stow with munificence, defy the simplest laws of justice, and still return to the legislature halls to repeat their crimes. The government was robbed to fill the pockets of contractors, to furnish places to ambitious men ; to insult, punish, and de- grade those who exposed those crimes. The amount of public money squandered is incalculable. The history of wars is the biography of thieves, robbers and sharpers upon the one hand ; and of bankrupt, ruined, honest and silly men who were unfortunate enough to come in contact iwith them, upon the other hand. With Bonaparte and Alexander, Cyrus and Csesar, Charles XII and Peter the Great, Wellington and Washington, contract- ors and sutlers were accounted the value of armies. But in the late war these cormorants Avcre the living substance and most prominent elements of its existence. 1. Contractors sold out their wares at enormous prices, and col- luded with officers, defrauded the government, by selling to the army damaged goods, dealing out rations with false weights and measures, selling broken wagons, cripj)led horses and mules, or col- luding with the public enemy to make sale of the same article many times. These vampires, Avho were generally partners of mem- bers of Congress, made princely fortunes, and are now spending their money in riotous living, revelling among harlots, dwell- ing in palaces gorged Avith viands, drunken with blood, reeking with corruption, and swaggering with self-importance. It required the open mouth of every drowning monster, the CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 85 extravagance of every profligate public officer; the destroying torch of every incendiary, and the lavishment of government hirelings upon every vice, to sink this country into its present vortex of crime and debt. The details of this extravagance would fill libraries and fright- en the reader. The character of the crimes forbade their publication in the public journals under penalties visited upon obscene publications. The frauds, negligence, crimes and usurpations, embody a com- plete system reduced to a science, by collecting all of the tricks of trade, the pilferings of the camp, the horrors of the battle- field, the corruptions of government and the usurpations of power into one thoughtfully revised and thoroughly digested code of crime, directed against the people under the supervision of the government. I cite the example of that prodigy of imbecility, pretension ■ and failure, Maj. Gen. John Charles Fremont, and take but a few random passages from thousands of pages of the most trans- jDarent corruption. The bribes exacted of contractors were private, shameful, and extravagant. The frauds on the Quartermaster's Department were numer- ous, and extended through all branches under his control and supervision. In the purchase of horses, the government paid $119.50 per liead for 1000. The contractor's agent, who is approved by the quartermaster, had charge of the field where the horses were to pass examination. The farmer who sold horses to the government, paid ten dollars entrance fee to the agent ; he then paid another ten dollars fee to their atJ-ent for their recommendation to the contractor, who intimi- dates the purchaser and buys them at the very lowest figure of $85 to $90, when horses outside were selling at much higher fig- ures. In this way these contractors, dividing the plunder with the quartermasters, made independent fortunes. One of the government inspectors was a discharged convict of the Kentucky penitentiary. With such arrangements, with a few good horses, they filled 86 CRIMES OP THE CIVIL WAE. the remainder of the contracts with broken doAvn stage, street, car and omnibus horses, which fell dead on the road. Dead horses were lying around the depot where they had been kept. The contractor would buy up these broken-down nags, trot them out full of bran, and peppered, and sold with an understanding, at $115 to $130. First-class hoi'ses were at the same time reject- ed and denounced, to prevent them from being branded. Ignor- - ant countrymen would sell the rejected horBes at low prices; and the same agent who had rejected them, would afterwards accept them, and the contractor would place them in his complement to give character to the remainder of his damaged stock. In wagons the frauds was adroitly managed between the con- tractor and the government agent. The army would press the wagons into the service, and the contractor present his claim, which was promptly paid, and the profits shared between them. Most of these wagons were unfit for service ; the axles, reach, bolsters, spokes, hubs, &c., were cracked, and the cracks filled with leather and putty, and painted over where the fraud was apparent : these wagons soon broke down and all were worth- less. Eleven fortifications were built, when the actual cost was not more than $10,000; the amount claimed by contractors was $300,000. Out of the enormous fraud the laborers did not re- ceive their wages, for which they clamored at the government office. Fremont rented the magnificent mansion of Mrs. Col. Brant, the cousin of his wife, at $6,000 per annum. His staff lived in a style of like magnificence, in the finest mansions in the neigh- borhood. Spacious and extravagant barracks, sufficient for the accom- modation of 2,500 men, were erected for Fremont's body-guard of 600 men. The whole building of Benton's barracks cost $150,000. The contract was obtained by bribery, filled fraudulently and accept- ed Avith complicity in the fraud ; and about $75,000 divided among the jobbers and inspectors. Camp kettles, picket pins, oats, clothing, blankets, transporta- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 87 tion tickets, tag-boats ; paying hands in uncurrent funds, and drawing the amount in government money, were all the sources of profits and pretexts for fraud. Equipped in the style of the Chinese Emperor, surrounded by California thieves, Fremont secluded himself from the pub- lic gaze ; whilst his drmies were defeated, and no one dared ap- proach him, and his contractors were speculating upon his seclu- sion. This certificate illustrates the modus operandi: Camp Sullivan, Warsaw, Oct. 21, 1861. To Col. Wm. Bishop : The undersigned having been summoned as Board of Survey, to examine and inspect the condition of the horses forwarded to this regiment from St. Louis, and report that we have examined said horses and find seventy-six fit for service, five dead and three liundred and thirty under size, under and over-aged, stifled, ring bone, blind and incurable, unfit for any public service, said horses being a part of the Missouri contract. Very respectfully, David McKee, Major, George Rockwell, Captain, John Schee, Lieutenant. United States District Attorney Jones was associated with Messrs. Thompson and Bowen, in the purchase of horses and mules. Their contract was at $110,80 per head. Bowen sold out to Thompson and Jones for $5,000, in bankable funds. Thompson went to INIcKinstry for payment on horses, ISIessrs. Thompson and Jones had furnished, and was told that " another party was interested in these horses, and unless the |5,000 was deducted by Messrs. Thompson and Jones, none of the money could be paid." The $5,000 was kept by McKinstry, and the remainder paid over to Thompson and Jones. Over $500,000 were taken from the government in hay con- tracts. By the same collusion, between the contractor and quartermaster, $17,50 was paid for rough Prairie hay, with $8,00 i)er ton for transportation from St. Louis to Sedalia, when the same quality could have been bought anywhere along the route to Warsaw for $6,00 to $8,00 per ton. 88 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. In such grandeur of style did Fremont surround himself, and such was the complicated machinery that was necessary to his approach, that no one could reach him with communications. No earthly personage, except the "Grand Llama," ever assumed such dignity and reserve from the highest to the lowest government officials ; all participated in his dignity and were implicated in these crimes, and profited by these speculations which originated in Congress. Every corrupt congressman had a political general, with corresponding numbers of subordinates, the creatures of his power. This list shows some of the uses made of the money that made the public debt. "general officers without commands. Secretary Stanton on AVcdncsday sent to the Senate the names of Major Generals and Brigadier Generals without commands equal "to a brigade ; the number of their staffs, their pay, com- mutations and rations, and the INIajor and Brigadier General in command of departments and districts, together with his opinion if they were needed. The pay is monthly pay : Officers of the Regular Army and of Volunteers, together xoith their respective staffs, without commands, or commands equal to a brigade : George B. INIcClellan, Major General, $355 ; relieved Nov. 7, 1862. No staff. John C. Fremont, INIajor General, $355 ; relieved August 12, 18G2. Staff— Anseline Albert, Colonel, $1G4; John T. Flain, Colonel, $164; Charles Zagonyi, Colonel, $164; John Pilson, Lieutenant Colonel, $146 ; Leonidas Haskell, Major, $110; R. W. Eaymond, Captain, $104. r>avid Hunter, Major General, $355; relieved June 12, 1863. No staff. On a tour of inspection through military division of the Mississipjii. E. A. Hitchcock, Major General, $445 ; has had no command or staff". Commissioner for exchange of prisoners. Irwin McDowell, Major General, $445; relieved September 6, 1862. President of a retiring board since July 12, 1863. Staff — Franklin Haven, jr.. Captain, $129.50, Recorder for Retiring Board; ^yiadislis 'Leski, Captain, $129.50; J. DeW. Cutting, Captain, $127.50. W. S. Rosecrans, Major General, $445; relieved October 19, CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 89 1863; F. S. Bond, Major, $163; Chas. R. Thompson, Captain, $120.50; R. S. Thorns, Captain, $120.50. Don Carlos Buell, Major General, $355 ; relieved October 30, 1862. No staif. John A. McClernand, Major General, $355 ; relieved June, 1863. No staff. Lewis Wallace, Major General, $445 ; relieved Nov. 16, 1862 ; on Court-martial duty until November 5, 1863. No statf. General Cadwallader, Major General, $445; relieved from a command equal to a brigade, August 16, 1862; commanding post at Philadelphia since^July 18, 1862. Staff— I. Harwoocl, First Lieutenant Forty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers, $119.50. E. O. C. Orel, Major General, $456 ; relieved October 28, 1863, on account of sickness. Has since gone to join his army corps.. Samuel P. Heintzelman, Major General, $445 ; relieved Oct. 13, 1863. President of General Court-martial in Washington, D. C. Members of his staff serving with Major General Augur. ErastusD. Keyes, Major General, $445 ; relieved July, 1863. No staff. Member of Retiring Board at Wilmington, Delaware. A. McD. McCook, Major General, $445 ; relieved October 9, 1863. Staff— Caleb Bates, Major, $163; E. D. Williams, Captain, $129.50; F. J. Jones, Captain, $129.50. T. L. Crittenden, Major General, $445 ; relieved October 9, 1863. Staff— L. M. Buford, Major, $129.50; J. J. McCook, Captain, $129.50; G. G. Knox, Captain, $129.50. Daniel E. Sickles, Major General, $445; relieved July 3, 1863, severely wounded at Gettysburg — lost a leg. Staff — H. E. Tremaine, Major, $163 ; Alexander IMoore, Captain, $129 50. R. H. Milroy, Major General, $355; relieved June 20, 1863. No staff. A. Doubleday, Major General, $445; relieved July 1, 1863, wounded; on court-martial duty. Staff — P. Martin, First Lieutenant Forty-seventh New York Volunteers, $119 50; H. T. Lee, First Lieutenant Fourth New York Artillery, $119 50. R. J. Oglesby, Major General, $355 ; relieved July 17, 1863. No staff. Geo. L. Hartsuff, Major General, $445 ; relieved Oct. 3, 1863. Ordered before Retiring Board. Staff— E. O. Brown, Major, $163; J. M. Howard, Captain, $129 50; Samuel A. Russell, Captain, $129 50. Andrew Porter, Brigadier General, $232 ; relieved in July, 1862. No staff. 90 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. T. ^Y. Sherman, Brigadier General, $232 ; relieved May 27, 1863 ; severely wounded at Port Hudson. No stafl'. William R. Montgomery, Brigadier General, ^229 50 ; re- lieved in June, 1862; comiuanding post of Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania, until March 11, 1863. Staff — J. H. Livingston, Lieutenant Seventh New Jersey Volunteers ; J. H. Montgomery, Lieutenant Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavahy. James B. Eicketts, Brigadier General, ^229 50 ; relieved Nov. 1862 ; • on Military Board to try officers iu \ya3liingtou. Staff — B. ^V. Eichard, $129 56. James S. Wadsworth, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved July 17, 1862. Member of Court of Inquiry. Staff— H. Menelee, Major, $163; T. Ellsworth, Captain, $129 50. George W. Morrell, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved in February, 1862. Commanding depot for drafted men at Indianapolis, Indiana. No staff. John J. Abercrombie, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved December 9, 1863, Staff — William N. Waterbury, First Lieu- tenant Fourth New York Artillery, $119 50. L. P. Graham, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved Aug. 19, 1862. President Board of Examination of sick officers at Annapolis, Md. No staff, Willis A. Gorman, Brigadier General, $232 ; relieved June 27, 1863. No staff. John G. Barnard, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; has had no command ; Chief Engineer of defenses of Washington. Staff — B. S. Alexander, Lieutenant-Colonel, $187 ; Assistant Engineer, F. R. Mouther, Captain, $129 50. John P. Hatch, Brigadier General, $229 50; relieved August 30, 1863 ; wounded at second battle of Bull Run. Commanding cavalry depot at St. Louis, ]\Io. No staff. Alvin Schoepf, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved Oct. 15, 1862. Commanding Fort Delaware. No staff. George W. Cullom, Brigadier General, $299 50. Has had no command or. staff. Is chief of Gen. Halleck's staff. G. B. Tower, Brigadier General, $232 ; relieved August 31, 1862; severely wounded at second Bull Run. No staff. L. G. Arnold, Brigadier General, $232 ; relieved May 23, 1863 ; no staff; sick ; is ordered before Retiring Board. William S. Ivetchum, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; has had no command nor staff; on duty in War Department. Daniel Tyler, Brigadier General, $292 50 ; relieved June — , 1863; is commanding district of Delaware; troops not equal to a brigade. Staff — E. L, Taylor, Second Lieutenant First Con- necticut Heavy Artillery. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 91 R. B. :MitclielI, Brigadier General, $209 50 ; relieved October 23, 1863, on generarCourt martial at Washington, D. C. No staif. E. R. S. Canb}^, Brigadier General, $209 50 ; relieved Septem- ber 10, 1863; on duty in War Department. No staff. Charles Devens, jr.. Brigadier General, $299 58; relieved May 26, 1863, on account of sickness; commanding depot for drafted men, Lovell's Island, Boston Harbor. Staff — D. W. Hughes, Captain, $129 50. Max Weber, Brigadier General, $209 50; relieved September 17,1862; wounded. No staff. On general Court martial at Washington, D. C. Neal Dow, Brigadier General, $223 ; relieved May 27, 1863. No staff. Wounded and prisoner at Richmond, Va. Charles S. Greene, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved Octo- ber 29, 1863. No staff. Badly wounded. On general Court martial at Washington, D. C. John Gibbon, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved July 3, 1863. Wounded in battle of Gettysburg. No staff. Com- manding depot for drafted men in Philadelphia. Charles Griffin, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved October 23, 1863, on account of sickness. On general Court martial at Washington, D. C. Green Clay Smith, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved August 28, 1863. No staff'. Member of House of Represen- tatives. B. S. Roberts, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved Decem- ber 2, 1863, by General-in-Chief No staff*. Francis C. Barlow, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved July 4, 1863. Wounded at battle of Gettysburg. No staff". Mason Brayman, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved May 31, 1863. Commanding Camp Dennlson, Ohio. Staff — C. B. Smith, First Lieutenant, Sixty-first Illinois Volunteers ; $119 50. N. J. Jackson, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved April 17, 1863. No staff. Commanding depot for drafted men at Riker's Island, New York Harbor. F. B. Splnola, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved July 23, 1863. Wounded. No staff". On reoruiting service at Brook- lyn, New York. Solomon JNIeredlth, Brigadier General, $290 50 ; relieved October 19, 1863. Absent on sick certificate. Staff — Samuel H. Meredith, First Lieutenant Nineteenth Indiana Volunteers, $119 50. H. B. Carrlngton, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; has had no command or staff; on duty with Governor of Indiana. 92 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Wm. Hays, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved September 16, 1863. Assistant Provost Marshal General Southern District of New York. No staif. Adam K. Slemmer, Brigadier General, $299 50; has had no command nor staif ; President of Board of Examination of Sick Officers, Cincinnati, Ohio, P. C. Pitcher, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; has had no com- . niand nor staff; assistant to Provost Marshal General at Brat- tlesborout:;h, Vermont, S, A, Meredith, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; has had no com- mand or staif; Agent for exchange of prisoners, E, W. Heath, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved March 26, 1863 ; no staff; Commanding depot for drafted men. Con- cord, New Hampshire. Wm. W. Orme, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved August 31, 1863 ; no staff. Commanding at Chicago, Illinois, J. T, Copeland, Brigadier General, $299 50 relieved July 14, 1863 ; no staff". Commanding depot for drafted men at Pitts- burg, Pennsylvania. S. G. Chaplin, Brigadier General, $299 50; has no command nor staff". Commanding depot for drafted men at Grand llapids, Michigan. T, A. Rowley, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; relieved July 3, 1863; wounded at battle of Gettysburg. Commanding depot for drafted men at Portland, Maine. No staff. Charles T. Campbell, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved July, 30, 1863; no staff'. On general Court martial at Milwau- kee, Wisconsin, H. E. Paine, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved July 3, 1864; lost a leg at Port Hudson. On general Court martial at Washington, D, C. No staff: G. R. Paul, Brigadier General, $299 50; relieved July 8, 1863; severely wounded at Gettysburg, and nearly blind. No staff". Robert Allen, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; has had no com- mand nor staff. Chief Quartermaster Department of the West. D. H. Rucker, Brigadier General, $299 50 ; has had no com- mand nor staff". Chief Depot Quartermaster at Washington, D. C. Recapitulation. — Number of INIajor Generals without com- mand equal to brigade, 29 ; number of Brigadier Generals, 47 ; number of staff" officers serving on the staffs of general officers without a command equal to a brigade : Colonels, 3 ; Lieu- tenant Colonels, 2; Majors, 7; Captains, 17; Lieutenants, 9. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 93 Total monthly pay of IMajor Generals, $8,340 ; total monthly pay of Brigadier Generals, $13 671 50; total monthly pay of Colonels, $490 ; total monthly pay of Lieutenant Colonels, $337 ; total monthly pay of Majors,"$l,694 ; total monthly pay of Cap- tains, $2,179; total monthly pay of Lieutenants, $1,070 50. Total, $5,161 50. Grand total, $27,193. jSTumber of Major and Brigadier Generals, Command- ing Departments, Districts and Posts. — Departments — Major Generals, 4; Brigadier Generals, 4. Districts — Major Generals, 2; Brigadier Generals, 7. Posts — Major Generals, 1 ; Brigadier Generals, 14. Total : Major Generals, 7 ; Briga- dier Generals, 25. This list does not include Major Generals Couch, Brooks, Stahl, Sigel and others in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, in com- mand of camps, and on apparently nominal duties. Their staffs will swell the list and exhibit an immense expenditure of public money." The Generals rioting at the public expense is but an item. Hale, of New Hampshire, declared in the Senate that, $170,000, 000 had been uselessly (he might have added and corruptly) spent in the construction of vessels. This was squandered upon political friends. In St. Louis the treasury is robbed outright of $280,000. Every Congressman provides for his sons, brothers, and neph- ews. $24,000 for one electioneering campaign. The contingent expenses of the House applied for like purpose, $110,902,19. Two bags of gold, containing $6,700, stolen from, the Custom House, Philadelphia. Charles H. Cornwall, head of redemption bureau, has been purloining treasury notes instead of destroying them. Many millions of dollars have passed through his hands to be destroyed : no one knows the amount purloined. Millions of dollars' worth of government stores were sold to Confederate sutlers, speculators and contractors, the price of which was pocketed by quartermasters. Frauds perpetrated by Surgeon General Hammond, in the purchase of blankets and beef, &c. Frauds upon the New York Custom House. 94 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Blockade running by official connivance, with all of the crimes of treason, embezzlement and defalcation. Cheating the government in buying turpentine and other articles at low, and putting them at exorbitant prices. Using public stores for private purposes. In packing thousands of barrels of stone in saw dust, marked " corn beef" and " mess pork," landing them at some point of imminent danger, and burn it up to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy, at once securing the price of their sham meats, and obliterating the traces of villainy in the destruc- tion of the stores. The quartermasters had a system so generally adopted, that they dare not expose each other. The superior officers were so Avell sweetened with spoils, they, in like manner, were deterred from complaint to the Department. The quartermaster would report forage never fed, rations never ate, transportation never used. It was the opprobrium of the nineteenth century that the pris- oners of Camps Douglas, in Chicago; and Chase, in Columbus" Fort Delaware, Johnson's Island ; and every other prison, died by thousands, for the want of food, withheld by quartermasters, who appropriated the money in commutation to themselves. Such was this fraud upon human life, that prisoners' gums were sore, their teeth dropping out, their faces emaciated, their tongues parched, their limbs paralyzed by starvation. Although the government had paid the rations due them, such was the systematic fraud and unquenchable thirst for gain, that no suffering could arouse their sympathy, no horror could appal their senses, and no barbarity could stimulate these wicked men to shame or remorse. The quartermaster cheated the government in his official re- turns. He cheated the farmer and planter of whom he bought his provisions, in the weights, measures, exaction of his price, and if possible, plundered it under the pretext of confiscation. He finally cheated the soldier in the issue of his rations, and murdered both prisoners and soldiers, by the substitution of de- leterious compositions for Avholesome food and poisonous drugs for medicines. His official life was a perpetual series of cheats CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 95 and frauds, impositions and oppressions. The sutler exceeded, if possible, the villainies of the quartermaster, availing himself of the soldier's necessity and absence from stores and supplies; would charge him a thousand per cent, upon the market value of the necessaries of camp life, tempt his last farthing by shame- fully perverting his appetite with villainous rum, and filch it from his pocket, Avhich was due to his destitute family at home. The contractor, who supplied the immediate wants of the army, received his contract as a personal and political favor, often with the distinct understanding, that he might rob the govern- ment at discretion. Without compunction he furnished the government with shoddy clothes, ill-made shoes and such rations as were refused at the regular markets, and entered into the gen- eral system of robbery and murder. The war was made the occasion and the apology for every imaginable species of fraud. 96 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. CHAPTEE XI. Driving the Poor into the Meshes of the Flesh Dealers and Blood Market. No part of our eventful history leaves so dark a shadow upon our blood-stained escutcheon as that of the flesh dealers of the late war. Human ingenuity, never at fault in the vast variety of her inventions, was on the alert at the outbreak of the war to induce the jjoor to enter the army. The popular mind was wrought up to an artificial phrenzy. The manufacturers agreed with the bankers to assist the politicians to force men into the army. All business was susjiended ; the laboring masses thrown out of employment, bread riots threatened the peace of the cities, and general terror spread throughout the populace. At a given signal the mercenary ecclesiastical politicians broke loose in their Sabbath-day harangues to inflame the passions and prepare the public mind for civil war. Simultaneously all of the places of amusement, pleasure, revelry and crime followed the hue and cry. Recruiting sergeants went out among the starving rabble to gather up an army. Billy Wilson and his regiment of tatterdemalions, paraded up before Plymouth Church, to receive the benediction of its infidel pastor, who took his position for blood, and was followed by thousands of the mer- cenary clergy on the mission of plunder. These gentlemen opened their pulpits and portrayed to the poor the startling alter- native of enlistment or starvation. They hurled their horrible anathemas, and made their absurd charges against the Southern people. They appealed to the people to fly to arms in defence of their homes, which were neither invaded nor threatened with invasion ; to fight for liberty, which had not been endangered except by the usurpers who were demanding their services to overthrow all liberty ; to fight for self-government, whicli they were themselves destroying ; to fight for the Union, which they CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 97 were pledged to dissolve ; to fight to preserve the peace, har- mony, strength and glory of the country, by destroying the foun- dations of society. These absurdities were taken up by the press and repeated on the rostrum, and became a part of the standard literature of the day. The manufacturers closed up their mills, sold out their operatives to the recruiting sergeant, under pretense of encourag- ing the war, out of which they could build up a monopoly. Merchants refused credit to the poor, to drive them into the army, that they might more readily sell their goods. Capitalists joined in the general clamor for war, that they might put the country under bonds and own the people. Such was the death-dealing coalition which withheld employ- ment from the artizan, laborer and dependent poor of the cities and crowded rural districts. A brief period of idleness drove the people to want and beggary. Idleness and precarious living prepared the people for anything that jDromised bread. Every manner of argument was used, and every kind of bait was held out, as an inducement to the poor to rush to the army — to fight the battles of plunder for the rich. To these absurdities were added barefaced falsehoods, to mis- lead the ignorant and delude the unwary. Under this terrible pressure the first call to arms was soon filled. To facilitate recruiting, designing leaders made feigned provisions for the families of enlisted soldiers, which for a time were paid with some jjromptitude. The local family bounties were doled out in slow and stinted payments, and soon discon- tinued altogether. The sufferings of the families of the soldiers were extreme, and induced many pitiful and threatening demon- strations — among others, the most formidable in New York, in 1863, when the poor, in self-defense, without leaders, system or purpose, in the spontaneous madness inspired by the injustice suifered from heartless tyrants, broke out into indiscriminate burning, pillage and destruction — wasted their strength and ruined their cause. Early in the second year of the war, it assumed a purely mer- cenary character, stimulated by the hopes of plunder. The pub- lic morality was undermined, licentiousness reigned to an extent 7 98 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. witliout parallel or precedent among ws, the recital of wliicli is forbidden by decency. Thieves, bnrglars and liighwaymen in- fested every part of the country. The three -worst classes of men were let loose ^vithout restraint upon society. Deserters from the Federal army, vho had no means of support, dared not return home, and, unable to escape to foreign lands, vere compelled to seek subsistence and forage clandestinely, alike off friend and foe, if such persons may be said to have friends ; deserters from the Confederate army, who had not manhood to defend their homes, families, and burning country, irom Tartarian desolation ; and whining refugees, who had adopted the South as their home, participated in the govern- ment, and assisted to inflame the civil war, and then fled to the Northern States to put their persons and opinions up at public sale to the highest bidder; bounty jumpers and professional mercenaries. This last and most respectable of these three clas- ses, made fortunes by accepting bounties, then deserting, then re-enlisting — travelling in gangs from place to place under the superintendence of shrewd leaders. These mercenaries would change their clothes, color their hair, shave their whiskers, and make all other external changes necessary to jn-event their detec- tion. Some of these nnfortunate fellows were executed, but this seemed only to stimulate enterprise in others. The more the currency depreciated the higher the bounty; the greater the bounty the greater the competition to obtain it. Thousands of the vagrant rabble of Canada came over to receive the premium offered upon human life, and bore their treasure safely off, chuck- lino- over the discomfiture of the poor Americans who were driven by draft after draft to fill quotas at enormous expense, who were no better off at the conclusion than in the beginning of the conscription. Confederate soldiers who had escaped from Northern prisons and fled for refuge to Canada, pinched by the rigid climate, anxious to return to their people, seeing no other manner of escape, enlisted in the Federal army, took the bounty, and fled to their old regiments in the Confederate service, bearing off the spoils of plunder, with such intelligence as opportunity afforded, doino- double and more effectual good to their cause than they could have done in any other branch of the service. CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 99 Thousands of enlisted soldiers, having first entered the army without bounty, became excited over the bounty mania, and eno-ao-ed in bounty-jumping. They would leave the ranks at every available opportunity, re-enlist and take the bounty. Sometimes, in traveling several hundred miles, Avhole companies Avould disperse through the connivance of officers, re-enlist several times, take bounties and share the spoils liberally with their delinquent commanders. This mercenary spirit spread throughout every part of the army like a contagion. The soldiers cauglit the infection until the army became a reckless, mercenary mob, or unfortunate conscripts driven to the slaughter. The bounty given to the soldiers gave rise to a new class of speculators, and a new^ traffic, unknown to the Christian world. These dealers in human flesh became masters of the blood market, and were the exact counterpart of the bounty-j umpers. At every corner of the streets were posted on the cellar-doors and stairway entrances, such advertisements as the following : " The highest price paid for Substitutes y" " Substitutes bought and sold hcreJ' This flagrant and abominable traffic was carried on in the streets. The blood-brokers made from two to five hundred dollars on the sale of one human being to the butcher stalls, just as body- snatchers make fortunes in exhuming corpses from the grave or stealing them from the dead-house. In all this carnival there was no voice raised to defend the outraged rights of the poor. The war was making the rich richer, which could only be ac- complished by making the poor poorer. The churches grew more gaudy,, the theatres more profligate, amusements more li- centious, the people more extravagant, bankers more ostentatious, the lawless more reckless, and all business less and less responsible. The poor had no friends. It was a crime to be poor. " Long, long labor, little rest ; Still to toil, to be oppressed ; Drained by taxes of liis store, Punished next for being poor; This is the poor wretch's lot, Born within the straw-roofed cot." They were drafted into the army, bought and sold upon the auction blocks like beasts of the field. Never before did such a pitiless storm rain its vengeance down upon the devoted heads 100 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. of tlie people as that which fell upon the helpless classes subject to militaiy duty. Large families were as carefully picked as droves of cattle, separating those fatted for the butcher's stall from the herd. The children of widows who were unable to exert a strict control over the older male members of their fam- ilies, just entering into manhood at a time when they could have supported their bereaved parent, were hurried off to the flesh market. The husbands of poor women who were barely able to struggle against the hungry wolf of starvation, were caught in this man-trap. When drafted, men were driven from home at the point of the bayonet, black and white chained together like felons ; on the same day you would read in flaming placards : " The conscripts went singing and cheerful on their way." After the press, the natural guardian of Liberty, joined with the min- istry, the trustees of the virtue of the world, to delude the masses into the army, the work was accomplished. For each recruit obtained fifteen dollars was given as a premium. The pitiful cries of children, clinging to their father, whose face they were looking upon for the last time ; the plaintive appeal of thei^oor woman frantically begging the release of her husband, never moved a muscle in the brazen faces of the hardened wretches engaged in this nefarious business. The unscrupulous flesh-broker added to the bounty, whiskey highly seasoned with inflammatory drugs, to stultify the senses. In this condition the unfortunate creature was readily dragged from his family, and the cries of wife and children drowned by the sound of the fife and drum. The degradation of society was consummate. Parents might be seen selling their children in the conscript market, and walking complacently away with the price of their own blood in their pocket. Since the destruction of Jerusalem, where women cooked and ate their own offspring, no such revolting traffic had been known among a Christian people. The condition of the recruiting service was the unerring thermometer which indicated the depraved moral state of the atmosphere. These recruiting stations were kept in the dens of drunkenness, in back rooms with by-way entrances, where military officers in every stage of inebriety, from the silly chatter to the delirium CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 101 tremens, with comjilcte control of the bar-room and its inmates, were turning human beings into demons to send to the army from this pandemonium. Gambling hells were called into requisition — located in dark cellars'or remote places, out of the public gaze. The bounty- broker, if not an expert in the science of the thieving games, would soon have one ready to strip the victim of everything, so that he would gladly seek refuge in the army to hide his mis- fortune and shame together. Houses of ill-fame were darkened by heavy blinds, and the young men from the country enticed into their meshes, and through chicanery, driven to desperation, sought solace in a mercenary warfare, where they might forget their shame in battle and replenish their purses by plunder. False charges of crime against innocent men were trumped up. The accused, to rid himself of the traps of perjury prepared for his destruction, choosing the army only in preference to the State's prison, was forced to enlist. Only the hyenas Avho live on human flesh, and the jackals who hounded up the prey for the lions in this shameful traffic, practiced their revolting busi- ness in the public gaze. As a horrible exhibition of the lower- ing condition of public morals, this work was accepted as a matter of course, and was apologized for by those who dare not justify its crime. It is due to mankind, and the civilization of the world, that these crimes be made public, that the frightful condition of American morals should alarm the whole family of man and frighten them away from this horrible path. Everything conspired to degrade society. The conscription bill was the finishing stroke of the bloody crime of usurpation, and wrought an entire change in our institutions. It was the first attempt in our history to work a complete despotism. As far back in the history of the Britons as the time when the great Julius Cffisar was driven back to his scattered fleet and expelled from the island by the undisciplined forces of Casselbelan, the military service was voluntary, and in Rome slaves were not allowed to bear arms. Conscription is unknown in Great Britain, and an attempt to conscript would cost the sovereign both throne and head at the same righteous blow. Men were indiscriminately pi'essed into the army, without re- 102 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. gard to the protection of age. Tlie rulers exhibited a want of foresight not common. The woodsman provides for the second growth of the forest Avhich his deadly axe is felling to the earth, — the farmer is carefnl to preserve his seed-grain, — the herdsman looks after his growing stock, which shall succeed the sires and dames now driven to the butcher's stall; — but these monsters of despotism set all the laAvs of production at defiance in raising their armies, as tliey had hitherto scoffed at the sim- plest laws of justice in the administration of the government. Every male human being between the ages of twenty and forty- five, except those who might be exempted by the whims or bri- bery of the surgeon, Avere swept into the army. These surgeons for the most part M-ere a grave burlesque upon the medical pro- fession, who seemed to have no errand into the world except to disgrace the science of arras and the arts of war. They were superannuated quacks, M'ho had retired before aspiring midwivcs from the profession. They were, with rare exceptions, country and cily doctors, without practice at a time when and in commu- nities where, the services of good physicians were in great de- mand. They were brawling politicians in their immediate neio-hborhoods. Thev could be seen sitting from breakfast until dinner, and immediately after dinner to resume their seats in the exact position which they had left on the counter of the country store, or just as faithfully occupying the stranger's warm corner in the village tavern, during the long winters, asking imperti- nent questions of travelers, until their names were liistoric in the annals of neighborhood scandals. These gentlemen would break the monotony of life and embellish the general usefulness of their career by entertaining half-grown boys, strong-minded Avomen and feeble-minded men Avith speeches at the nearest school-house or cross-roads. They M'ould stuff ballot-boxes, intimidate voters, and engineer neighborhood slanders. You could sec them, on the sultry days of a long, lonesome, idle summer, re- treating with the approach of the sun from one side to the other, in the shade of the same village tavern enlivened with their Avinter haunt. They wore cross-barred breeches, shingled hair and military hat — Canada whiskers and paper shirt-collars. They had patiently waited for coming events, and, to their own CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 103 surprise, found themselves floating on the floodtide of prosperity. Every dog shall have his day, and their time had come. They were, of all others, the very men for promotion. They coukl discuss the topics of the day with a narrow volubility which commended them to the authorities. Such was the specimen average of the great mass of men who volunteered their services, and were chosen to break up flimilies, in their capacity as ex- amining surgeons. Such were the men composing the examining boards, before whom the unfortunate conscript was placed for approval — a compliment after which he did not seek. The whole military strength subject to draft was duly recorded and examined, either before or after the conscription. They called it conscription ; — in the consummation of the tyranny they cast off all dissemblance, which was no longer necessary to their purpose. The names of men were cast into the lottery of death, which dealt out its unwelcome tickets to nearly every household. The reigning spirit of fraud forced itself into the Provost Marshal's office, and took entire possession of the draft. Provost IMarshals amassed immense fortunes, through agencies of exemption, which contracted to free the citizens from the fatal draft of the conscript wheel. This, like all other villainies of the Departments, was reduced to a clearly-defined system. Tickets intended for po- litical enemies, or military victims, or those who had not been able to buy themselves off, were written and dried with ordinary blotting paper, whilst the tickets intended for political friends were heavily sanded on a full, heavy hand of ink. The sand remaining on the paper, made them readily distinguishable from the other tickets on the slightest touch. To cover up the ap- jicarance of fraud, the drawing was performed by blind men, who, being first handsomely bribed and duly let into the secret, could each time bring forth the ticket of the doomed man. Such was the villainy and revenge that ruled the chances of death in the horrible conscription which forced unwilling men to perpetrate the awful crime of murder against brave men who were defending their homes from conflagration, their beds from violation, and their hearths from the stain of innocent blood. After his endorsement by the Provost Marshal, as chosen by 104 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. the Government, he was placed in close care of the surgeon; The jirst introduction he had to this professional gentleman was in his native nakedness, for the most thorough, critical and in- solent examination. In the rural districts, the examination was generally in rooms exposed by the windows and other apertures to the public gaze, making amusement for the crowd outside watching and jeering, which was done to deter the timid from submission to examination at all. When the performance com- menced, the unfortunate victim stood pale as death — trembling like an aspen leaf in an autumn storm. The surgeon, with a coarse grin, would lift the upper lip, put his forefinger into his mouth and examine the teeth, just after the manner of the horse- jockey examining his nag — making the conscript walk, trot and kick in truly equine style — then lift up his hand and cough, subject to unnameable indignities at the discretion of the surgeon, until the crowd was fully satisfied with their victim. He was ' then removed to make way for new subjects, who in succession followed each other. After this examination was concluded, it did not by any means follow tliat the conscript Mas either held or freed, according to the condition of his health or qualification for the service. The question of his qualification was determined by entirely irrelevant considerations. If he was a relative or personal friend, or could buy off, he was generally accounted safe. On the other hand, if a personal enemy, or poor, all ef- forts at exemption were more than thrown away. The exemption board was a very powerful engine of political power. Thousands were exempted as the price of their votes at the coming elec- tion. As soon as the recruit was accepted as fit for service, the flesh ghoul was ready to buy him for enlistment. These narrow-minded politicians made the examining board a fruitful source of gratification of hate, spite, and an immense revenue. Tiiousands of able-bodied men, in the vigor of life, and fulness of strength, were exempted, whilst many poor men who had never been fit for any military duty whatever, \yere drao-oed to the army, or died on the way. A most painful instance occurred, in which the unfortunate conscript, Avho was rudely hur- ried through the examination and approved by the brutal surgeon, CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAK. 105 took a fit of coughing and bled to death in the room where he was examined. Hundreds who had been exempted, boasted in the streets that their political opinions had secured their exemp- tion. The partizans declared their determination to conscript all those who believed the war a crime. This became a matter of grave reflection. Many believed it a crime to go to wra- at all ; a greater crime to destroy the right of self-government in making war on those who defended it ; a still greater crime to butcher their own kindred ; an enormous offense to burn up the homes and fields, desecrate the churches, break down the enclosures and monuments of the dead of a Christian and highly civilized people. Millions saw that this war upon the South was the successful instrument of enslaving the whole country, and that every man and dollar devoted to it was a contribution to our degradation, wdiich was already hopeless. All that was sacred in conviction, holy in religion, and solemn in divine obligation, was imperiled. To surrender these convictions debased the man, yet this was the demand made in the insulted name of the God of Truth. It was to commit these crimes, and destroy the safeguards which protected our liberty, that the debt was created to make our slavery perpetual. Upon whose conscience and by what law can any such debt bind a free and enlightened people? 106 CHIMES OF THE CIVIL AVAR. CHAPTER XII. Violation of the Law of Nations. The Treaty with Mexico is the American doctrine of the conduct of war. Article 22nd. If (wliich is not to be expected and which God forbid) war should unhappily break out between the two repub- lics, they do now, with a view to such calamity, solemnly pledge themselves to each other and to the world to observe the follow- ing rules, absolutely where tlie nature of the subject permits, and as clor ely as possible in all cases where such absolute obser- vance shall be impossible. 1. The merchants of either republic, then residing in the other, shall be allowed to remain twelve months, (for those dwelling in the interior, and six months for those dwelling at the sea- ports), to collect their debts and settle their aifairs; during which period they shall enjoy the same protection, and be on the same footing in all respects, as the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations ; and, at the expiration thereof, or at any time before. They shall have full liberty to depart, carrying off all their effects without molestation or hindrance ; conforming therein to the same laws which the citi/xnis or subjects of the most friendly nations are required to conform to. Upon the entrance of the armies of either nation into the terri- tories of the other, women and children, ecclesiastics, scholars of every faculty, cultivators of the earth, merchants, artisans, man- uflicturers and fishermen, unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages or places, and in general all persons M'hose occu- pations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments unmo- lested in their persons. . Nor shall their houses or goods be burnt, or otherwise destroyed, nor their cattle taken, nor their fields Avasted by the armed force into Avhose power, by the e\'ents of \var they may happen to fall; but if the necessity arise to take anything from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at an equitable price. All churches, hosjiitals, schools, colleges, libraries and other establishments for charita- CHIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 107 ble and beneficent purposes, shall be respected, and all persons connected Avith the same, protected in the discharge of their duties and the pursuit of their vocations. 2. In order that the flite of prisoners of war may be allevia- ted, all such practices as those of sending them into distant, in- clement or unwholesome districts, or crowding tlieni into close and noxious places, shall be studiously avoided. They shall not be confined in dungeons, prison-ships or prisons; nor be put in irons, or bound or otlierwise restrained in the use of their limbs. The ofliccrs shall enjoy liberty on their paroles within conve- nient districts and have comfortable quarters. And the common soldiers shall be disposed in cantonments, open and extensive enough for air and exercise, and lodged in barracks as roomy and good as arc provided by the ]>arty in whose power they are, for its own troops. But if any oilicer shall break his parole by leaving the district so assigned him, or any otiier soldier shall escape from the limits of his cantonment, after tiiey shall have been designated to him, such individual, officer, or other prisoner, shall forfeit so much of the benefit of this article, as provides for his liberty on parole or in cantonment; and if any soldier so breaking'his parole, or any common soldier so escaping from the limits assigned him, shall afterward be found in arms previously to his being 4-egulariy exchanged, the person so oifending shall be dealt with according to the established laws of war. The officers shall be daily furnished by the party in whose power they are, with as many rations and of the same articles as are allowed either in kind or by commutation to officers of equal rank in its own army, and all others shall be daily furnished Avith such rations as are allowed to a common soldier in its own service, the value of all which supplies shall, at the close of the war, or at periods to be agreed upon by the respective comman- ders, be paid by the other party on the mutual adjustment of accounts for the subsistence of prisoners ; and such accounts shall not be mingled with or set off against any others, nor the balance due on them be withheld as a compensation or reprisal for any cause whatever, real or pretended. Each party shall bo allowed to keep a commissary of prisoners, appointed by itself Avith every cantonment of prisoners in possession of the other, Avhich com- missary shall see the prisoners as often as he pleases, shall be allowed to receive exempt from all duties or taxes and to dis- tribute Avhatever comforts may be sent to them by their friends ; and shall be free to transmit Lis reports in open letters to the party by Avhoni he is employed. And it is declared that neither the pretence that AA'ar dissolves all treaties, nor any other, Avhat- 108 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. ever shall be considered as annulling or suspending the solemn covenant contained in this article ; on the contrary, the state of war is that precisely that for which it is provided, and during which its stipulations are to be sacredly observed as the most acknowledged obligations under the law of nature or of nations. This treaty is a compendium of the laws of nations, which must govern us until we abandon Christianity as a system and civilization as a law among men. This treaty was made after the greatest chieftain then living — had fully possessed the Capital of the State invaded. AVhen the arms of a fallen foe had yielded all hope of resistance, and the Mexicans, the weakest and most degraded of all our neighbor- ing Powers, were incapable of longer- endurance at our mercy. This treaty was made when the Evangelical Church, in the fervor of the living faith, breathed the pure spirit of char- ity. Love to God and love to man — long before bishops joined with infidels to possess and despoil other peoples, — Churches, claiming " the war power " to rob and possess, and appealing to the civil power to ratify the robbery, or thanking Congress for instituting military governments. The Senate which ratified this treaty, was the immediate des- cendants of the Revolutionary fathers. Elevated high above all mere passion when the great men of the Christian era were zealously seeking the reformation of bad governments and the destruction of arbitrary power; when the true spirit of political justice pervaded the institutions of the country, and real friends of progress looked to the extirpation of war as a remedy for any of the evils of government. No more terrible commentary can be made upon the conduct of the late civil war than this treaty with Mexico ; that the duty and the crime of the American people may be placed in exact justaposition. The following description of the vandalism of war, is from the pen of one of the most distinguished jurists of the country : " On the 20th of December, 1862, Gen. Grant was endeavoring to push his army of eighty thousand men through the interior of the State of Mississippi, along the line of the Central Rail Road, with the view of capturing Jackson and assailing Yicks- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 109 burir from tlie East. His progress had been sIoav and tedious, owl no- to the fact that he was compelled to rebuild every rail- road bridge and trestle along the track, while the heavy rains of the season had rendered the ordinary roads almost impassable by army trains and artillery. His advance was within seven miles of Grenada, but the main body of his force was on the banks of the Yockany, eight miles south of Oxford, considerably depleted by tlie absence of the numerous detachments required to garri- son the towns and guard the railroad, from Columbus, Ky., which was his base of supplies, to Oxford, Mississippi, which was the most southerly point to which the road had been re- paired. Several weeks had been spent reconstructing the long bridge over the Tallahatchie, seventeen miles south of Holly Springs, and, in the meantime, the immense supplies of every description, required for so large an invading army, liad been transi^orted from Columbus to Holly Springs, where they were placed in depot, awaiting the completion of the bridge below. Federal officers estimated the cost of those supplies at seven millions of dollars. A Federal garrison of some two thousand men occupied the town, as a protection to the stores. Grant and his men were confident and boastful, expecting to occupy Vicks- burg before the middle of January. Just before daylight on the morning of the 20th of Decem- ber, the Confederate General Van Dorn, at the head of a small cavalry force, surprised and captured the garrison of Holly Springs, without the loss of a man on his part. The Federal loss was but one killed and two wounded. Scarcely a score of the garrison contrived to escape. Van Dorn proceeded at once to destroy Grant's supplies, by firing the buildings in which they were stored. He also burnt several thousand bales of cot- ton, most of which, the planters in the vicinity had been plundered, and which was then awaiting shipment to the North. A long train of cars, laden with army supplies, which was on the point for starting for Oxford, shared the same fate. By three o'clock, P. M., the work of destruction was completed, and Van Dorn, who was well aware that a largely superior force might be concentrated against him there within a few hours, paroled his prisoners upon the spot and withdrew towards Jackson, Tenn. By this single blow, alone, the entire plan of Grant's campaign was disastrously defeated. He was unable, for want of ammu- nition, to give battle to Pemberton at Grenada; the country around him, as far as his foraging parties could scour it with safety, was stripped of all supplies ; his communications with Columbus and with Memphis were cut off by Van Dorn's opera- 110 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. tions upon the railroad above, and a hurried retreat upon Mem- phis was his only resouree against actual starvation. This retro- grade movement was commenced on the 20th of December, and on the afternoon of the next day, the Federal troops, crest-fallen and exasperated, re-entered Holly Springs. As they marched through the streets, the citizens, gazing upon them through the wintlows, were admonished, by brick-bats and other missiles hurled at them from the ranks, that they were to be held respon- sible for the brilliant exploit of Van Dorn. These ferocious soldiers, who, on their backward march from Oxford, through a thickly-settled region, had burned every house along the road, were at once turned loose to gratify their cu- pidity and wreak their malice upon the citizens. The work of indiscriminate pillage was instantly inaugurated. Every dwelling Avas soon swarming with men in uniform, some of whom wore the shoulder-straps of captains and colonels, who, with oaths and curses, brandishing their weapons, and threatening death to any who should oppose them, ransacked every nook and corner, every drawer, closet, cupboard, work-box, trimk or other receptacle in Avhich money, plate and otlicr valuables might be stored, and "confiscated" or " jay-liawked " — to use their own expressive synonym for robbery — whatever of value they were able to carry off with them. Nothing came amiss to these marauders. Provisions, money, silver plate, jewelry, watches, blankets and other covering, parlor ornaments, daguerreotypes, books, china, glass-ware, table cutlery, kitchen utensils, clothing, (and espe- cially rich and costly articles of ladies' apparel, with wliich these brigands afterwards decked the sable damsels who filled their camps,) all such articles, as well as the contents of the numerous stores in the town, w^ere speedily appro])riated. Furniture, in some instances, was uninjured by the soldiers, either during or after the process of plunder. In others, such articles as ward- robes and bureaus, which were locked, were broken open, the soldiers refusing, even Avhen the keys were presented to them, to use them, or suffer them to be used for unlocking them. In other cases still, all the furniture in the house was smashed, and everything of value, that had not been stolen, wantonly destroyed. While this work of pillage was jn-oceeding, many of the soldiers announced their jiurpose of burning the town, and declared that they had been ordered to do so. Within half an hour after the Federal troops had re-entered the town, a dense smoke rising from the residence of Mrs. John D. Martin, a wealthy widow lady, indicated that the torch of the incendiary had been brought into requisition. The soldiers CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. Ill fired her premises, inclnding the negro houses and all the other buildings on the grounds, and stood by, preventing her servants from removing anytliing of hers from the dwelling, or of their own from their habitations, until the flames had made such pro- gress that the buildings could no longer be ap])roaclied. It was avowed that this was a punisliment inflicted upon Mrs. Martin for her conduct on the previous day. The crime of which she had been guilty was this : She had a son, a captain of cavalry in the Confederate army. He came to Holly Springs, the day before, with Van Dorn ; and his mother, seeing him at a distance, requested the writer to call him to her. He came and dismounted b/ her side, and s|ie kissed him in the street. She detained him a's he was about to hasten away, to beg him to show any kindness in his power to a Federal officer, naming him, who had that morning been taken prisoner by Van Dorn, and who, said she, '' has afforded jn^otcction to your poor mother and your little brother and sister." Promising to remember the benefactor of his mother, he rode off to rejoin his company. The writer witnessed the entire interview between the mother and the son, and he has set forth, in all its enormity, the particulars of that offense which was visited upon her by the conflagration of her sumptuous home, with all its treasures of art and beauty, and its thousand holy mementoes of other years. Wm. F. Mason, Esq., upwards of sixty years of age, and an invalid, for his presumption in daring to implore some soldiers not to enter the room where his wife lay sick, was knocked down with the buts of their muskets, kicked, trampled on, and left for dead. His dwelling, filled with rich and costly furniture, was then completely " gutted." Three weeks afterwards, his life was still considered to be in danger from the frightful injnries he had sustained. Many other citizens were subjected to personal vio- lence, while none, whatever their age, sex or condition, escaj^ed the most brutal insults that could be heaped upon them. The ejiithets applied to ladies by the freebooters who thronged through their houses day after day, are unfit for publication. (" Damned bitch of a secesh whore" was one of the most decent of those whicli were unusually employed.) As darkness drew on, the soldiers fired other dwellings, in di- ferent parts of the town ; and, during the whole of that weary night, the vvretched inhabitants, fearing to lie down, lest they should be consumed in their houses, watched the flames that were devouring the houses of their neighbors, not knowing at what moment it might become necessary for them also to flee for their lives. For two long weeks afterwards^ while the Fed- 112 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. erals continued to occupy the town, and the diiferent divisions, with their long trains, were slowly passing through, did this reign of terror continue. Not a night passed, during that period, that was not lit up by the flames of blazing houses ; and not a woman dared to disrobe herself for slumber, or even to seek re- pose at all during the night, unless she knew that the house was watched by those who would give her prompt notice of it should it be fired. More than a third of the town was reduced to ashes, and, had it been compactly built, scarcely a dwelling would have escaped. Personal insults were not those alone to which the people of Holly Springs were compelled to submit. The Presbyterian Church was used, Mdthout necessity, as a depository of ordnance stores. The Episcopal Church, of which the late Dr. J. H. Ingraham had been rector, was broken open, the seats destroyed, the carpets cut up, the prayer-books mutilated, the organ chopped open with axes and the pipes taken out of it by the soldiers to amuse themselves with, upon the streets, the altar disgustingly defiled, the walls defaced with obscene inscriptions, and the build- ing itself devoted to the vilest of human uses. Nor was this all. Even the beautiful cemetery of the town was not spared from the hand of ruthless violence. The soldiers entered its hallowed precincts with sledge-hammers and axes, broke down the orna- mental iron railings around the private lots, made a wreck of the costly monuments that marked the resting-place of the departed, uprooted the shrubbery, and left that spot, which, but the day before, had been so lovely, a scene of ruin and devastation. Gen. Grant, during the commission of these outrages, had his quarters in the finest house in the town — that of AVni. Henry Cox, Esq. He could not have been ignorant of what was going on ; and yet if he ever made an effort to prevent these atrocities or to punish the offenders, or if he ever expressed a regret that they had occurred, the citizens of Holly Springs never learned the fact. If a commander, who shrinks from the responsibility of openly ordering the perpetration ' of such barbarities by his troops, wishes to encourage his men in acts of vandalism, he has but to imitate the example of Gen. Grant at Holly Springs — shut his eyes and say nothing. VANDALISM IN OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI. During the summer and autumn of 18G2, Gen. Pemberton, at the liead of a considerable Confederate force, held a strongly- fortified position on the left bank of the Tallahatchie River, CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 113 thirteen miles north of Oxford, Mississippi, on the line of the ^Mississippi Central Railroad. Late in the month of November of that year, while Gen. Grant, with a vastly snperior army, was pressing him in front, from the north, Gen. Pemberton, learning that his commnnications with Jackson and Vicksburg were threatened by an expedition which had set ont from Helena with the object of captnring Grenada, decided to fall back him- self upon Grenada. He withdrew from the river without loss of men or stores, and occupied his new position at his leisure, his rear-guard only haviug, in the meantime, a few unimportant skirmishes with Grant's advance. One of these skirmishes oc- curred a short distance north of Oxford, and was prolonged only until a train of cars laden with army stores, could be safely got away from the railroad station. The Confederates then re- tired unmolested, completely evacuating the town, and some time elapsed before the Federals entered it. The citizens were aware that Grant's forces were at hand, and that they might be expected at any moment to make their appearance ; but being themselves unarmed and defenceless, they apprehended no personal danger, and many of them, led by curiosity, remained upon the street. They were destined shortly to be undeceived. The Federal advance, consisting of Kansas and Wisconsin cavalry, armed with repeating rifles, rushed into the town like a whirlwind, firing indiscriminately upon every one found in the streets. A boy of fourteen, the son of a widowed mother, was shot down while he was chopping wood in the yard. A negro man, belonging to Pr. E. E. Chilton, went to a gate with a couple of his master's children, to look at the soldiers as they passed. A volley was directed at the group, and the poor negro fell, shot through both thighs. An elderly citizen, quietly walking along the street, was fired on by a squad of cavalry. Drawing a white handker- chief from his pocket, he waved it at them in token of surrender. The murderous wretches replied by another volley. He then endeavored to gain the shelter of a neighboring building, and, as he ran, the soldiers galloped forward and sent a third volley after him, but he escaped unhurt. Doubtless, had the workman- ship of the " Union " soldiers been commensurate with their malignity, at least two score of inoffensive citizens would then have been butchered in cold blood, for more than fifty of them were fired on. It is almost needless to observe that this conduct of the troops was not provoked by any attempted resistance on the part of the citizens. The cavalry rapidly scoured the different streets of the town, and then, finding that they had no armed enemies to fear, they 114 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. commenced the work of pillage and destruction. It was late in the afternoon when they entered the town. Before the morning dawned again, the place had been so thoroughly sacked that little remained to tempt the cupidity of the spoiler. Those "jay hawkers" well understood the art of " making night hideous " to the inhabitants, whose dwellings were overrun by ferocious and brutal ruffians, many of them intoxicated, who searched everywhere for valuables, appropriated all that they coveted, including, in many cases, the personal ornaments and even the dresses of ladies ; demanding tlie surrender of watches and money at the mouth of the pistol, and wantonly destroying what they were unable to remove. Looking-glasses were smashed * pianos broken up, carpets cut to pieces, china demolished, paintings mutilated by thrusting bayonets through them, windows destroyed, feather beds ripped up and their contents given to the winds, and, in many cases, the large stocks of pi'ovisions which the families of that region were accustomed to keep in their smoke- houses, were rendered unfit for food by knocking in the heads of barrels containing sugar, molasses, flour, vinegar, etc., and mingling all together with salt and ordure from the stable. Many a family who on the morning of the 2nd of December were surrounded with every comfort and supplied with stores sufficient for a twelvemonth, Avere twenty-four hours thereafter, without a morsel of food upon their premises, or even the means of preparing the most simple meal, for they had been deprived of everything that could serve as a cooking utensil. From time to time, during the 3rd and 4th of December, fresh bodies of Federal trgops arrived in the town, and these, in turn, swarmed through every habitation, eagerly seeking to glean something from the wreck that had been left by their comrades, and exasperated against the citizens because they had so little remaining to be plundered. In one instance a negro woman was encouraged to make a per- sonal assault upon her mistress, and armed soldiers stood by, declaring that they would shoot the latter if she resisted. Eefined and delicate ladies were compelled to listen to every species of j^rofane and obscene language ; to submit to the grossest and most cruel insults, and, too often, even to the only outrages that can be perpetrated against womanhood. Every horse, mule, ox, cow, hog, sheep and fowl belonging to the inhabitants of the town and of the surrounding country, as far as Grant's foraging parties could penetrate, was remorselessly confiscated ; all the corn, forage and provisions that could be found were seized, and nothing paid for. Cotton was worth sixty cents a pound. Grant issued an order forbidding sales at a CRIMES OF TH^. CIVIL WAR. 115 hlglior price tlian twenty-five cents. If owneis refnsecl to sell at tliat price, it was taken from them without payment. One man, j\Ir. Fernandez, preferred to burn his cotton. In revenge, the Federals burned every building on his plantation, with all that they contained. Gen. Grant was in Oxford when a portion of the outrages above enumerated were committed by his troops, and he made no efforts either to prevent them or to punish the perpetrators. One of the highest offences known to military law is the vio- lation, by a soldier, of a safe conduct granted by his commander. Gen. Grant however, while at Oxford, suffered his pass to be violated with impunity. The Hon. James M. Howry, of Oxford, obtained a pass from Gen. Grant, requiring all United States troops to permit him to proceed unmolested, with a w^agon and certain trunks, to his plantation, some forty miles below. Judge Howry was met, about five miles from town, by a company of Federal cavalry belonging to Quinby's Division, who compelled him to halt. He produced Gen. Grant's pass, countersigned by Gen. Quinby, but the soldiers, cursing him and Grant and Quinby, refused to respect the pass. They stripped the Judge to the skin, robbed him of all the money found upon his person, broke open and rifled his trunks, stole his mules and saddle- horses, and left him in the wood. He made his way back to Oxford and reported the facts to Gen. Grant, who listened im- patiently to his statement and refused to afford him thie slightest redress. Judge Howry was the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the University of Mississippi, a literary institution of high rep- utation, located at Oxford. The voluminous archives of the University were deposited in Judge Howry's office, and the Federal officers were aware of this fact. Such documents else- where have ever been regarded, by the custom of all civilized countries, as sacred from the hand of violence in war. But, in Oxford, the Federal soldiers were permitted by their officers in open day, to break open Judge Howry's office and to scatter the documents found therein, which can never be replaced, in the deep mud of the streets. The collection of the State Geological Survey, which had been gathered and arranged with vast labor during many years, were contained in the University buildings at Oxford. The Federal soldiery were permitted to despoil that collection of everything they considered curious, leaving wdiat remained an almost undis- tinguishable mass of rubbish." A most reliable and responsible colonel of the Federal army 116 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. told the winter that after the new levies were taken to the West- ern armies, that he travelled from Corinth down through the State of Mississippi by the lurid light of burning houses, plan- tations and cotton fields ; until the whole heavens were covered with a sheet of flame, night after night, until they reached Holly Spring by the illumination of these infernal bonfires. Every attempt to arrest this work upon the part of the old regulars was at the peril of their lives, which were endangered by the inflam- matory harangues of the chaplains and demagogues. These are given as illustrations of the character of the war. THE BRUTAL HUNTER UNPARALLELED FIENDISHNESS. [From the Richnioud Enquirer, Septeml)er 13.] The following letter, not written for puV)lication, is from the daughter of a gentleman in Clark county, Va,, whose house was lately burned by the enemy. He had previously been despoiled of all his, sheep, cattle, horses and hogs, by the invaders. It tells of coarse brutality and fiendishness unequaled in civilized warfare : Clark County, Ya., Aug. 24, 1864. My Dear Sisters : — Since that terrible day that we were deprived of house and home, I have neither had time nor nerve to write to you ; but now that an opportunity offers to let you hear of our personal safety, I must try to tell you of all that has befallen us. I feel almost frantic to think of it, and night and day tlie horrors of the scene are present with me. To-day, two weeks ago, my aunt, Mrs. S., was taken sick, and day after day she grew worse until Thursday night, at half-past 12 o'clock, she breathed her last. Poor mother was with her and wrote imme- diately to father and myself to come, and just as I lighted the lamp to read the note, the report of firearms reached our ears. I immediately extinguished the light, as we were surrounded by the enemy, and from what we had heard in the evening, we con- jectured the shots proceeded from the picket-post which Mosby had attacked. Of course, father and I could not go to mother until morning, he tlien went and mother returned with him. Just at the mo- ment of return, sixty Yankees rode up to the house. One of the officers seized the horse mother rode and demanded to know where she had been ; mother was completely overcome and could not answer. I replied, "she is just from the death-bed of her CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 117 sister, and if you have any heart or manly feeling, tell rae quiet- ly your business, and I will attend to it." He turned to father with an expression of fiendish delight on his countenance, and said : " I hav^e orders to burn every house on your farm." Father demanded the charges against him, and he (Captain) re- plied : "Because Mosby murdered one of our pickets last night, and there was a light seen in this house, and we know jNIosby came from this house." We })rotested he had not, and told him the reason Ave had a light for a minute. Father then begged to be taken to Gen. Custer as a hostage, and asked him to spare his house on account of his sick wile, sick son-in-law, and two helpless little infants. The Captain replied, " Men, to your work ; take what you want and fire as you go." " Guard that man down here, and carry him up to headquarters." "That man " was my sick husband, and in my agony I fell on my knees to that brute to spare my sick hnsband and take me. With a mocking laugh at my request lie sent his surgeon to examine him, and thank God, the surgeon had a heart, and instead of saying anything to Dr. B., he said to me, " Come, go with me, and I will help you to save some clothes." The house was then on fire, and the men plundering and firing as they went. INIy poor old fiither and myself went back to the captain and besought him, for God's sake, to come and stop the men until we could get even a change of clothes. He re- plied, " My presence is not needed ;" and at last when we began to throw some things out of the windows, and he thought he might pick up some valuables, he came up to the house. Near- ly everytliing we threw out was stolen — clotlies, jewelry, silver, and something of everything they carried off. Some of them had bundles as large as a cliild before and behind them. One of them swore I should not take from the burning house my dear little boy Charlie, who was asleep, because they said he would grow up to be a rebel. I pusiied by the man and told liim, as soon as he was large enough I Avould put a gun in his hands and tell him of all we had suffered, and if he did not figlit with an unequalled bravery, he would not be my son. One of the brutes held my mother in the store-room, Avhile some others rifled it and set it on fire. One took me by the shoulders and thre-vv me from the to}) to the bot- tom of tlie steps. The last time I was in the house I seized my box of jewelry ; a man, or rather a devil, jerked it from me, an'd scattered the contents on the floor. I caught up one of my dia- mond rings, the bracelet sister C. gave me, and the children's bracelets and several otlier things, when the wretch seized me and held me, and got them from me. 118 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. In less than fifteen minntcs the flames had enveloped the whole house. The labors of mother and father for thirty -three years were destroyed in fifteen minutes. They rifled father's secretary, where all his public and private papers were, and then set the pieces of furniture on fire. The officers went off loaded with the richest part of the ])lun- der. Not a carpet was saved, not a comfort, not a bureau, not a washstand, but one pitcher and basin. They stole two dozen handsome silver spoons, nearly all the jewelry belonging to mother and myself, twenty-six pairs of linen sheets, and three hundred pounds of sugar were burned and stolen. Oh! the worst is yet to be told. AVhen the flames burst from every part of our dear, old comfortable home, my darling mother's reason gave way. For twenty-four hours she was a raving maniac. She fainted away time after time, and after she became sensible, it would have touched a heart of stone to have witnessed her sorrow. She grieved for the home where her childi'en had been born and bred and died, where she had seen sorrow and pleasure. Every corner and spot in it and every- thing in it was associated with some dear remembrance. INIy poor father bore it like a hero, and with tears streaming down his face, said : "Oh! my child, you have let the Yankees shake your confidence in God." In my agony I had called out: "Oh ! God, why hast thou forsaken us?" Oh! no words can describe the horrors of that day. The next day (Saturday) Ave had to place the remains of my dear aunt in the grave without a word. The vandals would not per- mit a minister to come out of Berryville or from the ncighbor- liood ; we had to send to Loudon for a coffin and to put the grave in the garden. We had a sup])ly of flour Avhich could have been saved, but the wretches knocked the heads of the bar- rels out to prevent our moving it. The trunks containing the winter clothes were rifled. I lost nearly all my clothes. "What they did not carry off they set on fire. A handsome silk dress which mother had given me and had been made but a few weeks, one of them took, and said, " he knew that he was going to take that to his old woman." I Avas reaching to the top of a press, getting down some house linen, Avhen a demon took a large scrap bag, and two cambric Avrappers and set them on fire just under me. I saAV my danger and sprang over to save my life, though noAv I feel the efl'ects of the heated flames. Tell brother T. I fought for his picture, and Avhen I found I could could not save it, I broke it to pieces. Some days afterAvard mother and I Avcntto Gen. Custer's head- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 119 quarters to try to recover some of father's papers and some of the silver. Of course we got none. But we told liim of the con- duct of his men and officers, and told him we would publish it to the world. They burned three houses; ours was the first. A short time after they left our house, Mosby passed by and overtoolv them, and killed, it is said, thirty of them. Even my purse was stolen with every cent of •money we had. - 120 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAPTER XIII. Torture, Cruelty and Outrage. THE MOXSTER M'"]S'EIL. In the town of Palmyra, Missouri, John McNeil had his headquarters as colonel of a Missouri regiment and commander of the post. An officious person who had acted as a spy and common in- former, named Andrew Allsman, who was engaged in the de- testable business of having his neighbors arrested upon charges of disloyalty, and securing the scoutings and ravages from every house that was not summarily burned to the earth. This had so long been his vocation that he was universally loathed by people of every shade of opinion, and soon brought upon himself the fate common to all such persons in every county, where the spirit of self-defence is an element of human nature. In his search for victims for the prison which was kept at Pal- myra, this man was missed ; nobody knew wdien, or where, or how ; whether drowned in the river absconding from the army, or killed by Federal soldiers or concealed Confederates. His failure to return was made the pretext for a scries of the most horrible crimes ever recorded in any country, civilized or barbarous. Jolui INIcNeil is a Nova Scotian by birth, the descendant of the expelled torics of the American Hevolution, who took sides against the colonists in the rebellion against Great Britain. He is by trade a hatter, who made some money in the Mexican war. He had lived in Saint Louis for many years, simply distin- guished for his activity in grog-shop politics. He was soon in the market on the outbreak of the war, and received a colonol's commission. Without courage, military knowledge or expe- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 121 riencc, he entered tlic army for the purpose of murder and rob- bery. As the tool of LIcNeil, W. H. Strachau acted in the capacity of provost marshal general, whose enormities exceed anything in the wicked annals of human depravity. At the instigation of McNeil, the provost marshal went to the prison, filled with quiet, inoffensive farmers, and selected ten men of age and respectability ; among the rest an old Judge of Knox county, all of whom had helpless families at home, in des- titution and unprotected. These names, which should be remembered as among the vic- tims of the reign of the Monster of the Christian era, were as follows : William Baker, Thomas Huston, Morgan Bixler, John Y. l\Ic- Pheeters of Lewis, Herbert Hudson, John M. Wade, Marion Lavi of Ealls, Capt. Thomas A. Snyder of Monroe, Eleazer Lake of Scotland, and Hiram Smith of Knox county, were sen- tenced to be shot without trial or any of the forms of military law, by a military commander whose grade could not have given ratification to a court-martial, had one been held; had the parties been charged with crime, which they were not. Mr. Humphreys, also in prison, was to have been shot instead of one of those named above, but which one the author has not the means of knowing. The change in the persons transpired in this way : Early on the morning of the execution, Mrs. Mary Humphreys came to see her husband before his death, to intercede for his re- lease. She first went to see McNeil, who frowned, stormed, and let loose a volley of such horrible oaths at her for daring to plead for her husband's life that she fled away through fear, and when she closed the door, the unnameable fiend cursed her with blasphemous assurances that her husband should be dispatched to hell at one o'clock. The poor affrighted woman, with bleed- ing heart, hastened to the provost marshal's office, and quite fainted away as she besought him to intercede with McNeil for the preservation of her husband's life. With a savage, taunting grin, Strachau said " that may be done, madam, by getting me three hundred dollars." This she did through the kindness of two gentlemen, who advanced the money at once. 122 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL AVAR. She returned Avith the money and paid it to Strachan. ]\Irs. Humphrey had her little daughter by her side, when she sank into her seat with exhaustion. Scarcely had she taken her place, until Strachan told her that she had still to do something else to secure her husband's release. At this moment he thrust the lit- tle girl out of the door and threatened the fainting v/oman with the execution of her husband. She fell as a lifeless corpse to the floor. After he had filled his jjockcts with money and satia- ted liis lust, the provost marshal released poor Humphreys. Another innocent victim Avas taken in his place to cover up the hideous crime. The newspapers Avere commanded to publish the falsehood that some one had A'olunteered to die in his stead. The additional murdered man Avas a sacrifice to the A'cnality, murder and rape of the provost 'marshal. The A^ctim Avas an unobtrusive young man, caught up and dragged off as a Avild beast to the slaughter, Avithout any further notice than Avas neces- sary to prepare to Avalk from the jail to the scene of murder. The other eleven Avere notified of their contemplated murder some eighteen hours before the appointed moment of the tragedy. llcv. James S. Green, of the city of Palmyra, remained Avitli them through the night. Between elcA'cn and twelve o'clock the next day, three gov- ernment Avagons drove to the jail Avitli ten rough boxes, upon AA'hich the ten martyrs to brutal demonism, Avere seated. This appalling spectacle Avas made more frightful by the rough jeering of the mercenaries Avho guarded tlie \dctims to the place of butchery. The jolting Avagons Avere driven through street after street, Avhich Avas abandoned by every human being ; avo- men fainting at the awful spectacle, clasping their children more closely to their bosoms, as the murderers, Avith blood pictured in their countenances, Avere screaming in hoarse tones the Avord of command. The company of stranger adventurers, mercenaries, and the vilest resident population, formed a circle at the scene, in imita- tion of the Roman slaughter in the time of Nero, Caligula and Commodus, to feast their sensual eyes on blood and amuse them- seh'es Avith the piteous shrieks of the dying men. This infer- nal saturnalia commenced Avith music. Everything Avas done CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 123 wli Icli mioht liarrow the fcolinG;.s and torture the soul. The I'ough coffins were pkiced before them in such manner as to excite horror; tlie grave opened its yawning mouth to terrify tliem ; but they stood unmoved amid the frenzied, murderous mob. Capt. Snyder was dressed in beautiful black, with white vest; magnificent head covered with rich wavy locks that fell around his broad should- ers like the mane of a lion. When the mercenaries were pre- paring to consummate this horrible crime, they at last seemed conscious of the character and the magnitude of this awful M'ork, grew pale and trembled: even the brutal Strachan seemed alarm- ed at his own nameless and compounded crimes of lust, avarice and murder. Kcv. Mr. llhodes, a meek and unobtrusive min- ister of the Baptist Church, prayed Avith the dying men, and Strachan reached out his bloody hands to bid them adieu. They generously forgave their murderers. To lengthen out 'the cruel tragedy, the guns were fired at dif- ferent times that death might be dealt out in broken periods. Two of the men were killed outright. Capt. Snyder sprang to his feet, faced the soldiers, jiierced their cowardly faces with his unbandaged eagle eye fell forward to rise no more. The other seven were wounded, mangled and butchered in detail, with pistols ; whilst the ear Avas rent with their piteous groans, praying to find refuge in death. The whole butchery occupied some fifteen minutes. The country was appalled at the recital of these crimes, and incredulous of the facts. The newspapers were suppressed to prevent their publication, and the exposure of the perpetrators. The punishment of the criminals was demanded by public justice and expected by everybody except the criminals, who well understood the cruelty and corruption of the Executive Department. To cover up these crimes by a judicial fiirce, nearly two years afterwards, charges Avere preferred against Strachan ; he was con- victed upon the foregoing state of facts, and sentence passed upon him. The sentence was remitted and Strachan ])romoted. For this crime McNeil was promoted by Lincoln to brigadier general and kept in office. In all of the history of European wars, Asiatic butcheries, Indian cruelties and negro atrocities, 124 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. there can be found no parallel instance in which the murder of men without any of the forms of trial, was accompanied with the rape of the wives of those designated by the lottery of death as the price of the husband's liberty. There was nothing left undone to make the whole scene cruel, loathesome and revolting. This outrage unpunished, gave license for crime, cruelty, out- rage and disorder everywhere. It would require the pen of every writer, the paper of every manufacturer, for a year, to recount them ; the human imagination sickens in contem})lation of them. In the next year after the McNeil butchery, in the neighboring city of Hannibal, occurred a similar crime, equally monstrous in its details. J. T. K. HeyAvard commanded a body of enrolled brigands in Marion County, known as the railroad brigade, who ibraged upon the peo])le and plundered tlie country. Hugh B. Bloom, a drunken soldier of the Federal army, re- turning to his regiment, muttered some offensive words in the presence of Heyward's men. Bloom was immediately dragged from the steamboat upon which he was traveling and carried be- fore Heyward. Heyward improvised a military court, tried the drunken man, and condemned him to immediate death. Whilst the poor wretch was unconscious of his condition, dis- qualified for self-defence, and unable to understand the fearful nature of his i)cril, he was hurried off to the most public place, on the river side ; the people of the town, trembling with fear, were compelled to witness the horrid scene. The worst was yet to come. Old and respectable citizens, be- cause knoAvn for their quiet demeanor and hatred of violence, were dragged down to witness the horrid spectacle. Twelve of these gentlemen were presented Avith muskets, and commanded to fire at the trembling inebriate sitting upon his coffin. To enforce this fiendish order to make })rivate gentlemen com- mit public murder, Hey ward's brigands were placed immediately behind the squad of private citizens and commanded to fire upon the first who hesitated to fire at Bloom. i\s the shuddering man sank down beneath the terrible volley of musketry, Heyward CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 125 turned upon the people cand warned thcni of their impending llite in the murder of this man. The spectacle was revolting in itself. It was terrible in view of the fact, that these militia were unauthorized by law for any .such purpose ; that the execution was without the shadow of law, that tiie victim was a Union soldier, who had committed no of- fence ; that the men who were forced to do this horrid work were unwilling to commit the crime, and protested against being made the instruments of such bloody horror. But how ineffably shocking that the perpetrator, Heyward, should be a member of a Christian church, and assume the office of Sabbath School teacher; that little children should look upon the horrible visage of the murderous wretch as their instructor. This Heyward, secluded from the enquiring world, overawing and corrupting the press of his own neighborhood, was the most Satanic of all the local tyrants of Missouri. At one time he gathered all of the old and respectable citizens of Hannibal, including such highly cultivated gentlemen of spotless escutcheon, as Hon. A. W. Lamb, into a dilapidated, falling house, and placed powder under it to blow it to atoms, in case Hannibal should be visited by rebels. In Monroe county, two farmers were arrested by the provost marshal's guard, taken a short distance from home, shot down and thrown into the field with the swine. On the next day the recognized fragments of the bodies were gathered up by the neighbors and carried to their respective bouses, and prepared for interment. The citizens were 'so respectable, the murder so brutal, the outrage so revolting, that people gathered from a large distance around, to bury in decency the remains of those who had been so shockingly destroyed. AVhen the funeral procession had been formed, the provost mar- shal sent his guard to disperse them ; declaring that no person opposed to the war, should have public burial. The heart-broken families had to go unattended to the grave of their respective head ; each one dreading the danger that beset the highway upon their return home ; and feeling even more in danger from marauders in the secret chambers of their own domicil. 12G CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. During tliis drunken reign of horrors, innocent people were shot down upon their door sills, called into their gardens upon pretended business, butchered and left lying, that their families might not know their whereabouts until their bodies were de- composed. Women were ravished, houses burned, plantations laid waste'. Judo-e Ricliardson was shot whilst in the court house in Avhich he presided, in Scotland county. Rev. Wm. Headlec, a minister of the gospel, was shot upon the highway ; and all of these mur- derers, robbers and incendiaries, are yet at large. Dr. Glasscock, a physician, was dragged from his own house by soldiers, under pretence of taking him to court as a witness, against the earnest prayers of his cliildron and slaves, was shot, mangled, disfigured and mutilated, then brought to his own yard and thrown down like a dead animal. To prevent punishment by law, these criminals repealed the laws against their crimes ; and provided in the constitution that crime should go unpunished if committed by themselves. To make themselves secure in their crime and to give immu- nity from punishment, they disfranchised the masses of the peo- ple ; and in the city of St, Louis the criminal vote elected the criminal McNeil as the sheriff of the county of St. Louis — the tool of the weakest and most malignant tyrants. milroy's order. St. George, Tucker Co., Ya., Nov. 28fh, 1862. Mr. Adaim Harper, Sir — In consequence of certain robberies Avhich have been committed on Union citizens of this county by bands of gueril- las, you are hereby assessed to the amount ($(285.00) two hundred and eighty-five dollars, to make good their losses ; and upon your failure to comply with the above assessment by the 8th day of December, the following order has been issued to me by Brig. Gen. R. H. Milroy: You are to burn their houses, seize all their property and shoot them. You will be sure that you strictly carry out this order. You will inform the inhabitants for ten or fifteen miles around your camp, on all the roads approaching the toAvn upon which the enemy may approach, that they must dash in and give you CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 127 notice, and upon any one failing to do so, you will burn their houses and shoot the men. By order Brig. Gen. R. H. Milroy, H. Kellog, Capt Commanding Post. Mr. Harper was an old gentlemen, over 82 years of age, a cripple, and can neither read nor write the English language, though a good German scholar. This gentlemen was one of twelve children, had served in the war of 1812, was the son of a Revolutionary soldier who bore his musket during the whole war, inherited a woodland tract, and built up a substantial home in the midst of Western Virginia. His was only one of a class which swept over West Virginia, and left the beautiful valleys of Tygart and the Potomac rivers in ashes and desolation. It is to pay for crimes like these, and keep in employment the men who committed them that created the debt now weighing the people down. It was to pay such monsters, with their tools, that money was refunded by the general government to the State of Missouri and West Virginia, and the taxes saddled upon the people of the country. The following letter gives its own explanation : Macon, Ga., October 7, 1867. Henry Clay Dean, Mount Pleasant, loioa : Dear Sir — I have read your late communication addressed to " The Prisoners of War, and victims of arbitrary arrests in the United States of America. " You allege that " the Congress of the United States refused to extend the investigation contemplated by a resolution, adopted by that body on the 10th of July, 1867, appointing certain par- ties to investigate the treatment of prisoners of war, and Union citizens held by the Confederate authorities during the rebellion, to the prisoners of war, victims of 'arbitrary power and military usurpation by the authority of the Federal administration. ' " Appreciating your object "to put the truth upon the record," and concurring in your patriotic suggestion that " it is the duty of every American to look to the honor of his country and the preservation of the truth of history, " I have felt constrained to 128 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. respond to the call made in your circular, so far as to acquaint the public, through you, with the following precise, simple, and unexao;a:erated statement of facts : When the Capitol of the Confederate States was evacuated, the specie belonging to the Richmond banks was removed, with the archives of the government, to Washington, Ga. Early after the close of the war, a wagon train conveying this specie from Washington to Abbeville, S. C, was attacked and robbed of an amount approximating to $100,000, by a body of disband- ed cavalry of the Confederate army. A few weeks subsequent to this event. Brigadier General Ed- ward A. Wild, with an escort consisting of twelve negro soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Seaton, of Captain Alfred Cooley's company, (156th Regiment of N. Y. Volunteers) repaired to the scene of the robbery in the vicinity of Danburg, Wilkes county, Georgia. By the order of Gen. Wild, and in his pres- ence, A. D. Chenault, a Methodist minister, weighing 275 pounds, his brother, John N. Chenault, of moderate size, and a son of the latter, only 15 years of age, but weighing 230 pounds, were arrested and taken to an adjacent wood, where the money abstracted from the train, or a portion of it, was supposed to be concealed. Failing to j^roduce the money upon the order of General Wild, these three citizens, who enjoy the esteem and confidence of all who knew them, were suspended by their thumbs, with the view of extorting confessions as to the place of its con- cealment. Mr. John N. Chenault was twice subjected to this torture, and on one occasion until he fainted, and was then cut down. Rev. A. D. Chenault was also hung up twice by his thumbs, and until Gen. Wild was induced only by his groans and cries to release him from his agony. The youth, A. F. Che- nault, was hung up once, and until he exhibited evident signs of fainting, when he was cut down. AVliilst this scene was being enacted, Gen. Wild and his subaltern were both present, direct- ing the whole operations. These citizens, with the exception of John N. Chenault, who was unable to be removed, were then sent under guard to Washington, fifteen miles distant. By order of Gen. Wild, a daughter of John IST. Chenault, about the age of seventeen years, universally beloved in her neighborhood, and distinguished for her piety, was searched, by being stripped, in the presence of the Lieutenant, who was charged with the execution of the order. When her gar- ments, piece by piece, were taken from her and the very last one upon her was reached, in tlie instincts of her native modesty, she threw herself upon a bed and sought to conceal her person with CrJMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 129 its covering, she -was ordered to stand out upon tlie floor until stripped to perfect nakedness. By order of Gen. Wild, the wife of Jolin N. Clicnault was arrested and taken under guard to Wasliington, where she was incai'cerated for several days, fed on bread and water, in one of the petit jnry rooms of the court house, and after she had been forced to leave at her home her nursing infant, but nine months old, where it continued to remain until its mother was released. During the ])eriod of her imprisonment. Gen. Wikl was waited upon at his hotel by three citizens of the county, to wit: Francis G. Wingfield, Richard T. Walton, and your correspondent, v/Jio importuned this officer to permit one of the party to take Hilrs. Chenault to his residence in the village, each pledging his neck, and all tendering bond, Avith security, in any amount which he would be pleased to nominate, for her appearance at any time and place in obedience to his order. This request Gen. Wild promptly and emphatically refused, but graciously allowed her friends to supply her with suitable food at the place of her con- finement. The tortures and indignities thus inflicted upon this family, who are respected and esteemed by all who knew them, failed to discover any evidence v/hatever of their complicity in the rob- bery, or any knowledge of tlie concealment of any of its fruits. The facts thus detailed were reported in substance to Major General James S. Steadman, then on duty at Augusta, Ga., who immediately ordered his Inspector General (whose name is not remembered) to Washington, with instructions to collect the evi- dence as to the truth of the re])resentations made to him. After spending several days at Washington and its vicinity, in the ex- amination of witnesses, this officer observed that the facts M'hich he had elicited fully corroborated the statements which had been forwarded to Gen. Steadman. Gen. Wild wos renioved by the order of Gen. Steadman, and ordered to Washington City, Charges were also preferred against him, but the public is not advised that even as much as a reprimand was ever administered to him. The foregoing statement of facts will be avouched by many citizens of Washington, and of Wilkes and Lincoln counties. You are respectfully referred to James M. Dyson, Gabriel Toombs, Green P. Cozart, Hon. Garnett Andrews, Dr. J. J. Robertson, Dr. James H. Lane, Dr. J. B. Ficklin, Richard T. Walton, Dr. John Haynes Walton, and David G. Cotting, the present editor of the Republican, at Augusta. Prompted by no spirit of personal malevolence, but in obedience 9 130 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. alone to the instinct of a virtuous patriotism, I Jiave thus "a' round unvarnished tale delivered " of some of the actings and doings of this officer, studiously refraining from any denunciation, and suppressing every suggestion the least calculated to excite the prejudices or inflame tiie passions of the public. I am, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, Joiix B. Weems. An attempt to record the crimes committed during the civil war would fill volumes and excite horror. We can only indicate the crimes rather than give detail of their circumstances. One gentleman from Vicksburg, writes in justly indignant language of the rape and robbery of his wife ; that he has sought redress in vain of the military authorities. Another of the vio- lation of two ladies by beastly mercenaries, until one dies, and the other lives a raving maniac. A lady writes from Liberty, Missouri, that her iather, Mr.' Payne, a minister of Christ, was murdered by the military and left out from his dwelling for several days, until found by some neighbors in a mutilated condition. A gentleman Avrites that a wretch named Harding boasts that he had beaten out the brains of a wounded Confederate prisoner at the battle of Drainesville. The affidavit of Thomas E. Gilkerson states that negro soldiers were promoted to corporals for shooting white prisoners at Point Lookout, where he was a prisoner. That he was transferred to Elmira, New York, where pris- oners were starved into skeletons ; were reduced to the necessity of robbing the night-stool of the meats Avhich, being spoiled, could not be eaten by the sick, was thrown into the bucket of excrements, taken out and washed to satisfy their disti'cssing hunger. Tliatfor inquiring of Lieutenant "Whitney, of Rochester, New York, for some clothes which the deponent believed were sent to him in a box, the deponent was confined three days in a dun-, geon and fed on bread and water. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL AV^AE. 131 That two men in ward twenty-two were starved until they cat a dog, for which offence they were severely punished. That negroes were placed on guard. That while on guard, a negro called a prisoner over the dead line, which the prisoner did not recognize as such, and the negro shot him dead, and went unpunished. That shooting prisoners without cause or provocation, was of frequent occurrence by the negro guards. " This aliidavit was taken before Dan'l Jackson, Justice of the Peace. Joseph Hetterphran, from Fayetteville, Georgia, writes that he was captured on the 27th of January, 18G4, in East Tennes- see; searched and robbed with his companions of everything. They were hurried by forced marches to Knoxville, nearly frozen and starved ; were then confined in the penitentiary, where the treatment all the time grew worse ; were finally taken to Rock Island, where he had no blanket, was stinted in fuel, food and raiment. In this horrible place the prisoners ate dogs and rats. The poor fellows tried to get the cruml)s that fell from the bread wagons ; a great many died of diseases induced by starvation : others starved outright. In the meantime the sutler would sell provisions to the rich Confederates, v/hilst the poor were driven to starvation. This prison Avas guarded by negroes for a consid- erable time. The negroes frequently siiot the prisoners down through wantonness, just as they did at Elmira. The officer who led negroes to kill the people of his own race, can sink to no lower depth of degradation. Henry J. Moses writes from Woodbine, Texas, that he was taken prisoner at Gaines' Farm, near Richmond, Virginia, and confined at Point Lookout during the month of May, 1864, and then taken to Fort Delaware, where he remained until the 24th of August. When Gen. Foster demanded the removal of six hundred of the prisoners, they were placed on board the steamer Crescent, and kept in the hold seventeen days, suffocating with heat, drinking bilge water, and eating salt pork and crackers in very stinted allowances. The hatchway was frequently closed, and all of the horrors of the African slave trade revived in their persons and treatment. After enduring this terrible form of 132 CKIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. torture, they "were placed on Morris Island, under the fire of their own guns for forty-three days, guarded by negroes. The dead-line rope was sti-etched as a pretext for shooting those who should even by accident touch it. Taunts, gibes, jeers, and in- sults of every kind were heaped upon the prisoners. Paul H. Earle, of Alabama, for no offence whatever, was shot at; another time the tent was fired into, and two sleeping soldiers badly wounded, by order of the Lieutenant. As it always has been and ever will be, the negroes behaved much better than the white fiends who commanded them. How could it be otherwise? A man raised in Christian communities who would let loose bar- barians to burn up and destroy the habitations of women and children of his own race, has not one conceiveable iota of space in which to sink deeper in degradation. After all of the acts of cruelty and ingenuity to starve these poor fellows, they were finally confined in Fort Pulaski, fed upon a pint of musty kiln-dried corn, with a rotten pickle each day. On this diet they were kept for forty-four days, when the scurvy broke out and killed over two hundred of the number. After such loathesorae suffering as makes human nature shudder, incarcerated in damp cells without blankets, some with no coats, Mr. Moses adds that "nothing but the preserving hand of God kept us thi'ough those trying hours." How much greater was the crime of a Christian people, that the ministry in the peace- ful regions were inflaming, this horrible work instead of allevia- ting the sufferings of the people. Added to all of the other atrocious crimes and cruelties, the insane were in like manner tortured. An old gentleman named Fitzgerald, infirm and in- sane, who ate opium to alleviate his pain, was denied his medi- cine for Avhicli he begged, until death kindly came to open the prison doors and release him from his agony. The prisoners say that Foster instigated these cruelties. The names and references of the parties clothe the whole statement with an unmistakeable. semblance of truth. The corroboration is conclusive. John L. Waring, of Brandywine, Prince George's county, Maryland, states that he was a prisoner of war for more than two years : that a private soldier killed in his presence an inof- fensive prisoner in Carroll prison, who sat by the window, and was promoted from the ranks, to corporal, for the crime. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 133 Forney's Chronicle, in noticing the death, and apologizing for the crime, falsely stated that young Hardcastle, the prisoner killed, was cursing the guard. The room-mate of Hardcastle, who, like Hardcastle, had been arrested upon no charges whatever, soon after this murder was released, but died shortly after in consequence of the cruel prison treatment. Mv. Waring was removed from Carroll prison to Point Look- out, where the prisoners were detailed to load and unload vessels; were robbed by negroes of the trinkets made in prison ; some were shot by negroes, carpet eacks Avere robbed of clothing, and hospital stewards and sanitary commissions ate the provisions sent to prisoners and soldiers, or extorted exorbitant prices from the person to whom they had been sent. The negroes offered every manner of indignity to the prison- ers. Among other crimes they shot a dying man on his attempt to relieve nature. The conduct of the negroes at Point Lookout was incited by their white officers until it was frightful. Henry H. Knight writes from Gary, "Wake county, North Carolina, that he was captured at Gettysburg, taken to Fort Delaware, and suffered all that cold and mud could inflict upon their comfort and convenience. He was driven from poorly warmed stoves by Federal officers. The soldiers were beaten, starved and frozen to death. Seven were frozen one morning; others of them went to the hospital and died. At other times they were driven through the water, and were alternately robbed, frozen, tortured and starved. The great amount sent them by relatives was appropriated by the guards for their own use; and if they made complaint, the prisoners were shot, and the improb- able story told that they had run guard, and that Avould be the last of their crime heard in the Fort against the guards. Some of these poor fellows were whole days without tire, when the snow was a foot deep, or the water covering the ground. The author saw hundreds of these prisoners in the city of Pitts- burg in the early summer of 18G5, on their way to the South- west, in the most loathesome condition. Their pitiable suffering and mournful stories were sickening, and would crimson the cheek with unutterable shame and horror. No words can por- ]34 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. tray the picture that lie saw with his own eyes. Swollen gums, teeth dropping from the jaws, eyes bursting with scurvy, limbs paral3'zed, hair ialling off of the heads, frozen hands and feet. These were those that escaped. The dead concealed the crimes of the murderers in the grave which was closed upon them, by hundreds. W. C. Osborn, of Opelika, Alabama, states that he was cap- tured on the 4th of July, 1863, and confined in Fort Delaware; that the rations were three crackers twice a day ; most of the' time no meat at all, but occasionally a very small piece of salt beef or pork. That he drank water within fifteen feet of the excrement of the Fort, and could get no other. When cold weather returned, the beds of each man were searched, and only one blanket left him. The barracks were inferior, and men frozen to death in the terrible Avinter of 1863-4. Prisoners were shot for the most trivial offences. One man's brains were blown out and scattered on the walls, where they remained for many days, for no offence other than looking over the bounds, uncon- sciously. For other offences, men M-ere tied up by the thumbs just so that their toes might touch the ground, for three hours at a time, until they would turn black in the face. Others were placed astride of joists, and forced to remain in that attitude for hours at a time, the coldest weather. These crimes against the persons of the prisoners, and their starvation, were carefully concealed from the public eye, and the Philadelphia papers made every effort to deceive the public in regard to these mat- ters. On inspection days, when the people were admitted to the grounds, the prisoners got three times as much as upon other days. This Avas done to delude the people of the country, who never had any sympathy Avith these horrible crimes. Presley N. Morris, of Henry county, Georgia, Avas captured by AVilder's brigade, AA'as diA'Csted of everything, marched five days on one meal each day, carried through filthy cars to Camp Morton, Indiana, on the 19th of October, 1863, Avhere he Avas imprisoned in an old horse stable on the Fair ground, Avithout blanket, thinly clad, and Avithout fire, until January, 1864, Avhen lie received one blanket ; his body covered Avith rags and A'cr- min, Avlicn the snow Avas from six to ten inches deep. Two CHIMES OF THE CIVIL AVAR. 135 stoves were all that was used to warm three huntlrcd men, and then wood for half the time only was allowed. The prisoners were compelled to remain out in the cold in this condition from nine o'clock, A. M., to four o'clock, P. M., no difference what was the condition of the weather. In October, 1864, the i3rison- ers were drawn up in line, stripped of all their bedding, except one blanket, and robbed of all money ; and hie. ^Morris was robbed of three hundred dollars, with other valuables, none of which were ever returned ; was beaten over the head because a piece of money was found near his feet, by one Fifer. Money sent him was purloined by the officei'S through whose hands it came. Another says be belonged to Grigsby's regiment ; was sent to Camp INIorton ; and corroborates the statement of Mr. Morris in regard to Camp Morton. He "was soon, after his capture, sent to Camp Douglas near Chicago. In this place tlie prisoners were shot at by sharpshooters and Indians ; sometimes were kept in close confinement for forty-eight hours. Sometimes a half-dozen prisoners were placed upon a rude machine called " JMorgan's horse," which was very sharp, and compelled to sit more than two hours at a time, with weights to their legs. Others were tied up by their thumbs. They were searched once every week. The prisoners were whipped with leather straps and sticks, after the manner of whipping brutes. Upon one occasion, when a guard discovered a beef-bone thrown from the window of num- ber six, he made all of the prisoners form in line and touch the ground Avith the fore finger Avithout bending the knee. All Avho could not do this Avere beaten. A young man Avas shot for picking up snow to quench his thirst, Avhen the hydrant had been closed for several days. New and cruel punishments AA^ere inflicted, as Avhim, passion, or pure malignity indicated. Wm. Howard, a Baptist minister, sixty years of age, of Graves county, Kentucky, AA'as taken, with his daughters, and beaten OA'cr the head with a sabre, until the sabre Avas broken ; and he Avas otherAA^ise cruelly treated. Lucius T. Harding Avrites that on the 14th of October, the large steamer General Foster came to his place. The sailors entered the house, kicked his sick children, and robbed him of 136 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAIl everything. That white officers led negro raids into Westmore- land and Richmond counties. Women were violated wherever they were caught by the negroes, with the utmost impunity. N. D. Hall, of Larkinville, Alabama, a soldier of Western Virginia, during Hunter's, Crook's and Averill's horrible desola- tion of Virginia, says that the rebels found a negro man and child, both dead, and a negro woman stripped naked^ whose bleeding person had been outraged by Averill's men. That Averill's men offered to give to Dr. Patton's wife, in Greenbrier county, West Virginia, fifteen negro children which they had stolen, and which she refused to take from them. To rid themselves of the burden, and the children from suffering, they were thrown into Greenbrier river. In the valley below Staunton, Crook's men tied an old gen- tleman, and violated liis only daughter in his presence, until she fainted. In Bedford county he saw the corpse of one, and the other sister a raving maniac, from violation of their persons. Desola- tion was left in the trail of these men. An aged and respectable minister was hanged in Middletown, Va., by military order, for shooting a soldier in the attempt to violate his daughter in his own house in Greenbrier county. David Nelson, of Jackson, was shot because his son was in the Confederate army. Another person named Peters, a mere boy, \vas shot for hav- ing a pistol hidden. Garland A. Snead, of Augusta, Ga., said he was taken prison- er at Fisher's Hill, Va., September, 1864; sent to Point Look- out, which was in the care of one Brady, who had been an offi- cer of negro cavalry. He was starved for five days, had chronic diarrhoea; was forced to use bad water, the good water being refused them. Men died frequently of sheer neglect. He was sent off to make room for other prisoners, because he was believed to be in a dy- ing condition; as it was manifestly the purpose to poison all that could be destroyed by deleterious food and water, or by neglect of their wants. He said that negroes fired into their beds at night; and one was promoted for killing a prisoner, from the ranks to seigeant. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 137 Claiborne Snecd, of Augusta, Ga., writes from Johnson's Isl- and : that prisoners were frequently shot without an excuse ; that prisoners having the small pox, were brought to Johnson's Island on purpose to inoculate the rest of the prisoners, and that many died of that disease ; a crime for which civilized govern- ment visits the most terrible penalties. Yet this disease, thus planted, was kept there until it had spent its force. That the rations were bad, and prisoners went to bed suifering the pangs of hunger. That although Lake Erie was not one hundred yards distant, yet these prisoners were forced to di-ink from three holes dug in the prison bounds, surrounded by twenty-six sinks, the filth of which oozed into the water. This treatment, in no wise better than the inoculation of small pox, and even more loathsome than that disease, caused many prisoners to contract chronic diarrhcca in a country where that disease is not common. It is impossible for human language to portray the horrible crim- inality of the wicked men who inflicted these tortures upon hu- man beings, and at the same time caused the detention of North- ern prisoners in loathesome Southern prisons, through a fiendish love of suffering ; and the unwillingness to have exchanges, paroles and releases granted to the unfortunate, innocent men of both armies, unnaturally led to mutual destruction? What apology can the infidel ministry of the country offer for such crimes? and upon their head must the curse ever rest who sustained these thieves. J. C. Moore, son of Col. David IMoore, of the Federal army, writes that he Avas taken prisoner at Helena, Arkansas, July 4, 1863, with 1750 prisoners. The poor fellows, half starved, were met at St. Louis by a supply of apples, cakes, tobacco and money. The officer having them in charge threatened the boys with imprisonment, who extended these friendships to these un- fortunate men. That he was taken to the Alton prison, where men were kept with ball and chain at work in the street, for mere peccadilloes, where the keepers shot their victims and stab- bed them, with all of the indignities usual in the jirisons every- where, which seemed under control of no military^ but rather governed by the instigation of the devil. 138 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. L. P. Hall and Wm. Periy, of Chico Butte, California, were arrested ; had their press destroyed ; were handcuffed together in Jackson, Aniada county, Avith ball and cliain attached to their legs, and driven to labor on the Public Works at Alcatross. Fifty-two others were treated in like manner. Hall and Perry were finally discharged without charges or trial. In the persons of these gentlemen, were violated all the rights of freedom of person, of the jjress, of speech, and finally they were starved, and released after enduring the most offensive insults at the hands of a cowardly enemy. This crime transpired in Califor- nia, Avhere war had not gone, and their imprisonment was with- out pretence. T. Walton Mason, of Adairville, Logan Co., Ky., says that he was surrendered by Gen. Jno. Morgan in Ohio, July 26th, 1863, and imprisoned at Camp Chase, then removed to Camp Douglas, where all of the horrors of that place were revived. In this camp Choctaw Indians were employed as guards. When money was given to the guards to buy provisions, they would pocket the money. The Indians shamed the whites for this breach of faith and petty theft. In November, 1863, seven escaped prisoners were returned, and subjected to the most cruel torture. They were taken out in the presence of the garrison and tortured with the thumb-screw until they fainted with pain. In February, 1864, the cruelty became extreme; they beat pris- oners with clubs and a leather belt, with a U. S. buckle at the end of it. They shot prisoners without provocation. For spilling the least water on the floor, the prisoner Avas elevated on a four inch scantling fifteen feet high, and tortured for two or three hours. For any similar offence, when the perpetrator Avas not known, the whole regiment was marched out and kept in the cold all day, sometimes freezing their limbs in the effort. Because a sick man vomited on his floor, the whole of the prisoners, in the dead hour of a chilling cold night, were made to stand out in their night clothes, until frozen, and from which several died, Avhilst others lost their health, which they never recovered. Mr. Mason was driven by this night's cruelty into the hospi- tal, Avhere, among empyrics, he refused to take their medicines; in turn his own physician was not alloAved to see him. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 139 From twelve to thirty prisoners died every day, during the months of July, August, September and October, from brutal treatment. When James Wandle, a Virginia giant near seven feet high, died, through neglect in the hospital, the ward-master could not lay him in the small coffin which was furnished, but his body in a most brutal manner was stamped down into its nar- row limits to ])repare it for the grave. Such were the every day affairs of this loathesome place. Again, in the coldest winter night, the prisoners were aroused and driven out in the storm barefooted, in their night clothes, and made to sit down until the snow melted under them. Late in December, several hundred prisoners came from Hood's army, near Nashville, almost destitute of clothing ; coming from a warm climate, they were kept out all night in the cold, shiver- ing and freezing. Upon the next morning, nearly one hundred were sent to the hospital. As a consequence, many of their limbs Avere frozen and required amputation, and death kindly came to the relief of all. J. Risque Hutter, late Lieutenant-Colonel 11th Regiment Virginia Infantry, writes that he was captured at Gettysburg, and was eighteen months in prison on Johnson's Island. During the tyranny of a fellow of the name of Hill, rations were reduced and stinted ; that prisoners were neglected in sick- ness ; straw and other necessaries were declared contraband. That suifering from thirst was common, right on " the shores of the lake-bound prison." That the rations were indifferent in quality and insufficient in quantity to satisfy hunger. Rats were eaten by hundreds of prisoners, Avho regarded themselves fortunate to get them, such was the reduced condition of the prisoners. That Colonel Hutter's brother, an officer in the Confederate army, on duty in Danville, Virginia, went to Lieutenant Bing- ham and agreed to furnish them with all of the comforts of life, if he would have the necessaries furnished Colonel Hutter through his friends at home. Colonel Hutter had Lieutenant Bingham furnished with everything he desired, and when ar- rans^ements were made to furnish similar articles to Colonel 140 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. Hutter, in Johnson's Island, Hill would not permit it. When the matter was referred to Washington, the refusal was sustained. The above abbreviated statement has been made from ably- written details of individual wrongs — each gentleman giving name, date, place and specific charges. The latter would make a large bound volume of itself, which a want of space only apologizes for the abridgment. JohnM. Weinerwas formerly Mayor of the City of St. Louis, was arrested in that city and kept in prison without any charges against him whatever. After the cruel treatment common to St. Louis prisons, lie M'as transferred to Alton penitentiary, and from there made his escape, and was killed near Springfield, Missouri. Mrs. Weiner sent for her husband's body for burial in Bella- fontaine Cemetery. Whilst his wife and friends were preparing his body for burial Samuel R. Curtis sent a squad of soldiers who stole the corpse I'rom his wife, and buried it in a secret place. Mrs. Beatty was arrested for begging the release of ISIayor Wolf, who was sentenced to be shot in retaliation. Wolf was respited and then exchanged; but Mrs. Beatty was put in prison, manacled, shackled, and chained with a heavy ball until the iron cut through her tender limbs, and the flesh rotted be- neath the irons, until she was attacked with chills; and in a lone cell, not permitted to see a human being, Avhen her mind gave way under the terrible treatment. The surgeon protested against this vicious cruelty ; still it was continued, until the very sight of the poor creature was frightful. So she continued until Rosecrans was removed. After llosecrans was broken down in the army, like Burnside, he tried to retrieve his lost fortunes by cruelty, but failed. Neither the release of Strachan from the penalties of the court martial for his participation in the McXeil murders, and robbery and rape of Mrs. Mary Humphries; nor his barbarity could save him from the contempt of the radicals. After his brutalities in these cases, the Democrats loathed him, and he now lies hidden among the rubbish of the war, 'mid the remnants of abandoned barracks, rusty guns and broken wagons, to be heard of no more forever. Mrs. Beatty was tried by court CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 141 martial and acquitted, but will wear the marks of cruelty to the grave. One of the most horrible murders of the State of INIissouri, was that committed by an old counterfeiter named Babcock, who shot Judge Wright and liis three sons, after decoying them from their own door. The details are too horrible for human pen. This wretched criminal, Babcock, was elected to the Legis- lature by disfranchising the people of his county by military force. This murderer is a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Churcli, and dispenses the Gospel to the people. ^^ Through disgust, horror and shame, I cast my pen aside, and sit in amazement, that for crimes like these an angry God has not by His breath, cursed the earth, and sent it as a floating pan- demonium throughout the immensity of space, as a warning to other worlds, if other worlds there be so depraved, corrupted and lost to the charities of life and the mercies of God. Dr. Gideon S. Bailey in wealth and character, is one of the finest citizens of the State of Iowa. He had attended Abraham Lincoln's reputed father in his last illness for many months, and had received not one cent in compensation. Yet Dr. Bailey was arrested, placed in the very same filthy place in which the author was imprisoned, and kept there for a number of days. The weather was exceedingly sultry ; Dr. Bailey was in very feeble health, when he was carried down to Saint Louis on the hurricane deck of a steamer. AVhen in St. Louis, he Avas placed in Gratiot street prison, where he was subjected to every manner of filth, torture and suffering. The debt due him for the attendance upon Mr. Lincoln, re- mains unpaid ; though the doctor will bear the efiects of liis in- carceration to the grave. 142 CKIMES OF THE CIVIL AVAR. CHAPTER XIV. Overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. The evil M-hich the war assumed to arrest, was a part of the Constitution of the country, not to be reached by war, because the Constitution prescribed the laws of war, and could not be supposed to make Avar upon itself. It Avas a Avar of States, Avith all of its attendant evils in Avhich the gOA'crnraent Avas guilty of usurpation. If it be granted that a goA'ernment of Avritten laAV, deriving its authority from the consent of the people and embodying its powers in a specific constitution, may be destroyed by an army raised by itself for its own protection under a \'ague Avar power, then constitutional government contains the elements of inevitable self-destruction and is of no value Avhatever. If it be conceded that such an anomaly as a Avar poAA'cr may exist, independent of written constitutions, then Ave have no gov- ernment, but are simply ruled by arbitrary poAver. We may as justly repeat this to correct a political Avrong and triplicate it to cure a moral evil. But if aa'c are to folloAV out the analogy, we must alloAV a fcAV over-heated zealots to judge of the time, place and occasion of Avar. If this be granted, the country Avill be in- volved in perpetual Avar, and the habitations of enlightened na- tions desolated under the empty pretence of reform, until there Avould not be a painting, poem, or printed leaf spared by the in- vader's hoof and torch to mark the faintest outlines of civiliza- tion. For if this shalloAv subterfuge be alloAA'ed, everything is surrendered. To create Avars upon moral pretence is to overturn the moral laAV, the source and the foundation of all laws, and Christianity, the standard by Avhich every good must be measured. When CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 143 the supreme law of the universe is made and unmade to gratify the whims and passions of the wicked, then we have nothing left on earth to preserve its peace. Each war lays the foundation of other and more malignant quarrels out of which other wars grow, until the people will estimate the attributes of manhood by the tenacity of the bull- dog, the ferocity of the tiger, and the hyena's thirst for blood. Each war brings with it an increasing corresponding waste in positive and relative expenses, with an increasing recklessness of the powers that hold the purse and command the sword in exact inverse ratio, as the government is unable to carry on the war with a metallic currency or paper money issued upon a specie basis. If the principles be established upon which the late war was incited and prosecuted, the reconstruction of republican govern- ment is complete, and it must not be overlooked that the elements of war are always on hand. Political and military leaders stand waiting with arguments for precipitating war. Thousands of fanatics in every country, would gladly crush out every form of religion -which they may deem offensive to their convictions of doctrine, sacraments, or minor forms. For this purpose they would appeal to God and insist that his glory was involved in the issue ; that the nation's honor was imperilled and subjected to the most terrible scourges of heaven. Each of these bands of fanatics would involve us in war, which, commencing to-morrow, would last a hundred ages ; and at the end these fiends would still thirst for blood and hunt their prey like famished wolves let loose upon sheep folds. These wars, M'hich are each as legitimate as the other, would in- volve the people to such a train of insolvencies as bewilders the powers of calculation. These curses are transmitted without a single blessing, mixed or unmixed, with all of their attending evils which always precede and inevitably follow revolutions and civil war. These doctrines have involved us in a system of financial crime, following the worst precepts of the worst governments of the world iu the line of their most dangerous precedents ; whilst we 144 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. are copying implicitly the most odious of their worst administra- tions. There has been none more pernicious than the one re- vived after having been exploded at least once in every genera- tion. That Me have a right to transmit a debt to posterity for payment of war^ of revenge and reforms by wars. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1^5 CHAPTEE XV. Degradation of the Judiciary. The virtue of woman, the honor of soldiers, and the piety of the pulpit, are not more essential to the preservation of liberty than is the purity of the judiciary. Among all of the crimes, misfortunes and blunders of the last five years, there has been nothing so deplorable as the stains which have fallen upon the ermine of the American judiciary. Our early history was marked by the purity and power, intel- ligence and integrity of the bench, which contributed to the highest of all human offices, the good name of Marshal Kent Story, Rawle, Tucker and Taney. Only one attempt at impeachment occurred, which was the earnest effort of the people to preserve their liberties against ju- dicial encroachment. For the most trifling peccadlloes, judges were called to account; and Judge Addison, otherwise a learned jurist, was dismissed for the arbitrary exercise of legitimate powers. It was the highest purpose of our political system to preserve the purity of the judicial robes from every pollution. Our early judges were not speculators, peculators, or politi- cians ; never interfered with elections, or made political speeches. No supreme judge was ever nominated for any other office. Although the bench was filled with our oldest statesmen, the magistrate, whose duty it Avas not bear the sword of God in vain, retired from the outer world ; and closing his eyes to passion, in- terest or prejudice, poised the even balances, and closed his eyes, that he might see no person ; closed his ears, that he might hear no human voice ; forgot his friejids and enemies, kindred and strangers ; opened his mind to the lucid light which fell from the throne of justice, and determined his judgment. 10 146 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Every American justice felt security in the protection of the unstained escutcheon of the Supreme Court of the United States. The purity of the judiciary, with the confidence of the people, extended to the inferior courts of the State, and were well main- tained together. The change was abrupt, violent and startling in the courts ; as it had before been in every other department. The men of char- acter, ability and learning, had all disappeared in the clouds that hung over the scenes of our opening civil war, and were lost in the long continued conflict. Taney passed away ; Curtis resigned ; M'Lean died, and Camp- bell, the ablest of the younger members of the court, left with the State of Alabama, in the secession from the Union. The old Supreme Court, which, in stately poverty, independent of Presidents and Congress, foreign courts, and funded debts, sat to determine the difficulties of the people. It seemed almost a dream that there was a body of pure men, unbought by money, unmoved by passion, unciianged by fear, who determined the causes of the people, guarded the outposts of liberty, and defended the Constitution. The arm that closed the door of that reverend temple of jus- tice against the poor, and thrust out these grave arbiters, com- mitted such a crime as may scarcely ever find repetition among us. It were impossible to name the imbecile, wicked men who now fill these places. Many volumes might enumerate, but not detail, the crimes committed, the woes inflicted, the robberies ap- proved, and the sufferings entailed upon the country by the wick- edness, negligence, and pusillanimity of the judiciary which now offends the very name of justice in every part of the country. The exemplification of the general crime and profligacy in the judiciary, its insolence, pretension, incompetence and dishonesty, could scarcely be more perfect than is afforded in the arrest, treat- ment, torture, farce and false pretence, in the case of Mr, Jeffer- son Davis, late President of the Confederate States. It is, however, but one of many and not the greatest instances of the insecurity of the people. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 147 THE TRIAL OF MR. JEFFERSON DAVIS THE DEPLORARLE CON- DITIOX OF THE AMERICAN JUDICIARY THE HYPOCRISY AND INCOMPETENCY OF S. P. CHASE. After the conclusion of the late war, every good man hoped, as a source of consolation, that quiet, peace and good will would return to the country. Every government of modern times had set the example of general amnesty, and it seemed but the exer- cise of the simplest common sense for President Johnson to pave the way for general prosperity and universal harmony by a gen- eral amnesty. This he did not do. Following the bad advice of the prince of liars and cunning demagogues, Seward, and under the dictation of the monster Stanton, Mr. Johnson let go by the golden opportunity of proclaiming the oblivion of all the unhappy past. For two long years the world was sliocked at the refined cruelty visited upon Mr. Davis after his arrest. The government lent its countenance to the slander of himself and family ; that he was a coward, dressed in woman's clothes, not- withstanding he wore upon his person scars inflicted by enemies whilst fighting under the colors of the old United States on the bloody battle-fields of Mexico. His pure and excellent father, who had been a Revolutionary soldier and many years in his grave, was slandered as a desjierate character. AVhen imprisoned contrary to the usages of civilized warfare in dealing with such prisoners, he was ironed most rudely, and without any justifica- tion, offered the harshest indignities by the lowest and most cow- ardly wretches. For two long years the most horrible tortures ever offered to a dying man — worse than the thumb-screw or boot, because more exquisite and enduring — were inflicted upon this prisoner. Being nearly blind, and his eyes painfully sensi- tive to the light, the glaring painful rays were thrown upon them for two long years. Having suffered for a quarter of a century from the most excruciating nervous disease, the rough, rude tread of the soldier re-echoed in the vaults of the damp and gloomy prison from morning till night, from night till morn- ing, each day hoping that this slow, acute, distressing torture would bereave him of his reason, and give to the ghouls a pre- text for declaring him insane for his treason, or that he might die on their hands. He was subjected to such treatment as the vilest outcast prisoners are never made to endure ; was not allowed for a time the use of knives and forks, and ate his rude meals with his fingers. That he might be bereft of the privilege of seeing a human face, or hearing the human voice, the guard 148 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. were not allowed to speak to liim. After an imprisonment of two such years as only the English prison ships or the black hole of Calcutta could equal, he was led out under pretence of trial. Attorney General Speed says that he preserved him Irom a military butchery at the hands of Stanton. A reward was offered for ISIr. Davis, as a conspirator assisting in the death of President Lincoln. Among all of the perjured Conovers, none could be hired to swear again^t him; among all the suborning Ashleys, there was none to })rocure witnesses for the purpose, until the trial was abandoned. Finally, wdien insulted humanity be- gan to complain, outraged decency hung her head and justice shrieked in agony at such crimes as made angels weep, a trial was proposed for Mr. Davis. In all this time the Northern Protes- tant clergy were crying for blood and executions, praying for the death of Mr. Davis and the damnation of rebels. In all these continued outrages, not one word was uttered for mercy, humanity, or civilization. The preachers exceeded all bounds of vindictiveness. Like the medicine-men of the Indians, or like the priests of the Grand Llama, or like the conjurers among the Mokalolo negroes, to whose place they aspired, the preachers each to exceed the others, and all to join in one general outcry for revenge, blood and brutality, justified every crime that was committed against a feeble old man, tottering on the verge of the grave, whose only crime Avas that he accepted an office at the hands of the people who had determined to erect a new government; and who was just as guilty and no more than every other person partici[)ating in the revolution precipitated by the wickedness of such men as Wade, Chase, John Brown, Ger- rit Smith and Garrison, and resisted by Davis, Toombs, &c. When the trial was proposed, objections were raised every- where among the persecutors to a trial in the civil courts. After a long conflict, it was finally concluded to enact this farce in the city of Richmond, early in the Spring of 1867. The history of the bail bond, Greeley, c^^c, is before the country. After the trial of Mr. Davis was agreed upon, it was a matter of dispute before whom it should take place. The old and able District Judges of Virginia were moved during the civil war. In fact, if Virginia is not a State, within the meaning of that term of the Constitution of the United States, how can there be Uni- ted States District Judges in A'irginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Flor- ida, Arkansas or Alabama? How can the New York shyster, Dick Busteed, be District Judge in the State of Alabama, if Ala- bama is not a State? — and why should such an irresponsible vulgarian fill such a place against the will of a people who have, CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 149 in their own community, able Judges of the common law, Avho would have dignified and adorned tlie British or American judi- ciary at any period of its history? If it is rejilied that these 2)ure and able men were not loyal, and that the loyal men of Alabama had neither sense, decency nor dignity, then it is far better for the cause of justice and truth, that decent, honest reb- els be appointed to do justice between man and man, than that the sinks of New York be dragged — that its shysters, pettifoggers and barraters be searched for the lowest, meanest, most abandoned and abominable among them, to be sent to a distant land to eat oysters, levy black-mail and ])retend to be Judges in a State that is not a State, in a court that is not a court, according to laws that are not laws — or that are suspended as laws. In the State of Virginia — where Jefferson Davis was indicted, but Avliich the prosecutors say is not a State — the late President ap- pointed one John C. Underwood to preside in a judicial district which is not by law a judicial district. The qualifications of this creature Underwood to preside over the trial of Mr. Davis or any other person in court, is very clearly analysed as follows : He is a sham Judge in Virginia, according to their own posi- tion, for no other reason than because he is not a Virginian. When everybody else was living in peace, quiet and harmony, this Underwood had rendered himself so obnoxious to the peo- ple by his association with negroes, and stirring up strife and in- surrection, that he was intolerable, and excluded the society of gentlemen, for which he had no earthly qualification. But he was grieved that the people would give him no plausible excuse for fleeing as a martyr from home. Because they would not, he went North and declared himself a martyr to liberty ! The New York Tribime and other Northern pa})ers manufactured a mar- tyr of him. But nobody killed him, nobody hurt him, nobgdy cared for him. He was secure in the public contempt. Underwood formerly kept a stand of second-hand books in the street stalls of New York, it is said; and failing to mend his fortunes at that business, went to Virginia, where he became a lawyer under the new state of things. As a lawyer nobody knows him, and everybody laughs at the idea of his being a law- yer at all. The measureless, atrocious corruption of this creature — if so stupid a person can be corrupt — is evinced in the confiscation sales, at which Underwood decreed forfeiture, bid in tlic })roper- ty, and confirmed the sales — by which he came into possession of property at ten per cent, of its true value. 150 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAK. This cliaracter of a judge would charitably preclude from his court any human being entitled to justice in either civil or crim- inal courts. Underwood, grossly ignorant and stupid as he might be, would be exceedingly harmless before an intelligent, old-fashioned Virginia jury, such as tried Aaron Burr, or were ordinarily summoned into the courts of John Marshall, Philip P. Barbour, Pennybacker or Brockenborough. But, as though to burlesque all the judiciary, and have Barney Williams in his comic character, play in the District Court where there is no district, this man Underwood summoned negro jury- men to sit upon the jury which was to try Mr. Davis, and actually liad them summoned for that purpose preparatory to the trial. The trial of Mr. Davis before Underwood by a negro jury Avould be such a farce as was never })layed beibre. Chandler, the District Attorney, or Speed, if he had been re- tained, would be in his element in such a place. These fellows, for the first time in their lives, could dictate laws to the courts. But when Charles O'Connor and Wm. B. Eeed would commence their argument, the scene would beggar all description. When these gentlemen Avould commence to quote authorities upou the law of nations, such as Paffendorf, Grotious, Burlamqui and Montesquieu, the judge would declare that he had never heard these judges before, and the negro jury- men would swear that they were Jews among the Dutch that had lately emigrated to Virginia ; whilst Chandler would porapously assume that such authorities were not allowable in an enlighten- ed court. But these Judges, Busteed and Chandler, are but a fair sam- ple of the new and shining lights that have been introduced into the reconstructed judiciary of the country. Sam Miller, of Iowa, and Judge of the North-western District, was formerly a Kentucky mountain doctor of but poor success in the medical profession. He read the Iowa code, was never in a legislative body, was never a judge in any of the State courts, had but a few years' practice, was quite ignorant of the common law. This Judge Miller is a sample, and quite an average of the late judi- cial appointments. But Mr. Davis' enemies actually became ashamed to have him tried before Judge Underwood, and tried to have Chase sit upon the trial. Chase testifies before the Impeachment Committee that he knew of no reason why Davis was not tried. Last spring Chase could not try him ; therefore the trial was postponed. In November, Chase could not try him; therefore the trial was postponed until March. In March, Chase was sitting on the CRIMES OF THE CIVIL AVAR. 151 Supreme Bencli, and tlierefore tlie trial was postponed again, and probably will continue to be postponed, unless President Johnson learns some sense, and to get rid of all this farce — hypocrisy and villainy — by a short cut, issues a general am- nesty proclamation, and invites all refugees home to attend to business, build up the country, and establish c^uiet, harmony and jjeace. Salmon P. Chase will defer sitting upon the trial of Davis as long as possible. There are many reasons why INIr. Chase does not desire to enter into such a trial. The first is, that Mr. Chase is not a profound, thoroughly read or extensively practiced lawyer. But he is a very shrewd man, and may direct attention from that fact, even on the Supreme Bench, surrounded as he is by very common-place men, and enlightened, as he always is, by the ablest members of the bar, such as Black, Cushing, and O'Connor. But in a case like the treason of Davis, Chase is not prepared for such .con- troversy as will be hurled into that great American conflict. Chase was never a lawyer of eminence in Ohio ; he rarely appeared before the Supreme Court, and was never ranked with Henry Stanbery, Thomas Ewing, Thurman, Judge McLean, Pugh, Banney, or the older and abler men of the Ohio bar. Chase is a politician merely. Unfortunately for himself in this trial, he is a revolutionist. Chase issued an inflammatory rev- olutionary address on Sunday against the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He, as Governor, Senator, and in every other position, took the highest States rights and secession grounds upon the subject of the resistance of the General Government by the States — re- fusing to obey requisitions, the return of fugitives from justice, and in every other essential feature of the destructive doctrines, Mr. Chase would justly rank with the secessionists. The country demands a fair trial before just and able judges. That this is not done is a scandal to the country, iu which Chief Justice Chase is the chief and guilty party.. During the whole period of the war the land was one grand, frightful, destroying mob. The Supreme Court sat quietly by the murderers and bade them God-speed. The writ of Habeas Corpus was denied to prisoners ; indeed, the imbecile old man who presided over the Southern District of Ohio gave, as a reason for refusal to issue the writ in the case of Mr. Vallandigham, that he feared the military interference ; and, like a school-boy, ran away from the bench and met the military 152 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAr.. mob, to receive their congratulations and encourage them in their crimes against liberty. The men appointed to the Supreme Bench were zealous as fresh converts to the doctrines of arbitrary power. An infuriated mob of vagabond soldiers that lingered around the hospitals in Keokuk, assailed the house of Judge Clagett. The daughter of the Judge, in exceedingly feeble health, lying in bed in the dead hours of the night, was awakened by the firing of cannon, when the broken glass of the window fell upon her face and mangled her flesh, from which she never recovered, but which hastened her journey to the realms of light. After these mobs had gone the round, insulting and terrifying the people, they proceeded to receive the congratulations of Judge Miller, newly appointed to the Supreme Bench. The Judge congratulated and cheered these criminals in their lawless carousals. Among the new district appointees was Charles Sherman, of the Northern District of Ohio, who could not, at the peril of his salvation, have carried a case through the ordinary State Courts without assistance. This man, in the early part of the war, was engaged in a menial military service. When Judge Hall, of Bucyrus, was arrested, from the cruel- ties of which he died, this man Sherman declared that the ob- ject of these arrests was to make Democracy odious, and subject the Democrats to general denunciation. This man was a most busy and mischievous element of the Provost Marshal's espionage. Such was the selvage of the legal profession, that was by the most questionable means placed in tlie judgment-seat as guard- ians of your children, distributors of your estates, and the trus- tees of liberty upon the American continent. The destruction of the judiciary brings with it no compensa- tion itself to atone for the injuries inflicted upon the people. Self-respect alone preserves personal dignity and maintains personal honor. The judiciary of our ancestors yielded not to the command of kings, nor changed their verdict in the presence of armies. The just judge is God's vicegerent upon earth, clothed with divine powers, who bears not the s\Yord of God in vain. CRIMES OP THE CIVIL AVAIL 153 The American judiciary have broken down the lofty standard of justice, and dragged their holy ermine in the dust; like trembling sycophants they begged for peace and yielded up prin- ciples of justice, that the iron heart and the brazen face of the tyrants, supported by armies, could not wrench from our fathers. How inscrutably rewards follow works, must now be felt on every bench in the land. The decisions of the highest courts are treated with contempt, and the judges feel flattered that they are not hurried oif to the nearest prisons ; and have so abased themselves that they readdy approve the most disgraceful insults offered to the judicial ermine in every part of the country. Military Commissions, whose very existence has been declared unconstitutional, enforce their decis- ions to execution. In pursuance of these military usurpations, innocent men are pining away in loathesome prisons or enduring the most excruciating torture in lonely islands of the seacoast ; men who have never been tried or sentenced by any recognized court of competent authority, who have an inalienable right to the protection of law, for which the good name of the American government has been pledged in her Constitution, her laws, her treaties, her public declarations, and her diplomatic associations with the civilized world. Indignant justice turns her head away from the picture of her humiliation. The people avoid their ancient temple of security. Society shudders in contemplation of the startling truth, that the holy altars of justice have become a den of thieves. 15 i CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAPTEE XVI. "The New Nation." There is this difference between the villain and the fool, that while the villain deceives other people, the fool deceives himself. This is also the difference between the hypocrite and the zealot; and these two form the body of every destructive revolution. The revolutionary character of the late war, and the revolution in our theory and form of governments, are as complete as force and purpose make them. The revolutionists in triumph have called this a " New Nation," not without reason. This name is significant of the entire abolition of our old civil governments in America. Since the year 1860 we have had three " New Nations," under their several governments de facto, with such thrilling termina- tions as startled mankind. The first of these was the Confederate States, over which Mr. Davis was elected President. The second, the Mexican empire under the assumed reign of Maxjanilian, who came from Austria to replant the European system upon the American continent, as the heir of Charles V, and protege of Louis Napoleon. The third was the usur[)ation of Abraliam Lincoln, wliieh entirely abrogated the Constitution of the United States and ruled the people by arbitrary power. The fate of these rulers is a most significant vindication of the law of God, that he who takes up the sword shall perish by the sword. The Confederate States were overthrown ; the President cap- tured ; imprisoned, chained, tortured and released on bail, after CTvIMES OF THE CIVIL "WAR. 155 suffering ten thou.^and deaths at the hands of torturers, such as would have added cruelty to the reign of the Borgias. The people of the Confederate States have been abandoned to a system for which neither the history nor the philosophy of gov- ernment furnishes a name or a parallel. Under pretence of reconstructing the States of the Union, every vestige of liberty has been destroyed. The Itoconstruction Bill is the most monstrous crime of the Christian era. It is a crime against free government in this — that it disfran- chises without indictment, trial, or any other process of law, the learned, intelligent and highly cultivated citizens representing the business, manufactures, commerce, navigation and property of eleven millions of people who, from time immemorial, have been free. It is a crime against civilization in this — that it transfers the powers of legislation and administration from the violently dis- franchised intellect of the country, to the will, passion and vio- lence of the African barbarians; among them who trample down those glorious landmarks and eminent triumphs of progress which have cost centuries of labor and celebrates the genius of ages. It is a crime against Christianity in this — that it transfers the government of a Christian people to the control of a degraded, imbecile race of heathens, who yet retain the idolatry and super- stitions of the most revolting systems of heathen worship. It is a crime against reason in this, that it places bayonets in the hands of the unreasoning rabble, to destroy life, liberty and property at will, in violation of that established custom, among savage and civilized men, of committing the rule of tribes, na- tions and kingdoms, to the ablest and purest men. It is a crime against human nature, which commits its preser- vation to its most elevated and superior races, and the most emi- nent and trustworthy of every race, in this, that it degrades the highest type of the human family to a subordination to the very lowest species of the race of man. The Reconstruction Bill is in its details and execution more atrocious than any usurpation ever exercised by Great Britain over Ireland, by llussia over Poland, by Austria over Hungary, 156 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR, cruel and abominable as they have been — in this, that the vnlers of these conquered people were of the same general race, customs, habits, religion and color, Avhilethe voters to whom is committed the rule of the people of the excluded States are of a different race, with no common sympathies, capacities, interests^ destinies or hopes. The Mexican empire was destroyed by the people ; the Em- peror summarily butchered by his military enemies, and the mon- grel savages of the country returned to their native element of anarchy. The third New Nation entirely destroyed constitu- tional government, introduced conscription, the old machinery of Eastern tyrants, and disintegrated the old State governments until nothing of the past remains. The wicked and unfortunate President, who declared himself above constitutions and laws, built a pyramidal throne upon bones and skulls, cemented by the blood of our citizens, which was undermined and fell. The usurper suffered that terrible retribution of God which no man escapes. " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man also shall his blood be shed." How fearfully and how wonderfully has God punished the wicked men who have overthrown our American system of gov- ernment by consent. Lovejoy, who led the revolutionary van with a fiery, furious eloquence — the ablest of them all — departed in the midst of his years, after having laid down the cross to take up the sword. Next followed Baker, who left the heavenly avocation and abandoned the sword of the Spirit for " the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth," was slaughtered on the battle-field, the victim of ferocious military imbecility. Winter Davis, who led the rabl)le mob of Baltimore for years, played spy upon his neighbors, until Baltimore ran red Avith blood, and in Chicago announced and advocated the horrible doc- trine of negro voting to retain political power, consumed by the vindictive fires of his own vengeance, is no more. Poor old Giddings was smitten down in a billiard saloon in a foreign land. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 157 Gen. Lane, who ravaged Missouri, and kindled the first fires of the civil war, haunted by the apparitions of his murdered victims, wlio followed him day and night, blew out his own brains, and sought refuge in the midnight of eternity, where sunless regions would hide him from the frown of Heaven. Preston King sat guard at the portals of the White House on the day of the carnival which concluded the saturnalia of Lincoln's horrible reign of crime and terror. Poor Anna Surratt fell upon the door-steps of the Presiden- tial mansion, praying admission to pour her flood of tears upon the feet of an Executive, sworn to give every human being a fliir trial according to law, and plead in the car of God for jus- tice through His appointed vicegerent upon earth. The poor girl was thrust away from the outer door by the servant, who, smiling upon every one else, frowned upon her. In the inner chamber, sat King and the President, deaf to the appeals of law, justice, mercy, and human nature. Mrs. Surratt was arrested, insulted, manacled, shackled, tor- tured, murdered without law, without evidence, without a court, without trial. Florence, Turkey or Eussia, in their darkest days, might well have blushed at these proceedings. Only the Indians, Negroes and Chinese had given precedent for this new and horrible style of things. When on the scaffold, the coward- ly soldier appointed to the sickening, bloody work, thrust him- self between her and her priest, to suppress her dying declara- tion of innocence. She was entirely exculpated by Powell, who stabbed Seward. She brought up from the altars of God the testimonials of a devoted ministry to a spotless Christian life from childhood. Even the military commission, with cruel fanatics like Hunter, malignant creatures like Bingham, miser- able, sinister wretches like Eakin, and the abortionist and vil- lage-burner Harris, recommended her to mercy. The cold- blooded murderer Stanton, kept from the President the paper. The hypocritical villain Holt, all smeared with innocent blood, was ashamed of the murder of the woman. Preston King made the White House merry as on the day when Willie Lincoln mingled the suppressed groans of his last hours with the revelry of the ball-room beneath. This proved too much for King. 158 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. When M'ine no longer inflamed his passions into hilarity, nor beclouded his understanding, his soul was seized with amaurosis. The rattling chains that bound her to the damp, gloomy cell ; the coarse, rough voice of the mercenaries, mellowed by contact with the silvery, innocent tones of the martyr ; the grating of the prison doors ; the rattling of musketry ; that last, sweet word Avhispered in the ear of her spiritual father, " / am mnocent" sounded like the last awakening trumpet of God in his ear. Night after night the manacled victim of perjury and arbitrary power would alternate the apparition with her heavenly vest- ments, as she stood before his bedside, or paced his room, or aroused him from his sleep, to hear the piteous cries of the beau- tiful Anna, standing by the Presidential mansion, or kneeling upon the cold stone, begging the Saviour to intercede with the Heavenly Father to move the stony hearts of tyrants to pity, and save her mother. Scarcely had the swooning sleep of opiates quieted his broken rest, vmtil the murdered woman would stalk forth from the unconsecrated grave, and point the sleeper to the scars upon her body, the coarse habiliments and unhallowed scenes of the execution. The innocent, unprotected, homeless daughter would again join her mother in the scene. He awoke, arose, dressed himself, sought comfort in society ; fled to the busy scenes of ofiice, but there still stood by his side the phantom of the martyred woman and her lovely child. The cruel stories of provost guards, the distress created by the tax-gatherer, the rev- elry of political victories, only intensified his suffering. The pronunciation of the names of tliese injured people startled his nervous system and shook his frame. Tlie apparitions accompanied him to the table, followed him on the streets, mingled in the crowds of the ferry-boat ; as one pursued by a legion of demons, he fled ; and in his delirium, sought a hiding-place on the ocean, only to awake up to meet his victim face to face, before the judgment-seat of God. Many of these wicked men, pursued by their crimes, sought refuge in their own destruction. Others, more guilty, remain among us, only to flee to other lands, endure the punisliment provided by law, or receive pardon for their crimes at the hands of a merciful, injured people. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 159 Such are the inscrutable judgments of God that follow wick- edness. THE CIVIL WAR HAS DESTROYED THE DECENCY AND DIGNITY OF PUBLIC OFFICERS. The simplicity of our fathers was accompanied by a decency and dignity of deportment, which awarded to them the admira- tion of the governments of the world. George Washington had an inherent personal majesty which could not be imitated by all the magnificent trappings of imperial power. Jefferson preserved a grand simplicity that commanded uni- versal respect. Our Presidents had all been cultivated gentlemen of simple manners and exemplary personal habits. The Presidential Mansion was distinguished for the propriety, purity and excellent taste of its inmates. No such debauchee as Henry VIII. ; no such libertine as George IV. ; no such volup- tuary as Louis XIV., had filled the Executive chair. No such person as Catherine II., or the female courtiers of Southern Europe, had friends at the White House. From Martha Washington downward to Mrs. Pierce, the wives of the Presi- dents were distinguished for their intelligence, taste, and purity of character ; the true representatives of the real womanhood of America. No soldier ever stood guard to a President, or cavalcade was quartered upon the quiet grounds of his unpretending home. The beautiful bronze statue of Jackson, the citizen, soldier, President, was the only indication of military presence at the White House. Plain, simple, accessible and communicative, our earlier Pres- idents walked out upon the street, unattended ; and like other quiet gentlemen, were known only by their personal acquaintances from the community in which they mingled. The levees were open to every citizen who understood the proprieties of life and conformed to the usages of society. The rich and poor met together ; the military and civilian were the common guests, and each were alike protected by law. 160 CRIMES OF a HE CIVIL WAR. Foreign ministers, who came from courts guarded by bayonets, were amazed at the ease with which thirty millions of freemen were governed without sabres, bayonets, epaulettes, or provost marshals' guards. The virtue and intelligence of our ladies had captivated foreign ministers, who took them to foreign courts to share the honors bestowed by sovereign powers. Such was our enviable history at the opening of the civil war. The advent of President Lincoln to the White House inaugu- rated a new era in the social morals of the country. The aged President, Buchanan, in the evening of life, retired from the White House, which had been kept in a style of elegant simplicity by his accomplished niece, Miss Plarriet Lane. INIrs. Lincoln, whose well known history is before the public, entered the Presidential home as the presiding genius. She was soon surrounded by teachers of etiquette, dancing masters, and the new style of flippant gentility which took possession of the country. In presenting a simple statement of the manners, customs, visitors, and appointees, the mildest form of justice seems a cru- elty scarcely less than torture to the new-comers. Soon after the advent of the new occupants, the White House was crowded with a new class of visitors, editors, politicians, and adventurers. N. P. Willis, conspicuous in scandal trials, wrote elaborate essays and sketches of the " rosy queen," the " little prince," and such sickening communications as excited sur- prise even among the sycophants of power. Sickles was an in- mate and adviser of the President, and Wyckoif, the European scandal-monger, came to teach lessons of manners to the " rosy queen " and " little princes." Those persons who had been unknown heretofore in the circle of the higher departments of the Government, were now its chief directors. A large volume w^ould not contain the list of these new-comers into political circles. The military appointments were made in jest and were intend- ed for jest. The foreign ministers were such as never represented any other government abroad. A striking illustration of Mr. Lincoln's CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 161 advisers is given in the two ministers who went to make terms of peace with Mr. Jefferson Davis. Jacques, a Methodist minister, went to Richmond ; entered into an insolent interview with the President of the Confederate States ; returned to Louisville ; entered as an accomplice in a murder, and killed, with his own unborn child, an unprotected woman whom he had previously destroyed. Gilmore returned to New England to answer in court for the seduction of his own servant. These are samples of the appointees in the army, in the courts, everywhere. But the government of the White House exceeded all powers of description, and from the decency of its manage- ment, forbids broad allusions. The White House was surrounded by soldiers. " The little Princes " could detain regiments. The sovereign of the New Nation was surrounded by cavalcades wherever he went, as his companions and friends. The history of the indiscretions, inde- cencies and follies of each regiment, would require the details of a large volume. The sovereign ascended the throne with a very common town property w^orth nothing like ten thousand dollars. He lived four years in the greatest extravagance ; received only one hun- dred thousand dollars salary, and left an estate worth an eighth of a million. Every applicant for office preceded or followed his application with a bribe in shape of presents to the President, in the form of fine horses and carriages, silver plate, cashmere shawls, Brussels carpets, silk wardrobes, and all that was known, to assail the avarice of the corrupt, or allure the weakness of the vain. Every officer used his office as a source of profit to himself, to be divided with the officer immediately above him at the ex- pense of the people, the amount of which was never known until it was sunk in the general bankruptcy of the public debt, and reappeared in the funding system. Mr. Lincoln's name was prominent in cotton speculation; in- deed, he did not hesitate to engage in giving passes to trade with the enemy to friends, including relatives of members of the Cabinet. In one case, the father of Gen. Grant claimed a com- 11 162 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. mission upon cotton, bought under a pass from his son, which even a venal judge felt constrained to denounce in court asshame- ful. The court of Lincoln to all of its excesses, profligacies and corruption, added venality and penuriousness. During his life- time, Lincoln made a handsome fortune, to say nothing of those unsettled accounts with public officers, which death closed to their benefit and the loss of his estate, which his relict is now vainly endeavoring to collect. At his death, perhaps, the smallest crime committed against decency, was the entire removal of all the valuable property of the Presidential mansion by his widow. But she is a woman, and we forbear comment. In all history, wars are accounted the greatest human calamity that the angry God can inflict upon a wicked people. Wars are always unjust and unequal in their bearing upon society. The late war was especially so. It grew out of a controversy con- cerning the government, which the masses of the pco}>le did not well understand. They had no opportunity to examine and no time to devote to them. These controversies involved the pride, ambition and personal interest of m:litary and political leaders, who had scarcely any- thing in common with the people. The whole controversy might have been amicably settled to the advantage of everybody There was a savage joy glowing in the countenance of every fanatic at the outbreak of the war. It is not the purpose of this book to examine any mere details of battles, but rather to pre- sent the condition of the public mind under the influence of the usurpation. It was an exceedingly brilliant Sabbath morning when the two armies of American brothers met in the sanguinary struggle of death, common disgrace and destruction. To the Congress, the occasion seemed a holiday ; and the com- batants excited in the Congress the same feeling usually aroused in the most profligate of spectators, of cock-fighting, bull-bait- ing, and the gladiatorial scenes of the Romans. The churches opened their morning service by the ringing of bells and the playing of organs. Only the women and children were present; CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 163 the minister, as he passed the streets, met horses, buggies, barouches, stages, omnibuses, and carriages of every description, loaded down with wines, brandies, whiskey, ales, beer, and every variety of drink. Members of Congress, Ministers of States, blooming cyprians and professional thieves, strangely commingled, went yelling and singing merrily on their way. Wagon loads of handcuffs were prepared for the arrest and confinement of the enemy's prisoners. Billiard-tables, backgammon boards, decks of cards and boxes of dice, were provided for the pastime and amusement of tlie army followers. Congress had adjourned for the purpose of feasting their eyes upon the harrowing, bloody sights of the battle-field, and charm- ing their ears with martial music which would drown the cries of the terrified, the groans of the dying, and shrieks of the wounded. Except in the magnificence of numbers, everything upon this holy Sabbath reminds one of the great army of Xerxes. Volup- tuousness and pride, luxury and licentiousness, extravagance, frivolity and crime, ran wild together. The whole city of Wash- ington was drunk on liquors, abandoned to lust, and thirsting for blood. The evening scene can never be described. The return of the spectators and soldiers together, Avas the most highly-wrought picture of a living mutiny of soldiers, rout of armies, fright of teamsters, and frenzy of camp-followers. Wagons were deserted, carriages broken, forage overturned in the road, provisions scat- tered in the streets, soldiers running away from the officers, and officers running away from the army. Ministers of religion, like poor Lovejoy and Gurley, running for life ; senators fleeing in advance of the soldiers, knocking them off of their vehicles, and describing them as " poor brutes, and miserable wretches," struggling with each other for means to fly in the general escapade. IVIembers of Congress fell into the hands of the enemy, and were retained as prisoners. Running in confusion, the whole vac-rant, panic-stricken mass of distracted rabble reached Wash- ino-ton, where, for five years, every vice had unlicensed reign, and every indulgence became morbid and abominable. 164 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. The Congress were passing laws against polygamy, when Stevens jocosely, yet truly observed, that some of them had their wives in Washington and their mistresses at home; whilst others had their mistresses in Washington and their wives at home. To conciliate temperance demands, drunken members enacted whiskey excises, and grew rich upon the profits. Since the fall of Babylon no such corruption, depravity and crime ever scandalized any city or country, as the gathered con- tractors, spies, pimps, thieves, office-hunters, office-holders, spec- ulators, stock-gamblers, peculators and ])rostitutes of Washing- ton city. The Congress corrupted the army, and the army overawed Congress. Military officers used their place as a stepping-stone to Congress, and Congress employed their offices to secure con- tracts. Men charged with bribery, like Cameron, were appointed to cabinet places. When the Congress charged liim with corrup- tion in the cabinet, the President sent him upon a foreign mis- sion. When he returned home, he bonglit his way into the Senate. When the legislature was charged with bribery, the very body accused of the crime were appointed a committee to examine into the charge, and reported themselves innocent. Stevens said of Cameron to Lincoln, that " he might be safely trusted with a furnace of red hot stoves." To this corruption, pervading a whole administration, w^as added revelry, feastings, and such riotous living as had never been introduced before in the Presidential mansion. All of the early Presidents and their families were of high social position, but it was the dignity of enlightened gentlemen and ladies, seasoned with the solemnity of position. Things were now entirely changed. Upon one occasion, the favorite child of the President was ly- ing in the very jaws of death ; the physician was carefully counting the sinking pulsations in his little arm, and dared not leave his bedside. The whole land was in mourning; thousands of brave men were slowly perishing, others were dying with their wounds, or lay slaughtered on the battle-field. The scene of desolation in the South was appalling ; the suffering in the North CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 165 was pifiable. But death presented no obstacle to tliis Presiden- tial revelry. As the groans of the wounded soldiers were hushed by the thundering cannon and deafening drum, the expiring groans of the dying child were drowned in the tones of the Bac- chanalian's songs, and the revelry of the small hours of the night. These effeminate corruptions in the society of the newly es- tablished nation, extended in the most alarming violence to the extremities of the land. Citizens were banished for defending the Constitution. This was commenced in Burnside's drunken campaign in the State of Ohio, in 1863. A defeated, disgraced and impotent general officer of the army of the United States, in violation of law, was appointed military satrap of Ohio. Fresh from the bloody, inglorious and horrible battle-fields of Virginia, where all of his former follies, frailties and disasters ripened and concentrated in the overwhelming defeat, rout and slaughter of brave soldiers, led into the man-trap and deadfall by his imbecility, which will forever doom the connection of the unfortunate field with his infamous name as the butcher of Fredericksburg. This man came clothed with arbitrary power, to rule the State and destroy the people. He entered upon his duties prompted by the worst advisers that ever ruined a reckless man, and amused his Bacchanalian associates, surrounded by their harems of cyprians, with dis- gusting braggadocia, to frighten the unarmed citizens whose lives were at his mercy. "Within speaking distance of where I now write, he assembled a military commission to destroy one of the ablest and most re- nowned citizens of Ohio, and by this persecution indissolubly connected his name with civil liberty, and endeared it to man- kind. This military commission was conducted by one DeCourcy, an unnaturalized British mercenary. The Judge Advocate, Cutts, of this insolent usurpation, was subsequently convicted by court- martial for playing bopeep through a lady's transom, but was retained with his rank as quite a proper person for the espionage 166 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. branch of the public service. The history is before you, and forbids amplification. These men, led by the tool Burnside, committed a crime against liberty which invoked the just resist- ance of the people. A corrupt and cringing Governor, who had bartered his prin- ciples for position, abandoned the rights of the people and ab- jured the sovereignty of the State for the patronage of the general Government, exchanged the proud position of Governor of a free State for the cringing tool of the central tyrant. After banishment, then came arbitrary arrests everywhere. The lash was employed upon enlisted soldiers without trial. One case occurred in the city of Pittsburg, with aggravated cruelty; they afterwards became common. The torture was revived to extort confessions. All the abandoned cruelties of the medieval ages, were instituted as wonderful discoveries and progress. But in no place Avas the cruelty and recklessness of human life so manifest as in the treatment of prisoners, which was the most horrible feature of the war. The process was atrocious, cruel infernality in its detail, that startles the belief of a Christian age. The first step was to destroy the country — and women and children were driven to destitution, which led to a second crime against decency, humanity and nature itself; droves of Avomen were sent hundreds of miles from home, under the pretext that there Avas nothing left for them to subsist upon in their own country. Desolation and ruin befel these unprotected strangers in an enemies' land. The desolation of the land also stinted the rations of the sol- diers, until their destitution was extreme. There was such a great scarcity of food in the Confederate States for the people, that the soldiers were unable to feed or care for the prisoners who fell into their hands ; so that healthy prison-life became impossible. Second. Medicines were indiscriminately destroyed Avith burn- ing cities, villages and stores; and remedies Avere not permitted to be borne to the sick and suffering. Drug stores Avere given to the flames, and many were executed as spies for carrying medi- cines upon their persons, to save the lives of their sick families. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1G7 A lady going South, Avas stripped and examined by tlic wives of two Senators, Avho took from lier a few grains of quinine wliich slie liad saved for her dying ehikl, although one of these women had only lately buried her own child. The good sense of the commander restored the medicine to the lady. Third. The government of the United States refused to ex- change prisoners, and offered as apology, that it could not aiibrd to exchange men in health for sick men. In many eases, the treatment of prisoners was atrocious. In Camp Douglas the prisoners froze their feet ; were guarded and shot at by Indians; shot at l)y the guards; punished with a coarse, shocking cruelty for trivial offences. In other cases, the prisoners bought themselves out with money; were reported dead, and their burial expenses paid. And it Avere difficult to determine whether avarice or malice Avere the ruling spirit of the prison. In Camp Chase, the privation, suffering and torture were ex- treme ; at Fort Delaware, Johnson's Island and Rock Island, the cruelty was of the Esquimaux type. In all of these prisons, the stinting and sickening mixtures of food was even more de- structive of life than the battle-field. The Federal reports show that a lai-ger proportion of Confed- erate prisoners died in Federal prisons than of Federals in rebel prisons. Contemplating the crimes, cruelties and sufferings, in the United States, in the nineteenth century, under a Christian dis- pensation, perpetrated by Christians, the soul sinks in agony at the sad and gloomy spectacle. The tortures were gross and fiendish. "When Dr. William A. Eowles, an old soldier of the Mexican war, and Mr. Milligan, an eminent lawyer of Indiana, were, by a mock military court, condemned, it was arranged to take these aged gentlemen out upon the scaffold, put the ropes around their necks, and offer public taunts and gibes, and then i-eturn them to the State's Prison, During the confinement in the Ohio penitentiary, Mr. Milligan, who was not a physician, was forced to extract teeth, and in one case, fractured a jaw-bone in the attempt. Is it possible that the people of Ohio know the outrages practiced upon these gentle- 168 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. men ? who, in family, breeding, intelligence and general charac- ter, were greatly the superior of any of the State officers who super- vised their incarceration. Dr. Olds was denied the Bible and robbed of his medicines in prison, by the keeper. In passing Mr. Vallandigham through the lines, an attempt was made by an officer to excite the soldiers to violence; failing in the attempt, the officer boasted that he had saved the life of Mr. Vallandigham. This officer has been a minister, a colonel and member of Congress, and out of very shame, his vanity shall not be gratified by giving his name in this book. Such was the reigning crime and cruelty in the New Nation. Families were turned out-doors to provide for the traveling harlots of military officers. The property of everybody was appropriated at will by these guardians of the new nation, who came to " "protect " the people. The evil day came and the years drew nigh, Avhen the tyrant found no pleasure in them. Good Friday was the sad day of the crucifixion of the blessed Son of Mary ; on that day the heavens wore their black and gloomy garments; the sun refused to shine; the veil of the Temple was rent. The God-like head of Jesus was crowned with thorns. The purest of all that was born of a woman. He was condemned to die between two thieves. The kindest of all that wore the hu- man form. He died of the most excruciating torture ; the love- liest of all who lived. He was followed with the most malig- nant hate. They smote Him, spit upon Him, buffetted Him, drove nails in His hands and feet, thrust a sj^ear into His body. He in whose tongue there was no guile, was taunted, reviled, insulted. He who was the exhaustless fountain of life, died that we might live. Such Avere the themes and associations of this blessed day. To the Christian it M-as a day of lasting, of solemn recollection of the pangs of the crucifixion. For more than eighteen centuries had this holy day been held in solemn reverence. As far as the compass had directed the vessel that ploughed the main to distant lands, had this day been CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 169 kept sacred on the ocean. And wide as the circuit of the sun had Christians honored the custom, and abased themselves before heaven in vindication of their sorrow and tlieir shame for the crimes of a guilty world. Tolling bells and mournful chants, robes of black and dar- kened windows, were signals of the deep feelings of distress which each returning anniversary brought back to the Christian mind. But America was already in mourning. Every household had yielded its first-born to the battle-field. Lincohi had filled a new graveyard in every neighborhood, whose white monuments were reared to commemorate his bloody reign. Wives whose husbands had been slain on distant fields of carnage, died in prison, or had been shot down like brutes, were hnddling their little ones around their meagre fires, or wasting their feeble strength in gathering food, or weeping over the ab- sent father. Children, penniless and lonely, were going to and fro in search of shelter. Old people whose darling sons, the last remaining hope of life, had been hurried to the grave, sat disconsolate in their ruined homes. Hundreds of thousands homeless, turned away from the ashes of their dwellings, were mourning in the land ; half a continent was in ruins ; trade destroyed ; commerce broken up ; private intercourse interrupted in every community. At every cross-road and corner of the street, armless sleeves were falling by the side of stalwart frames; young men hobbling on crutches; hospitals filled with the sick, whose pitiful eyes were staring into the grave ; and ambulances loaded down with the wounded, v/hose dying shrieks rent the air. The pitiless hand of an angry God left nothing undone which could afflict the people. Our cup of sorrow Avas full. Good Friday was opportune ibr our worship, our sufferings, and our sorrow. Scarcely had the light of the sun closed in upon the evening, until the White House was filled with its usual revelry, and the President and family, passing chapels, churches and cathedrals, 170 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. entered the fashionable resort of a licentious city. His box was opened and closed. The house was filled to its utmost capacity. A low, coarse pla}', " Oar American Cousin," was to be re- peated, to pander to the tastes of the imperial visitors. Shak- speare, Addison, Sheridan or Ben Johnson, were too stale for the royalty of the New Nation. This was a gala day, and the theatre was chosen as a fitting place to obliviate all the recollections of Calvary, ail of the sufferings of the poor, the woes of the victims of carnage and incendiary desolation. The cries of the suffering were lost in the glee of merriment. Kever befoi'e was crowd so jubilant. There were newly made officers, promoted from gambling hells and lower sinks of vice ; contractors grown rich of robbeiy ; fashionable Avoraen who had emerged from low estate, and brought tverything with them to their new positions, but their virtue. Never Avas dress so gay, or apparel so brilliant. All of the silks, jewelry and diamonds, economized by the labor of centuries in the South, had been pillaged of the people and distributed in the armies ; but the army was in the theatres, — bracelets, rings, chains, keys, watches, silks, cashmeres, robes, — everything seemed studded with dia- monds, burning with lustre. But when the dazzling light shone down in effulgence from the mammoth chandeliers, the scene was thrilling. Down low in the pit were the torch-men, fresh from the field of plunder in Georgia, who had walked for months upon the ashes of burning plantations. The teamsters had wantonly shot down herds of all the domestic animals, to starve the people. These were the officers who led them, inflauied with lust and drunken on blood. Around them were the abandoned women who shared their plunder, arrayed in the costume of ladies Avliose stolen 'garments they Avore. Thieves and pickpoclcets, stock gamblers and ]ioker-players, in one motley gang, Avere all doing homage to the usurper of the New Nation. The players Avere preparing to feed the ear with brilliant levity, as the eye Avas feasted Avith the scenes arouml. Just at this moment ste[)ped upon the stage a lithe, strong, beautiful form. His broad, pale iorehead stood out iioai a rich CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 171 crest of coal black hair that fell in luxuriance around his neck. This personage was mysterious and historic. He bore the name of a proud Englislmian, in whose person English liberty had been outraged and vindicated. His father wore the name of that great Roman tyrant's slayer, Brutus. He had been a dramatist by profession and inheritance, who learned his plays and felt them as he spoke them. With him the drama was a thing of life and thus he acted ; it was life itself which seemed the jest. He loved his father, and he believed the doc- trines of his plays. He looked around him and saw a nation sunken in slavery; the poor butchered, the rich revelling; the brave crushed out, sycophants exalted ; flatterers growing rich ; thieves rioting in wealth ; brave, honest men pining in prison, or seeking shelter under the shadow of foreign thrones ; and no man dared raise his voice against these crimes. With his single accomplice, Powell, without suggestion, he conceived the tragedy and turned toward the mock royal box. His eyes, like bursting balls of fire, fell full upon the object of his rage; he fired his pistol, his victim fell lifeless, and spoke no word to be remem- bered. Booth leaped upon the stage, crying "sic semper ty- rannis." Lincoln has been compared to Washington; herein they diifered. AYashington m'US modest, reticent, dignified ; Lincoln was familiar, garrulous and clownish. Washington was wise, sincere and determined. Lincoln was cunning, treacherous and fickle. Washington refused presents, pay for his services, and emolu- ments for his sacrifices. Lincoln kept each member of his family as beggars for pres- ents, silent partners in contracts, and grew wealthy from the spoils of office. Washington established constitutional liberty among men, upon the sure foundations of law. Lincoln tore up that very Constitution, and set up his arbitrary will instead. Washington was religiously careful in the selection of the ablest, purest men of the country to administer the government; 172 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. choosing those who differed with hiin in opinion, for the good of the country. Lincohi selected the weakest, worst and most corrupt men of the country, because they agreed with him in opinion, and served him cheerfully as instruments of usurpation. Washington moulded chaos into order, stability and legitimate government. Lincoln dissolved the government, and left the country^in an- archy. Washington received the spontaneous devotion of his country- men through the press which he had made free, and the people who were secure in their liberty. Lincoln enforced the most extravagant adulation from his own hired presses, his officers who were plundering the country, and the pulpit bribed to chant his praises. Washington went to every part of the land, unattended by military array, except those crowds of old volunteers of liberty, who came to pay their respect to his person, and congratulate the country upon the success of constitutional government. Women, with woven garlands, met him wherever he went. Beautiful maidens and sweet little children, strewed his walks with flow- ers. From the day of the inauguration to the hour of his tragical death, Lincoln was never out of the reach of the sound of artil- lery ; was surrounded by soldiers to guard his person ; flatterers and courtiers to corrupt his heart ; and female sycophants beg- ging favors, dispensing praises, and making merry in his court. After his term of office, Washington retired to his farm, to open the hospitable door of his mansion to his old confreres in arms, and entertain visitors who sought his company to learn more of manly liberty. In the strength of his mind and the vigor of a green old age, surrounded by friends Avho loved him, he surrendered his soul to God, to be mourned by his country- men and honored by mankind. Lincoln closed his life as stated above. There was a singular resemblance between Claudius Nero, and Abraham Lincoln, In early life, Nero was remarkable for his jovial habit of illus- tration. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 173 Lincoln's whole field of logic, illustration, ridicule and satire, Avas anecdote and stories. Nero proposed many reforms under Seneca and Burrhus, and grew in popularity among the people, until lie was accounted a god. Lincoln commenced his administration as a benevolent re- former, under the auspices of all the reformers of the country. Nero's subjects rebelled against his usurpation. Lincoln's sub- jects anticipated his usurpation. Such rulers always create re- bellions and excite resistance. Nero played the drama of the destruction of Troy, during the seven days' burning of Rome. Lincoln attended balls and engaged in festivities during the five years' conflagration of the country, and the wanton, bloody slaughter of his countrymen ; and had vile songs sung among his dying armies. Nero rebuilt Rome at his own expense, by extortion and rob- bery, and the tyrant was liberal to the sufferers. In this Nero excelled Lincoln, who repaired no damages of burning cities. Nero threw prisoners to wild beasts ; Lincoln kept prisoners confined in cold prisons, where their limbs were frozen ; in filthy prisons where they were eaten up with vermin ; starved them until they died of scurvy and other loathesome diseases, after months of terror, torture and cruelty. Nero put Christians to death under false pretence, to gratify the worshippers of the Pantheon. Lincoln corrupted one part of the Church to engage in war- fare with the other part, and burned twelve hundred houses of worship; mutilated grave-yards; and left whole cities, churches and all in ashes ; dragged ministers from their knees in the very act of worship ; tied them up by their thumbs ; had their daughters stripped naked by negro soldiers, under the command of white officers. Suetonius, under Nero, butchered eighty thousand Britons, defended by Queen Boadicea. His officers flogged Boadicea and ravished her daughters ; and lost thousands of Romans in the attempt to subdue the Britons, who were defending their homes, altars and grave-yards. 174 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Lincoln let loose Turcliin to ravish the women of Athens, Alabama; Banks and Butler to rob New Orleans; Sheridan to burn up Virginia; Sherinan to ravage the South with desolating fires; Payne and Burbridge to murder in Kentucky; Neil, Strachan and the vagabond thieves, to murder, rob and destroy Missouri, until one million of his murdered countrymen butch- ered each other by his command. Every department of Nero's government was signalized by licentiousness and debauchery, nameless and loathesome. Lincoln's court was the resort of debauchees ; the Treasury Department was a harem ; the public officers were one great un- restrained multitude who yielded to the coarsest appetites of nature, stimulated by strong drinks and inflamed by the indul- gence of every other vice. In this did Nero, to his credit, differ from Lincoln. The generals of Nero respected the works of arts, the paintings, poems and manuscripts of the learned, and the discoveries of genius. Upon the other hand, Lincoln destroyed everything that indi- cated superior civilization. In one instance, a general officer of scientific pretension, arrayed his daughter in the stolen garments of the wife of C. C. Clay, an old Senator of Alabama. During the invasion of Huntsville, Mr. Clay's house was robbed of its jewelry, the heir-looms of tln-ee generations, taken against the tearful prayers of his black servant. The exquisitely beautiful statue of his dead babe, was ground to powder before his eyes. An appeal to Lincoln's men, that any object was of scientific value, only hastened its destruction ; his wars were directed against civilization. Nero fled before the judgment of the Senate, and died by his own hand. Lincoln could not have survived his crimes, so un- relenting is the retributive justice of God. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 175 CHAPTER XYII. Infidelity of the Clergy. The supremacy of God is the cardinal doctri^sE op moderx civilization. God is just, wise, good, merciful, kind, intelligent, reasonable and supreme. In our consideration of the supremacy of God, vre must clear- ly distinguish between Avhat is human and what is divine. Truth is of God; sectairesare of men purely ; worship is due to God; but its manner is entirely human. The gospel is of Christ and consistent Avith itself. Churches are of men, and in most unhappy conflict with each other. The great universe is the temple of the omnipotent, omnipresent, ever-living God ; it is that great Church in wdiicli Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant may look up through nature to her great architect, and live and learn forever more. Presbyteries, conferences, associations, con- ventions and synods, are the local and sectarized assemblies in which mere men circumscribe that broad, deep, high and holy worship of the living God, which was, in the beginning, wide as illimitable space and pure as innocence. Religion is the sun's brightest shadow of the Deity imprinted upon the soul, which, when duly stamped, will, with glowing beauty, shine 'mid the wreck of matter and the crush of Avorlds ; and when the ele- ments melt with fervent heat and the fading light of the solar system has grown dim with age, " will shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and forever." A land without God is, in that hopeless orphanage, infinitely more deplorable than a family bereft of its fiither. A jicople without a church, has invited the departure of God from their midst. A church, Avithout piety profanes God, by associating his infinite perfection Avith the Avickedness of men. 176 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. The great commandments of God are these: 1. To love God with all thy mind and all thy soul, and all thy heart and all thy strength. 2. To love thy neighbor as thyself. To love God is to love his attributes; for no man hath seen God at any time. To love God is to love justice, to love mercy, to love truth, to love holiness and integrity, to love God is more; it is to do jus- tice, love mercy, and walk humbly before Him. " Pure religion and undefilcd before God and the Father is this : To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep himself unspotted from the world." " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples ; that ye love one an- other." "God so loved the world that he gave his only begot- ten Son, that whosoever believed in him, might not perish, but have everlasting life." To love God is to love peace ; for He is " the God of peace." The entrance of Jesus into the world was heralded by mes- sengers crying, " Peace on earth, good Avill to man, glory to God in the highest." " Blessed are the peace-makers." These were the unchanging axioms of Christianity, in vindi- cation of which, the Son of Mary oftered up his life in sacrifice for man. The office of the Christian ministry is the highest vocation of life : the church the most sacred rejiository of the truth upon earth. These are the earthen vessels to which God has commit- ted the great treasures of life : the guardians of the gospel, the trustees of our immortality. The ministers of the New Testament baptizes the children, marry the mature, and bury the dead. A faithful priesthood have limitless power over a devoted people, to preserve them from evil, or direct them to good. In the United States, the clergy were supported by the voluntary contributions of the peo- ple, and had the utmost social power over them. They taught the schools, assumed control over all of the charitable institutions of the country. Before the outbreak of the late civil war, it was within the EASY POWER OF THE CLERGY TO HAVE PREVENTED IT. AVhat a magnificent spectacle would it have jiresented to the wicked world, for the united clergy of America, to wrest the CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 177 sword from the hands of the frenzied people. Suppose every minister had visited each member of his flock, and prayed with every family in his church for peace. Each conference, presby- tery, synod and convention, had taught it as the duty of the churches to preserve the priceless treasure of peace. Each sermon on the holy Sabbath, had carefully abstained from the subjects that irritated the public mind and cultivated the social peace of every community. Each denomination join- ed with the others to cultivate the spirit of kindness, the love of God and the love of men, brotherly love and personal kindness — and the whole joined as the sacramental Host of God. All of the wicked, designing, corrupt and malicious men of America would have failed to provoke war or disturb the quiet waters of peace. Suppose, upon a given day, the whole American church had joined in simultaneous prayers to God, to preserve peace, to restore quiet, and let a free and enlightened people settle the dif- ferences of opinion without a conflict of arms. War never could have stained the pure escutcheon of American glory ; or one- half of the land engage in butchering their neighbors of the other half. What stinging reproach must stir the souls of the American ministry, who let the happy moments pass in which they could have saved widowhood of its pangs, orphanage of its destitution, war of its carnage, plunder of its treasure, fires of their fuel, and crime of its victims ; but they did not. But if the clergy had quietly left the affair of the world to the care of the world, and stood silently by, there would have been no war ; but this they did not do. The clergy of the country inflamed the public passion until war was inevitable. Mr. Beecher of Brooklyn, gave his church to collect money to buy firearms, long before war was believed in- evitable or tl^ought possible. The same crime was repeated in every part of the country ; and the violence, acrimony and passion of the pulpit, would have created war in any country. In violation of the law of God, the churches went to law with each other about questions purely ecclesiastical, that Christians should have settled among themselves. 12 178 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. The church papers indulged in all of the usual bitterness, slander and slang of the wicked world. The churches Avere divided, one after another, until the last ves- tige of good feeling seemed to be determined by arbitrary lines. When war commenced, the ministers were recruiting sergeants, and their churches turned into military posts. The old fashion- ed " mourners' bench," " anxious seat " and class-meeting room, was converted into recruiting stalls. The old Mahommedanism was revived, that whoever left the world for the battle-field, was saved without the atoning blood of the crucifixion ; and thousands, who had learned the reli- gion of self-denial, restitution and reformation, repentance, faith and perfect love, sought immortality through the carnage, suffer- ing and courag-e of the battle-field, where the resurrection would know no distinction, except between loyalty and rebellion; or recognize any who had not valiantly laid down their lives in the cause of the " New Nation." Every innovation l)y the army, the Executive or Congress, was adopted as a new canon of reli- gion, or a new article of religious faith. There seemed nothing too atrocious for them to press as a weight upon the Christian church. They would adopt one horrible doctrine after another, as a part of the Christian faith. When Lincoln committed a crime, the churches adopted it as a virtue. There was not a crime com- mitted, or a doctrine taught in the reign of Elizabeth, the Stuarts, or Henry VIII., that has not, in some form or other, been re- adopted in ecclesiastical platforms. In many parts of the coun- try, the church took the lead of the most extravagant dema- gogues in questions in no wise relevant to church afflurs. It is not an unsafe calculation that seven-eights of the minis- try of the country, were infidels in faith. The scenes of the conferences were more violent,* virulent and unscrupulous, than the ordinary political convention. Some of the ministers preached sermons in favor of the theatre, because Lincoln had met his death in that place of amusement. The Presbyterian General Assembly, which met in St. Louis, was the most violent deliberative body that ever met in the coun- try in its most violent times. When the conference met in the CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 179 city of Springfield, during the last year of the M'ar, Governor Yates entered the conference room, whereupon that body sus- pended their proceedings to hear a speech from his excellency. The Governor indulged in the most exuberant style of profanity, which elicited the wildest applause, and was succeeded by scan- dals against the people, which would not have been tolerated in any well-regulated drinking house. The Governor had just re- turned from one of his strolls in the army, with a lieutenant's wife, to whom he had granted the commission of major; which called forth a scandalous correspondence between this woman and a Senator's wife, of a character not to be entertained in this work. When the war commenced, a new and inviting field was open- ed for the ministry : to each regiment was appointed a chaplain, and each chaplain received a salary equal to a captain of cavalry. This brought the whole ambitious clergy into the field. The politicians used the clergy to raise a company, as the price of their chaplain's commission. And in this way the minister, after preaching a malignant sermon to inflame his congregation, would spend the week among the poor people of his flock, gathering up the hale, stalwart men, and bearing them to the nearest re- cruiting station, to be culled, examined, accepted, or rejected, after the manner of receiving horses from contractors. In this way, many ministers sold out all of the young men of their con- gregation to the provost marshal. The minister exhibited the greatest anxiety for success ; very much of the same kind and style that candidates for lieutenant and constable betray in their contests for place. Each neighborhood was scoured by the preacher. He prom- ised to each recruit an office, sometimes the same office to half a dozen persons, and each minister had made the same number of promises to as many different recruits. This created dissatisfaction, distrust, and sometimes actual con- flict between the soldiers. But the contest between the ministers for the chaplain's place, was intense, bitter, and disgusting. Denomination, interest, favor, in- fluence and politics, were urged, and not unfrequently the appoint- ing power would vascillate, and crimination and recrimination fol- low the venal attempt to sell out the business and profit of the office. 180 CRIMES OP THE CIVIL WAR. Having obtained the place in this questionable manner, the office became a disgrace to the army, and only a few good and faithful men shared the toils of the common soldiers, and lived faithful lives. Those failing to get chaplains' commissions in the army, sought chaplains' positions in hospitals: others took up the sword and sought military office. These ministers carried all of the zeal of the pulpit into the neighborhood broils ; and were prominent in mobs, riots and arbitrary arrests. You might see them strutting into the house of God, with epaulettes on their shoulders ; sitting in the streets retailing obscene stories, a la Lincoln, to the young recruits. These military ministers went to the army and inflamed the new levies, so that the old army officers were unable to restrain them ; and for hundreds of miles the army would travel night after night, by the lurid light of burning plantations. The di- vine bully would superintend a street fight, or turn holy brigand and drive some poor affrighted woman from her home. Such was their general deportment in the field. How blasphemous and absurd to hear of a military minister of the Gospel. St. Paul on a raid, John the Evangelist on a scout. Colonel John Wesley, Major John Calvin, Martin Luther quartermas- ter, John Bunyan wagon-master. Yet such were the abominable absurdities practiced upon the people by these hypocritical pre- tenders and baptized infidels. The preachers attended conventions and secured nominations. They used the pulpit to get nominations in the army, and used the army to get places in the civil government, and used their places in the civil government to rob the government. In the blood market you would see these representatives of Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apostles, engage as flesh- dealers, speculating upon the body and blood of their neighbors' children, or selling the immortal souls of adults whom they had baptized as children. At other times they were taking advantage of personal friend- ships to persuade away the first-born child of widows' families. After eating a hearty dinner, would speculate upon the child that grew the corn that fed them, and make money off the broken heart that bade them welcome to her cottage. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 181 Grave Bishops were sending telegraphic congratulations to a corrupt Congress for establishing arbitrary power in the country. Other Bishops were traveling to Europe to hunt up mercenary tools of tyrants to join in the general butchery of their country- men. Still others, who were using military force to drive the poor people from the churclics which had escaped the vandal flame, and trying to steal what they could not burn. It would be difficult to conceive a picture of Paul following the army of Suetonius into Britain, to steal the groves from tlie Druids. But these ministers were brethren of the same church, of the same faith, of the same baptism. What a fearful crime has this beeu against religion. What can these men say to honest heathen, who reproach the Gospel for their crimes who teach religion ? These men have done lasting harm to God's poor. Thousands there are in poverty, distress, and who are homeless, who find food, raiment and shelter in their undying trust in Christ and the Gospel. How infinitely Avicked those, who at one fell swoop, have wiped away the world's last hope by their infidelity and crime ! The Gospel of Christ is to the poor a pillar of fire in the wilderness of time ; a " sunbeam in the storm of death," and reveals a beacon on the distant shores of that bourne whence no traveler returns. How will these ministers approach the savages of the frontier with the Gospel of Christ, where the military minister, Chiv- inffton, butchered in cold blood, two hundred women and child- ren in their winter lodges? With what fiendish audacity must that people go, who call that man brother, and offer the Gospel to the Indian. In that ancient uncorrupted faith of our fathers, who wor- shipped in groves ; in that simplicity of the Gospel taught us by the simple-minded children of true religion ; in the consolations of religion which are offered alike to the rich and the poor, the learned and unlearned ; in the immutable love of God, we may look for consolation and comfort, and from these bloody-minded priests, these mercenary ministers, these sinister hypocrites, these 182 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAH. unbelieving pretenders, let us turn away, to " behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." To the other ministerial debasement was added the crowning act of religious prostitution by another Bishop, who followed the corpse of the dead tyrant through the land, to teach young men how bloody tyrants could ascend through theatres and crimes to the kingdom of heaven. What a spectacle Avould that have been to see Paul bearing around the body of dead Kero — sounding the praises of his butcheries, commending his debaucheries, magnifying his mercy, and paying homage to his love of God. What must have been the transition, were it true, that Lincoln ascended on high. Passing from the theatre to the throne of God ; from the so- ciety of the voluptuous multitude of criminals to the court of heaven ; from the crowd of thieves and cyprians to the white- vested elders and the saints of light. Such was the blasphemy, burlesque and abomination over the body of Lincoln, carried over the land to excite the violence of the weak and wicked, followed by a frenzied people. Such has been the conduct and infidelity of the American clergy to the sacred trusts of Christianity. The worst of all the infidels who took possession of the church was the round-head of Cromwell. The great criminal of Christian civilization — the Puritan — is still the same unchanged and un- changeable, zealous, treacherous fiend that he Avas before he set foot upon the continent of America. Not a whit different in purpose, spirit and character, than wdien he stood grinning with infernal joy by the stake, throwing burning faggots and hot embers upon the naked body of Michael Servetus while he was writhing under the excruciating tortures of a slow fire fed by green hickory wood, in the public squares of Geneva. The Puritan is precisely the same amiable character that he was, when he hung Quakers, burned witches, and drowned An- abaptists ; Avhen he made merchandize of American institutions, and held out blue lights to British ships, and smuggled British goods through the blockade in the interest of King George, in his second attempt to enslave the American colonies. • CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 183 Nor lias lie changed his nature or abandoned his character ; since he grow rich and made his merchants opulent in the African slave trade. His varied aggressions upon the rights of his neighbors change only Avith his means and facilities, and the only hope which he offers to the world of improvement, is in the introduction of a system of self-destruction, which he has made commensurate with his people, and promises an early extermination of his race. The Puritan who has propogated his errors and begotten new forms of religious crimes, is still encroaching upon our civil rights. To prevent the union of Church and State, with the intoler- ance of the one and the corruption of the other, to restore the primitive simplicity of the Church, and the national rights to the people, the divorce of Church and State must be complete. In the spirit of the fear of God, the love of man and the truth of history, do we warn our countrymen against these crimes and dangers that environ us. 184 CKIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. BOOiC SECOnSTHDJ CHAPTER I. The Conspiracy of the Treasury Department. The Treasury Department has always held the first place in the governments of the world; and is justly accounted equal to the genius, cultivation and endurance of the ablest minds. The names of Colbert, Furgott, Necker, John Law, and Wil- liam Pitt, Morris Hamilton and Biddle, with the various sys- tems of finance, which they represent, are so interwoven in the history of Europe and America, that their success and failures, with their causes and consequences, is a science complete in it- self. In the institution of written government in the United States, the power and resources of the country to carry on a successful financial system, was not the least hazardous part of the great experiment. The failure in the Treasury Department would have been the signal of anarchy in every branch of trade and industry. Agriculture, commerce and manufactures, were alike depend- ant upon a just, thorough and stable system of weights, measures, and moneys which would serve all of the purposes of exchange among themselves, and extend their business to the different na- tions of the earth. Our fathers were duly warned of the dangers which threaten- ed our unique system. The long catalogue of monetary crimes ; the maintenance of aristocracies; the slavery of labor to capital in every govern- ment of Europe, were before them. Tlie Revolutionary struggle, which brought our infant gov- CRIMES OP THE CIVIL WAR. 185 ernmcnt to the light of tlie world, witnessed a bankruptcy only less deplorable than colonial dependency ; and forced a confes- sion of inability to pay the soldier who had bought its liberty with his blood; and indefinitely deferred the support of the widows and orphans of the brave men who slept on the battle- field; and the remnant, maimed and wounded, who survived the conflict. AVith this embarrassing introduction into the family of gov- ernments, the American people were singularly circumspect in their choice of the great men who were ajipointed guardians of the public wealth. The office of Secretary of the Treasury, has contributed to the literature of the country, historical names, embracing its first characters, that would have adorned the biographical annals of any country ; whose preliminary education had qualified them for the station to which they added lustre. The office involved onerous responsibility ; required compre- hensive grasp of intellect, and taxed to its utmost capacity the richest genius. It has been prudently offered and reluctantly accepted, by the most distinguished Americans — among whom were Hamilton, a jurist, a general and statesman, who had cultivated the gener- ous fertility of his native powers to their highest susceptibilities of improvement ; whose honored name comes down from an- other century, with its burning glory undimmed. Samuel Dex- ter, a distinguished son of Massachusetts, when she indulged in a just pride of her statesman ; Albert Gallatin, the friend of Lafayette, profoundly versed in the varied theories of govern- ment ; Richard Rush, Louis McLane, and Wm. H. Crawford ; Roger B. Taney, the contemporary and peer of Wirt, Pinkney, Martin, "Webster, and Legare. He was the very first of all the American jurists, whose name will pass down the current of time with the history of our jurisprudence, as its purest and most distin- guished ornament. A proud and glorious hero, who, in tlie mid- night of the nineteenth century, when surrounded by bayonets, deafened by cannon ; amid the sound of drums and the shouts of the rabble; when the judiciary of the country were imprisoned, and their sacred ermine trampled under the filthy feet of tyrants ; 186 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. when the blood of murder bedaubed the temple of justice, and violence held holiday in legislative halls ; opposed by President and Congress ; standing alone ; all that was left of the glory and grandeur of the age of liberty ; his eye not dimmed ; his natu- ral force unabated ; he denounced the usurpations which were sweeping away the last vestiges of constitutional government, and registered the mandates of his court as his only legacy to a country which tamely surrendered to the behests of power. The court, too feeble to enforce its edicts, gave way to brute force. In quiet imitation of his court, his enfeebled body surrendered to time and his great spirit returned to the bosom of his Creator, who gave its lustrous fires. There were also Levi Woodbury, Thomas Ewing, Thomas Corwin and Walter Forward^ who occuj)ied this distinguished position. No defalcation or discrepancy in settlements, had scandalized the Treasury Department until Salmon P. Chase, as Secretary, purchased his way into the favor of the rich, and made himself a power equal to any European monarch ; which he employed with far less regard to the rights of the peojDle, and left his sin- ister face engraved upon an irredeemable paper currency, which the latest generations of the people will detest as the insignia of our bondage and shame ; who now defiles the pure ermine laid down by Taney, and divides his time in the various vocations of inciting negro riots ; travelling in oriental style, at the govern- ment expense, in ships fitted up for the purpose, and delaying decisions which involve the liberties of the people and the vital- ity of free government. Such liad been tlie character of the great men who filled this place before the late civil war, and such is the instrument of despotism and corruption who has destroyed its character, per- verted its purpose, and fastened its great weight upon the neck of the people. After the introduction of the odious and abominable Funded System, and the venal ascension of Chase to the Supreme Bench, the guardianship of the Treasury j)assed into the hands of an obscure gentleman who had never filled a liigher position than that of officer in a village bank, whose principal duty and re- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 187 quisite knowledge was the extraction of the hirgest interest from the smallest capital, singularly in conflict with that of Secretary of the Treasury, who must pay the greatest debt, with the least private oppression and public disaster. Such were the charac- ter, attainments, and qualifications of the new agent which called him to the care and supervision of the entire business property and financial destiny of the country, the collection and disburse- ment of the public moneys of the government. Mr. McCulloch being entirely unknown to our political, judi- cial or literary history, the people of the country have no confi- dence in either his ability to manage the public affairs, or his integrity to expose the enormous frauds and monstrous corrup- tions of Chase, his predecessor. It would be neither appropriate nor pardonable to censorious- ly comment upon the qualifications and experience possessed by this public officer^ to prepare him for the onerous and multifa- rious duties of his great public trust. But there seems an incurable mania raging among the people for filling exalted places with sturdy intellect, but which it is noteworthy, is not reciprocated by the intelligent business men of the country. Whilst politicians are chosing rail-splitters to fill the Presi- dential chair, and enfranchising barbarian negroes, the farmers are not willing to employ bank-clerks to split rails, or school- masters to cultivate the soil. This public functionary, with a patronizing air, proposes as truths, old absurdities which were exploded by facts and philos- ophy long before the Christain era, and which have never since been defended by any respectable authors upon political science. The conduct of INIr. McCulloch challenges criticism and provokes censure. His financial reports are the most extraor- dinary of our revolutionary times; balderdash which, if applied to government, will ruin the country and bankrupt the people, leaving its business prostrate and its responsibilities accumula- ting in a perpetually increasing ratio. His financial plans, and strangely interwoven political theories, are the most complete exhibition of that light-headedness pecu- liar to sudden elevation, for which nature has not always made adequate previous provision. 188 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. The peoi^le have no right to complain of an officer because he holds office ; they should rather lend their full&st support to the earnest, trustworthy public servant who deals with the common- wealth so that the property of the people is subservient to their legitimate wants ; but when the agents of the people conspire with their enemies to overthrow civil government and enslave them, no expose can be too frank, fearless or early, and no re- sistance can be too positive or decisive. Sucli is the attempt now made upon the labor of the country through -the Secretary of the Treasury. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 189 CHAPTER II. The Manner in which the Loan was Obtained. The manner in which this loan was obtained, is set forth in graphic style by the Secretary of the Treasury in the following extraordinary document : U. S. 7-30 LOAN. The Secretary of the Treasury gives notice that subscriptions will be received for Coupon Treasury Notes, payable three years from August 15, 1864, with semi-annual interest at the rate of seven and three-tentlis per cent, per annum, principal and interest both to be paid in lawful money. These notes will be convertible at the option of the holder, at maturity, into six per cent, gold-bearing bonds, payable not less than five nor more than twenty years from their date, as Gov- ernment may elect. They will be issued in denominations of $50, $100, 8500, $1,000 and $5,000, and all subscriptions must be for fifty dollars or some multiple of fifty dollars. As the notes draw interest from August 15, persons making deposits subsequent to that date must j)ay the interest accrued from date of note to date of deposit. Parties depositing twenty-five thousand dollars and upward for these notes at any one time, will be allowed a commission of one-quarter of one per cent. SPECIAL ADVANTAGES OF THIS LOAN. It is a National Savings Bank, oifering a higher rate of interest than any other, and the best security. Any savings bank which pays its depositors in U. S. Notes, considers that it is pay- ing in the best circulating medium of the country, and it cannot pay in anything better, for its ow^n assests are either in govern- ment securities or in notes or bonds payable in government pa- per. 190 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CONVERTIBLE INTO A G PER CENT. 5-20 GOLD BOND. In addition to tlie very liberal interest on the notes for three years, this privilege of conversion is now worth about three per cent, per annum, for the current rate for 5-20 Bonds is not less than nine per cent, premium, and before the war the premium on six per cent. U. S. Stocks was over twenty per cent. It will be seen that the actual profit on this loan, at the present market rate, is not less than ten per cent per annum. ITS EXEMPTION FROM STATE OR MUNICIPAL TAXATION. Bat aside from all the advantages we have enumerated, a spe- cial Act of Congress exempts all Bonds and Treasury Notes from local taxation. On the average, this exemption is worth about two per cent, per annum, according to the rate of taxation in va- rious parts of the country. , It is believed that no securities offer so great inducements to lenders as those issued by the Government. In all other forms of indebtedness, the faith or ability of private parties or stock companies, or separate communities, only, is pledged for payment, while the whole property of the country is held to secure the discharge of all the obligations of the United States. Subecriptions will be received by the Treasurer of the United States at Washington, the several assistant Treasurers and desig- nated Depositories, and by the First National Bank of Cincinnati, O. Second " " " Third " " « Fourth " " « and by all National banks which are depositories of public money, and all respectable banks and bankers throughout the country will give further information, and AFFORD EVERY FACILITY TO SUBSCRIBERS. Secretary Chase assumes that a national debt is a national blessing. The substance of the argument to prove this absurdity assumes that the debt is due from the jieople of the United States to the people of the United States ; that tlie country owes CKIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 191 that much to itself. But it is also a debt clue from the poor to the rich ; from labor to capital ; from the industrious, mIio have nothing but what tlioy earn ; to the opulent, who have amassed their fortunes from the labor of the poor. It is a debt paid from patient, honest industry, to impatient, pompous idleness. The very nature of this debt is more op- pressive that it is due from one class to another class of the same people, which makes the hardship greater ; that it taxes the humble classes to perpetuate an invidious distinction to their injury; stints the bread of their children to add to the extrava- gance of their insolent oppressor. No debt can become so in- vidious without this distinctive feature. The nearer you bring the oppressor and the oppressed in con- tact, the more crushing will be the slavery. The following absurdities are assumed in regard to our debt : 1. That it has added the full amount of itself to our capital; that we are worth $4,000,000,000 more by being that amount in debt ; that war is the most profitable condition of society ; debt the only source of profit ; public robbers the only patriots ; and extravagance the highway to prosperity. 2. That " a national debt is the only bond of union.'^ " That protection and excise are essential to each other ; both are neces- ary to sustain the national debt; neither alone could uphold its weight ; and without the national debt, neither system of revenue could endure with the indispensably necessary quality of steadiness and permanence." The purpose of the permanence of the debt is the settled pol- icy of the authors of the funded system. 3. Upon this debt was erected the National Banking System, elsewhere examined. This remarkable paper was issued when the government was in the jaws of bankruptcy, and the exchange board of the great money market was hawking government bonds at thirty-four to forty cents on the dollar. The world was invited to pay into the treasury the worthless trash which had been paid out in ex- orbitant prices for worthless wares ; in exchange for which the government would give them finally one dollar in gold-bearing bonds at six per cent. 192 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL, WAR. This prodigal oifer was nearly two hundred per cent, premium above the price paid, drawing nearly triple interest upon the original sum loaned, after three years' race in paper. As an in- ducement to perpetuate this robbery upon the public, the Secre- tary offered to pay one-fourth of one per cent, to every one who will deposite twenty-five thousand dollars or upwards at any one time. At this gloomy period, with the whole superstructure of gov- ernment groaning beneath the burden, this loan was proposed as a National Savings Bank, offering a higher rate of interest than any other. No other government offers such rates of interest ; no solvent government can pay more than three or four per cent. ; even European despotisms dare not impose heavier bur- dens upon an unwilling people for long periods, upon large sums. Governments ought never borrow money, but in times of peace prepare for war, which was the custom of the ancient re- publics, and a wide dej)arture from which is the destruction of re- publican government. Secretary Chase, who thus serves his jiolitical schemes, and replenishes his private purse, assures the purchaser of bonds that " The 'privilege of conversion is now worth about three per cent, jper annum for the current rate, for 5-20 bonds is not less than nine per cent, premium. On six per cent. TJ. S. Stocks be- fore the war the premium was over twenty per cent. It will be seen that the actual profit on this loan at the present market rate is not less than ten per cent, per annum." It seems incredible that such a publication should have been made by any public officer acting in his place. It is remarkable that the tax-payers read it with patience. This inviting investment was secured at about thirty-four cents on the dollar. Could the exaggerated statement of a bitter political enemy, in the heat of a violent campaign, assail the Secretary with more vehemence, or more effectually damage the credit of the government, than is done in this naked statement? This loan-broker assures the tax-payers that the debt draws a higher interest than any other borrower pays; and notifies the slaves, serfs, vassals and Helots of the United States, that these CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 193 bonds are exempt from taxation. These arguments alone ought to have enlisted all the floating capital of the world. But he reaches the climax, and guarantees the borrower that these bonds are a first mortgage upon all of the property of the whole country, real or personal, and the people are the mortgagees. If these bonds and debts are valid, then the property of the country is worth nothing. If it were exposed at public sale in every financial metropolis of the world, and the capital of man- kind invited to competition in the market, the property would not realize the money necessary to pay the debts of the country. We are but tenants at will, paying rents on our own land. If our property is worth anything, it is just in proportion as this monstrous debt is repudiated. This is -an overpowering argu- ment in favor of repudiation, and can be answered only by re- pudiation. These bonds become more odious in their applica- tion as the basis of the Banking System, the base-born offspring of crime and misfortune, with the attributes of each. A NATIONAL DEBT IS A NATIONAL CURSE. In every despotism, a national debt is a necessity to the exer- cise of arbitrary power ; or the maintenance of the privileged orders, who employ the wealth of the country to subjugate labor to taxation, which is the specific office of a national debt. The four great powers of Europe have each a permanent national debt, and employ the people in wars of conquest to prevent revo- lution at home or in throwing oif the oppression of the constant and unrelenting system of taxation ; which alternates their condi- tion between slavery for the support of the profligate royalty and the conquest of other helpless, harmless people, to increase the extent of their domain and the number of the slaves. Debt. Interest. Debt per capita. France in 1853, $2,304,000,000.. ..|132,360,000.... $62.12 Austria in 1864, 1,263,400,000.... 75,100,000,... 36.00 Great Britain in 1863, 4,000,918,944.... 127,564,548.... 20.00 United States in 1866, 4,000,000,000.... 292,000,000.... 125.00 Russia in 1864, 1,116,800,000.... 27,100,000.... 19.64 Thaddeus Stevens, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means of* the House of Representatives, says : 13 194 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Onr war debt is estimated at from three to four billions of dollars. In my judgment, when all is funded and the pensions capitalized, it will reach more than four billions. The interest at 6 per cent, only, (now much more) $240,000,000 The ordinary expenses of our Government are 120,000,000 For some years the extraordinary expenses of our army and navy will be 110,000,000 $470,000,000 Four hundred and seventy millions to be raised by taxation ! Our present heavy taxes will not in ordinary years, produce but little more than half that sum. Can our people bear double their present taxation ? , He who unnecessarily causes it, will be accursed from generation to generation. It is fashionable to be- little our public debt, lest the people should become alarmed, and political parties should suffer. I have never found it wise to de- ceive the people. They can always be trusted with the truth. Capitalists will not be affected, for they can not be deceived. Confide in the people, and you will avoid repudiation. Deceive them, and lead them into false measures, and you may produce it. We pity the poor Englishmen whose national debt and burden- some taxation we have heard deplored from our childhood. The debt of Great Britain is just about as much as ours, (4,000,000,- 000) four billions. But in effect it is but half as large, — it bears but three per cent, interest. The current year the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us, the interest Avas $131,806,990, ours, when all shall be funded, will be nearly double. As the prelude and consequence of the monstrous doctrines taught by Secretary Chase and the consequent issue of a volatile paper money, every avenue of trade Avas filled with an inflated currency. The men who commenced and carried through the war, appealed to the avarice of the rich, the fears of the timid, and the love of plunder, to the speculators and stock gamblers, un- til the alarming spectacle was presented to the financial world, of a prosperity based upon the violation of every mcII knoM'u axiom of political economy. Indeed, every project was a ncAV inven- tion in the progressive march of power and glory. Albeit, the same thing had been exploded at least once in every generation of thirty years, and had as certainly ruined every people who • CRIMES OF THE CIVIL "WAE. 195 liad foolislily adopted it. Every discarded barbarity -wliich liad been stamped with the o])probriuni of the Christian era was her- alded as a new and bold stroke of military policy, indicated by humanity and justified by necessity, as the offspring of genius and harbinger of the millenium. The charlatans who control public aifairs, quite as careful of their fame as they have been of their power, j)ropose to defend their crimes as virtues, and commend their ignorance and stupid- ity as the highest intelligence and most brilliant invention. Every thing was accounted marvellous, because, in fact, it was friv- olous and insolent. Balderdash has been served up to the people as profound discoveries in the sciences of arms, finances and gov- ernment, and strange enough, the people crowded together like sheep, trembled with fear, listened and believed, exercised faith and quietly put on the yoke of bondage. These things ^vere SCARCELY resisted. The base and shameful cowardice of those who assumed leadership, the wicked and heartless betrayal of their old friends by those who were entrusted with the defence of liberty and the mercenary instincts of those who engaged in a war of plunder, weakened the ranks of the friends of free in- stitutions and emboldened the enemies of liberty until at last the great body of people became tame, lost their courage and dared not open their mouths through fear of drunken vagabonds, wear- ing government epaulettes, and licensed to shoot down whoever might cross their pathway. Those reckless mercenaries gathered up from the purlieus of cities, or those dastardly wretches who, through fear of the battle-field and long continued habits of crime, prepared to commit every manner of depredation, were stationed through the country for that purpose, ready to be hissed on by a mob of civilians who ^vere making fortunes by the war ; and ecclesiastics, whose salaries -were regulated by the fluctuations of the currency. Never did the resistless flood-tide sweep away all obstructions in its path more completely, than did this rain of lampblack and rags, greenbacks and bonds, contracts and ofiiciai positions, which found their way everywhere. Boot-blacks and barbers, hack-drivers and ostlers, prostitutes and pimps, had open oyster suppers and public receptions ; whilst gamblers hung their destinies upon the good or ill luck of the wheel 196 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAPw • of fortune, and would light their cigars with government scrip. The city hotels and fashionable watering-places Avere infested with a fortunate rabble who drove true gentility from the country, and made arbitrary changes in the laws of fashion, radical as the brokers and government financiers had made in the laws of money and commerce. Ignorant men and gross Avomen, fresh from the army, or dripping with petroleum, scandalized society ; whilst the cultivated minds of the country sought society in se- clusion, or went in disgust to foreign lands. Everybody was rich, money was begging owners, everything commanded enormous prices, which kept advancing ; money was increasing in amount until one dollar (gold and silver) command- ed nearly three dollars of the government pledges. Thus was a double crime perpetrated upon the country. First. Every dol- lar which had been loaned in good faith in gold, often in cases to save valuable property from execution, was now paid in scrip, which had no intrinsic value and was subject to the mutations of a profligate paper currency. The debtor paid his debt in these government pledges, the courts came to the rescue and repudiated two-thirds of the value of the debt. This was so universal that it is not a violent presumption that all of the outstanding debts of the country were paid with fifty cents on the dollar ; and in fact, fully one-half of the whole indebtedness of private individ- uals was in this way utterly repudiated; and when the injured party appealed to the courts, the courts sustained the repudiation and decreed that the debts should be cancelled by the payments of depreciated government scrip substituted for gold and silver. This Avas, in fact, no payment of the debt, but simply a transfer of it from the man who paid it to the government, Avhich as- sumed it by the issue of its paper; and this money Avhich he seemed to get was the very shadow of the money which he was entitled to; and after receiving this mere paper, he had to be taxed enormously to pay the very debt Avhich was thus transferred from the debtor to the government ; and from the government back to the creditor, to be paid in taxes ; and the very debt wliich Avas due him and Avith Avhich he had proposed to pay outstanding debts, Avhich AA'ere a lien upon his property ; but the lien simply changed its OAvner and was finally placed back upon his property CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 197 in a tax of perpetual duration, due tlie government, to be issued out to its specially favoured creditors in gold. But this system of finance became noisome in every market ; the government was the cheif buyer, overriding all competition. When the dray- man, planter or railroad wanted to buy a horse, the government agent outbid him or drove him entirely out of the market. The Federal contractor went in competition with the butcher, to buy cattle; and made the soldier in the field bid against his half-starved family at home, to increase the price of beef. The government agent was bidding against the people in the price of every commodity. This reduced the country into two general classes. The one class of government employees, the other were serfs to support and subsist them. Every article used for the sustenance of life, or the comforts of living, was seized upon by the government agents, who knew no bounds to prices, except their own whims. The jioorer people had to take the inferior articles at a vastly increased rate. The government managers v/ere unrestricted in their extravagance. They measured the capacity to meet contracts only by the power of the government printing-presses to issue promises to pay. This was the only re- straint imposed upon those who held the entire control of the property of the country. With the whole land under martial law, the Congress under duress, the independent judges in jail, newspapers that wrote one word of the tendency of the govern- ment to bankruptcy, were summarily suppressed; and public speakers hurried off to forts, who denounced this public profli- gacy. In was in this state of affairs an easy matter to print money ad libitum, and involve the country in a debt of thousands of millions of dollars. It requires but a slight acquaintance w'ith the philosophy of finance to understand that the true method for the conduct of a great civil or foreign war, is to contract prices with the increase of expenditures ; that the rich, who hoard provis- ions, shall bear the weight of the burdens imposed upon the coun- try, rather than the poor, whose existence is at stake in the vacilla- tion of prices of the necessaries of life, shall be driven to star- vation. When usurpation is the chief element in the conduct of the war, and starvation is added to force to drive the poor into the ranks of the army — then forced loans should be made 198 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. from the rich to encourage voluntary service, instead of driving poor men from their families into the slaughter pens. This Avould equalize the burdens of the war and present the accumu- lations of a burthensome debt upon the people. In carrying on the late civil war, the government borrowed everything and paid nothing; intrigued with the banks, that in collusion they might rob the country of everything. To initiate the fraud, it was pre- tended that the government was under lasting obligations to the bankers for favors of money, when in fact the bankers lent noth- ino- but the weight of their credit to oppress the people and carry out the war ; that in return the government might use the banking-system as an engine of perpetual oppression of the peo- ple to enrich its officers. After borrowing everything which was to loan, they then bor- rowed from the industry, liberty and hopes of every succeeding generation, to enrich the profligate extortioners, usurers, specu- lators, adventurers and mercenaries who, having destroyed the country by war, would enslave the people by taxation. The true standard by which to measure the amount of taxes paid by a people, is the diiference in the prices paid for the same article at different times, under nearly the same general circum- stances. This is the only means where nearly the whole amount is carefully concealed under cover of duties, excises and other deceitful means of hiding taxations, which have been so gener- ally resorted to by the treacherous legislation of modern times. The effect of this war and consequent taxation in regard to the cost of living. Mark the contrast with tlie prices we paid : GROCERIES. Democratic Frice in 1860. Abolition Price in 1865. Teas 45a50c. per lb. Teas $1 00a^2 50 Sugars 8 9c. " Sugars 20 LO Coffees 14 16c. " Coffees 05 Nutmegs 50 56c. " Nutmegs $2 00 Pepper 8 9c. " Pepper 65 Allspice 6 8c. " Allspice 50 Cinnamon 20 22c. " Cinnamon $1 00 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 199 DRY GOODS — DOMESTIC. Brown Slieetings . . 8 Jc. per yd. Brown Sheetings . .65c. per yd. Prints, Cal icoes, etc Slc . " Prints, Calicoes, etc 40c. '■ Bleached Muslins.. .5Sc. " Bleached Muslins.. ,75c. " Canton Flannels... 10c. " Canton Flannels... 90c. " FOREIGN. Delaines 15^0. peryd. Delaines , 75c. peryd. Dress Goods 25c. " Dress Goods 80c. " Velvets $2 50 " Velvets $12 00 " RAW COTTON, ETC. Cotton laps 18c. per lb. Cotton laps $1 75 per lb. Wadding 40c. " Wadding 2 20 " Carpet Chain 20c. " Carpet Chain 110 " Lamp Wick 20c. " Lamp Wick 150 " METALS, ETC. Lead 6c. per lb. Lead..... 32c. per lb. Antimony 13c. " Antimony 75c. " Block Tin 31c. " Block Tin 90c. " COAL. Of which the poor man's fire consumes as much as that which blazes in the rich man's parlor — in former days could be had for four 07' five dollars ; it now costs fourteen and fifteen dollars a ton. CLOTHS. Satinets 45a50c. per yd. $1 75 per yd. Broadcloths, Cassimeres, etc., have increased from 100 to l50 per ct. Drugs have increased in price on an average of 200 per ct. Tobacco — Manufactured Cavendish Tobacco has risen from 35 cents to $1 25 per pound. Cigars have advanced from $20 to $60 and $200 per thous- and. Foreign Stationery, since the scarcity of specie, has risen 50 per cent. The above table made out from the actual market prices, is a very fair exhibit of what the masses of the poor sufler, as well as 200 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. pay for, in contribution to the debt. The increasing pressure upon the poor of the country, is precipitating the crisis. The poverty of the country and the sufferings of the people, are the irreputable arguments which must stare Chief Justice Chase in the eyes when the people have turned upon their oppres- sors. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 201 CHAPTER III. The War Debt is not a Just Debt. What is a just and what an unjust debt? To fasten upon thirty millions of people, by a minority of votes, and transmit to their posterity in the most palpable case, will always be a matter of doubt which can never be satisfactorily determined either by the contention of debate or the conflict of war. There never yet has been a party in power in any government which excited or prosecuted a war, whether to satiate revenge or gratify ambition, that did not at the same time assume the con- test as not only justifiable, but just ; not only necessary, but holy. Such is the brief epitome of the arguments upon all wars. Such were declared the character and purposes of the wars of the Stuarts to crush the proud spirit of liberty in the English people, the war of King George to enslave America, wars against Ireland, Scotland and the East Indies by Great Britain, — indeed all wars by all tyrants. Every war has been the heated theme of songs and prayers, thanksgiving and praise, on every side, by all parties engaged; has been used as the machinery by which the human passions might be inflamed to their highest pitch of intensity ; and re- ligious sentiment used as the vehicle in which tyrants rode into power, and the habiliments worn by demons to enter the high priesthood, bearing the palm-wreath of victory or making their mournful dirge as victory or defeat befel them or the other army in conflict. This evident consciousness of right was not confined to one party alone. Each contending side was alike appealing to heaven for vindication of their mottoes, and denunciation of the wickedness of their enemies. Indeed, it is the common and remarkable feature of the history of all wars, that the same self-adulatory harangues in very nearly the same phraseology, making due allowance for 202 CRIMES or THE CIVIL WAR. the difference of language and the habits, passions or customs of the people, have been employed in every country only with the slightest difference in America and Russia, England and China, Spain and Judea. The same imprecations of those they met in battle seem stereotyped in the mind, and painted only in new colors, Mdthout a change of feature. Held by the light of Christianity, all wars are wicked. They are doubly wicked when Christians are engaged in mutual de- struction ; but they are atrocious beyond all power of expression when they involve people of a common blood, brethren in the flesh and in the spirit. It is only when pervading infidelity and thorough corruption coalesce to destroy the Church and State together, that such wars can transpire and escape the opprobrium of both civilization and Christianity. All such wars are at best but organized systems of robbery, with a common tendency and common end to the ruin of the country, the overthrow of just government, and the robbery and degradation of the people. In full view of the wrongs and evils of war, the self-evident rights of man, and the clearly wicked and spiteful character of this war, what authority will be called in requisition to justify the attempt to bind generation after generation, loaded with an immoveable debt, to the car-wheel of bankruptcy, and destroy our form of government. This debt was incurred to carry on a war conceived in the foulest passions of depraved human nature, carried on for the mercenary purposes of personal gain by a systematized corruption, cruelty and crime; condemned by every conception of justice, and outdoing in all of the elements of wrong, the startling crimes charged by Edmund Burke against AYarren Hastings (whilst Governor of India) in the British Parliament. In all of this wicked, cruel war, there has been but these un- changeable objects in view : to glut the avarice of the rich, to satiate the vengeance of the S2)iteful, and minister to the most grovelling appetites of the vicious; to make the people the slaves of money and their armies the tools of tyrants. This argument in behalf of the late civil war is somewhat CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 203 changed, but is not strengthened, when the proposition assumes that the Avar was carried on (which is now upon all hands con- ceded) to abolish the system of African servitude in the United States. The argument concedes two points presented in this review : 1. There was no evil in slavery which could be abolished by war, to give it efficiency in times of peace. This is quite clear in itself, but it is fully conceded in the fact of the government, by the change demanded in the Constitution, and through du- ress and fraud added to it. 2. The great improvement in the condition of the negro by his transfer from Africa to America, will place it beyond cavil in history that he suffered no evil in the exchange of countries, conditions and character. It is quite as apparent that he has received no benefit from the late transition from organized protection to social anarchy. 3. AVhatever may liave been the will of the people — which is the great common law of America when legally expressed — concerning the status of the negro, there has been nothing done for his benefit by war which might not have been far better done peaceably, without the shedding of blood, the destruction of property, and the overthrow of the republican form of govern- ment, the triple enormities perpetrated by the late revolution. The debt is not just in this, that we have had no quid pro quo. The people are not bound in justice to pay this DEBT. We have received nothing in return for it. Our currency is destroyed, our liberties gone, our institutions overthrown, leaves us nothing for all that we have lost, all that we have squandered and all that we have surrendered, to say nothing of the enor- mous debt that we have contracted and yet hangs over us. The eternal law that every sale implies a price, the quid pro quo leaves this debt without approximating a material consideration, adequate or inadequate to its payment. This debt might have been avoided. The evidence is everywhere at hand. By a strict adherence to the constitution in the enunciation of political principles, it 204 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. never could have transpired. An honest, earnest address to the people from President Lincoln after his election, would have thoroughly settled the public mind, quieted excitement, prevent- ed civil wars, with the consequent blood, carnage and crime. Upon the inauguration of the President, a clear and implicit declaration of his purpose and constitutional integrity would have disarmed those already in arms, and restored quiet to the country, and utterly ruined the leaders of the secession move- ment by destroying the pretexts for secession. Congress could have arrested the war by manly avowals in the beginning of its session in 1861, notwithstanding the well ground- ed distrust which had fixed itself in the public mind. By the least exhibition of justice upon the part of the administration, the war would have been avoided. The administration of Lincoln saw tlie absolute necessity of genera] public bribery to make the shadows of money abundant among the people, and intoxicate them with the appearances of wealth, and postpone taxation to posterity. They used no more restraints upon expenditures than the profligate libertine, who measures his extravagance by his power to destroy property and capacity to create debt. • It was in view of creating war and preventing the exposure of the nakedness of the administration, that presses were destroy- ed, free speech prohibited and elections treated as a farce, to des- troy the liberties of the people, with all of the solemn forms of law. The administration of the government forced issues be- tween capital and labor, arbitrary power and rational govern- ment. It has been made our duty in self-preservation to teach tyrants that all elections shall be fair and free, to teach usurpers that the will of the people shall be the supreme law of the land. That no debt contracted to enslave them shall be paid. Self-res- pect imposes this duty upon the people, to impress this lesson upon despots, that legislation shall be pure and untrammelled. It is a duty that we owe to free government, that no statute en- acted, no debt contracted, no obligation imposed by corrupt or unfair legislation, shall be of such binding force as that a failure in the courts to declare them void, shall prevent the ^^eople at their will, from repudiating them. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 205 This will instruct capitalists and gamblers in stocks, who swindle themselves into wealth, that they may not trample labor into the dust with impunity, nor safely connive at the overthrow of constitutional government, to amass immense wealth. 206 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAPTER IV. The War Debt is Unconstitutional. By what authority did the President destroy State govern- ment? " The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature, from domestic violence." Const. Art. IV, Sec. 4. What Governor or Legislature of what State applied to the President to protect them against domestic violence? On the contrary, when the President asked the Governors of Tennessee, Virginia, Missouri and Kentucky, to do this, they indignantly declined the work of butchery proposed ; the Presi- dent had no right to invade any State. There was no domestic violence ; the operation of law was unclogged until the President commenced the work of disinte- gration. There were no changes made in the State laws and State constitutions, which were not made in conformity Avith the organic laws. By what authority did the President imprison the Legislature of Maryland ? incarcerate Judges of the several States of the Union ? " The judicial power of the United States shall not be con- strued to extend to any suit of law or equity, commenced or to be prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State or by subjects of a foreign power." Xlth Amend- ment to the Constitution. How much less the right to wage war against a State. What may not be done peaceably, may not be forcibly done. Judgment always precedes execution. A war levied against a State is unconstitutional. A debt contracted for such purpose is likewise CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 207 unconstitutional. No such war could grow out of the Consti- tution, nor the debt be of valid obligation. The j)Gople are not bound by the Constitution to pay this debt, because it was entirely unauthorized by the Constitution. It was created in violation of the Constitution, for the purpose of overthrowing the Constitution. From the beginning there was scarcely anything lawfully done • and what was otherwise lawfully done, was done in an unlawful manner. The general emulation in civil and military life, was to see who could set the laws most at defiance. These facts are conceded by the authors and instigators of the war. 1. They passed acts of immunity to cover their crimes. 2. They offered amendments to the Constitution to legalize their usurpations. 3. They propose amendments to make the debt obligatory upon the country. How can a debt bind a people which is not made according to law? We are not bound by the theory of our Government to pay this debt. The war was waged in violation of the theory of our govern- ment by consent in the exact form, spirit and purpose of arbi- trary government, to destroy the republican system. How then, can such a debt have constitutional force or obli- gation to bind any one, since it was made in the interest of self- destruction, and to pay for violence done to and butchery of the people. In its stead was a monarchy in everything but the name, in which the President was guarded in the style of the Czar and Sultan, w^ith all of the brutality of the one and the pomp of the other ; with all of the trappings of monarchy and the violence of despotism. With the overthrow of our system and theory of government, and the adoption of the imperial style and military guard, the most intimate friend of Washington, Jefferson or Monroe, would have entirely failed to recognize the old and familiar forms that gave us characteristic distinction everywhere. 208 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. A new and unique system was substituted. We had the forms of republican government enforced or obstructed, or both, as occasion might demand or necessity might justify. It was not republican, for nobody was free. The citizens and soldiers were alternately arrested, State and military officers were spending their terms in guard-houses or military jarisons, as whim, interest or caprice might suggest, at the will of their masters, who were not always known, for it was as difficult to learn who directed affairs as it was to know who Avas loyal. Everybody was conscripted ; everybody was an officer : everybody was arrested ; everybody was removed from office; everybody was reinstated in turn, just as the President might be persuaded by the last committee of merchants, ministers, loyal leaguers, free negroes or ruling mad- ams of the sanitary commission or sewing society. Never was there such a medley of tragedy and farce, murder and mockery, of grave pronunciamentos and the most ridiculous government follies. Anarchy, which knows no law, was reduced to a system by which anarchies were to be let loose and restrained as occasion might require, or circumstances might dictate. From the gov- ernment nothing could be known of its character except occa- sionally an act in lucid intervals. We instance but ^one form of crime : LETTRE DE CACHET — OUR FRENCH DESPOTISM. This extraordinary proceeding is entirely unknown to the in- stitutions of this country, and quite as great a stranger to the British Common Law. It, of course, could not issue from our courts of judicature, and is entirely unknown to the more stern, though more candid, process of military courts. So utterly rejjugnant to all sense of justice, liberality and the universally accorded rights of man is it, that it has never been exercised anywhere in the despotism of Europe, except very rarely indeed, before the seventeenth century, and then only by the most heartless of all the European tyrants. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, Louis the Great, (XIV) then in power, gave to the French throne a jDOwer and magnificence which eclipsed that of all of his predecessors. His reign Avas an era distinguished by great learning, fashion CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 209 and gaiety. The leitres de cachet had formerly been used to delay the course of justice, but during the reign of this monarch, any person who could find access to court — to either the King or his Ministers — could obtain these lettres; and to gratify malice, or serve the ends of mercenary purposes, upon the most trivial pretexts ; and by this means thousands of persons were imprisoned for life, or for a term of years. So monstrous was the character of these outrages committed, that the people were intimidated, money extorted, suits founded by injustice, with- drawn dowers, marriages made available, and, in short, the most intolerable slavery and abject servitude which ever disgraced any people, was quietly effected during the reign of this French Prince. But during the reign of Louis XV, France was almost entire- ly engaged in war, and gave but little attention to the govern- ment of the people at home. She lost the Canadas in a war with Great Britain, and came nigh ruining the army, navy, treasury, and church, and entirely prostrated all that was left of the judi- ciary. The ministers of this monarch used these lettres to most sin- gular effect. Indeed, they became a matter of commerce, and were openly and publicly sold by the strumpet of one of the ministers of the\ing. They were also granted by the king for the purpose of shielding his favorites or their friends from the consequences of their crimes. They were sometimes bought to rid a family of heirs who stood immediately in the way of an expectant inheritance, and for the purpose of gratifying spites in family quarrels. During the contentions of the Mirabeau fam- ily, not less than fifty-nine lettres de cachet were issued by one or the other of the family, of course, for monied consideration. But the evils of this extraordinary proceeding did not stop with these. Independent members of Parliament and of the Magistracy were proscribed and punished by means of these war warrants. This corruption became enormous, and was in the French history what Jeffrey's campaign was to England ; and when Louis the XYI. tried to control and remedy it he failed. Among all of the evils and blessings of the French Revolu- 14 210 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. tion, this one thing will be worthy of eternal remembrance — that it swept away this monstrous evil which never had an ex- istence before among civilized people, and which has never been since revived nntil Wm. H. Seward, of America, inaugura- ted it as a part of the administration of the General Govern- ment, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, every instinct of civil liberty, and the very genius of free gov- ernment. This is the scandal of the nineteenth century, the opprobrium of the history of North America, and it is most remarkable how nearly in resemblance the use made of this warrant by French tyrants is to that use made of it by the American tyrant, whose villainy promises to Benedict Arnold but secondary claims to supreme infamy in American history. Judge Taney was threatened with imprisonment for rendering a legitimate judicial decision in a case legitimately before him. Mayor Barrett, of Washington City, was imprisoned because he would not be the tool of a member of the Cabinet, for purely mercenary purposes. Mr. Barrett needs no higher evidence of his loyalty to the government, than his appointment as a commis- sioner to value emancipated slaves, and no nobler exhibition of his real manhood than his refusal to accept the appointment. The imprisonment of innocent men all over the country, to gratify private malice, the arrest of whole legislative bodies, the despot- ism of the central power, in confining men and withholding the charge for which they are confined, makes the analogy complete between the use of these Mtres in France and in America. This, however, must be observed, that in France, the lettres de cachet were always allowed to be a violation of those hered- itary and traditional rights of Frenchmen which they had always enjoyed. But for the exercise of all these extraordinary powers, Mr. Seward says in his letter to Lord Lyons, October 14th, 1861, " That for the purpose of quelling the insurrection, the Presi- dent has the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus when- ever, wheresoever, and in whatsoever extent * * * in his judgment it requires." And the tenor of the Secretary's arguments is to prove that this is in accordance with the Constitution of the United States. CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 211 The following is jierhaps even more extraorclinary than any- thing upon the subject. '* For the exercise of that discretion, he, as Avell as his advisers, among whom are the Secretaries of State and of "War, is responsible by law before the highest tribunal of the Republic, and amenable also to the judgment of his country- men, and the enlightened opinion of the civilized world. This is the language of Mr. Seward to a Foreign Court. To his countrymen he is scarcely so courteous, but makes the condi- tion of their release depend upon the relinquishment of their right to hold him and his advisers "responsible by law" before the highest tribunal of the Republic. Whatever may be the judgment of his countrymen, "the en- lightened oi^inion of the civilized world " shudders at the revi- val in America of the despotism of the 17th and 18th centuries in France. Nor does the plea of necessity make it better. This plea is as old as crime itself. Cain says the slaughter of Abel was neces- sary — To what ? That he might be the only heir of Adam ; the only friend of God — but not to the triumph of right. England pleads necessity for the oppression of Ireland. Aus- tria has the same plea in extenuation of her wrongs to Hungary. So pleads Russia in her treatment of Poland — Necessary to what ? The power of the one and the wrongs of the other. But not necessary to the cause of justice, the triumph of right. "What necessity for these warrants of Mr. Seward ? to put down the war ? No ; the Constitution can do that amply, easily and fully. Necessary to make men love the institutions of the coun- try ? No. Necessary for what ? To keep tyrants in power, to overthrow the Government, to crush out the spirit of Liberty, to invert the engine of progress and drive back the car of civil- ization three centuries, to hold council with and learn at the feet of French tyrants. Oh, Lord, how long shall these things be ! Shall not the ballot-box bring "the judgment of our country- men " to hurl these men from power and welcome back the de- parted spirit of Liberty ; or shall not the repudiated debt teach capital the danger of loaning money to destroy liberty. 212 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAPTER V. The War Deut is a Breach of Trust. A DEBT MAY BE CONTRACTED UNDER SUCH SYSTEMATIC BREACHES OF TRUST UPON THE PART OF PUBLIC OFFICERS, aS to have no moral binding force upon the people, though ostensi- bly for the most unquestionable public good. This is especially- true where the contractors were privy to the fraud. The only security that popular governments have for the faith- ful performance of contracts, that nothing stronger than public opinion is held for the payment of debts, because no suits can be entertained by a sovereign power to coerce itself. When the questions which originate wars and public debts, largely divide the public mind, then the justice and probabilities of its liquidation become a matter just as doubtful as the vaga- ries of human opinion and political integrity. But the question may be evenly balanced in the public judgment. Public opin- ion may be restrained concerning it. It becomes still more un- certain, how far the public conscience may feel bound for the pay- ment ; but each succeeding decade with its accumulating respon- sibilities, will feel less and less bound in honor to meet an obli- gation which, at the best, holds but a feeble grasp upon the pub- lic responsibility. When it is clear that the majority of a full million and a half of actual voters, not engaged in war, were opposed to the war as a remedy for existing evils, or that the debt and war were both frauds upon the public credulity and destructive of our system of government, then the payment of the debt becomes impossi- ble. This is precisely the case of our war and war debt. Abraham Lincoln reached the Presidency by a great minority in both the first and second elections. In the second election, the minority CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 213 was even greater tlian in the first, amounting to 1,200,000 less than a majority of the votes of the people, not accounting the fraud and force, applied to divest the election of every attribute of choice. But the strength of this argument is irresistible. Every vote cast at the election of 1860, was given to candidates pledged in public professions of political faith, including the ablest speeches of Mr. Lincoln himself, against coercion or war. He had, in the most public manner avowed, and in the most solemn oaths sworn before heaven and earth, not to interfere with the existing con- dition of things in the government. The right of one-half of the States to overrun and destroy the other half, had been denied by all of the leading statesmen. North and South, in every period of our history, and by the courts in the exercise of their plenary powers. 214 CKIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAPTER VI. We are unable to pay this Debt. Theee Is no subject upon which even statesmen are so fre- quently the victims of delusion as that of the resources of their own country. Whether in regard to the relation which their wealth bears to their indebtedness, or the relation which their resources bear to that of other nations ; and quite as vague are their notions about their ability to pay enormous debts. One source of this deception is the value which they attach to prop- erty, based upon the crazy inflation of the currency and the cor- rupt imaginations of speculators engaged in stock-gambling. This delusion is not peculiar to the financiers of our own age and country. It has been universal. Such is the intoxicating nature of trade and commerce in the height of a paper bubble. Just before the outbreak of the French Eevolution, which was precipitated by national bankruptcy, and the reckless vio- lence which always accompanies bold loaning and extravagant living, even the most illustrious English statesman were dazzled and carried away with the grandeur of its profligacy, and for a time believed the French finances solid and immoveable, because the national credit was pledged for its redemption. Edmund Burke was so completely captivated with Necker's theory, that when Necker wrote a history of his political views and administration, confessing his failure, and the fallacies of his opinion, Burke was dismayed and mortified at his own sim- plicity in being the victim of such hollow expedients ; nearly every one of which remind one of the present times. Indeed, in all times, these expedients and subterfuges are the same. The younger William Pitt, the most searching analytical mind of his day, saw entirely through ISTecker's financial scheme, and the ruin that would follow it, and in consequence, refused the CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 215 tempting offer of the hand of decker's gifted daughter, Madame de Stael. It were amusing were it not sorrowful, to contemplate the picture which Secretary Chase has drawn of his financial plans in the ruin of the country. A complete detail of the financial history of the Treasury and the currency, with its shams, tricks, and villainies consequent upon them, practiced by himself, Avould rival in romance the confessions of Barnum in the exliibition of his Japanese Mermaid, Joyce Heath, Tom Thumb, the woolly horse, and "What is it?"; — the low artifices to which they both resorted to deceive the people ; the one in shows for their amusement, the other in falsehoods to overthrow their liberty. We have never duly considered the j^rescnt condition of our resources since the conclusion of the war, and the preliminary questions to be settled before we commence our calculation. 1. The war drove out of the country thousands of millions of capital, much of its own bullion, in consequence of its general unsafety. 2. It destroyed thousands of millions of dollars of capital in the Southern States, Avhich could no longer be taxed. 3. The destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars in the Confederate States rendered unavailable other hundreds of millions of dollars in the Northern States, which were depend- ent upon the South for a market. 4. There has been no increase of a single article produced in the United States which could be exported, or added to the fi- nancial prosperity of the country, except kerosene oil, which is a late discovery, and insignificant matter. A blind, stupid and destructive fanaticism assumes that our re- sources are incomparably greater than at any time heretofore. This they demonstrate by the magnitude of our public debt, which they denominate as so much active ca])ital ; and the de- struction of public and private property, which they parade as a triumph over treason. The chief source of this delusion is that they account our money as capital, when in fact, it is the certified evidence of our debt and poverty. The bonds held are simply the amount of debt which we hold against ourselves. 216 CEIMES OF IHE CIVIL WAR. There is no more common expression or delusion in regard to the public debt than this, that since the de!)t is mostly due among ourselves, and bring as much property from one as they take from another. This is not true, in fact, any more than that it is an argument. The bonds are not all due among ourselves ; but upon the contrary, they were directly sold, to European capitalists, as far as it was possible to get them into that market, where they are quoted from the market reports of London, Amster- dam, and Paris; but millions of these bonds Avere bought in America by European capitalists, and re-invested in bank stocks under European auspices. It was this investment of European capital in American se- curities which was the most complete solution of the visit of the European capitalists to this country, which excited as much curios- ity, and elicited as much parade, as did Japanese Tommy's ad- vent into the city of New York. It is the most disgusting form of balderdash to maintain that poor men own bonds, or any other interest-bearing securities in America, any more than in Europe. The mere fact that some of these bonds are the property of American citizens, makes it in no sense different from their ownership abroad. Once cast upon the market, they will seek the idle capital of the world, and absorb it. The debt is an offset to the resources of the country, and must be deducted to their full amount from them in the calcu- lation of our wealth. It injures every department of wealth, commerce, manufactures, agriculture and navigation. It with- draws from active business to positive idleness, all of the capital to the full extent of the funding system. THE CONVERSION OF THE BONDS INTO BANK NOTES IS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE RESOURCES OF THE PEOPLE. Not one dollar passes out of the bonds into National bank currency which does not cost the public nearly one hundred per cent, in interest on the bonds interest, on the bank notes and the ruinous premium paid upon the depreciated currency with which they bought their bonds, besides the extravagant bonus which CHIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 217 was o-iven as an iiKluceinent to purchase them. Every bond- holder realizes this amount of money for his bonds. Against such profits in investment there can be no successful competition. Eailroads cannot be built. How is it possible for them to offer an equivalent security to these bonds ? Commerce is checked, because the bonds are proof against shipwreck ; and who can in- vest in the legitimate trade of the ocean against such odds. The "NYestern people cannot hope for the usual improvement of their lands, because no investment in improvements can justify the pay- ment of more than six per c.mt., and scarcely that amount can be realized in agricultural pursuits with the entire destruction of our exports and commerce, and a most extraordinary increase of our current government expenses. Our standing army is quad- rupled. The expenses of each soldier is twice as much as for- merly. The clerical force of every department is more than duplicated. This is the financial condition of the country and a fair exhibit of its resources and capacity to liquidate its debt. It is a most notable fact, that during the administration of Mr. Buchanan, the chief tangible accusation against him, was the extravagance with which he administered the government and the exceeding great difficulty with which the money was raised, and that he left the treasury empty at the end of his term. Mr. Buchanan left the country free from debt, in the most healthy industrial condition ; the people not only in comfortable, Ijut in affluent circumstances. Such is the contrast. THE WEALTH OF THE COUXTEY. What has been added to the productive wealth of the country to meet the additional expenditures ? It may be safely assumed that no one branch of industry has been increased in the last five years, except that used or destroyed in the military service, con- sisting of arms, ammunition, artillery, &c. We HAVE LOST WITHOUT ANY COMPENSATION WHATEVER. 2,600,000 able-bodied men were taken from actual produc- tive business ; from the plough, the loom, the anvil and build- ings of the country, whose daily labor added millions to the stock of American capital. The horses, mules, cattle, sheep, hogs, wagons, gears, neces- 218 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. sary to the support of such armies during four years of uninter- rupted and constantly augmenting warfare, the entire value of Avhich has been scarcely less than $5,000,000,000, which may be added to the calculation, but does not present the full extent of the loss we suffer. No nation or man has ever trampled with impunity upon the clearly written law of God, or the well-defined rights of man, without answering directly for his crime. The law of God is a crystal mirror wdiich reflects back upon the soul of every rational being, the exact character of the mo- tives of his heart and the action of his life. No man, nation nor age, ever committed a crime or perpetrated an enormity, v/hich did not fling its monstrous image back upon its guilty perpetra- tor. Nor have we escaped in either morals or finances, this clearly marked law of the living God. When Sheridan's high- waymen carried the torch through Virginia, and the hordes of Sherman's incendiaries were turned loose upon the defenceless people of Georgia, the United States were the sufferers. The cotton-fields destroyed made our corn-fields worthless and the very same communities which sent armies to burn cotton-fields, had to burn their corn-fields for fuel. The poor man in the army burned the clothes of his family, under the delusion that he was impoverishing the cotton planters, and did not discover his mistake until he returned from the war and found that the cotton goods which he used to buy for ten cents, now cost him fifty. He was wild with excitement over the fires that swept down the sugar-house, and never dreamed of his own suffering, until his children were crying for syrups which lie could not buy. Such has been the complete work of destruction and the entire mutilation of our available resources that nearly every article which secured to us the balance of trade abroad, hemp, cotton, rice, sugar and tobacco, with tar, resin and turpentine, was des- troyed by our own hands, and our resources cut off by our own folly. THE PROCESS OF EXHAUSTION. The cotton plant supplied the people with its fibre for clothing. The regular supply of this staple was bought by the people of CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 219 the North and "West, and paid for by the products of their cattle, horses, hogs, slieep and agriculture. When the Southern States ceased to produce cotton, the Northern people had to rely upon the production of wool. The ancient habits of the American Revolution were revived in the Southern States. Women went to the loom and the spinning- wheel, and every thriving household became a primitive manufac- tory. In the Northern States woolen manufactories of great extent were kept in operation, and the demand for wool became ab- sorbant. In less than four years, the whole agricultural aspect of the country was changed. Sheep took the place of horses and cattle in the mountain dis- tricts, and supplanted the culture of swine in the Western States, until horses commanded the most extravagant prices, and neat cattle sold at the former prices for hogs, and a single hog sold at the price formerly paid for a yoke of oxen or an ordinary horse. This process of depletion went on, until a famine stared the peo- ple in the face. The introduction of sheep into the country drove the cattle out, for neither cattle or horses will thrive in the same pasturage with sheep. During all tliis time of general depletion, the people believed themselves in the height of pros- perity. They mistook , their own debt for their own wealth, as though the mortgage upon their farms, created by government liabilities, was actual wealth. This delusion, kept up by 'the system of Secretary Chase, had a powerful agency in the pro- traction of the war, and did much to conciliate those time-serving statesmen who knew that ruin must follow such political econo- my, but hoped to indemnify themselves for all losses in the gen- eral plunder in which they might share. In addition to the men in military life, the war employed quite three millions of producers out of a population of twenty millions. The labor and wages of this vast army of men would have built railroads as a net-work in the States from which they were dragged away. Their idleness would have been a calamity, a severe blow, from which it would require a great State an age to recover. If these men had been idle, our ships of war safely anchored, and our costly armaments scattered to the winds, the 220 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. loss would have been comparatively small ; but added to tins was the loss to the whole country of tlie labor of nearly one million of men during the same period. The cost of tiieir arms, ammu- nition, artillery, clothing and all incidental expenses to defend against this invasion of the vast army arrayed in the North, by both sea and land, added to the entire destruction of the exports of cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar, molasses and everything grown and exported in the Confederate States. The daily occurring losses from idle men and idle lands, with the daily accruing expenses of military rule, are increasing these losses and impairing our power to recuperate our exhaustive system. WHAT THE SOUTH HAS LOST. Matthew F. Maury, who, at the commencement of the rebel- lion, was in charge of the National Observatory in Washing- ton, has written a three column letter to the London Morning Herald, in which he gives the following estimate of the losses of the Soutli caused by the war : " I estimate the amount of the pecuniary losses incurred by the people of the Southern Confederacy, in their late attempt at independence, to be not less than $7,000,000,000 (seven thousand millions of dollars) viz : By emancipation ." $3,000,000,000 Expenses of the war 2,000,000,000 Destruction of private property 1,000,000,000 Additional taxation imposed by tlie victor for payment of Federal' Avar debt, say $10,- 000,000 per annum, equal to interest on... 1,000,000,000 Total $7,000,000,000 This loss falls upon less tlian eight millions of whites, who have, moreover, in addition, to contribute largely to the support of the four millions of blacks who have been suddenly turned loose among them, and who, for the present at least, are incapa- ble of caring for themselves. This $7,000,000,000 of money was the accumulated wealth of centuries; it constituted nearly the whole industrial plan and capital of the South. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 221 THE DEBT COULD NOT BE PAID IF IT WERE JUST AND DESIRABLE TO PAY IT. 1. The experience of the world has been that no people have been able to lay up anything above their current expenses, and such repairs and improvements as the increase of population and the accumulating demands of society render necessary. 2. That the increase of population of every country brings with it a pro rata diminution of wealth per capita. 3. That every generation of people are better able to pay the debts of their own creation than the generations which succeed them. 4. That the growing age of every country carries with it more than an equal growth of expenditures, and to that extent inca- pacitates it to pay the debts of its own creation, and makes the payment of prior debts impossible. 5. This has always been the condition of society and will con- tinue to be. 6. Each generation will have its wars and consequent expen- ses, and cannot, nor ought not to bear the expenses of wars of pre- ceding generations. There are three ways of disposing of such a debt, each of Avhich has its conveniences. 1. By repudiating the obligations of the debt entirely, which would bring the burden of the evil upon the rich, who have hoarded their means and invested them in government credits. 2. By funding the debt and paying the interest on it after the manner of British debt. This impoverishes the poor and places them where the British have left their poor, in perpetual servi- tude. The funding system has been elsewhere examined ; or 3. By abolishing the funding system and banking system built upon it, freeing the people from its onerous burdens and in its stead issuing certificates, entitling the holder to such share pro rata, as he may be entitled to upon a final settlement, in which the public lands or a part of them, may be hypothecated for th*^ redemption of these certificates. The liberty of the people demands an immediate abolition of the whole funding:; system. 222 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. CHAPTER VII. Constitutional Amendments cannot enforce the Payment of such a Debt. The payment of all public debts, whether of bonds OR otherwise, is dependant entirely upon the will of each successive Congress, which may or may not appro- priate MONIES OR LEVY TAXES TO MEET THE PAYMENT OF INTEREST OR TAXATION. The bond may be just; the debt made out in due form ; the case may go before the general court of claims, and be adjudged as binding, but Congress may decline appropriations to pay the debt. Who can or will force Congress ? What mandamus can force them to levy taxes ? Even a State cannot be sued on her bonds, or levies of execution be made upon her property by the liighest courts of the country. But who elect the Congress of the United States? The people — the debtors, who are bounden in their property and in their labor by this mortgage; who will every day feel it the more with the increasing debt and advancing time. Constitutional amendments would not give more permanent security to the ultimate payment of the bonds, nor would an oath taken to keep the con- stitution make the bonds more valid, or repudiation less certain. W^hat provision of the Constitution waa ever more sacred to personal liberty, national character, and the distinction of race, than the great writ of riglit to Anglo-Americans. It came down to us hallowed by the benedictions of all that was great, learned, noble and illustrious, in English literature, law, blood and valor. The purest Anglo-Saxon blood had stained the execution-block in atonement of its violation. In CRIMES OF TPIE CIVIL WAR. 223 tlie church, it was part of the religion of the cstablislinient, which had saved deans, prebendaries, and prelates from persecu- tion, disgrace and death ; dukes and earls, who found their no- bility too feeble to protect their persons against violence, and their characters from infamy, fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hojie M'hich was set before them in the writ of habeas cor- pus. The poorest vagabond upon English soil inherited this protection as he did the pure breeze of the ocean, which mingled with the first breath that he drew. To Americans, it was older and more sacred than the Constitution, which came not to abridge, but to secure more perfectly the rights of man contract- ed by monarchy. Yet notwithstanding these safeguards of lib- erty, secured by the fire kindled on its hallowed altars, and flaming around its adamantine walls, the habeas corpus is no longer an American writ, secured to the citizens of the United States by law. The essential liberties of man, the apparently unapproacha- ble character of his safeguard, the sanction of the highest courts, nor the solemn oaths daily repeated by public ofticers, from the President downward, offers not the least security to the citizen, or lends efficiency to habeas corpus. The Constitution itself has been avowedly but the servant of necessity, to be laid away at any time, or to be used only as a pretext for making war upon everything and everybody who become obnoxious to those in power; or stood in the way of some favorite scheme of usurpation or plunder. After six years' ex- perience of daily recurring crime and suffering, from the absence of a government to protect the people, it is the wildest folly and most alarming madness to calculate upon constitutional guaran- ties to enforce an odious and, each day growing more obnoxious, debt. The wisdom of the hope of the ultimate payment of this debt, is not greatly enhanced by the recollection of the succes- sive rejiudiations which have marked each month of the passino- four years of blood and crime, bankruptcy and ruin. It is an excusable episode in this chapter to allude to the ab- surdity which brings forth daily amendments to the Constitution just when the existing organic law seems to oi^erate with binding force upon nobody, and to improve the system of oaths and im- 224 CKIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. provise new ones at a time wlien the most solemn oaths are ridi- culed as a farce, and perjury enters into the very essence of the political party organizations of the ruling power of the country. It is but fair dealing with the bondholders, to honestly warn them that their securities are held by the most uncertain of all tenures, the never changing popular will of a country in a period of stormy revolution not yet concluded, the ultimate direction of which is unfathomable as chaos and uncertain as the trade winds. The spirit of the age has grown against the col- lection OF debts by force. Imprisonment for debt has been abolished in the country, and the repeal of all laws for the collection of debts, has been ably urged by eminent philanthro- pists and statesmen of accredited ability. Homestead laws and laws of exemption of property, real and personal, from execution, exhibit the true idea of popular senti- ment and opinion, upon the payment of debts which virtually enslave the people. An amendment to the Constitution will be practically void, de- claring that the validity of the public debt of the Uni- ted States, authorized by law, including debts incur- red for payment of pensions and bounties for service in suppressing insurrection or rebellon, shall not BE questioned. This proposed amendment adds no new binding legal force to the old provisions of the Federal Constitution, but opens up many new questions for the future adjudications of courts, which add nothing to the security of the bondholders but imperil their claims. It will be impossible to establish the fact of either rebellion or insurrection in the United States, where the parties were recog- nized as belligerants by the home and foreign powers, and the SOVEREIGN and independent existence of the States was the cor- ner-stone of the Union. These questions once raised, will be discussed with a practical view, and the entire change of interests involved will carry with it the change of opinions. Then the beautiful combination of potential words will be quite non-efficient to secure the payment of the bonds. It is upon the fickle goddess of public opinion CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 225 that these bonds must rely for redemption and ultimate payment. The same public opinion which poisoned Socrates for teaching atheism to the youth of Athens, and then worshipped him as a god ; the very same which " cried crucify him, and release unto us Barabbas" ; that followed Robespierre through his triumphal march of blood and crime, cheering him with loud hosannas on the way, and executing him at the finale of his career, is that which makes and unmakes man and empires in the same breath ; the bonds, if redeemed at all, must be paid by appropriations from the public treasury. Appropriations must be raised by taxes levied by Congress, and Congress is elected by the people. These two questions recur with amazing force to the mind : 1st. By what power will you force Congress to legislate appro- priations for the payment of a debt which they determine not to pay ? 2d. How will you force the people to elect a Congress favor- able to the payment of such a debt, if they are determined not to do it ? When the terrible issue comes upon the people, the conflict between the unyielding pressure of debt and taxation and the evanescent fumes of party spirits, every minor objection will be met at the threshold. The Constitutional Amendment is the worst, and for the bond- holder, the most unreliable of all his hopes. Experience has taught, at the most terrible rates of tuition, to the unhappy people of America, that Constitutional provisions have failed to re- strain the most aggravated violation of its own reserved powers, and for the purpose of enforcing positive obligations, has been entirely inoperative. Only one instance need be cited in illus- tration of this argument : he duty of Congress to establish uniform laws upon the sub- , of bankruptcy throughout the United States, which to this , with all of the combined influence of business working in ,favor, has not been permanently done, though several times !mpted. 15 226 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. CHAPTER VIII. No ONE Generation can Bind its Successors to pay its Debts. By what eight can any one generation contract to ENSLAVE successive GENERATIONS, AND MORTGAGE THE LA- BOR OF FUTURE CENTURIES, TO PAY A DEBT CREATED TO SA- TIATE HATE AND AGGRANDIZE A LAWLESS CUPIDITY ? All just debts are based upon mutual honor and mutual ben- efit; upon the quid pro quo; but the very essence of the contract is that both parties are capable of contracting, and give a rational assent to the obligations which bind them. What is a debt ? " Any kind of a just demand." {Bouvier Dictionary.) It is that obligation which one person may volun- tarily lay himself under to another to be computed by the stand- ards of value then in vogue. The voluntary repudiation of a just debt is no less a crime than the robbery of honest creditors by any other means of fraud or force. A contract cannot be voluntary or of binding obligation upon the next genaration, which has been entered into by this gener- ation. It is impossible ; the contract had no consent of the party upon whom the obligation falls. To this rule, founded in justice, there can be no variations, except in the following cases : 1st. AVhen a debt shall have been contracted for the erection of some public improvement necessary to the permanent admin- istration of justice, or the maintenance of law among the people, such as court houses, jails, &c. 2d. A canal dug or railroad built at the public expense, fas- tened upon the property of the country, inures to the benefit of posterity, and is the representative to future generations of the energy, industry, genius and enterprize of their ancestry. But CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 227 the most magcnificcnt monuments ever reared to the honor of human genius and mechanical skill, have been justly accounted too costly for the endorsement and redemption of future genera- tions. But in all such cases the creditors may have justly no other security for the payment of what may remain due upon it, than that which is aiforded in the value, use, and profits of the public improvement itself. This maxim must hold good in all just governments. A contract made by past generations cannot even bind the honor of the present generation, who may have declared against the justice of the act for which the debt has been contracted. It may have been a vision or a whim, in which the persons engaged by contract robbed the public. It may have been unjust or unnecessary. What is true in the private affairs of men must be true of their public matters, since the public is but the aggregate of the private. If a banker builds a great house for his business, or a miller establishes his mill at great expense and involves a debt, which he is unable to liquidate, no one dreams of entailing this debt upon his children, although his estate should pay but a trifling portion of the encujnbrance which passes away with his property. The son can, in no sense, be responsible, because he had no voice in the contract ; and elects to waive his rights in the in- heritance, and is under no obligation to consider the action of his father as binding upon his honor or conscience. This is the law of every free country; freedom demands this much, otherwise the son would be a slave to the improvidence of the father. A very few generations would create caste in society, that would make slavery absolute, which time could not efface without revolution. What may not be done by the individual, may not justly be done by the government. The golden rule, " whatsoever ye would have men do unt6 you, do ye even so unto them," was given for nations as well as for men, and is alike obligatory upon both. There is no appli- cation of the principle that "all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed," more forcible or just than to that of taxation. No ONE GENERATION OF MEN HAVE THE RIGHT OF CONTRACT, 228 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. OR CAN BIND THE SUCCEEDING GENERATIONS TO PAY A DEBT CONTRACTED TO JMAINTAIN ANY RELIGIOUS OR POLITICAL PARTY, OR ANY SYSTEM OF RELIGION AND POLITICS. 1. Every system of government is comparatively good or evil, as it expresses the wishes of the people, who are the source of just power; or as it conforms or disagrees with those funda- mental self-evident rights of man which are elevated above the legitimate reach of legislation, and the violation of which is an unpardonable trespass upon the prerogative of human nature. 2. Each generation for itself has the right to make, alter, amend, or conform the existing systems to its will, is under per- sonal obligations to pay all of the expenses incident to and con- sequent upon the conduct or change of the government. The reasons for this are two-fold and apparent. First, they are the only persons interested in the change, for if the generation which preceded us, are not competent judges of the laws for this generation, how is it possible for us to be infallible arbiters of the opinions of the next generation ? and by what right do they assume to mortgage their soul, understanding and conscience, to particular doctrines in advance, and jnortgage their labor to the heirs of bondholders in all future time. The principle is not only absurd and dangerous, but it is the most complete system of slavery imaginable, by which each generation in advance of its birth, is assigned to labor ; the kind, amount, when, where and how, beforehand — to pay the expense of the riot, profligacy, debauchery of thieving contractors, loathesome prostitutes, and effeminate military officers. The immediate offspring of the shavers, usurers, extortioners and misers, who grew fat upon the. blood of the sires, the grief of their mothers and the destitution of themselves, now doomed to perpetual taxation. The second reason is even stronger than the first. It is the duty of every man to pay for what he receives. This is the touchstone of honesty itself, that he does it willingly. Then they who work a violent revolution are, by common consent, the only ones benefited by it; they are under obligations to defray its expenses, and immediate levies of tax as the revolution transpires, is the only legitimate mode of paying it. The old maxim, " in times of peace prepare for war," was the CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 229 fixed law of governments among our fathers, and each generation transmitted to its successor a treasury filled with money, as the means of carrying on wars in national defence, which was often diverted to the purpose of civil wars and squandered in the en- slavement and degradation of the people. But in such a war as that which has just closed, payment of the debt resolves itself into two very plain questions. 1. If it has been a blessing to the people or a public benefit, then those re- ceiving the benefit ought not to hesitate cheerfully to bear the ex- penses ; much i^ore, they ought to forgive the indebtedness in- curred as held by them in notes or bonds. 2. But if the revolution is a great public curse, and has de- stroyed all that is sacred in principle and desirable in property, how wicked a crime must it be against natural justice to ask an injured people to pay a debt consequent upon a contract, forced upon them to consummate their own degradation, slavery and utter ruin. NO DEBT INCITRRED BY A WAR OF ANY KIND CAN POSSIBLY BIND THE SUCCEEDING GENERATION. 1st. They have not consented to it, which is the essence of the contract, and without which, the parties held obliged to pay, are in the very same condition of the traveller met by the highway- men, who cry, " Stand and deliver " — " Your money or your life." It is the application of force purely as a means of taking and applying property. 2nd. The war which may seem just to the fathers, may seem unjust to the children, and the children may contract a debt equal to that contracted by the fathers fOr the purpose of sub- verting the very system established by them, and leave a double debt upon the grandchildren, who disagree with both the fiither and grandfather, and believe that both wars were unnecessary, unjust, cruel and disgraceful, and that their causes might have been readily removed by the slightest forbearance and the sim- plest appeal to reason. 3d. If the claims upon which a transmitted debt are based be the self-sacrifice of those who contracted it, then let it be verified by the sacrifice ; for if the debt is transmitted, there has been no 230 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. equal sacrifice. It is a sacrifice of the lives of the poor, but not of the wealth of the rich. If it were just and necessary that the poor people, who always fight the battles of a country, should sacrifice their lives, how much greater the necessity that the rich should sacrifice their property in a common cause. But how very unjust is it that the property and labor of the surviving soldiers and their children, in all time to come, should be held in perpet- ual mortgage to pay the debt and accruing interest to those who made merchandise of the blood and treasures of their comrades and parents. These reasons are not only just, Ijut they are con- clusive against the entailment of such debt upon posterity. This is THE CHIEF CORNER-STONE of our government, that there can be no hereditary rulers, either of kings or nobility, transmitted from one generation to another; neither by succes- sion nor ajipointment by birth or condition. The second great principle and corollary of the first, is, that no one generation has the power to bind an organic law irrevo- cably upon a succeeding generation, any more tlian kings have the right to appoint successors, or the people may be governed by the laws of royal descent. The third great principle and corollary of the first and second is, that there is no just power in any one generation to mortgage the labor of a succeeding gen- eration, without transmitting the means of payment ; and then it is purely oj^tional with the succeeding generations, whether they will accept the conditions upon which it is done. The debt is represented as " a first mortgage upon the ■property of the United States" but it is rather a bill of credit drawn upon the prosper- ity of the people, which they will repudiate and send to protest in eternity. The power to create and transmit such a debt is a most terri- ble revival of the old hard-hearted Jewish doctrine, that " The father ate sour grapes and put the cliildren's teeth on edge." We are met with the philanthropic argument, that the debt was a contract to give to the country liberty. This is impossi- ble. For the very taxation necessary to jDay the interest on the debt, is itself a slavery intolerable and insupportable, from which the people will be forced to fly to strange lands and seek refuge in perpetual alienage; or, as the alternative de- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 231 maiul, rc})iKliatiou of both principal and interest as the only re- maining remedy. The great idea upon which the late civil war was waged, was that no one man may enslave his cotemporary under any pre- tence whatever. It is the acme of the triumph claimed by its friends and instigators, that this great question was settled by the force of arms and sealed with the richest blood of a whole generation of civilized men, that innocent involuntary servitude shall find no legal tolerance among us. But what a fatal conclusion to this argument is it that we may transmit slavery and unrequited obligations to be exacted by un- born generations from each other, through the funding system. Sifted of their sophistry, the arguments used to extenuate the crime of transmitting mortgages to posterity, would as well apologize for the transmission of scrofula, consumption or other diseases. Carried to its legitimate results, the present system assumes that the jirofligacy of each generation may mortgage the prosperity and labor of all generations succeeding it, until the full value of the property is exhausted, the labor absorbed in advance, and capital as effectually own labor as the grazier owns the bullock, or the mule only, awaiting the time when age will consign them to the collar and the yoke. Deducting food, raiment and shelter, the owner pockets the earnings of the poor very much in the same manner. 232 CEIMES OF THE C1\'IL WAR. CHAPTER IX. The Duty of the Friends of Peace to Repudiate War Debts. All wars of modern times Lave been under the control of capitalists. In Europe, the moneyed kings dictate terms to their political sovereigns, control wars and make peace. In America, the bankers contrived the late civil war. It was quite as much a scheme of money as of policy. AYar would not have been created if the banks had refused to engage in it. It could not have been carried on, if the capital of the country had man- fully opposed it. The liberty of the people, the peace of the world and material prosperity of tlie poor would have been undisturbed, and even the condition of the negroes would have been better than now, but for these men. The capitalists and stock-gamblers in Europe, by their alliance with the political adventurers of America, carefully planned this war, in the interest of despotism and the funding systems. They anticipated every argument and prepared the public mind for war in advance. During the war they prepared for the debt and continued the war, that the debt might reach its present enormous extent. These gamesters upon human life and public misfortune, have fattened upon the bloody conflicts of emperors and kings, and inherit fortunes coined out of the most frightful battles of mod- ern times. Austria, France, Prussia and England have been fet- tered by the mortgages entailed by these brokers, upon their prop- erty and industry. Such is the perfection of the conspiracy against the property of the world, entered into by these stock gamblers, that war is always precipitated upon a particular country, whenever it is be- lieved to be ripe for revolution or fat enough to enrich the money trade. CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 283 For the puqiose of creating civil war, destroying the agricul- ture of the South, entailing a debt upon the people and, if possi- ble, the utter destruction of Republican government in the United States, English emissaries were, by the monied interests of Europe, under religious guise, sent to America to stir up civil war. Pamphleteers added their wicked labors to the work. Sum- ner's celebrated visit to Europe was in the same general interest, and Avhen Gen. James Shields of the United States army, had left the valley of the Shenandoah, Sumner assured him that he loas glad that the rebels were not entirely defeated, because his great object would not be accomplished if they were. The de- struction of our prosperity, the ultimatum of the stock gamblers, had not been reached. The raid of John Brown and the parti- zan conflicts, were but incidents in the grand purpose to create war and base a funding system upon it. Such has been the unbroken success of the professional mis- chief-makers of the world, that they have succeeded in Europe for a full half century, in fastening ruin and bankruptcy upon every sovereignty which w^as directed by their counsels or fell into their grasp. Bonaparte eluded their machinations ; this only provoked their wrath and drove them to the combinations which culminated at "Waterloo, in the destruction of his empire and liberty. The Mexican war was the first game played by the American stockbrokers, upon which the general peace of the Western Hem- isphere was staked and lost. The late civil war has been a suc- cess, and if the stakes are delivered up by the ruined people to the stockgamblers, permanent peace in the United States is gone forever. The successes have emboldened the stockbrokers, and given them possession of every avenue to popular favor and power. The pulpit, the press and the army, have been used as their in- strument, to secure their prize in the blood market of the world. These instruments of popular favor speak of war as the only means of government to be used upon every occasion to gratify spites, to punish indignities, or secure plunder. Unless this spirit be arrested promptly, our peace is imperilled and will be destroyed. 234 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. There is only one way to counteract this wicked spirit ; and that is, to give notice to the world that debts contracted in such an enterprize, bind no one and cannot be collected. If it be Avicked to engage in wars, it is also unjust to pay money to carry on wars ; but if it be unjust to carry on wars by ready money, how much more atrocious to carry them on by anticipating the credit of generations. It is the duty of all sincere peace men to make a demonstration against this usurpation ; and let it be un- derstood that no debt made on the interest of a war of premedi- tated plunder, can be enforced upon a free people, or be sanc- tioned by the friends of peace. There is an Equity, which, in all public affairs, looks to the pur- poses, the mode and the application of monies in the creation of debts, when debts have been created in fraud, for purposes of cor- ruption, and the parties issuing evidences of debt were jxirticeps criminis and beneficiaries, then the question goes back to the legislatures, which must levy taxes before they can be collected. The new legislature must be elected by the peoj^le. The people of no country hasten to pay debts known to be fradulent or un- just. Against the indiscriminate payment of no debt ever con- tracted, has there been so many conclusive arguments for utter repudiation as the debt now claimed by the foreign capitalists and domestic speculators, holding bonds and certificates of in- debtedness against the United States, as the basis of a perpetual system of gambling upon the labor and commerce of the country. The objectors and objections are susceptible of a clear and easy classification, and when carefully embodied, embrace all of the elements of good government. 1. Every consistent friend of peace must oppose the payment of the debt. If it be wrong to engage in a ■\var of unparalleled cruelty and horror, it cannot be right to compensate the worst participants in it ; men whose business is to inflame wars, to fatten upon the blood of the innocent, and hoard up the treasure gained by the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human beings, hurried into the presence of God without thought or preparation. \yiiat care these men — the brokers in immortal souls — for CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 235 the burning of cities, barns, mills, ensable to the transportation of the country. On the other liand, gold and silver have an intrinsic value, but when made into money they are absolutely necessary to tlie existence of commerce — they are both the creatures of law; each is made under the direction of, and supported by law. As the government taxes the people for the coining of money, so the people are taxed to keep up the highway, that no man dare obstruct it. And in every civilized country the circulation of money is most carefully guarded from obstruction. The interest which every man has in the unobstructed highway and the free circulation of a sound currency, is personal as well as public. If the highway be ob- structed, the necessary comforts and luxuries of life which are borne upon it, are clieaper or dearer, just as it is obstructed or free from obstruction. Precisely the same effect is produced in making it difficult to obtain the same articles by the obstruction of the circulation of money. Who will pretend that it is not the duty of the government, which builds the highway for the public at the public expense, to protect the pul)lic in the enjoyment of it against nuisances of every kind ? AVhat would be the public feeling if any man should presume, contrary to the law, to gather toll of travellers for his ov/n ]>crsonal use? But suppose some man should ob- struct the road permanently, that he might hire his own team to assist travellers to pass by his own house and thereby secure to himself enormous fees for his labor; would society tolerate it? Could any law give protection to such marauders? But money is no more than a highway. Like it, it is made by lav/ for the use of the people. Just as the obstruction of the public highway CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 291 aifects every traveler, so does tlie obstruction of the circulation of the currency of a country affect every man. But it especially affects the poor who are dependent on money to procure their daily bread, their raiment, their house-rent and their fuel. To obstruct the free circulation of money by usury, is a refined method of Political Economy for starving and enslaving the poorer classes, which they feel, as though it were positively done by law. But this state of things is induced by the prevalence of usury. Money serves the same purpose in the commercial world, which a public officer does in the administration of law. Money bears precisely the same relation to the commerce of the country which a Judge bears to the administration of justice The obstruction of justice by bribery is precisely the same kind of offence as the obstruction of commerce by usury. What would be the condition of the country when a Judge could be hired for the individual purposes of a man who chanced to have a suit in court? And what must be the commercial condition of the country when the medium of circulation is turned from its legiti- mate purposes by brokers, usurers and paper-shavers ? But how much more deplorable is the evil, when the currency is turned from the general purposes of business and is made subservient to the oppression of the poor, the affliction of the unfortunate, and the general ruin of the country ? Can any country long survive such enormous wrongs? The money of the country may be properly compared to the blood of the physical system, without which the limbs would be powerless. Any obstruction in the circulation of the blood seriously and dangerously affects the health, producing palsy in the limbs, or apoplexy in the brain. This indeed is a true picture of our country at the present time, which is paralyzed in all its extremities with festering corrup- tion, and apoplexy in all the great centres of trade. Just as blood is the lile of the man and a regulator of the health, and a distributor of vitality to every part of the system, so is money to commerce and business of every kind. Now wdien the same power is given by law to other property in commanding a posi- tive value in the payment of debts which is now given to gold .and silver coin for the same purpose, then may all usury laws cease to be a necessary protection against the dangerous power of 292 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. money, but not until then woultl it be just, or rio;ht, or good policy, or safe to repeal the usury laws of the country, or leave the immense power of money without any restraint. It will be conceded by every practical man, that money is a necessary medium of exchange, that its power as a measure of value is an essential element of the money itself. But since the power given it by the Government, as money, is the source of its own positive value, which, when unrestrained, becomes monstrous, it is the duty of the Government to remove every possible obstruction in their power to its free circulation, so that as the blood in the human body imparts life to all the ex- tremities, money, as a circulating medium, shall pass as a measure of exchange and value of commerce to every part of community, discharging its offices as the financial servant of the people in every department of business, imparting vitality to the commerce of the whole country. To effect tliis purpose it is necessary that the rate of interest be so regulated by law that it will be to the advantnge of all men not to retain money as a fluctuating commodity, but to use it as a standard measure of the value of other things Avhich they may purchase with it. What would, be the skill and science of the physician who would recommend a system of health based upon the theory that the vitality M'ould be as perfect when the blood is obstructed, and cannot circulate through the human body as Avhen it was unob- structed and free? But precisely such a political economist is he who recommends obstructions to the free circulation of money, by allowing enormous rates of interest, or what is the same, op- poses the arrest of the great wrong of usury. The money of the country is essential to tlie transaction of its business. No trade can be carried on without money. The mer- chant must have money to buy his goods, the manufacturer to pay his hands and to purchase the raw material, and ihe daily laborer to buy his daily bread. If they cannot obtain money, their business must stop at once. When the consumers cease to be employed and have not money, then must the farmer lose his market, and with that comes a gen- eral stagnation of legitimate business, and ruin follows in its CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 293 train everywhere^ since no business can be carried on without money. In sucli a state of things hard times necessarily ensue, just such times as are felt by the people everywhere; felt in every business ; felt by everybody except by those enemies of trade, the usurers, who exact an exorbitant interest, just in proportion as it becomes impossible to pay money at all. The next question which presents itself is, can the various classes who have no money, relieve themselves by applying to these brokers or usurers? To this we answer most positively, they cannot. There is no business in prosperous times that can be hone.^tly carried on by paying twenty-five per cent, on the capital invested. Nay, ten per cent, after duly requiting the laborer and not im- posing on the consumer, is a ruinous tariif. Indeed six per cent. is a very high interest in any legitimate business. If the busi- ness of a country be ruined, the laborer will go where he can find employment, the manufacturer where he can carry on his busi- ness with liealth and success ; the mechanic where the increase of population demands his labor and skill, or in other words, the whole producing power of the State removes from the place where the channels of commerce are obstructed by usury, to where the people are protected by laws from the power of money in the hands of the holders, just as ships or vessels leave the obstructed rivers or seas where pirates roam at large, for seas whose waters are unobstructed, and on whose waves they may safely sail with- out hindrance. The vast emigration from the country cannot fail to affect the Southern States in its numerical strength, military force, and i)ro- ductive capacity. We might amplify our illustrations, were it necessary. A prostrate State with languishing business, ruined trade, and a population Avho are offering their homesteads for sale, while thousands are actually abandoning the farms on which they first settled, in consequence of the paralyzed condition of every kind of business, attest the truth of all that has been set forth. The specific cause will be carefully examined in another place. One of the great objections to all usurious contracts, is that the parties to such contracts do not meet upon an equality as in the transaction of other business. 294 CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. The most ready method of determining the question whether they do meet upon terms of equality, is to consider who are the borrowers of money. Who are the borrowers of money? Men who, if they had the means, would gladly pay their debts, but who cannot sell their farms, or even their homesteads for money, for the money is in the hands of men who propose to use it only as an instrument of oppression to grind the faces of the poor ; men who choose to buy other men's farms at public sale at a discount of seventy- five per cent, upon the recognized market value. These usurers having by mortgages and in other ways involved a very large proportion of the whole people in their meshes, have no disposi- tion to pay a fair and honest value for property when they can so readily sacrifice it, gain possession of it, hold the obligation of their victim — and hold him a slave for life ; or until the debt is paid, cause him to be annoyed by duns, notices and executions through usury, long after the original debt has been discharged. There is one class of borrowers who would, if possible, relieve themselves from the toils of other usurers, but in doing this, find themselves only changing their oppressors, — relentless masters. Do tliese men meet as equals in the transactions of their busi- ness? Is not the borrower in duress and at the will of the len- der? Indeed, the usurer will boastingly say of his victim: "It was tlie best he could do ; he had to do this or do worse." Another class of borrowers are suggested in this connection; men who were sufferers in a general calamity — who were des- titute in a wide-spread famine; farmers who had no wheat with which to seed their lands, nor money left to buy it. These men call upon brokers to borrow money to buy seed-grain — the loan to be paid after harvest. The farmer must have seed-wheat or lose his summer's work and thus rob his family of their bread; and the broker, knowing the necessity of the farmer, takes advantage of it and loans him money at the very higiiest usury rates, in times of great financial distress. Were the parties in this transaction on an equality as contrac- tors? Was there no power of the oppressor here but what the oppressed could resist ? To all this the usurer, with unusual blaud- ncss, replies : " It is far better that the man should get his seed- CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 295 grain than to let his farm be idle and his family suffer from in- creasing want." All this may be true, but it is a fearful revelation of the utter destitution of moral principle in the bosom of the broker. Like all other men who live by plunder, he limits his right to exact only by the capacity of his victim to endure. He would sell him as a slave, or take his life, could he thus secure his usury, but for the interposition of the law. And he will continue to perpetrate this robbery until the same law which protects his liberty and his life, interferes to protect his property. But among otlier borrowers, are men thrown out of employ- ment who are unable to earn their daily bread. The money- holder will not bring under cultivation his wild land to give employment to the laborer. That would take money. He will not build houses, for that would reduce his capital. He will do nothing that employs labor for himself, or that will employ his money in legitimate trade or divert it from the channels of usury ; nor can any one else borrow it at these ruinous rates, to engage in any legitimate business which would give employment to laborers, artists or mechanics. To carry on a business under such circumstances, would be ruinous in the extreme. The re- sult is, the laboring man remains idle; his family must suffer from pinching want, and to get his daily bread, he nuisfc mort- gage his homestead or ^starve, beg, or steal. He has no other alternative. Again, the usurer who is "the mildest-mannered mnn that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat," will loan him money to buy his bread with real-estate for security, and with the most ])erfect sang froid say, '' I -pity the poor fellow; it was tlie very best thing; that he could do — and I accommodated him." Are the parties to the contract equal here? Is the borrower on a level with the lender? And how else than by a strict and penal usury, can the evil apparent be arrested ? AVliether is it better for the State to protect the industrious, who produce everything, from Avant or crime, or to protect usurers who pro- duce nothing, in the commission of the greatest crime known to political economy, the prostration of legitimate business, des- truction of the means of an honest subsistence — the poor pit- tance left to tiie laboring classes. 296 CHIMES OP THE CIVIL WAR, There is another class of borrowers who, it is thought, ought to be more heavily taxed ; they are men to loan to whom it is dangerous, and because it is a great risk to loan to thern, we are told " that to exact usury of them, is right." The true theory iu tliis class of loans is this: The whole is a species of gambling which would not exist but for the extor- tion of usury tolerated by law. All civilized nations legislate against gambling, betting uj^on elections, the sale of lottery tickets, and all other gaming. AVhy, then, should we legislate against all bets or risks at stakes of money, and refuse to sup- press usury — the only argument for which is, that it may, when duly used, earn money from reckless speculators. If there were no other argument for the passage of usury laws, this one would be sufficient. Usury is made a pretext for reckless speculation and public gambling. It is frequently urged that sjjeculators borrow money, and are under obligation to pay usury, and the money loaner has a right to exact usury of him, because he is a speculator. The argument is badly founded, — for if usury be given by speculators, borrowers to pay debts will certainly not be able to get money at less rates, and, as a consequence, what is defended as a just punishment to adventurers, is only a badly-conceived defence of stock or other gambling, which falls with its full force upon the whole country, and most severely upon the productive class, beyond whose reach money is always placed in times of general distress. This very borrowing of money by speculators at ruinous rates, makes money so scarce at a fair commercial interest — diverting it from its legitimate purposes, so as to make it impossible that debtors can borrow it to pay their legitimate debts. The business of the country in the very nature of things, must be carried on by the laborer of the operatives, and the net profits must be distributed among the capitalists, the conductors of the manufactory and the daily laborer. If enormous profits are made, the consumer must pay them. But competition in a very short time, usually regulates any serious evil which may arise from this cause, and nothing -which is generally recognized as an article of commerce or trade, or which may be increased by the CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 297 option of public industry, cau long remain the subject matter of monopoly. But, in the division of the net profits, the first claim that will be met is that of the capitalists, which is always secured by mortgage deeds of trusts, voluntary confessions of judgment, personal qr collateral securities of such character as makes the interest of the capitalist not only secure, but convertible into cash at pleasure, unless it be in times of extraordinary pressure The capitalist is well secured in his investment, when the nominal owner who has the remaining control of the effects and assets will, of course, secure to himself a lion's share of the net profits, and, as in every other contest between lalor and capital, labor has to yield an obedient neck to the yoke capital places upon her by the unfair legislation of the country. The operative has only one or other of these alternatives. He must either take the pittance which may be left after the division of the profits between the capitalist and the controller of his capital, or be driven from an honest employment to the destitute home of a hungry family who are dependent on his labor. Now, what in honesty and justice should be done to a fair dis- tribution of the profits of the manufactory ? Should not the laborer be first rewarded for his work; next the chief operator who takes supervision of the establishment ; and then, if anything be left, let it be given to the capital which neither toils nor spins. If capital refuses to contribute by its aid to the general vv'ork because it cannot enslave the laborer, then ought restrictions to be duly thrown around it to prevent money which was made for the public use from becoming an instrument of public oppres- sion ? This is thought to be an unanswerable argument against the enactment of all usury laws. BOTH PARTIES CONSENT TO THE USURIOUS BARGAIN. This would be no argument worthy of weight, even if it were true. That two criminals consent to a wrong in which one is a sufferer, is not a valid consent for the very highest of reasons, that the public good is involved and the public Government is interested in the protection of all her citizens in life, liberty and 298 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. property. For this reason homestead exemption laws have been, passed, not merely for the specific protection of an individual, but for the protection of society itself against the aggressions of greedy and unscrupulous men who would utterly impoverish their fellow men only, that they may send them as mendicants to be supported at public expense. • For the same cause, also, laws are made against all crime, that the public may thereby be protected against bankruptcy and the people from pauperism. Adultery certainly is a crime, though both parties consent to its commission. And the law makes it punishable for the reason that society becomes the sufferer, since it has to make provision for the support of bastard children, for which pure citizens are taxed. Society has a higher claim in the vindication of her own character from scandal, which, if permitted, would degrade the morals and utterly bankrupt the public. It is of very little consequence that two criminals conspire against the peace, order and dignity of the State, and plead in justification of their guilt that they both consented, since it is their very consent that con- stitutes the essence or animus of their crime. So gambling of every kind is done by the consent of both parties. But here, very properly, tlie law interferes to arrest the crime and punish it;, for society itself is invaded, since in every instance of gain by one party and loss by the other, the relative ability of the loser to provide for himself and family is injured if not destroyed, and the chance that he will become a public charge is greatly augmented. What would a community of gamblers be but a community of paupers, sooner or later, to be supported by the public wealth drawn from the sweat of the faces of the producing or laboring classes ? But does this consent make the matter less a crime against the peace and honor of society ? or that even a majority agree to corrupt the fountains of morals, and grind w^ith taxes the only men who contribute to its real wealth, does this make the injury less ? In this case as in all others, it is the consent which constitutes the crime, and makes its less equivocal and more dajjgerous, be- cause more poM'erful. Duelling is done by consent of both parties. The mere consent CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 299 of tv/0 men to commit a murder, is not a good reason for the permission of the crime, when the very essence of murder is that it M'iis done premeditatedly. Society does not choose to grant an immunity to men who cast a fearful ghiom upon her destiny, and have nothing to offer in palliation of their crimes, except impudent defiance of all law and audacious contempt for tiie rights of peaceable communities. Usury is done by the consent of both parties. But is that a reason why men should commit a great w'rong on society, ob- structing the business, labor and commerce of the country by gambling in the currency ? The consent of the parties only ag- gravates the crime of voluntarily disregarding the majesty of the law. We will now examine the question — Who are the parties consenting f Are they the same as the jjarties really interested in the illegal ti-ansaction ? They are not. The country is the first and a paramount party in all transactions affecting her own honor. The first great duty, and obligation, and debt due from every citizen is to the State, and without a proper regard to this obligation, there can be no law, no country, no society, no order no security. Has tiie State given her consent to any of the crimes to M'hich we have alluded ? Has she not prohibited them by positive law ? And can any man be said to give his consent to a transaction which, as a law-abiding citizen, he lias bound him- self not to do? The country has not consented to the crime of usury, and the laws of all civilized nations prohibit it. Every man's creditor, and his creditor and family, are bona fide parties to every transaction which in any wise may affect Jiis property and its products until their debts are liquidated. But do the creditors of men, as parties to the transactions of usury, give their consent to the ])ayment of usury to others, while the principal part of their honest debts remains unjiaid ? Surely su(;h consent not, to anything connected with the crime of usury. But the Almightij jtist, icisc, and good Creator, has made other parties to nearly every transaction of this kind. By His \V\&e providence, it is the imperious duty of all men to support their parents in old ago, to maintain their children in helpless infliiicy, to i)rotect and defend, to educate and enlighten them, to justly share their 300 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WxVE. earnings and their interests with their Avives; and all of these parties have an indefeasible interest in the moral character and good name of the child, the father, the husband; therefore, the crimes of usury, duelling, gambling, adultery, are held by the general consent of these intensely interested parties, as detestable crimes. Who, then, are the parties in usurious contracts ? They are the State, the creditors and the families of the victims of usury. But tliese jjartics never give their consent, and consequently, the argument of consent between the parties in usury falls to the ground. Even if they did give their consent, that fact would be of no force, since no law can exonerate criminals from guilt, simply because they consented to commit crime. CONSIDEEATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE BORROWERS — MEN WHO ARE FORCED TO PAY USURY. The great body of borrowers are already debtors ; men who are the victims of a general calamity, a financial crisis which is brought about by financial gambling, and at the Avill of the bro- kers, bankers, capitalists; — men who always liave the law of the country made to their order; or who, if the laws are not in con- formity with their purposes, through the power of money, bid defiance to all law, as tiiey have in tlieir very business stifled all conviction of the right of other men and retributive justice. Once the victim of such a crisis, honest poor men, who scorn to assign their property or make a fraudulent conveyance, borrow money to pay their honest debts. But in their refusal to borrow money, and in their determination to do right, they fall victims to men who despise right, and under the cover of law, commit every outrage upon the rights of property and human nature. But if the creditor be dishonest, tlien comes premature assign- ments, delays in the payment of debts, and general failures that are felt through the avenues of business and travle ; or fraudulent conveyances, or surreptitious business transactions that demoralize society at its foundation. If there were no other reasons for the enactment of the usury laws than the protection of men who become victims of this ne- cessity, that would of itself be sufficient to carry out the great CEIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 301 first purpose of government in the protection of the weak from the aoo-ressions of the strong. Such borrowers are involuntary. The second class of borrowers — business men, upon whose success the employment and subsistence of the poorer classes are dependent. A system of heavy interest, or usury, cither drives them out of business and crushes out the laborers employed by tliom, — or if they continue in business, paying usury, they are overwhelmed in a hopeless bankruptcy sooner or later: the sooner the better. The third class of borrowers are speculators or sub-brokers, who take special contracts of hunting up men in distress, and do a more base, heartless, grinding business in a lower way than their principals. Still, Mr. Say and Eev. Dr. Wayland speak of " supply and demand as regulating the whole matter, and that injustice is done to no one." But wliat are the facts ? These borrowers increase the rate of interest and increase the demand for money, and with that increase, the oppression of the debtor by the creditor ; and just as in every other case, the hard- ship falls with crushing weight upon the helpless and unpro- tected. Indeed, the price paid by the usurer for money to com- mit usury with, places money for the time being out of the reach of the oppressed debtor, and makes it impossible to carry on his legitimate business, and destroys the vitality of commerce and business of every kind; — nor is there any greater fallacy than that the speculator has to pay the usury ? The speculator makes the poor man pay it in his advanced prices, on M^hat he sells, but more generally the whole have to suffer together; — the loaner, the speculator and the thousands who deal with them, are all in- volved in a general bankruptcy. The other side of usury is just about as fairly presented by giving THE CHAEACTER OF USURY AS DEVELOPED IN HIS HABITS OF CONDUCTINa HIS BUSINESS. All his business is done in the very teeth of the law, in viola- tion of the peace, policy and statute of the State. A good man may, in the moment of excitement, commit an act of indiscre- tion and violate a law, but he will always hasten to repair it. 302 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. But tlie usurer violates the laws of the country in every single transaction of his trade, and his office sets precisely the same example of obedience to the public law as does the saloon of the professional gambler to whose vocation it is so nearly allied ; or as does the keeper of the grog-shop, who, like himself, prospers only as his customers sink to ruin. Every transaction of the broker's shop is a falsehood, and car- ries a deceit upon its face. His papers assert a lie in the amount borrowed ; they cover up a truth in the amount falsely wrung from his victim. When they sue in the Courts of Chancery, they institute their suits by perjury, and make the courts of jus- tice subservient to their crime. They don't pretend to collect their debts by the ordinary method. Every debt in default is a suit in court. Every misfortune Avhich may disable their victim from prompt payment, is followed by an execution. What is now the condition of the country ? What is it that fills every advertisement column of the newspapers ? The sheriff's sales-list: the executed property of victims of brokers' shops. What business chiefly engages the courts that are now busy be- yond all precedent? The answer is, to collect usurious debts. The usurer only loans to men in necessity : other men avoid him, as they dread the pestilential breath of bankruptcy; robbery and ruin. He loans to the unfortunate for the obvious reason, that other men could save themselves from his deadly grasp. Upon the other hand, the usurer could hope for nothing but in the necessity and ignorance of the unfortunate, which are his great staple in trade. Like a sea-vulture that scents the foeted breath of the dying sailor, and follows the vessel until his body has been cast into its watery tomb, only to be devoured by the hungry monster, so the usurer instinctively learns the unhealthy condition of the community, and follows his devoted victim until the last hope of recovery has passed away, only to consume his substance and devour his property. He is unmoved, though living by the violation of all law and trampling upon all justice. He has no sympathy with any one. He lives upon the necessities of men. He would save a drown- ing man if he could fix a paying price, or drive a good bargain CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 303 with the man before he sunk. Such is the usurer and such are the men upon whom he preys. And it is but an act of justice to him to say that he is sometimes a worshipper in the temple of 'God. But this is only the finisliing stroke of a deceit which scruples not to approach the Deity and invite him to become a pai'ticeps criminis in a hypocricy which invades the very holy of holies of heaven itself. He, too, is found giving alms in public, just as incendiaries hastening to accomplish the destruction of their victims by the knife, poison the food that there may be no escape. So this venal creature of corruption assails the altar of sacrifice, and with his filthy lucre, attempts to poison the watchmen upon the outer walls of the Temple of Truth, that he might thrust his hidden poignard to the heart of Christianity, and over its mangled remains grind the faces of the poor, until by common consent, robbery is made reputable in the Church of God. THE JEWISH LAW ON USURY. The Jewish law forbade all interest, usury or increase what- ever, either upon money, grain, any of the necessaries of life, or any other commodity. This great principle had its foundation in the true philosophy of all equal and just government, that every man shall pro- duce an amount equal at least to what he consumes. The settled maxim of Jewish law was this : " He that does not work, shall not eat." This maxim was just and right. It guaranteed to the people at large equality, and to every man justice. Every one lived upon his labor. No man lived upon his capital in his money, by taking usury of his brother. His only hope of success in business was based upon carefully husbanding and appropriating his means to such useful purposes in agriculture and the arts, &c., as gaVe him due compensation for his labor and ingenuity. The Jewish law was founded upon this great pillar of eternal justice : " Whatever ye would that men should do unto you, even do ye unto them." Such a law could not well tolerate such a system as usury, which makes labor entirely subservient to 304 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. capital, and subsidizes industry for the benefit and support of idleness and crime. The language of the law is alike explicit, clear, and in exact harnaony with the true spirit of justice and benevolence which was breathed thi'ough the whole Jewish system. "If thou lend money to any of ray people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down." — Exodus, 22d chajncr, 25th and 26th verses. " If thy brother be waxen poor and fallen into decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him. Yea, though he be a stran- ger or a sojourner, that he may live with the&, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." — Lev. 16th chap., 55-37 verses. " Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, upon usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything which is lent upon usury. Unto a stranger thou mayst lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to, in the land whither thou goest to possess it." The Jewish people were for the most part engaged in agricul- tural pursuits ; and by the law every man had his allotted posi- tion. It was the purpose of the law to suifer no man to be idle, to foster no idleness, to engender no crime ; for idleness begets crime, and is inseparable from it. The equality of her people was the glory of her government, and the bulwark of her strength. This equality could only be maintained in the spirit of justice, by allotting to every man the fruits of his own labor, and allow- ing no man to live upon the labor of others, and appropriating the surplus, whatever it mig^it be, of the aggregate labor of the whole peojjle, to the support of the infirm and unfortunate. But where every man labors, there Avould be but few infirm; where there was no speculation, there were scarcely any unfortu- nate in business. The policy of the Jews was to allow to each other in dealing or loaning money no increase or usury, CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 305 Avhich was with them convertible terms, for the reasons indica- ted in the foregoing. Indeed, there was a still higher rnle, the great principle upon which the whole Jewish law is founded. " To love thy neighbor as thyself." This law could never be carried out, either in the letter or in the spirit, where usury in any sense had the countenance of law, or the sanction of public sentiment. But the Jev\'s did loan on usury to neighboring nations, which, though no better in morals, was a very adroit stroke in political economy. By sending their money abroad to labor they could ruin the Canaanites and soon gain all of their property, which in a very short time, by very moderate rates of interest, would ex- haust the principal in usury and leave those nations bankrupt. Capital invited into the State to make us rich on such a disinterested errand, could not be expected to come unblessed with the kind wishes and benediction of that most benevolent and charitable class of public benefactors — the usurer. AVith the invitation of the law and the gospel, the legislator and the minister, with the approving smile of the Christian, and the constituent, the philanthropic broker from the far-off East, went to work to make money for the Western people after this Avise. He bought up depreciated and worthless railroad bonds, and other equally valuable stocks, upon which brokers, gamblers, or blacklegs play poker on stakes of counterfeit money. This they called a basis of banking. They bought beautiful fine paper, and drew pictures of superannuated politicians upon it, and called it money. This money v/as sent to accommodate the people. There were a million of dollars sent to assist in im- proving the country, at the moderate rate of twenty-five per centum per annum. These millions of dollars were loaned on very reasonable security. They only asked of the people two or three endorsers beside the borrower ; and only about five times the amount mortgaged, and then gave them at least three weeks beyond the maturity of their deed of trust, to raise the money ; and then if the money was not raised, they would only buy in the property for at least half the amount of the debt and wait for the balance until the debtor could earn it. Their million of Eastern capital which came to labor for four years 20 306 CEIMES OP THE CIVIL WAE. found already a million of circulating medium. But neither their million nor our million, begat another dollar at the end of the four years. The interest of their million at twenty-five per cent., was just another million, so their million having done its errand very gracefully, bowed to the people, taking the other million to pay the usury, leaving us without a currency of any kind. Then steps in another equally friendly class of public benefactors, to sell the mortgaged property of the country — all simply because usury lowered the rates of interest. Never was sagacity more highly honored than that of the Jews, who would suffer no increase to be taken of each other; for thereby they prevented general poverty and consequent crime. Nor was ever ruin to a neighboring nation more certainly effected than in the exactions of usury by the Jews, in their loaning of money to the Canaanites. And after the improvement in arts and science for many centuries, and the regulations of Jewish law in political economy, there can be offered no amendment which will command the approving judgment of future ages, or which will not be ultimately discarded by statesmen, as a ruinous innovation of reckless adventurers in the science of government. The wrongs endured by labor at the hands of capital, cannot be more graphically pictured than has been done by the hand of desolation at the present time. Behold thousands of field-hands who have spent the past summer in raising millions of bushels of grain with their own hands, on soil given to mankind in common by the Almighty, when winter comes, are refused enough of bread to sustain them, and can find no employment by which to secure money enough to purchase the necessaries of life, to save their families from famine, and are compelled to j^ay usury on money, and mortgage their homesteads to secure the payment, as the mild alternative ! Is not this a fearful com- mentary upon the justice of the world, that from the cradle to the grave, the poor, who produce the wealth of the country, are to a great extent, denied the luxuries, the comforts, and almost the essentials of living, while the rich revel in the excesses of the products of the labor of the poor ? It is in the contract of the organization of society, that justice shall be done to each, and protection shall be afforded to all. But without usury laws CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAIt. 307 this cannot be done. The difference of tlie power of money over every other article of trade, is almost as great as that of capital over labor. Every other kind of property is taxed up to its full value, and is made to bear more than its share of the expenses in the wars and improvements of the country, while under no circumstances can it yield the profits of money, even at 6 per cent, per annum. THE EFFECTS OF USURY ON TRADE. The real cliaracter of usury, and its effects upon trade, are concisely and powerfully presented in the statute of Anne, enacted in 1714 : " Whereas the reducing of interest to ten, and from thence to eight, and thence to six in the hundred, has, by experience, been found very beneficial to trade, and improvement of lands ; and whereas the heavy burden of the late long and expensive war hath been chieiiy borne by the owners of the land of this king- dom, by reason whereof they have been necessitated to contract very large debts, and thereby, and by the abatement in the value of their lands, are l)ecome greatly impoverished ; and whereas, by reason of the great interest and profit of money made at home, the foreign trade has been neglected," &c. This statute has been vindicated by the judgment, wisdom, and experience of the British government, for nearly a century and a half, and the reasons are as good to-day as they were then, and are as true in America as they are in Europe. That no injustice may be done to any one, it may be suggested that no other capital than money, though productive and gener- ative, can make such vast profits as money loaned at 6 per cent, interest. Though money is really unproductive, and yields no- thing; yet it is like the spade or the plough, which does no- thing excepting only as it is directed by the hand of the laborer. This accompanying statement shows how impossible it is to pay usury, although it may be contracted, and the impossibility to pay it, is a conclusive reason why usury should not be tolera- ted as a matter of civil contract. An eminent statist of Boston has taken the pains to show what would be the effect of different rates of interest upon money 308 CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAR. in Massachusetts, for a term of 40 years, a period proportioned to the being of a State. He takes : Loans and discounts of Banks in Massachusetts, Dec. 4, 1851 $93,000,000 Interest thereon, 40 years — interest taken in ad- vance every six months, and added to principal, at 6 per cent, per annum 1,063,455,000 do. do. at 7 per cent per annum, 1,607,970,000 Difference between 6 and 7 per cent. 40 years... $544,515,000 Nearly the valuation of the whole State of Mas- sachusetts in 1850, which was $508,000,634 Interest on $93,000,000, 40 years, at 8 per cent. 2,436,600,000 do. do. do. atGpercent 1,063,455,000 Diiference between 6 and 8 per cent. 40 years... $1,373,145,000 Valuation of Massachusetts deducted 598,000,634 Difference between G and 8 per cent. 40 years — more than value of Mass. in 1850 $775,144,366 THE GREAT OUTRAGE PERPETRATED IN ALLOAVING BANKS TO TAKE USURY. It is true that we have a usury law for banks as -well as for individuals. They have the right to issue notes far beyond their present capacity to redeem. But if individuals are suffered by law to take twenty-five or thirty-six per cent, usury, why not arant to banks the same privilege? They, however, do take this privilege. In the loan of $1,000 for thirty days, the nomi- nal interest is ten per cent. But gentlemen like these are not to be outwitted, for after taking out the interest of the note, and thus paying ten per cent, on money never received, the borrower has to take money on New York at 1| discount, or more, as the case may be, and when he has paid the exchange and interest, he finds the amount is at least twenty-five per cent, per annum ; thus making three dollars for every dollar of capital nominally invested. CRIMES OF THE CIVIL WAE. 309 This precious privilege of loaning credit, or promises to pay, i? peculiar to chartered institutions. But they receive their power to make money from the law, and after hiding under its shelter and receiving its protection, these gentlemen of the banks will complain that it is a great wrong done them that they are not allowed by law to loan at any rate in their discretion, and it is very difficult to give any good reason why banks should not take usury just as other persons do. But the whole is evidence conclusive of the destructive policy of allowing either banks or individuals to obstruct the business of the country in that way. ON THE SCARCITY OF MONEY. Another of the fallacies which deludes the public mind, but which iias no support in either experience or common sense, is that the interest of money ought to be high or low as money is scarce or plenty. If it be true that money is scarce, its scarcity is only relative, and is in proportion to the debts which are to be paid by it. If the debts of a country are heavy and the cur- rency is inadequate to its ready payment, then is usury intoler- able ; for all usury only increases the debt which is already too large to be liquidated, by the existing amount of money. The result is, that usury in hard times inevitably bankrupts men who, in better times, might endure its pressure for a time, but now are crushed and destroyed by its force. The reason there is a scarcity of money is this: The brokers have money to loan when the farmers have nothing to sell, and the mechanic can find no market fur his labor, nor the merchant for his merchan- dise. They are in the greatest need of money, and the broker 2;ives out that it is scarce, and he loans at ruinous rates until his stock is exliausted ; he then calls in the aid of his old friend, the banker, who can accommodate to the fullest extent of his demand ; or if he should need further help, he calls on his finan- cial a