T II E CHARACTER OF THE REBELLION, AND THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. By JOEL PARKER. CAMBRIDGE: WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 1 8 G 2. v /^<2 C THE REBELLION AND THE WAR. [From the North American Review, for October, 1862.] 1. An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the Compact entitled " The Constitution of the United States of America" passed unanimously at 1.15 o'clock, P. M., December 20, 1860. Charleston Mercury Extra. 2. Message of President Davis. National Intelligencer, May 7, 1861. 3. Speech of Hon. J. A. McDougall, of California, on the Confiscation of Property, delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 12, 1862. Washington. 1862. 4. The Prayer of Twenty Millions. Letter from Horace Greeley to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. New York Tribune, August 20, 1862. 5. Letter from President Lincoln to Horace Greeley. New York Tribune, August 23, 1862. We have placed the title of the Ordinance of Secession by the Convention of South Carolina at the head of this article, not only because it was the first in time, but also because it shows the form and manner in which it has been supposed that secession was to be accomplished. For this last reason, as it is very brief, we copy it entire, in these words, to wit : — " We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assem- bled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, — " That the ordinance ordained by us in convention on the 23d day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed ; and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States under the name of ' The United States of America ' is hereby dissolved." It will be observed that it appears as a simple repeal, or attempt to repeal, the ordinance by which the people of the State adopted the Constitution of the United States, thereby uniting with the people of the other States in the establish- ment of a general government over the whole. This attempt to repeal an act which is in its very nature irrepealable has been followed substantially in the other seceding States, with such difference of formula as the difference of circumstances under which they entered into the Union required. We shall have occasion to note hereafter, on the supposition that the repeal could be legally and constitutionally operative, that some of the important incidents and consequences which have been claimed as attaching to it are but mere unjust demands and exactions upon the United States. That part of the Message of Jefferson Davis to the Confed- erate Congress which relates to, and endeavors to explain and assert the legal validity of, the so-called right of secession, we reviewed, in an article on that subject, in 6ur number for April, 1861. We recur to the Message for the purpose of examining the reasons which are supposed to justify the actual secession, arising from wrongs and grievances on the part of the United States prior thereto. Those reasons are set forth at large in an extract from the document in the article just mentioned. This Message to the Confederate Congress was designed to sum up in plausible phraseology the particulars * of the several bills of indictment which the seceding States deemed themselves authorized to prefer against the United States ; and a reference to these specifications is sufficient, therefore, to show the character of the rebellion in its incep- tion, as set forth by its own leaders. The allegations against the Northern States and the people of those States seem to resolve themselves into five particulars : — 1. The rise and growth in the Northern States of a polit- ical school which has persistently claimed that the government formed by the Constitution was not a compact between States, to secure the blessings of liberty and independence against foreign aggression, but was in effect a national government set up above and over the States. 2. The imposition of burdens on commerce, as a protection to the manufacturing and shipping interests of the North. 3. The assertion at the North, as an undeniable axiom, that the theory of the Constitution requires that in all cases the majority shall govern. 4. A persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States. 5. The organization of a great party for the purpose of ob- taining the administration of the government, with the avowed object of using its power for the total exclusion of the Slave States from all participation in the benefits of the public do- main, and of surrounding them entirely by States in which slavery should be prohibited ; and the success of the party, thus organized, in the election of its candidate for the Presi- dency. It is to be remarked, that much of the matter of grievance consists of speeches, of dogmas, and of laws relating to persons claimed as fugitive slaves which were never executed, and that little of actual injury is set forth, unless it be found in the election of President Lincoln, who was not the Southern 6 candidate. This recital of Southern grievances and wrongs, in the official Message to the Confederate Congress, cuts a very sorry figure by the side of " the glittering generalities of the Declaration of Independence." The first and third of these charges may be disposed of in a few sentences. How far the organization of the government had other objects than that of securing the people against foreign aggression, may readily be seen by referring to those parts of the Constitution which grant powers to Congress, and prohibit action by the States in certain cases. These parts show very conclusively that the attempt of Mr. Davis to represent the government of the United States as one created solely, or mainly, " to secure the blessings of liberty and independence against foreign aggression," is a gross mis- representation. To this it may be added, that the notion of a national government, which is charged upon a political school of the Northern States, has been equally the notion of many learned, wise, and popular men in the Southern States. Edmund Randolph, one of the deputies of Virginia, laid be- fore the Convention which framed the Constitution sundry propositions " concerning the American Confederation and the establishment of a national government," May 29th, 1787, in the form of resolutions. These resolutions provide for the establishment of a " national legislature," " a national executive," and " a national judiciary." The principles of these resolutions entered very largely into the construction of the Constitution as subsequently adopted. We are not aware that the democratic dogma, that the ma- jority of the people must govern in a republic, was more universally accepted at the North than at the South, until it appeared from the increase of population that the North would soon not only have such majority, but perhaps would be disposed to apply the principle. From the time it became probable that the South would lose the ascendency which had long been enjoyed, — partly by means of the representation based upon their slaves, and partly by the co-operation of the Democratic party at the North, — the dogma that the majority of the people had the right to rule became very distasteful to the leading Southern politicians ; but we must admit our sur- prise to see this gravely put forth as one of the grievances which in a republican government requires revolution or secession. The second, fourth, and fifth specifications of grievance in Mr. Davis's Message — to wit, the protection to manufactures and the opposition to slavery — require a more extended notice. Whoever attempts to judge respecting the merits or demerits of the rebellion, must not commence his investigation at the election of Mr. Lincoln ; nor at the passage of any tariff law, even as far back as that of 1824 ; nor at the agitation of Garrison and his compeers, Foster, Pillsbury, the Abbys Kelly and Folsom, and Wendell Phillips, respecting slavery; nor at the passage of Personal-Liberty Laws in several of the States ; nor at the recent opposition to the extension of slavery into the Territories ; nor even at the struggle against the ad- mission of new States without a prohibition of slavery therein, as in the case of Missouri, in 1819 and 1820. The founda- tion of the present controversy between the Southern and the Northern people dates farther back than all these. How the imposition of burdens on commerce would protect any shipping interest, the writer of the Message does not ex- plain; but we let that pass. The gravamen of the whole charge respecting protective duties is founded on the most gross misrepresentation. The protective policy had its origin with the South, and the Northern people adopted it only when their industry had been driven into channels which required it. That they have since been in favor of it furnishes no just ground of complaint against them. For a long period after the Revolution, the people of the North were mostly agricul- 8 turists, except upon the seaboard, where there were shipping interests of great magnitude. There were extensive household manufactures of cotton and wool, mainly for home consumption. The first protec- tive duty was a specific duty of three cents a pound on cot- ton, to encourage the production of that article in South Carolina and Georgia, and this burden was borne by the manufacturers and consumers of the North. The embargo, which struck almost a death-blow to the shipping interest of New England, was a Southern rather than a Northern meas- ure. The protective tariff of 1816 was Mr. Calhoun's tariff, passed by Southern votes, — justified, we admit, to some ex- tent, in order to preserve large manufacturing interests which had grown up during the war. When it was found that the Northern people, accommodating their industry to the state of things which had been forced upon them, were deriving a greater benefit from manufactures than the South, slave labor being ill adapted to that branch of industry, a change came over the spirit of the Southern dream, and a protective tariff was found to be a Northern invention, and a great political grievance. It is not wonderful that the North, which had been obliged to change the course of its industry by reason of non-intercourse, embargo, and war, should not have been ready to change back again, to the destruction of the interests which had been brought into existence and fostered by those measures. The amount of the losses of slaves occasioned by all the Personal-Liberty Laws of the States, and all the efforts of " Lib- erators " and " Heralds of Freedom," and of Abolitionists in Congress and elsewhere, up to the time of this present war- fare, will not begin to compare with the pecuniary losses of the Northern States, at different times, in their navigation and their manufacturing interests, occasioned by Southern measures and Southern votes. 9 The alleged inequality of the tariff is not admitted. The South has, as we believe, had as great a measure of protection for all products which by reason of foreign competition re- quired it, as the North. Supposing, however, that an inequal- ity has existed, by reason of which the South has paid a greater share of duties than the North, there has been no injustice, because the revenue of the country is derived mainly from the duties imposed on importations, instead of direct taxation, from which source it was originally expected that the revenue would be derived, and of which the Slave States were by agreement to pay an unequal proportion, on account of their unequal representation in Congress. No tariff can operate with perfect equality. Taxation in any form never does so. If the relative proportion paid by the Slave States in the shape of duties, and of increase of price in consequence of duties, is not greater than the relative proportion of those States would be if the revenue were raised by direct taxation, under an apportionment of that taxation which should em- brace three fifths of their slaves, according to the provision of the Constitution, — and the revenue raised by the duties is graduated by the wants of the government for its annual ex- penditure, as has been the design that it should be for many years past, — then we say that those States have no just cause of complaint on that score. We shall see this more clearly as we proceed. It certainly cannot be shown, that, of all the du- ties, the Slave States have borne as large a share as they must have paid of direct taxes had the revenue been raised in that manner. It must be borne in mind, that the duties assessed on importations are often borne by the producer, and not by the consumer. A memorable instance of this may be found in the duty on molasses, imposed by the tariff of 1828, which was inserted in the bill by Southern votes, because it was supposed it would make the bill so distasteful to the North as to defeat it. The North took it, " drugged as it was," and the price 2 10 was not materially increased. The tariff of 1842 discarded to a great extent protective duties, and they have hardly been heard of as a cause of complaint for several years, a better subject for agitation having been found in slavery. The origin of the difficulties which have resulted in the attempted secession is to be sought as far back as the adoption of the Constitution itself, and perhaps earlier. The question arose in the Congress of the Revolution, how the quota which each State ought to furnish toward the expenses of the war should be determined. It was at first agreed that apportion- ment should be made according to a valuation of property. But only one State — New Hampshire — furnished a valua- tion. Then it was suggested that the number of persons in each State might be taken as the basis. But delegates from Slave States immediately objected that slaves ought not to be included in the enumeration, because slaves did not produce as much as freemen. There was great debate upon the subject, which resulted in a compromise, by which three fifths of the number of slaves were to be added to the num- ber of free persons. In the Convention which framed the Constitution, the sub- ject of revenue, which it was then believed, as we have already suggested, would be raised mainly by direct taxa- tion, brought up the same question respecting the basis of apportionment. As before, there was an attempt to escape from an apportionment which should embrace slaves in the enumeration of persons. This resulted in another com- promise, by which three fifths of the number of slaves were to be included in the enumeration of persons for the pur- pose of apportioning the taxes among the several States, and the Slave States were to be entitled to a representation upon the same basis, — the provision in the Constitution upon these subjects being in these words : " Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States 11 which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons." The principle of the Revo- lution, that taxation and representation ought to go together, was exemplified in this compromise. On this basis, the Slave States have had the benefit of a representation founded upon the number of their slaves, constantly increasing, until, ac- cording to the census of 1850, it actually amounted to twenty- one members, the slaves, however, having no vote in the election of them. The oligarchical democracy of the South has had so much of political advantage. But the burden of direct taxation, proportioned upon three fifths of the slaves, which was the equivalent, has almost wholly failed, because the revenue has been raised, with very limited exceptions, by duties on imports and by sales of public lands. As a neces- sary result, there has been a growing repugnance to the extension of slavery, aside from all moral considerations, on account of this unequal political representation, — an injus- tice which every extension of slavery, and every admission of a new Slave State, has aggravated. It must be considered, also, that the Constitution, with this unequal representation, was made for the territory embraced in the treaty of peace with Great Britain. The admission of new States formed from territory acquired outside of those limits was not contemplated nor provided for, and every ad- mission of a Slave State from such territory tends to a further extension of this inequality of representation. The admission of Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, Missouri, and especially of Texas, furnishes, unquestionably, some of the reasons for a hostility to slavery which has borne fruit, perhaps, in Personal- Liberty Laws, as well as in efforts to exclude slavery from the Territories, in order that there shall not be an increase of Slave 12 States, and thereby a further extension of a representation already unjust. Again : In considering the temper which led to the Personal- Liberty Laws, and to the restriction of the extension of slavery, we must by no means ignore the laws of some of the Southern States — South Carolina and Louisiana — upon the subject of free Negroes, under which persons of that class belonging to Northern vessels have been imprisoned without even an allegation that they had committed any offence, and by which they would have been sold into slavery, if the fees and charges of that imprisonment had not been paid. The attempt by Massachusetts to test the constitutionality of those laws, first, by the employment of counsel in those States, and, when that failed because counsel there declined to take a retainer, by sending Mr. Hoar as agent to South Carolina, and Mr. Hubbard to Louisiana, to institute suits for that purpose in the Courts of the United States, — and their subsequent expul- sion from Charleston and New Orleans, under circumstances of great excitement and indignity, — have, in our belief, had more to do in exciting a bitter feeling of hostility to the insti- tution of slavery, than all the speeches of any half-dozen orators or oratresses, white or colored. To say nothing of the preposterous pretension, that the question whether those laws were constitutional or otherwise should not be submitted to the consideration and determination of a judicial tribunal, or of the injustice necessarily attending their enforcement, — the circumstances of insult accompanying the expulsion of Messrs. Hoar and Hubbard were not likely to be forgotten by the people of Massachusetts, and the feeling thus excited has been largely extended to other States. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the subsequent attempt to force slavery into the Territory of Kansas by fraudu- lent voting and fraudulent returns, by a blockade of the Mis- souri River outside of the Territory, and by the murder of 13 peaceable citizens within it, may furnish some palliation and excuse for an excitement which would render Personal-Liberty Laws popular, even if such circumstances cannot prove their constitutionality. In pursuing the design and purpose of preparing the Territory so that when it became a State it would send two Senators and a Representative in sympathy with the South and devoted to Southern interests, no regard was had to personal or political rights. Fraud and injustice marked every step of the progress, and marauding bands from South Carolina and Georgia attempted to complete by force what fraud was not strong enough to accomplish. That corrupt politicians at the North should participate in this iniquity, was in character with their antecedents ; and that demagogues at the North should avail themselves of the just indignation excited by such outrages, and endeavor to make political capital for themselves, on the other side, by inflamma- tory speeches and extreme measures, without regard to their constitutional obligations, was but a natural consequence. In estimating the morality of the rebellion, it must be recol- lected that there has always been a strong party at the North sympathizing with the South, partly from political, and partly from personal associations ; and a still larger number who have been willing to fulfil all their constitutional obliga- tions, although they have been disposed, and are determined, no longer to give way to Southern insolence and aggression. It is to be noted further, that, at the very time when the re- bellion was planned and broke out, five of the nine judges on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States were from the Slave States, and that these, with one of the judges in the Free States, had expressed and recorded their opinion that slaveholders had a constitutional right to carry their slaves into the Territories, and hold them there, any legislation of Congress to the contrary notwithstanding. One other judge from a Free State did not see fit to record a dis- 14 ,sent to this doctrine, leaving himself free to assent to it at any time afterward, when his convictions of official duty should require such an opinion. We admit that this opinion of the six judges was a " dictum" and erroneous. We aver that it was perfectly outrageous, a gross usurpation of power deserv- ing impeachment, because the question was clearly political, and not judicial. But it was quite improbable that those who had thus committed themselves to the interests of the South would retrace their steps, and the constitution of the Senate rendered impeachment hopeless. Secession was not required to secure or save any of the alleged rights of the South. If the Southern Senators had remained in their places, Mr. Lincoln and his Administration would have lacked the power to do evil to Southern interests, even if they had been so disposed. But it is true that the constitution of the House of Representatives was likely to be such, that the South could not rule Congress as it had been accustomed to do, and the incoming incumbent of the Presidential chair presented an absolute bar to Southern domination. It may not be amiss to consider here two or three objections which have been raised against the attempt of the United States to suppress the insurrection, and which have been urged independently of the reasons alleged for the secession itself. It has been contended that the attempt at coercion is in violation of the democratic principle that the people are en- titled to govern themselves, and of the republican principle that this right to govern resides in the majority. It is alleged that the people of the Southern States are, on these principles, entitled to choose their own government ; moreover, that not merely a majority of the people of the seceding States prefer to change their institutions by forming the Southern Confed- eracy, but that there is great unanimity among them in this particular. The principles thus adduced are acknowledged as funda- 15 mental principles, and the fact of the unanimity to the extentv mentioned may be admitted for the purpose of the argument. But who are " the people " who, upon the general principles thus stated, are entitled to govern themselves ? It is not a few individuals in a community who possess this right of self- government. This is shown by the other principle, that the majority possess the right of determination. The dissent of a minority may be entitled to respectful attention, but it cannot furnish the rule of government. Then, again, who compose this majority of the people which is entitled to determine the form of government ? Certainly not the majority of the people of any town, county, or borough ; and as clearly not the ma- jority of the people of any of the States, or of any number of States, in all the particulars for which government is insti- tuted. To a certain extent, the majority of the people of a State may fashion the institutions of that State. So far as a change will not affect the Union, or violate the Constitution, directly or incidentally, they may act, because to that extent they are an independent community. But neither the majority of the people of a State, nor the whole people of it, can adopt any other than a republican form of government, because the United States guarantee such a form of government to all the States, and are bound to the whole to fulfil that guaranty by not permitting any one to deviate from the established form. Neither the majority nor the whole people of a State can change its institutions so as to coin money, levy duties on im- ports, enter into treaties with foreign governments, or do any- thing expressly or impliedly forbidden by the Constitution. So that upon the point in issue the question comes to this, — Is secession permitted by the Constitution ? And we have heretofore shown that it is not, in reviewing Mr. Davis's Message. The majority recognized in the republican principle is the majority of the community to be governed, or under govern- 16 ♦ment. In this instance, the whole people of the United States, so far as the purposes for which .the United States government was instituted, have alone the lawful right to change or alter that government, except as it may be altered in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, which has provided specific modes in which amendments may be made. That the Con- stitution was originally adopted by majorities of the people in the several States, does not affect the application of this general principle ; for by that adoption they became one people for the purposes of the government thereby instituted, al- though they were not so before. We admit, that, if there is oppression too great to be borne, there may be rebellion, which may ripen into revolution ; but this is altogether different from the " right of secession," as we have heretofore shown ; the right of revolution in resistance of oppression being a personal right, and the so-called right of secession being set up as a State right. Again : It has been urged that the course of the Southern States has been in accordance with, and in fact justified by, the course of the Colonies in their separation from Great Britain, and that, on the principles then maintained, the United States are wrong in resisting the attempted disruption of the Union. This seems a favorite position of some of our Transatlantic cousins, to say nothing of certain sympathizers on this side of the water. But, in truth, so far from the cases being ad idem, there is scarcely a similitude between them. A very brief reference to the contrast is all which our space allows us. We need not avail ourselves of the impassioned language of Colonel Barre, that the oppression of England planted the Colonies in America ; — it is sufficient that they were not planted by her care. When, by their indomitable industry, they had become worth her attention, the fostering care of the mother country was extended to them by the appointment of rulers over them, — in many instances, not from among themselves, but from 17 her own population ; — rulers who cared more for amassing fortunes through official corruption, than for the welfare of the people whom they governed. She was prompt to take the benefit of their military services against her ancient foe, the French. She loaded their trade with onerous imposts, and restrictions of which she bore no share. And when the wealth and industry of the Colonies became sufficient, she insisted upon raising a revenue from internal taxes, at the same time that she allowed them no representation whatever in Parliament, where these duties, restrictions, and taxes were imposed. These impositions at length became intolerable, and the Colo- nists determined upon resistance. She made the first war- like attack at Lexington, and again at Concord. They fought the war through in fair fields, and the separation was accom- plished with no further effect upon the interests of Great Brit- ain than the loss of so much of her colonial possessions. She was not rendered subservient to them, in their new state of independence, either by treaty or by geographical situation. Now for the contrast. Part of the seceding States were originally Colonies, and united with the others in achieving their independence, or rather had it achieved for them. Most of the others are formed from territory purchased by the United States, and all have voluntarily come into the Union, under the Constitution, participating in all the rights derived under it, and assuming all the obligations which it imposes ; being received upon an equality with the older States. The statute-book is full of provisions for their advantage. The Indians have been removed from some of their borders at great expense, to say nothing of a violation of public faith, because they desired it and insisted upon it. If we recollect aright, the Florida war, undertaken to remove Billy Bowlegs from the Everglades, cost the United States some fifty millions of dollars. We have not the presumption to say that the pres- ent war is not sent by the God of justice in part as punish- 3 18 ment for the outrages committed in that war„ and in the re- moval of the Cherokees from Georgia. The seceding States have had a representation in the national councils, not merely in equal proportions, but beyond that of the Free States, through the basis of their " peculiar institution." Their in- fluence has directed the policy of the country in a greater de- gree than that of the Northern States. The Mexican war was waged mainly at their bidding. When they chose a pro- tective tariff, the policy was protection. "When they said that the tariff must be for revenue alone, it was made a revenue tariff, with only incidental protection to some interests, partly to secure certain votes. They have had more than a fair share of military and naval appointments. It has been the privilege of the North to furnish the sailors and a large pro- portion of the bone and muscle of the army. They objected to the distribution of "incendiary matter" — publications against slavery — through the mails, and the Post-Office De- partment prohibited it. They demanded mobs to put down abolition harangues, and the mobs were forthcoming ; but the remote consequences were not favorable to them. They said that a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was necessary, and one was enacted too stringent to subserve its own purpose, because it excited hostility from its injustice. When they wanted that Kansas should be a Slave State, the Missouri Compromise was repealed, and it was moreover found by grave judges that it was unconstitutional. The Democratic party of the North had so far acted in the interests of the South, as to lead the conspirators to rely upon that as an element of suc- cess in their secession. Commodore Stockton's declaration in the Peace Convention, that for every regiment raised at the North for the purpose of coercion, two would be raised to arrest its march, was only an expression of the sympathy upon which the conspirators had relied to carry them through with- out any very serious struggle on their part. 19 If they did not increase in population and wealth like their Northern neighbors, it was not by reason of any inequality of tariffs, or any other oppression, but by reason of the slavery which they cherished, and the unthrift attending their modes of living. Notwithstanding the comparatively small increase of popu- lation in the South, there was for a long time no lack of in- crease in the number of Slave States. In fact, at one time there was an attempt to prevent the admission of a Free State, unless a Slave State were admitted to balance it ; and this was long before Personal-Liberty Bills were thought of. Maine and Missouri were admitted within a few days of each other in 1820, the admission of the former having been delayed by the controversy in relation to the latter ; Michigan and Arkan- sas were admitted on the same day in 1836 ; and Iowa and Florida were tied together in the same act, in 1845, although Texas had been admitted by herself three days before. Up to 1852, out of eleven Presidents of the United States, seven were of the Slave States, five of them for two terms each. There had then been four Presidents from the Free States, three of whom held for a single term each.. President Harrison died shortly after the commencement of his term, John Tyler being the Southern Yice-President ; and General Taylor, one of the Southern Presidents, died in the earlier part of his term, leaving the administration to Millard Fill- more, a Northern Yice-President. The two Presidents who occupied the chair from 1853 to 1861 were " Northern men with Southern principles," having in their Cabinets Jeffer- son Davis, Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson. Finding that the sceptre was about to depart, the Southern leaders prepared for a rebellion. It would probably have come in 1856, if Fre- mont had been elected, although the Northern people could not believe that there was danger of it. The breach in the Democratic Charleston Convention, in 1860, and the nomina- 20 tion of Breckenridge, were designed to secure the election of a Republican candidate, and thereby to force the Southern States into secession. The mode in which the rebellion commenced is in contrast with the colonial resistance to the authority of the mother country. The Colonists entered upon their rebellion by a fair, open, and manful opposition to measures of hardship and oppression. Three members of the Cabinet of Mr. Bu- chanan prepared the way for secession by a traitorous misuse of their official position, and a scandalous violation of their official oaths. Most of the Senators and Representatives of the States which have seceded conspired with them. The treason was concocted while the conspirators were in the service of the United States, and receiving pay from the United States, thus showing them to be worthy compeers of Benedict Arnold. The legitimate result of the argument by which secession was supported, if the argument were correct, would be that the State itself which had seceded resumed thereby her State rights and State possessions. Secession, upon its own theory, would carry nothing with it belonging to the United States. But the secession argument is as flexible as india-rubber. The position that the Constitution is a political compact of confederation for political purposes, which is made the basis upon which the right of secession exists, is forthwith con- verted into an allegation that the compact is in the nature of a partnership, in which, if there is not a regular account of profit and loss to be stated, there is, according to the new Confederate law of partnership, a right of dissolution at the pleasure of any one partner, notwithstanding the contract made it perpetual ; and upon the dissolution there is to be a division of stock, by which the Confederacy, which was not a partner, but born since the dissolution, is to be entitled to a share of the territories owned by the United States, to all the islands and fortifications, with their munitions of war, 21 which may be found along the coasts of the seceding States, and to the mints and sub-treasuries, and all the money and machinery therein. We must understand that these things are not claimed and taken under a right of revolution, which would give no claim except to that portion of government property which might fall into the hands of the insurgents, and be appropriated under the law of force ; but this claim is made under the alleged right of secession, which, as we have seen, is described as the reserved right of a State to withdraw peaceably, by a repeal of the act by which it came into the Union. The colonial resistance to the mother country was coupled with no such claim of partition of territory. We refer to but one other matter to complete the contrast between the Revolution of 1776 and this rebellion. By the second article of the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, it was agreed, among other things, that the boundary of the United States, from the northwestern point or corner, should be " a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river Mississippi until it shall intersect the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree of north latitude " ; and by the eighth article of the same treaty it was stipulated, that the • navigation of the river, from its source to the ocean, should forever remain open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States. Great Britain has other means of access to her colonial possessions in America, and makes little if any use of the Mississippi to communicate with them. The stipulation of the treaty is, and has been, of very little practical importance to her, except as regards the navigation of that part of it which at the time of the treaty was in the possession of Spain. Spain then held Louisiana, lying on both sides of the river south of the thirty-first degree ; but, having been afterward transferred to France, it came into the possession of the United States by the treaty of Paris, April 30, 1803. There are various provisions in the acts and laws 22 of the United States to secure the free navigation of the Mis- sissippi to all the citizens of the United States, particularly in the acts for the admission of the States of Louisiana, Missis- sippi, and Missouri into the Union. The act for the admis- sion of Louisiana contains the following clause : — " Provided, that it shall be taken as a condition upon which the said State is incorporated in the Union, that the river Mississippi, and the navigable rivers and waters leading into the same, and into the Gulf of Mexico, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the in- habitants of the said State as to the inhabitants of other States and the Territories of the United States, without any tax, duty, impost, or toll therefor, imposed by the said State ; and that the above condition, and also all other the conditions and terms contained in the third sec- tion of the act, the title whereof is hereinbefore recited, shall be con- sidered, deemed, and taken fundamental conditions and terms upon which the said State is incorporated in the Union." We are not clear that it may not be technically and legally maintained that Louisiana, by a breach of this condition, has " become felo de se" and may be treated as having returned to her territorial status. Now it is well known that almost the first act after the secession of Mississippi was the planting of a battery or bat- teries at Vicksburg, if we mistake not, in the first instance, and an interruption of all commerce on the river, except at the pleasure of the Secession authorities, resulting shortly in its being entirely closed. It was intended as a measure of coercion against the Northwest, to the prosperity of which the navigation is of vital importance, and it must be opened again, and held free to all, according to the treaty, laws, acts, ordinances, and conditions by which it was supposed to be originally secured. If the rebellion shall be successful, the river, from the northern line of Tennessee downward, is with- in the jurisdiction of a foreign state or states. The laws and conditions to secure the free navigation of it become a dead 23 letter, and the whole Northwest will be thus far " subju- gated," and hold their title to the use of the river, from that time forth, at the pleasure of the seceding States. The case stands thus. If the rebellion is suppressed, and the seceding States are " subjugated," they return to their places in the Union with all the rights and privileges which they had before, unless by the tenacity of their resistance they aid the Abolitionists in getting up another revolution, founded on immediate emancipation, through conquest or State sui- cide, and a prostration of State rights, not warranted by the Constitution. If, on the other hand, the secession becomes a successful revolution, the United States, and particularly the Northwestern States, are really brought into subjection, and hold their rights to the navigation of this great medium of internal commerce, and even of foreign commerce through the Gulf, at the pleasure of the Confederacy. We pass from the general character of the rebellion, as it exhibited itself at the outset, to a brief consideration of the conduct of the war. With respect to active warfare in the field, it must be ad- mitted that the generalship exhibited by the rebel command- ers, particularly in the month of August just passed, will not suffer by a comparison with that of the commanders of the United States. But here we must not overlook the fact, that, from their geographical position, their superior knowledge of the topography of the theatre of the active hostilities, and their greater resources for obtaining information respecting military movements by the aid of the inhabitants, they have had largely the advantage. There have been no better soldiers in the field than the greater portion of the troops of the Union. There have been too many of the officers who have obtained their commissions through political or personal favoritism. The partial lack of success in the conduct of the war on the r>art of the United States, has been owing mainly to other 24 causes than those immediately connected with operations in the field. We supposed, when Mr. Cameron vacated the War Office, that it was to be filled by one who, with the broad views of a statesman, discarding all considerations but those of country, would, by a vigorous prosecution of the war, conquer a consti- tutional peace. But we were mistaken, and reminded strongly of the frogs who desired a king. It is alleged that there have been jealousies among the generals of the army, causing dis- aster. Gray wrote in his Elegy : " The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Since the time of General Jackson, however, the American version has been that they lead to the Presidency ; and, as might have been expected, on the breaking out of the rebel- lion there was a great demand for major-generalships and other generalships, colonelships, and other -ships, not merely by those who had made arms a study, and whose proper busi- ness it was, therefore, to suppress the rebellion, but by others, who were desirous of getting into those paths, and by their hangers-on, who were earnest that they should do so. If Mr. Secretary Stanton has had a determination that no general in the field should eclipse the glories of the War Office, the meas- ures which have been taken in reference to field operations have been well adapted to prevent any of the competitors from being covered with glory. One of the uninitiated may, in- deed, be astonished to find how one general may be played off* against another, and one kingdom (that is, military depart- ment) may be divided against itself, until none of them can stand ; and by such operations, assuredly, the Satan of the rebellion is not to be cast out. When we see a Secretary of War, in an order out of the regular course, complimenting a general who, by a forced march of the order of dash, is said to have put one fifth of his command in the hospital, and in- 25 serting in the order a sneer understood to be aimed at the General-in-chief for his inactivity ; and when we see him send- ing a letter to a newspaper, containing another sneer aimed at the same general for the prudence which, by means of disci- pline, had sought to " organize victory," we may be sure that some idea besides that of the suppression of the rebellion had obtained a lodgement in the War Office. In this last letter the Secretary, modestly declining all share in the honor of certain then recent victories, defers " to the spirit of the Lord, that moved our soldiers to rush into battle, and filled the hearts of our enemies with terror and dismay." And he adds : " We may well rejoice at the recent victories, for they teach us that battles are to be won now and by us in the same and only manner that they were ever won by any people or in any age since the days of Joshua, — by boldly pursuing and striking the foe." If the Secretary is still disposed to follow in the wake of Joshua, we may soon see a War-Office advertisement for the purchase of rams' horns. It seems never to have occurred to him, that, if your adversary has studied and prac- tised the " science of fence," he may parry the blows aimed at him, and that you should at least have enough of strategy to prevent him from bestowing upon you in return a kick a pos- teriori. General Pope appears to have acted on the Secre- tary's strategy. He said, in one of his early orders, " Shame and disaster lurk in the rear " ; and he found himself to be a true prophet. But the War Office is by no means responsible for all our misadventures. The source of the greatest disasters, as well as of much minor suffering, has been the efforts of members of Congress, collectively and severally, to manage the war. The cry of " On to Richmond ! " before the army had been disciplined, or even organized, wherever it had its origin, had its echoes in Congress. It has been said that the teamsters set the example of panic at Bull Run. We are not quite sure 4 26 that this is doing full justice to the field-marshals of Congress, who urged the advance in the first instance, went out as spec- tators, and certainly did not take " the paths of glory " on their return to Washington. There is no lack of testimony that, so far as it may be deemed the duty of members of Congress to decry and defame the General-in-chief of the forces in the field, it has been most diligently performed. The salons of Washington, the hotels on the route to and from that place, and the highways and sidewalks, concur in testifying that in all the days of the year, and in all the hours of the day, there has been no lack of zeal on this behalf. The Chairman of the Military Committee in the Senate seems to have been specially detailed as skirmisher in this service. We submit that all these attacks upon the commander, whether the fire comes from the War Office or the halls of Congress, have a direct tendency to " discourage enlistments," and the provost-marshal should see to it. In another department of the service, the evidence is not so direct and clear. If the historian of this war shall gain access to the sources of information, he cannot fail to give the coun- try some light upon the proceedings of the " Committee of Congress on the Conduct of the War," besides what is con- tained in their voluminous report. The great object of war is to " punish our enemies." It is believed that the committee were practically adepts in this part of the science of war, and it is to be regretted that their modesty should have deprived the country of an exposition of their merits in conducting the hostilities on their part. It is supposed that in regard to another branch of modern warfare, that of " rewarding our friends," this committee were not novices ; but, as in the case of testimony taken in chancery, until the time of publication arrives, the seal which shields their motives, and some of their actions, from inspection, cannot be broken. The most astonishing blunder in the conduct of the war has 27 been the neglect to bring a sufficient force into the field at an earlier day. It required but the comprehension of two facts, by any one whose duty it was to have ideas upon the subject, to show him, in the first instance, that the numbers of the forces of the United States in the field must be wholly inad- equate to the work assigned to them. These facts are, that the rebels are in the possession of the centre of the thea- tre of the war, and that the United States are operating on the circumference of it. The- conclusion is at once reached, that the rebels have an advantage of position which requires us to place in the field at least two men to their one, — ay, even more than that. The facility with which they can mass their troops at any given point upon the circumference, either for defence or attack, has no corresponding advantage on our side. Until the severance of the railroad communica- tion in Tennessee, by General Mitchell, Confederate troops could be transferred from Richmond to Corinth, and vice versa, in a very short period, without any knowledge of the movement by the Federal commanders. But the transfer of Union forces from Washington to Nashville, or from the latter place to any point outside of Tennessee and Kentucky where such troops might be needed, not only required great length of time, but it was impossible, under existing circumstances, to make such transfer without the knowledge of the Confed- erate authorities that the movement had begun long before it was finally terminated. We need only indicate the necessity for this greater force, without going further into the reasons for it. Yet, in the very teeth of this obvious consideration, the chairman of the Military Committee in the Senate, in March last, said in his place : — " It was suggested, also, that we ought to stop recruiting. I agree to that. I have over and over again been to the War Office, and urged upon the Department to stop recruiting in every part of the country. We have had the promise that it should be done ; yet every 28 day, in different parts of the country, we have accounts of men being raised and brought forth to fill up the ranks of regiments. The papers tell us that in Tennessee, and other parts of the country where our armies move, we are filling up the ranks of the army. I believe we have to-day one hundred and fifty thousand more men under the pay of the government than we need or can well use. I have not a doubt of it ; and I think it ought to be checked. I think the "War Depart- ment ought to issue peremptory orders forbidding the enlistment of another soldier into the volunteer force of the United States until the time shall come when we need them. We can obtain them any time when we need them." — Washington Globe, March 29, 1862.* In accordance with the opinion thus officially expressed, the recruiting-offices were closed, and recruiting stopped, at the very time when at least half a million of men should have been put into camp and drilled for service. It was said that the recruiting-offices were expensive. A protracted warfare is much more so. In consequence of a lack of forces, the operations along the Atlantic seaboard have been confined to the coast, and General Burnside has not been able to pene- trate into North Carolina, or the commanders at Port Royal into South Carolina or Georgia. It is unnecessary to specify other places where the same lack of troops produced like re- sults. Still the cry went up, "On to Richmond ! " and the better to enable the General-in-chief to accomplish that ob- ject, he was deprived of a large part of the force which had previously been under his command, by the creation of sev- eral departments in Virginia, with independent commanders. The idea upon which this was done must have been that a large army would encumber the general, and embarrass his operations. If General McClellan had succeeded in entering Richmond with the force under his command, unless he could have at the same time opened the James River, his whole army would inevitably have been overpowered. * We are aware that Mr. Senator Wilson has denied that he made such state- ments, but the denial is entirely overborne by the affirmative evidence. 29 It has been so long admitted that slavery as it exists in the several States is a local institution, in no way under the control of the United States, that the politicians who regard emancipation as the great end to be accomplished by the war have been somewhat puzzled to find a plausible theory on which they can hope that the people at large will sustain them. They have from time to time put forth divers propo- sitions having emancipation as the immediate or ultimate result. They are not content with the large measure of it which must certainly and necessarily attend the successful prosecution of the war and the suppression of the rebellion ; but they want the war conducted with a view to immediate emancipation. Some of the proposed modes in which it has been contended that this might be accomplished were con- sidered in the article on Constitutional Law in our number for April last. Of proclamations for the purpose under mar- tial law, — of the conquest of the seceded States and holding them as territories under the general right of war as between independent nations, for the purpose of emancipation, as pro- posed by Mr. Conway,* — and of the theory set forth in Mr. Sumner's resolutions, that those States have forfeited their State rights by State suicide, and thus fall under the exclu- sive jurisdiction of Congress, as other territories, and that thereupon certain of their peculiar local institutions are ter- minated, — we need not speak further. They seem to have been abandoned for other modes of conducting the war. Judging from the course of the ultra abolitionists, in and * On the theory of the government maintained by the rebels as the basis of the rebellion, the seceding States may be conquered, and held as territories. If the Constitution were a compact, and any State might lawfully secede at pleasure, the act of secession by a State would be perfect when it adopted an ordinance of seces- sion. From that time, of course, on this theory, the seceding State becomes, as to the United States, a foreign state, and, in a war between them, the latter may be conquered, and thereafter held like any other conquered territory. All its laws may be changed at the pleasure of the conqueror. 30 out of Congress, it would seem that they supposed that what we lacked in troops we could make up by declarations or proclamations of emancipation, and with much greater effect. The fierce cry of " On to Richmond ! " has been exceeded only by the fiercer cry for a proclamation of emancipation ; and it has been urged with an earnestness which ought to be indica- tive of the conviction, that without such proclamation we could accomplish nothing, and with it could attain everything. Indeed, such has been substantially their declaration. The formula of the argument by which this class of persons carry on the war at present is substantially this : — Slavery is the cause of the rebellion. In order to a successful prosecu- tion of the war, we must destroy the cause. Nothing else can be effectual. We must strike at the root of the insur- rection. And the axe which is to be laid at the root is — a proclamation. It has been contended that the President, under the war power, could issue a proclamation ; and when the inquiry has been made, what authority the President has. to proclaim emancipation, the answer has been, If he can- not do it as President, he may take the field, and do it as commander-in-chief. In fact the " we " of Mr. Horace Greeley do not need the aid of the war power to reach the conclu- sion that the President might declare emancipation. In his letter addressed to the President, entitled " The Prayer of Twenty Millions," it is said : — " Had you, Sir, in your Inaugural Address, unmistakably given notice that, in case the rebellion already commenced were persisted in, and your efforts to preserve the Union an