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The Legislature's Treason.

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the courage to practice it. | ment, the occupation of May 10th, the Legislature Cockeysville, and the openpassed the following re- ing of the Northern Cenmarkable but characteristic resolves : "Whereas, The war against the Confederate States is unconstitutional and repugnant to civilization, and

121

Treason Circum

vented.

tral railway, completely cornered not only the "Knights of the Golden Circle"-who had arranged their secret machinery to pre

will result in a bloody and shameful overthrow of cipitate both Maryland and Kentucky into

our institutions; and while recognizing the obliga

tions of Maryland to the Union, we sympathize with

the arms of the conspirators-but gave the

the South in the struggle for their rights-for the loyal element so much the ascendancy as to

sake of humanity we are for peace and reconciliation, and solemnly protest against this war, and will take no part in it.

"Resolved, That Maryland implores the President, in the name of God, to cease this unholy war, at least until Congress assembles; that Maryland desires and consents to the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States. The military occupation of Maryland is unconstitutional, and she protests against it, though the violent interference with the transit

of Federal troops is discountenanced; that the vin

dication of her rights be left to time and reason, and that a Convention, under existing circumstances, is

inexpedient."

This was the dregs of the secession cup of bitterness. The vase was shattered and the would-be revellers in revolution dissolved in nothingness-some to retire to the oblivion of their homes, others to seek glory at the cannon's mouth over in Virginia. The President's answer was apparent May 13th, when Baltimore city itself was permanently occupied by Butler's troops. Butler's proclamation, dated from head-quarters on Federal Hill, May 14th, was a document at once well calculated to reassure the frightened loyalists and to intimidate the traitors who still made that city their head-quarters. That move

checkmate the revolution north of the Poto

mac.

On the 14th of May, Governor Hicks issued his proclamation, calling for four regiments of infantry or riflemen to answer to the President's requisition. The Governor's loyalty was still qualified, for he obtained the "written assurance of the Secretary of War" that the regiments should be detailed to service within the limits of the State, or should only be used for the defense of the Capital. As the "defense of the Capital" might require the Federal troops to push on to Richmond, the Governor's apprehensions in regard to the service of his troops were, doubtless, not very deeply seated. This ends the chapter of Maryland's disloyalty as a State. Many of her citizens continued to struggle against their destiny by plotting treason, and by giving “aid and comfort" to the enemy; but they were isolated cases; and, after the installation of the military process (the suspension of the habeas corpus act), the arrest of Marshal Kane of the Baltimore police, and of his coadjutors in conspiracy against the General Government, ended the struggle even with individuals.

Maryland Safe.

10

CHAPTER VII.

VIR

EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS. DAVIS' MESSAGE. ITS PERVERSIONS AND PURPOSES. THE ACT DECLARING A "STATE OF WAR." SPECIAL LEGISLATION. GINIA ADOPTED INTO THE CONFEDERACY. THE OCCUPATION HER SOIL. ITS PURPOSES. THE CURRENCY SYSTEM.

OF

CONFEDERATE

Extraordinary Session

of the Confederate

Congress.

into one common ruin. It became such men to talk of the usurpations of the Lincoln Government! Incomparable hypocrisy !

The Message of Jefferson Davis.

Upon assembling, the Congress was informed of the purpose of its re-convention, and of the designs of the Confeder ate Administration, in the following message

in many respects one of the most singular and remarkable documents of the rebellion: Gentlemen of the Congress:

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"It is my pleasing duty to announce to you that the Constitution framed for the establishment of a permanent Government for the Confederate States has been ratified by Conventions in each of those States to which it was referred. To inaugurate the Government in its full proportions and upon its own substantial basis of the popular will, it only remains that elections should be held for the designation of the officers to administer it.

THE Confederate Con-, great calamity which was to hurry them all gress reassembled in extraordinary session, April 30th. A full attendance was had of the States' delegates for the "Congress" was still composed of the delegates elected by the several State Conventions. As these Conventions had been elected by the people simply to consider the question of secession, leaving it for the people to decide upon the act and to prescribe the future course of proceeding, their assumption of supreme power had been a most astounding usurpation; but, what was a usurpation within the State became a tyranny when the Convention appointed delegates to a “Congress of the Seceded States"; and when those delegates assembled, adopted a Constitution for the Confederated States of North America, sat in secret and unlimited session, enacted laws, elected a President and Vice-President, and installed the entire machinery of a Central power, the tyranny became an absolute despotism. After legislating into active operation this Central power, the Congress adjourned, subject to the call of the President-a call he soon made, as above stated. The self-elected delegates came together, and immediately proceeded to legislate the Confederacy into a state of war, with all its terrible consequences. Civilized society never before witnessed a more unauthorized exercise of such power over a people. In all that revolution the people had only had a voice in the primary election of delegates to a transient and unempowered State Convention. Out of that, by the daring and defiance of a few ambitious men, sprang the

"There is every reason to believe that at no distant day, other States, identified in political princi ples and community of interests with these which you represent, will join this Confederacy: giving to. its typical constellation increased splendor-to its government of free, equal, and sovereign States a wider sphere of usefulness-and to the friends of constitutional liberty a greater security for its harmonious and perpetual existence.

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It was not, however, for the purpose of making this announcement that I have deemed it my duty to convoke you at an earlier day than that fixed by yourselves for your meeting. The declaration of war made against this Confederacy by Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, in his proclamation issued on the fifteenth day of the present month, rendered it necessary, in my judgment, that you should convene, at the earliest practicable

The Message of Jefferson Davis.

country.

THE MESSAGE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.

moment, to devise the measures
necessary for the defense of the

"The occasion is indeed an extraordinary one. It justifies me in a brief review of the relations heretofore existing between us and the States which now unite in warfare against us, and in a succinct statement of the events which have resulted in this warfare, to the end that mankind may pass intelligent and impartial judgment on its motives and objects.

"During the war waged against Great Britain by her colonies on this continent, a common danger impelled them to a close alliance, and to the formation of a Confederation, by the terms of which the Colonies, styling themselves States, entered severally into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.'

"In order to guard against any misconstruction of their compact, the several States made explicit declaration, in a distinct article, that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.'

"Under this contract of alliance the war of the Revolution was successfully waged, and resulted in the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, by the terms of which the several States were, each by name, recognized to be independent.

"The Articles of Confederation contained a clause whereby all alterations were prohibited, unless confirmed by the Legislatures of every State, after being agreed to by the Congress; and, in obedience to this provision, under the resolution of Congress of the 21st of February, 1787, the several States appointed delegates, who attended a Convention for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.'

shall be sufficient for the estab-
lishment of this Constitution
between the States so ratifying
the same.'

123

The Message of
Jefferson Davis.

The Constitution of 1787 having, however, omitted the clause already recited from the articles of Confederation, which provided in explicit terms, that each State retained its sovereignty and independence, some alarm was felt in the States when invited to ratify the Constitution, lest this omission should be construed into an abandonment of their cherished principle, and they refused to be satisfied until amendments were added to the Constitution, placing beyond any pretense of doubt, the reservation by the States of all their sovereign rights and powers, not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution.

"I have italicised certain words in the quotations just made, for the purpose of attracting attention to the singular and marked caution with which the States endeavored, in every possible form, to exclude the idea that the separate and independent sovereignty of each State was merged into one common Government and nation, and the earnest desire they evinced to impress on the Constitution its true character-that of a compact between independent States.

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Strange indeed must it appear to the impartial observer, but it is none the less true, that all these carefully-worded clauses proved unavailing to prevent the rise and growth in the Northern States, of a political school which has persistently claimed that the Government thus formed was not a compact between States, but was in effect a National Government, set up above and over the States. An organization, created by the States to secure the blessings of liberty and independence against foreign aggression, has been gradually perverted into a machine for their control in their domestic affairs; the creature has been exalted above its creators; the principals have been made subordinate to the agent appointed by themselves.

"The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common government subservient to their own purposes, by imposing burthens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversy grew out of these attempts, often successful to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other. And the danger of disruption arising from this cause was enhanced by the fact that the Northern population was increasing by immigration and other causes in a greater ratio than the population of the "The ratification of the Conventions of nine States South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained

"It was by the delegates chosen by the several States, under the resolution just quoted, that the Constitution of the United States was framed in 1787, and submitted to the several States for ratification, as shown by the seventh article, which is in these words:

The Message of
Jefferson Davis.

preponderance in the national | sulted their own interests by

Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control; they learned to listen with impatience to the suggestion of any constitutional impediment to the exercise of their will; and so utterly have the principles of the Constitution been corrupted in the Northern mind, that in the inaugural address delivered by President Lincoln in March last, he asserts as an axiom which he plainly deems to be undeniable, that the theory of the Constitution requires that in all cases the majority shall govern; and in another memorable instance, the same Chief Magistrate did not hesitate to liken the relations between a State and the United States to those which exist between a County and the State in which it is situated, and by which it was created. This is the lamentable and fundamental error on which rests the policy that has culminated in his declaration of war against these Confederate States.

"In addition to the long-continued and deep-seated resentment felt by the Southern States at the persistent abuse of the powers they had delegated to the Congress for the purpose of enriching the manufacturing and shipping classes of the North at the expense of the South, there has existed for nearly half a century another subject of discord involving interests of such transcendent magnitude as at all times to create the apprehension in the minds of many devoted lovers of the Union that its permanence was impossible.

The Message of
Jefferson Davis.

selling their slaves to the South,
and prohibiting Slavery within
their limits. The South were willing purchasers of a
property suitable to their wants, and paid the price
of the acquisition without harboring a suspicion that
their quiet possession was to be disturbed by those
who were inhibited, not only by want of constitu-
tional authority, but by good faith as venders, from
disquieting a title emanating from themselves.

"As soon, however, as the Northern States that
prohibited African Slavery within their limits had
reached a number sufficient to give their repre-
sentation a controlling voice in the Congress, a per-
sistent and organized system of hostile measures
against the rights of the owners of slaves in the
Southern States, was inaugurated and gradually ex-
tended. A continuous series of measures were de-
vised and prosecuted for the purpose of rendering
insecure the tenure of property in slaves; fanatical
organizations, supplied with money by voluntary
supscription, were assiduously engaged in exciting
amongst the slaves a spirit of discontent and revolt;
means were furnished for their escape from their
owners, and agents secretly employed to entice
them to abscond; the constitutional provision for
their relation to their owners was first evaded, then
openly announced as a violation of conscientious
obligation and religious duty; men were taught
that it was a merit to elude, disobey, and violently
oppose the execution of the laws enacted to secure
the performance of the promise in the constitutional
compact; owners of slaves were mobbed and even
murdered in open day, solely for applying to a ma-
gistrate for the arrest of a fugitive slave; the dog-
mas of these voluntary organizations soon obtained
control of the Legislatures of many of the Northern

"When the several States delegated certain powers to the United States Congress, a large portion of the laboring population consisted of African slaves imported into colonies by the mother country. In twelve out of the thirteen States negro slav-States, and laws were passed providing for the punery existed, and the right of property in slaves was protected by law. This property was recognized in the Constitution, and provision was made against its loss by the escape of the slave. The increase in the number of slaves by further importation from Africa was also secured by a clause forbidding Congress to prohibit the slave-trade anterior to a certain date; and in no clause can there be found any delegation of power to the Congress authorizing it in any manner to legislate to the prejudice, detri-nation, whose chief title to this distinction consisted ment, or discouragement of the owners of that species of property, or excluding it from the protection of the Government.

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ishment by ruinous fines and long-continued impri-
sonment in jails and penitentiaries of citizens of the
Southern States who should dare to ask aid of the
officers of the law for the recovery of their prop-
erty. Emboldened by success, the theatre of agi-
tation and aggression against the clearly-expressed
constitutional rights of the Southern States was
transferred to the Congress; Senators and Repre-
sentatives were sent to the common councils of the

in the display of a spirit of ultra fanaticism, and
whose business was not to promote the general
welfare or insure domestic tranquillity,' but to
awaken the bitterest hatred against the citizens of
sister States by violent denunciations of their in-
stitutions; the transaction of public affairs was
impeded by repeated efforts to usurp powers not
delegated by the Constitution, for the purpose of

1

THE MESSAGE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.

125

1.

The Message of
Jefferson Davis.

The Message of
Jefferson Davis.

Conventions to be held for the
purpose of determining for
themselves what measures were best adapted to
meet so alarming a crisis in their history.

impairing the security of pro- | people to select delegates to perty in slaves, and reducing those States which held slaves to a condition of inferiority. Finally, a great party was organized for the purpose of obtaining the administration of the Government with the avowed ob- Here it may be proper to observe that from a ject of using its power for the total exclusion of the period as early as 1798 there had existed in all of Slave States from all participation in the benefits the States of the Union a party, almost uninterruptof the public domain, acquired by all the States in edly in the majority, based upon the creed that each common, whether by conquest or purchase; of sur- State was, in the last resort, the sole judge as well of rounding them entirely by States in which slavery its wrongs as of the mode and measure of redress. should be prohibited; of thus rendering the prop-Indeed, it is obvious, that under the law of nations erty in slaves so insecure as to be comparatively this principle is an axiom as applied to the relations worthless, and thereby annihilating in effect prop-of independent sovereign States, such as those which erty worth thousands of millions of dollars. This had united themselves under the constitutional comparty, thus organized, succeeded in the month of pact. The Democratic party of the United States November last in the election of its candidate for repeated in its successful canvass in 1856, the declarthe Presidency of the United States. ation made in numerous previous political contests, that it would faithfully abide by and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799; and that it adopts those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its political creed.'

"In the meantime, under the mild and genial climate of the Southern States, and the increasing care and attention for the well-being and comfort of the laboring class, dictated alike by interest and humanity, the African slaves had augmented in number from about six hundred thousand, at the date of the adoption of the constitutional compact, to upwards of four million. In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers, and supplied not only with bodily comforts, but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of a superior race their labor had been so directed as not only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds of thousands of square miles of the wilderness into cultivated lands, covered with a prosperous people; towns and cities had sprung into existence, and had rapidly increased in wealth and population under the social system of the South; the white population of the Southern Slaveholding States had augmented from about one million two hundred and fifty thousand, at the date of the adoption of the Constitution, to more than eight million five hundred thousand in 1860, and the productions of the South in cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, for the full development and continuance of which the labor of African slaves was, and is, indispensable, had swollen to an amount which formed nearly three-fourths of the exports of the whole United States, and become absolutely necessary to the wants of civilized man.

"With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperiled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view, the Legislature of the several States invited the

The principles thus emphatically announced embrace that to which I have already adverted, the right of each State to judge of, and redress the wrongs of which it complains. The principles were maintained by overwhelming majorities of the people of all the States of the Union at different elections, especially in the elections of Mr. Jefferson in 1805, Mr. Madison in 1809, and Mr. Pierce in 1852.

"In the exercise of a right so ancient, so well established, and so necessary for self-preservation, the people of the Confederate States in their Conventions, determined that the wrongs which they had suffered, and the evils with which they were menaced, required that they should revoke the delegation of powers to the Federal Government, which they had ratified in their several Conventions. They consequently passed ordinances resuming all their rights as sovereign and independent States, and dissolved their connection with the other States of the Union.

"Having done this, they proceeded to form a new compact amongst themselves, by new articles of confederation, which have been also ratified by the Convention of the several States, with an approach to unanimity far exceeding that of the Convention which adopted the Constitution of 1787. They have organized their new Government in all its depart ments; the functions of the executive, legislative, and judicial magistrates are performed in accordance with the will of the people, as displayed, not merely in a cheerful acquiescence, but in the enthusiastic support of the Government thus established

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