COLLOQUY XXI. CHARACTER OF THE WAR-NEITHER REBELLION NOR CIVIL WAR, BUT WAR BETWEEN STATES-CONDUCT OF THE WAR ON BOTH SIDES AS IT PROGRESSED-ACTION OF CONFEDERATE CONGRESS-ACTION OF FEDERAL CONGRESS SUBJECT OF PRISONERS-PRIVATEERS--MR. STEPHENS'S OPINION OF MR. LINCOLN DRAWN OUT BY PROF. NORTON-DISCUSSION BETWEEN JUDGE BYNUM AND MR. STEPHENS IN RELATION TO MR. LINCOLN AND HIS ACTS-DANTON-ROBESPIERRE-CÆSAR-HAZAEL-MR. ANDREW JOHNSON'S RESOLUTION AND SPEECH IN U. S. SENATE-MEETING OF CONFEDERATE CONGRESS AT RICHMOND-MR. DAVIS'S MESSAGE-GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON-EVENTS TO THE CLOSE OF PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT, AND ORGANIZATION UNDER PERMANENT CONSTITUTION-COMMISSION TO EUROPE -TRENT AFFAIR-EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS-CONVENTIONS WITH MISSOURI AND KENTUCKY. MR. STEPHENS. The war now, on both sides, began to assume gigantic proportions. It was no Insurrection or Rebellion, or even Civil War in any proper sense of these terms. A Rebellion or Insurrection is resistance to the Sovereign Power of any Society, Commonwealth, or State by those owing it allegiance, and may be justified or not, according to the facts of the case. A Civil War is but another name for the same sort of resistance, where it assumes so formidable a magnitude as to divide the members of the same Society or Commonwealth into two great Parties, between which ultimate supremacy becomes a matter of uncertainty and doubt. Vattel has well and truly said, that "custom appropriates the term of 'civil war' to every war between the members of one and the same Political Society." * Further on he says, where such a "war breaks the bands of society and * Valtel's Law of Nations, B. 3, C. xviii, Sec. 292. Government, or, at least, suspends their force and effect," it produces "two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. These two parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as thenceforward constituting, at least for a time, two separate Bodies, two distinct Societies." But this war, properly and truly considered, was not of this character at all. For, if the facts of our history be, as they appear incontestably to be from the review which we have made of them, the people of the United States never did form or constitute one Political Society, or Body-Politic. The Union of the States was a Union of distinct and separate Political Societies or BodiesPolitic. The States held no such relation to the Union as Departments or Provinces do to an Empire, or as Counties and Districts do to a State, as maintained by Mr. Lincoln. The citizens of each State owed allegiance, as we have seen, to their own separate States.+ The war, therefore, was a war between States regularly organized into two separate Federal Republics. Eleven States on the one side, under the name and style of "The Confederate States of America," and twenty-two States on the other side, under the like name and style of "The United States of America." In our further notice of the conduct of this war, we may properly enough, therefore, designate the Parties to it by the terms "Confederates" and "Federals," though the latter term will by no means correctly represent the principles of those thus designated. In the beginning, and throughout the contest, the object of the "Confederates" was to maintain the separate Sovereignty of each State, and the right of Self-government, which that necessarily carries * Speech at Indianapolis, Indiana, 11th Feb., 1861. with it. The object of the "Federals," on the contrary, was to maintain a Centralized Sovereignty over all the States, on both sides. This was the fundamental principle involved in the Conflict, which must be kept constantly in mind. The Congress of the Confederate States, we have seen, was in session. The Federal Congress was summoned to meet on the 4th of July. But in advance of this, Mr. Lincoln, by his Proclamation, as we have seen, had ordered an increase to the Regular Federal Army of 64,748 men, and an increase to the Navy of 18,000 men. The Regular Federal Army, besides the volunteer forces called out, before this increase, consisted of about 16,000 men. The new force added by Presidential edict swelled the number of the Regular Army to about 80,748 men. The Federal Navy, before the increase so ordered, consisted of about 10,000 men, exclusive of officers and marines. The total number of vessels of all classes belonging to this Navy was ninety, carrying or designed to carry, about 2,415 guns. The increase of men under the Presidential edict run the aggregate of seamen in service up to nearly 30,000. The Confederates, on their assembling in Congress, on the 29th of April, as stated, went to work the best way they could to meet this formidable array of power against them. By Act of Congress they simply recognized the existence of the war so inaugurated against them, excluding from their Act the States of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. These they did not recognize as Parties to the war. With this recognition of the war so forced upon them, they resorted to all the means at their command to repel it. At their first organization, less than three months before, they were without an Exchequer, an Army, or a Navy of any sort, and without any munitions of war, except those which had fallen into the hands of the several States in the Federal Forts, and which had been turned over to them, to be used in the common cause. The State of Alabama, on the first assembling of the Convention, at Montgomery, had tendered them, for temporary use, a half million of dollars, and, before the affair at Sumter, the Congress had provided, by law, for making a loan of $15,000,000, to repay Alabama's advance, and to meet other necessary emergencies. But now further means became necessary. To meet the forces arrayed against them a large army was necessary. To raise and equip this required much larger expenditures of money than the amounts at their command. Another loan was authorized to the amount of $50,000,000. This was to be effected by the sale of Confederate States Bonds, redeemable at the expiration of twenty years from their date, bearing an interest of eight per cent. per annum. The same act authorized the issuance of twenty millions of Treasury notes, in lieu of a like amount of bonds to answer the same purposes, if the Secretary of the Treasury and the President should deem it better to issue the Treasury notes instead of making a sale of the bonds. Besides this, another measure was adopted, known as the Produce. Loan. By this, invitations were given for contributions of cotton, tobacco, corn, wheat, flour, meat, and army subsistence generally, in the way of a loan. By the terms of the act, the articles so contributed were to be sold, and the proceeds to be turned over to the Secretary of the Treasury, who was to issue eight per cent. bonds for the same. These were the extraordinary methods adopted for raising means, besides the other regular modes of providing revenue without resorting to direct taxation. So much for the financial measures of the Confederates, at present. In view of the exigency for an immediate military force in the field, the Congress looked almost exclusively to the volunteer spirit of the people. By Act, they authorized the President to accept the services of one hundred thousand volunteers, either as cavalry, mounted riflemen, artillery, or infantry, in such proportions of these several arms as he might deem expedient, to serve for and during the war, unless sooner discharged. The Congress also provided for the appointment of five General officers, to have the rank of "General," instead of "Brigadier-General" as previously provided. This was to be the highest military grade known in the Confederate States service. In lieu of a Regular Navy, their only resort was the enlistment of armed ships under Letters of Marque. Very soon quite a number of small vessels were thus put in commission, and reached the high seas by running the Blockade. Amongst these may be named the Calhoun, the Petrel, the Spray, the Ivy, the Webb, the Dixey, the Jeff. Davis, the Bonita, the Gordon, the Coffee, the York, the McRae, the Savannah, the Nina, the Jackson, the Tuscarora-besides others. In less than a month, more than twenty prizes were taken and run into Southern Ports. The steamers Sumter and Nashville, fitted out by the Government, and under the command of Naval officers, went to sea at a later date. The Sumter ran the Blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi, on the 30th of June, in charge of Commander Raphael Semmes, a gallant officer who had resigned his position in the Navy of the United States, and who thus entered upon that brilliant career in the Confederate Service which has secured to him a lasting fame and renown. The Nashville was put in command of Captain Robert B. Pegram, another resigned officer of the U. S. Navy, of experience, |