An instance of the difficulties that were presented by the operation of the new tariff, as compared with the old, presents itself in the case of cottons. Under former tariffs there was one rate, viz. by that of 1842, 80 per cent.; of 1846, 25 per cent.; and of 1857, 24 per cent., on the invoice value. The tariff of 1861 made nearly 30 different charges on cotton goods. Thus, unbleached cotton cloth, 100 threads or less to the square inch, and weighing less than 5 ounces per square yard, paid 2 cents per square yard; and the same over 5 ounces, 1 cents, the charge increasing with the number of threads to the square inch. Different charges in all these cases were made for bleached, and still others for colored, ten per cent. ad valorem being added to the square yard duties in the latter. These and other complications produced a great change in the various departments of the custom-house. The appraisers required instruments of various kinds-scales and weights, measures, provers for counting threads, magnifying glasses, gauges and hydrometers-all of which had become necessary in ascertaining the quantities and values of merchandise.

The general depression in business prevented much revenue from the tariff, and in December a new law was passed, raising the duty on teas to 20 per cent., and on coffee to 5 cents; on raw sugar to 24 cents, clayed do. 3 cents, refined 5 cents, confectionery 8 cents; molasses, 6 cents a gallon. These were all the alterations made by that act. The amount of revenue raised under each act in New York City was as follows:

Period.

1860.

1861.

appointed work of putting a girdle round the earth. The overland line, from western Missouri to San Francisco, was completed on the 22d of October, thus placing that city in inmediate connection with New York and the other eastern cities. The first continuous message sent, was the following: "The Pacific to the Atlantic sends greeting; and may both oceans be dry before a foot of all the land that lies between them shall belong to any other than one united country." On the first day after the line was opened for business, forty through despatches were sent, besides a considerable number of congratulatory messages. As the difference in longitude between New York and San Francisco is about 48° 30', if a despatch could be sent instantaneously through, from the former to the latter city, it would reach San Francisco three hours and fifteen minutes before the time at which it left New York, according to the clocks of each city; so that a despatch sent from New York to San Francisco at halfpast ten o'clock A. M., might find the man to whom it was addressed yet in bed; and one sent from New York after business hours, would reach there about mid-day. Practically, however, the transmission of a despatch takes an appreciable amount of time, as the weather is rarely in a condition in which the message can be transmitted without one or more (often four or five) repetitions at different points. On rare occasions, when the atmosphere along the entire line is in a proper condition, messages have been sent even from Halifax to San Francisco without interruption.

To Aug.

"Jan., 1862,

Total duties...

66 66

'61

'61

11,438,990 6,586,062 13,257,699 8,519,119

Total value of goods, duty paid,

$35,431,443 $22,174,045

185,794,422 93,971,920

The average rate for 1860 was 19 per cent., and for 1861 23 per cent. in the whole year; for the last 5 months, however, it was 34 per cent., and the yield was far less than for the same period the former year; the result was a decline of $4,738,580, or 35 per cent.

TAYLOR, FORT. This fort is located at Key West, Florida. It forms an irregular quadrangle, with three channel curtains of equal length and a gorge or shore curtain of much greater length. It is situated near the southwest point of the island, in from six to twelve feet of water, and distant from the shore three hundred yards. The foundation is granite, and the superstructure brick. The scarp walls are eight feet thick, and rise to the height of forty-one feet from the water's edge. It has two tiers of casemates, and one barbette tier, and mounts one hundred and twenty 8 and 10-inch columbiads on the channel fronts, and forty-five heavy guns on the shore fronts. This remains in the possession of the United States, and is strongly garrisoned. TELEGRAPH, ELECTRIC. The electric telegraph during 1861 made rapid progress in its

mercial agent to the Amoor region, prosecuted with great energy the erection of a line of telegraph to the lower Amoor, and has given encouragement and aid to a company for constructing a line to connect this with ours at San Francisco. A telegraph line is now building from San Francisco to Victoria, on Vancouver's Island, and this will be extended to Sitka Island. In November, 1861, only 5,000 miles remained to complete the connection between western Europe and America, by way of Siberia, and this distance was rapidly shortening. Three routes were proposed: the first, by way of Behring's Straits, would require only about 40 miles of submarine cable; the second, from the mouth of the Amoor to Saghalien Island, and thence up the east coast of that island, across the sea of Okhotsk to Kamtchatka, and across at or near Behring's Straits, would require three submerged cables, none of them of great length, the most considerable, that across the sea of Okhotsk, being only about 400 miles long; the third route, and the one looked upon with the most favor by the Russian Government, would be to extend one branch through the newly acquired Russian possessions to Pekin, and if possible to Shanghai, and another by Saghalien Island, cross the strait of La Pe

rouse, through the island of Yesso to Hakodadi, thence across the strait of Matsmai, through Niphon to Nagasaki and Yeddo, and joining this line in Yesso to carry it across the Koorile Islands to Kamtchatka, and thence across Behring's Island and the Aleutians to Point Alaska, in Russian America. This would require several sections of submerged cable, but not more than one or two of them exceeding 60 miles in length. By one or other of these routes, it seems certain that Eastern Asia will be placed in communication with us, as well as with Western Europe within the next three or four

years.

Mr. Cyrus W. Field, who was so indefatigable in his efforts to complete the Atlantic cable some years ago, has again revived his project, and after spending some months in England has succeeded in procuring such assurances of aid from the British Government, and offers by the manufacturers to share the risk of another attempt, as to render the reconstruction of that line probable at an early period. A new invention for the protection of the cable, or rather a new arrangement of the enveloping wires and cable, obviating the tendency to "kink," which was so serious a difficulty in the former cable, and a better method of paying out, render its success now more certain.

Another route for telegraphic communication between Europe and America has been agitated by the persevering efforts of Mr. Taliaferro P. Shaffner, a citizen of the United States, who as early as 1854 procured from the king of Denmark a concession for the construction of such a communication by way of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, and when in 1859-60 succeeded in having the route explored and soundings made, partly at the cost of the British Government, and secured a report in favor of the feasibility of his project. As yet, however, no measures are known to have been taken for the laying of a line by this route. The distances to be crossed by submerged cables is, indeed, much less than by the route proposed by Mr. Field; but there are liabilities to the destruction of the cable by icebergs, and a vast extent of intensely cold, inhospitable country to be traversed, which would make its success exceedingly problematical.

Of smaller telegraphic enterprises, perhaps the most important is the connection of Fortress Monroe with Baltimore by means of a submerged cable across Chesapeake Bay. The first effort failed, from the breaking of the cable in consequence of a storm while being laid; and in the second, the cable was broken by an anchor two or three days after it was laid. A third effort has succeeded, an improved method of protecting the cable having been adopted. A temporary telegraphic communication has been established with the army in Eastern Virginia throughout most of their progress, and has greatly facilitated military operations. The aeronauts who have used the balloon for the purpose of ascertaining the positions and condi

tion of the Confederate camps and fortifications, have also maintained telegraphic communica tion with the camp from which they ascended, and have reported their observations at the instant of making them.

TENNESSEE. This fertile State lies south of Kentucky, and north of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. North Carolina bounds it on the east, and the Mississippi River on the west. Its greatest length from east to west is about 430 miles, and its breadth 110 miles. The State is commonly divided into three sections; the part east of the Cumberland Mountains is called East Tennessee; that between the Cumberland Mountains and the Tennessee River, Middle Tennessee; and west of this river it takes the name of West Tennessee. On the east it is separated from North Carolina by the Appalachian chain of mountains, of which the Cumberland, an outlying ridge, enters the State from Kentucky. The height of the mountains of this ridge is estimated at from 1,000 to 2,000 feet. They are wooded to the top, and embosom delightful and fertile valleys. Middle Tennessee is moderately hilly, while West Tennessee is either level or gently undulating. Indian corn, tobacco, and cotton are the great staples. The population of the State in 1860 was 826,828 white; 7,235 free colored; and 275,784 slaves; total, 1,109,847.

The Legislature of Tennessee holds its regular sessions in the odd years, commencing on the third Monday of October. The members are elected on the first Thursday of the preceding August. After it has once adjourned sine die, it cannot hold a second session, unless convened by the Governor, who is authorized by the Constitution to call the General Assembly together on extraordinary occasions, by proc lamation; and, in that case, he must state to them, when assembled, the purposes for which they were convened; and then, "they shall enter on no legislation except that for which they were specially called together."

In August, 1859, the members who were to constitute the 33d General Assembly were elected. At the canvass preceding the election, the people had presented to them no question regarding national affairs. The session was distinguished by nothing out of the ordinary course of State legislation. Before the adjournment, about the 24th of March, 1860, electoral tickets for President and Vice-President of the United States had been presented to the people of the Union; and, in Tennessee, there was a ticket for Breckinridge, another for Douglas, and a third for Bell, her own citizen. ticket was offered for Lincoln. The electors for each of the candidates industriously canvassed the entire State, and each one represented his candidate as an unconditional Union man, while Bell was recommended to the people as the special advocate of the "Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws." He carried the State by a majority of 4,565 over Breckinridge, the next highest

No

candidate. The total vote of the State was as follows: Lincoln, ; Douglas, 11,350; Breckinridge, 64,709; Bell, 69,274. The election, however, having resulted in the choice of Lincoln, the people of Tennessee quietly acquiesced. But Isham G. Harris, the Governor, holding extreme opinions upon the subject of slavery, warmly sympathized with the secession movement, which followed in the Southern slave States immediately after the election, and maintained an active correspondence with its leaders. Accordingly he called a session of the General Assembly for the 7th of January, 1861; and in his message to the body, on its assembling, he stated that the purpose of the call was, that they should deliberate upon the "crisis" in the affairs of the country, which had been produced, as he said, by "the systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined, constitutional rights of the Southern citizens; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party, whose bond of union is uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern States." After a long recital of grievances, he declared that he submitted to the discretion of the Legislature, "the whole question of our " (the State's) "Federal relations; and though having no doubt himself as to the necessity and propriety of calling a State Convention, he yet recommended that the law to be passed should submit "to the people of the State the question of convention or no convention." The evils complained of, he said, could be obviated by certain amendments to the national Constitution, which were: 1. The establishment of a line through the territories to the Pacific, all the territory north of which should be forever free, and all south of it forever slave. 2. Any State refusing to deliver a fugitive slave, to pay the owners double his value. 3. Security in the possession of slaves by masters travelling through, or sojourning in a free State; and slaves lost, in such cases, to be paid for by the State in which the escape occurred. 4. A prohibition against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in dockyards, navyyards, arsenals, or any other district in a slave State under the national jurisdiction. 5. These provisions never to be changed, except by the consent of all the slave States. He had, he said, no hope of such concessions, for "two months had passed since the development of the facts which make the perpetuity of the Union depend alone upon the giving to the South satisfactory guarantees for her chartered rights, yet no proposition at all satisfactory had been made" by any member of the dominant and aggressive party" of the North.

A controlling conservative sentiment manifested itself in the Legislature, which, while it endorsed the position that the grant of additional guarantees to the South should be made

a condition of Tennessee's remaining in the Union, determined that the State should not be precipitated into secession. The bill calling for a convention of the people of the State, provided that any ordinance or resolution which might be adopted by said Convention having for its object a change of the posi tion or relation of the State to the National Union, or her sister Southern States, should be of no binding force or effect until it was submitted to or ratified by the people, and required a vote equal to a majority of the votes cast in the last election for Governor to ratify it. Thus the people had an opportunity, in voting for delegates, to declare for or against secession; and should the action of the Convention contemplate any change in the Federal rela, tions of the State, they had still the opportunity of endorsing or overruling alike their former decision and the action of the Convention. The election for members of the Convention was to be held on the 9th of February, the Convention to assemble on the 25th.

At this same date, in a public meeting, held in Nashville, it was urged that the third party at the last Presidential election, the "Constitutional Union party," and its champion, John Bell, had held the doctrine that the election of Mr. Lincoln would be a just cause for the dissolution of the Union. Mr. Bell, who was at the meeting, rose and denied the charge. Upon this, cheers rang through the hall, satisfying the audience of the predominant Union feeling in that assemblage, notwithstanding the disunion element had mustered its strength. Mr. Bell, before he sat down, expressed the hope and conviction that all would be well with the Union; and this declaration was received with great applause.

The resolutions of the Legislature of New York were replied to with moderation and also with great decision, as follows:

Resolved, That the Legislature of Tennessee has heard with profound regret the resolution come to by the Leg islature of the State of New York, offering men and money to the Government, in order to coerce sovereign States. That the General Assembly of Tennessee sees in the disposition to complicate existing difficulties, and the action of the Legislature of New York an indication of to force the Southern States into submission; and, so regarding it, the State of Tennessee requests to inform the State of New York that, if any force be sent South for the purpose of subjugating the people thereof, the people of the State will join as one man to resist such an invasion at all hazards and to the last extremity.

The returns from all the counties made the actual majority 64,114. The question of holding a convention was determined in the negative by a large majority, thus declaring that there was no need for a convention at all to determine where Tennessee should stand. The Union delegates at Memphis were elected by a majority of 400. The vote of the State on the convention question was as follows:

East Tennessee voted no convention by 25,611 majority, or four and a quarter to one. Middle Tennessee 1,382 majority; but West Tennessee gave for a convention 15,118 majority. The vote for no convention was 69,673. The total vote for and against convention was 127,471, with a majority against the meeting of a convention of 11,875.

The people decided that no convention should be held, chiefly because they had seen that all the conventions which had been held in the Southern States had withdrawn their States from the Union, and then had proceeded to sit on their own adjournments, as if they conceived they possessed the right to continue their own existence indefinitely. The loyal people of Tennessee now flattered themselves that they had thus put an effectual stop to the secession movement in the State, and so the secessionists thought as well; and even the Governor seemed, for a time, to have abandoned the scheme.

The proclamation of the President, on the 15th of April, produced an intense feeling throughout the State. The Governor immediately called an extra session of the Legislature, to be convened on the 25th of April. He refused the requisition of the President for troops saying:

Hon. Simon Cameron:

me

SIR: Your despatch of the 15th inst., informing m that Tennessee is called upon for two regiments of militia for immediate service, is received.

Tennessee will not furnish a man for purposes of coercion, but 50,000, if necessary, for the defence of our rights, and those of our Southern brothers.

ISHAM G. HARRIS, Governor of Tennessee. At the same time an address was issued to the people of the State by some of her most eminent citizens, as Messrs. Neil S. Brown, Russell Houston, E. H. Ewing, C. Johnson, John Bell, R. J. Meigs, S. D. Morgan, John S. Brien, Andrew Ewing, John H. Callender, and Baylie Peyton.

Patriotic as were their views, they were unable to stem the tide of secession when it came in the flood. They say:

"We unqualifiedly disapprove of secession, both as a constitutional right, and as a remedy for existing evils; we equally condemn the policy of the Administration in reference to the seceded States. But while we, without qualification, condemn the policy of coercion as calculated to dissolve the Union forever, and to dissolve it in the blood of our fellow-citizens, and regard it as sufficient to justify the State in refusing her aid to the Government in its attempt to suppress the revolution in the seceded

States, we do not think it her duty, considering her position in the Union, and in view of the great question of the peace of our distracted country, to take sides against the Government. Tennessee has wronged no State or citizen of this Union. She has violated the rights of no State, North or South. She has been loyal to all, where loyalty was due. She has not brought on this war by any act of hers. She has tried every means in her power to prevent it. She now stands ready to do any thing within her reach to stop it. And she ought, as we think, to decline joining either party; for in so doing they would at once terminate her grand mission of peace-maker between the States of the South and the General Government. Nay, more; the almost inevitable result would be the transfer of the war within her own borders, the defeat of all hopes of reconciliation, and the deluging of the State with the blood of her own people."

On the 25th of April, the Legislature assembled for the third time, although the members had been elected without any reference to the momentous questions now about to be considered. In the Assembly, on the same day, the following resolution was offered:

Resolved, That upon the grave and solemn matters for our consideration, submitted by the Governor's Message, with a view to the public safety, the two Houses of this Legislature hold their sessions with closed doors whenever a secret session in either House

may be called for by five members of said House, and that the oath of secrecy be administered to the officers and members of said House.

The resolution was adopted. Ayes 42; noes 8.

The Message of the Governor was very strong and decided in urging immediate secession. In it he said:

"I respectfully recommend the perfecting of an ordinance by the General Assembly, formally declaring the independence of the State of Tennessee of the Federal Union, renouncing its authority, and reassuming each and every funetion belonging to a separate sovereignty; and that said ordinance, when it shall have been thus perfected by the Legislature, shall, at the earliest practicable time, be submitted to a vote of the people, to be by them adopted or rejected.

"When the people of the State shall formally declare their connection with the remaining States of the Union dissolved, it will be a matter of the highest expediency, I might almost say of unavoidable political necessity, that we shall at the same time, or as soon thereafter as may be, connect ourselves with those with whom a common interest, a common sympathy, and a common destiny identify us, for weal or for woe.

"I therefore further recommend that you perfect an ordinance with a view to our admission as a member of the Southern Confederacy, (which, it is evident, must soon embrace the entire slaveholding States of the South,) to be submitted in like manner, and at the same time, but separately, for adoption or rejection