The substance of this statement I communicated to you the same evening by letter. Five days elapsed and I called with a telegram from General Beauregard to the effect that Sumter was not evacuated, but that Major Anderson was at work making repairs. The next day, after conversing with you, I communicated to Judge Crawford, in writing, that the failure to evacuate Sumter was not the result of bad faith, but was attributable to causes consistent with the intention to fulfil the engagement, and that, as regarded Pickens, I should have notice of any design to alter the existing status there. Mr. Justice Nelson was present at these conversations, three in number, and I submitted to him each of my written communications to Judge Crawford, and informed Judge Crawford that they had his (Judge Nelson's) sanction. I gave you, on the 22d of March, a substantial copy of the statement I had made on the 15th. The 30th of March arrived, and at that time a telegram came from Governor Pickens inquiring concerning Colonel Lamon, whose visit to Charleston he supposed had a connection with the proposed evacuation of Fort Sumter. I left that with you, and was to have an answer the following Monday, (1st of April.) On the 1st of April I received from you the statement in writing: "I am satisfied the Government will not undertake to supply Fort Sumter without giving notice to Governor P." The words, "I am satisfied," were for me to use as expressive of confidence in the remainder of the declaration. The proposition as originally prepared was, "The President may desire to supply Sumter, but will not do so," etc., and your verbal explanation was that you did not believe any such attempt would be made, and that there was no design to reinforce Sumter. There was a departure here from the pledges of the previous month, but, with the verbal explanation, I did not consider it a matter then to complain of. I simply stated to you that I had that assurance previously. On the 7th of April I addressed you a letter on the subject of the alarm that the preparations by the Government had created, and asked you if the assurances I had given were well or ill-founded. In respect to Sumter your reply was, "Faith as to Sumter fully kept-wait and see." In the morning's paper I read, "An authorized messenger from President Lincoln informed Governor Pickens and General Beauregard that provisions will be sent to Fort Sumter-peaceably, or otherwise by force." This was the 8th of April, at Charleston, the day following your last assurance, and is the last evidence of the full faith I was invited to wait for and see. In the same paper I read that intercepted dispatches disclosed the fact that Mr. Fox, who had been allowed to visit Major Anderson, on the pledge that his purpose was pacific, employed his opportunity to devise a plan for supplying the Fort by force, and that this plan had been adopted by the Washingtou Government, and was in process of execution. My recollection of the date of Mr. Fox's visit carries it to a day in March. I learn he is a near connection of a member of the Cabinet. My connection with the Commissioners and yourself was superinduced by a conversation with Justice Nelson. He informed me of your strong disposition in favor of peace, and that you were oppressed with a demand of the Commissioners of the Confederate States for a reply to their first letter, and that you desired to avoid it if possible at that time. I told him I might, perhaps, be of some service in arranging the difficulty. I came to your office entirely at his request, and without the knowledge of either of the Commissioners. Your depression was obvious to both Judge Nelson and myself. I was gratified at the character of the counsels you were desirous of pursuing, and much impressed with your observation that a civil war might be prevented by the success of my mediation. You read a letter of Mr. Weed, to show how irksome and responsible the withdrawal of troops from Sumter was: A portion of my communication to Judge Crawford on the 15th March, was founded upon these remarks, and the pledge to evacuate Sumter is less forcible than the words you employed. Those words were: Before this letter reaches you, (a proposed letter by me to President Davis,) Sumter will have been evacuated. The Commissioners who received those communications conclude they have been abused and over-reached. The Montgomery Government hold the same opinion. The Commissioners have supposed that my communications were with you, and upon the hypothesis were prepared to arraign you before the country in connection with the President. I placed a peremptory prohibition upon this as being contrary to the terms of my communications with them. I pledged myself to them to communicate information upon what I considered as the best authority, and they were to confide in the ability of myself, aided by Judge Nelson, to determine upon the credibility of my informant. I think no candid man who will read over what I have written, and considers for a moment what is going on at Sumter, but will agree that the equivocating conduct of the Administration, as measured and interpreted in connection with these promises, is the proximate cause of the great calamity. I have a profound conviction that the telegrams of the 8th of April of General Beauregard, and of the 10th of April of General Walker, the Secretary of War, can be referred to nothing else than their belief that there has been systematic duplicity praticed on them through me. It is under an impressive sense of the weight of this responsibility that I submit to you these things for your explanation. Very respectfully, JOHN A. CAMPBELL, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, United States. HON. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. WASHINGTON, April 20, 1861. SIR-I enclose you a letter, corresponding very nearly with one I addressed to you one week ago, (13th April,) to which I have not had any reply. The letter is simply one of inquiry in reference to facts concerning which, I think, I am entitled to an explanation. I have not adopted any opinion in reference to them which may not be modified by explanation; nor have I affirmed in that letter, nor do I in this, any conclusion of my own unfavorable to your integrity in the whole transaction. All that I have said and mean to say is, that an explanation is due from you to myself. I will not say what I shall do in case this request is not complied with, but I am justified in saying that I shall feel at liberty to place these letters before any person who is entitled to ask an explanation of myself. Very respectfully, JOHN A. CAMPBELL, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, United States. HON. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. No reply has been made to this letter. April 24, 1861. J. MY MARYLAND. BY JAMES R. BANDALL. The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland ! Avenge the patriotic gore That flecked the streets of Baltimore, And be the battle-queen of yore, Maryland! My Maryland! Hark to an exiled son's appeal, Maryland! My Mother-State, to thee I kneel, Maryland! For life and death, for woe and weal, Thy peerless chivalry reveal, And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, Maryland! My Maryland! Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum! She breathes-she burns! she'll come! she'll come! Ex parte K. THE MERRYMAN CASE. DECISION OF CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY. JOHN MERRYMAN. Before the Chief Justice of the Supreme {Court of the United States, at Chambers. The application in this case for a Writ of Habeas Corpus is made to me under the 14th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which renders effectual for the citizen the Constitutional Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus. That Act gives to the Courts of the United States, as well as to each Justice of the Supreme Court, and to every District Judge, power to grant Writs of Habeas Corpus for the purpose of an inquiry into the cause of commitment. The petition was presented to me at Washington under the impression that I would order the prisoner to be brought before me there; but as he was confined in Fort McHenry, at the City of Baltimore, which is in my Circuit, I resolved to hear it in the latter city, as obedience to the Writ, under such circumstances, would not withdraw General Cadwalader, who had him in charge, from the limits of his military command. The petition presents the following case: The petitioner resides in Maryland, in Baltimore County. While peaceably in his own house, with his family, it was at two o'clock on the morning of the 25th of May, 1861, entered by an armed force, professing to act under military orders. He was then compelled to rise from his bed, taken into custody, |