hostile fleet, he charges these States with being the assailants of the Union. The world cannot misunderstand this unfounded pretence.

"Mr. Lincoln expresses concern that some foreign nations have so shaped their action as if they supposed the early destruction of the Union probable. He abandons further disguise, and proposes to make the contest short and decisive, and confesses that even an increased force is demanded. These enormous preparations are a distinct avowal that the United States are engaged in a conflict with a great and powerful nation, and are compelled to abandon the pretence of dispersing rioters and suppressing insurrection, and are driven to the acknowledgment that the Union is dissolved. They recognise the separate existence of the Confederate States by indirection, by embargo, and blockade, by which all communication between the two is cut off. They repudiate the foolish idea that the inhabitants of the Confederacy are still citizens of the United States, for they are now waging an indiscriminate war upon them with a savage ferocity unknown to modern civilisation.

"Mr. Davis then compares the present invasion to that of Great Britain in 1781, but which was conducted in a more civilised manner.

"Mankind will shudder at the outrages committed on defenceless women by those pretending to be our fellowcitizens. Who will depict the horror with which they will regard the deliberate malignity which, under pretext of suppressing an insurrection, makes special war upon sick women and children, by carefully devised measures

to prevent their obtaining medicines necessary to their cure? The sacred claims of humanity, respected by all nations, even in the fury of battle, by careful deviation of attack from hospitals, are now outraged by the Government which pretends a desire to continue a fraternal connection. Such outrages admit of no retaliation, unless the actual perpetrators are required. Taylor's

mission to Washington was to propose an exchange of prisoners taken on the privateer Savannah, and to inform Mr. Lincoln that we are determined to check all barbarities on prisoners of war by such retaliation as will effectually put an end to such practices. Mr. Lincoln's promised reply has not been received.

"Reference is made to the peculiar position existing between the Confederate Government and the States usually termed border slave States, which, the Message says, cannot be properly withheld from notice. Our people are animated by the sentiments towards the inhabitants of those States which found expression in your enactment refusing to consider them enemies, or to authorise hostilities against them. That a large portion of those States regard us as brethren, and, if unrestrained by the actual presence of large armies, the subversion of the civil authority, and declaration of martial law, would some of them at least, joyfully unite with us; but that they are with almost entire unanimity opposed to the prosecution of the war waged against us, is a fact of which daily recurring events warrants the assertion. The President of the United States, in refusing to recognise those of our late sister States refraining from

an attack upon us, justifies his refusal by. the assertion that the States have no other power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution. This new constitutional relation between the States and the general Government is a fitting introduction to another assertion of the Message that the Executive possesses the power of suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and of delegating that power to military commanders, at discretion. Both these propositions claim respect equal to that which is felt for an additional statement of opinion in the same paper· that it is proper, in order to execute the laws, that the single law made to meet the extreme tenderness of citizens for liberty, so that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should, to a very limited extent, be violated. We may well rejoice that we have for ever severed our connection with a Government that thus tramples upon all principles of constitutional liberty, and with a people in whose presence such avowals could be paraded.

"In my message delivered in April last, I referred to the promise of abundant crops by which we were cheered. The grain crops generally have since been harvested, and the yield has been the most abundant known in our history. Many believe the supply adequate to two years' consumption for our population. Cotton, sugar, and tobacco forming the surplus production of our agriculture, and furnishing the basis of our commercial interests, present a most cheering promise, and kind Providence has smiled on the labour which extracts the teeming wealth of our soil in all portions of our Confederacy.

this

"It is the more gratifying to be able to give you information, because of the need of large and increased expenditure in support of the army. Elevated and purified by the sacred cause they maintain, our fellowcitizens of every condition of life exhibit a most selfsacrificing devotion. They manifest laudable pride in upholding their independence, unaided by any resources other than their own, and the immense wealth which a fertile soil and genial climate have accumulated in this Confederacy. The patriotism of the agriculturists could not be more strikingly displayed than in the large revenues which, with eager hearts, they have zealously contributed, at the call of their country, in the single article. of cotton.

"The subscriptions to the loan proposed by the government cannot fall short of $50,000,000, and will probably largely exceed that sum, and scarcely an article required for the Confederate army is provided otherwise than by subscriptions to produce a loan so happily devised by your wisdom.

"The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report submitted to you, will give you explicit details connected with that branch of the public service.

"But it is not alone in their prompt pecuniary contributions that the noble race of freemen who inhabit these States evince how worthy they are of those liberties which they so well know how to defend. When their numbers far exceed the call authorised by your laws, they have pressed the tender of their services against the enemy; their attitude of calm and sublime devotion

to their country, the cool and confident courage with which they are already preparing to meet the thousands of invaders, whatever proportions it may assume, the assurance that their sacrifices will be renewed from year to year with unfailing purpose, until they have made good to the uttermost their right to self-government, the generous and almost unquestioning confidence which they have displayed towards their Government during the pending struggle - all combine to present a spectacle such as the world has hardly, if ever seen.

"To speak of subjugating such a people, so united and determined, is to speak a language incomprehensible to them; to resist an attack upon their rights or their liberties is with them an instinct. Whether this war shall last one or three or five years is a problem they will leave to be solved by the enemy alone. It will last till the enemy shall have withdrawn from their borders -till their political rights, their altars and their houses are freed from invasion. Then, and then only, will they rest in peace from this struggle to enjoy the blessings which, with the favour of Providence, they have secured by the aid of their own strong hearts and ready arms."