the above, they returned to the ship, bringing Doc. 83. ADDRESS OF THE REBEL CONGRESS 66 tion. Its early life was attended by no anarchy, In nearly every instance, the first steps were taken legally, in accordance with the will and prescribed direction of the constituted authorities of the seceding States. We were not remitted to brute force or natural law, or the instincts of reason. The charters of freedom were scrupu TO THE PEOPLE OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES. February 26, 1864. In closing the labors of the first permanent Congress, your representatives deem it a fit occasion to give some account of their stewardship; to review briefly what, under such embarrass-lously preserved. As in the English Revolution ments and adverse circumstances, has been accomplished; to invite attention to the prospect before us, and the duties incumbent on every citizen in this crisis; and to address such words of counsel and encouragement as the times demand. Compelled by a long series of oppressive and tyrannical acts, culminating at last in the selection of a President and Vice-President by a party confessedly sectional and hostile to the South and her institutions, these States withdrew from the former Union, and formed a new confederate alliance, as an independent government, based on the proper relations of labor and capital. of 1688, and ours of 1776, there was no material alteration in the laws beyond what was necessary to redress the abuses that provoked the struggle. No attempt was made to build on speculative principles. The effort was confined within the narrowest limits of historical and constitutional right. The controversy turned on the records and muniments of the past. We merely resisted innovation and tyranny, and contended for our birth-rights and the covenanted principles of our race. We have had our Governors, General Assemblies, and Courts; the same electors, the same corporations, "the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law and the magistracy." When the sovereign States met in council, they, in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, did not make but prevented a revolution. This step was taken reluctantly, by constraint, and after the exhaustion of every measure that was likely to secure us from interference with our property, equality in the Union, or exemption from submission to an alien government. The Southern States claimed only the unrestrict- Commencing our new national life under such ed enjoyment of the rights guaranteed by the circuinstances, we had a right to expect that we Constitution. Finding, by painful and protracted would be permitted, without molestation, to culexperience, that this was persistently denied, we tivate the arts of peace and vindicate on our determined to separate from those enemies, who chosen arena and with the selected type of social had manifested the inclination and ability to im-characteristics, our claims to civilization. It was poverish and destroy us-we fell back upon the thought, too, by many, that war would not be rights for which the colonies maintained the war resorted to by an enlightened country, except on of the Revolution, and which our heroic fore- the direst necessity. That a people, professing fathers asserted to be clear and inalienable. The to be animated by Christian sentiment, and unanimity and zeal with which the separation who had regarded our peculiar institution as a was undertaken and perfected, finds no parallel blot and blur upon the fair escutcheon of their in history. The people rose en masse to assert common Christianity, should make war upon the their liberties and to protect their menaced South for doing what they had a perfect right to rights. There never was before such universality | do, and for relieving them of the incubus which, of conviction, among any people, on any question involving so serious and so thorough a change of political and international relations. they professed, rested upon them by the association, was deemed almost beyond belief by many of our wisest minds. It was hoped, too, that the obvious interest of the two sections would restrain the wild frenzy of excitement and turn into peaceful channels the thoughts of those who had but recently been invested with power in the United States. This grew out of the clearness of the right so to act, and the certainty of the perils of farther association with the North. The change was so wonderful, so rapid, so contrary to universal history, that many fail to see that all has been done in the logical sequence of principles, which are These reasonable anticipations were doomed to the highest testimony to the wisdom of our disappointment. The red glare of battle, kindled fathers, and the best illustration of the correct- at Sumter, dissipated all hopes of peace, and the ness of those principles. This Government is a two governments were arrayed in hostility against child of law instead of sedition, of right instead each other. We charge the responsibility of this of violence, of deliberation instead of insurrec-war on the United States. They are accountable VOL. VIII.-Doc. 25 for the blood and havoc and ruin it has caused. For such a war we were not prepared. The difference in military resources between our enemies and ourselves; the immense advantages possessed in the organized machinery of an established government; a powerful navy; the nucleus of an ariny; credit abroad, and illimitable facilities in mechanical and manufacturing power, placed them on "the vantage-ground." Our sol and classes contributed to the swelling numbers. Abandoning luxuries and comforts to which they had been accustomed, they submitted cheerfully to the scanty fare and exactive service of the camps. Their services above price, the only remuneration they have sought is the protection of their altars, firesides, and liberty. In the Nɔrwegian wars, the actors were, every one of them, named and patronymically described as the king's In our infancy we were without a seaman or friend and companion. The same wonderful insoldier, without revenue, without gold and sil-dividuality has been seen in this war. ver, without a recognized place in the family of nations, without external commerce, without foreign credit, with the prejudices of the world To designate all who have distinguished themagainst us. While we were without manufac- selves by special valor, would be to enumerate turing facilities to supply our wants, our ports nearly all in the army. The generous rivalry be were blockaded; we had to grapple with a giant tween the troops from different States has preadversary, defend two thousand miles of sea- vented any special preeminence, and, hereafter, coast and an inland frontier of equal extent. If for centuries to come, the gallant bearing and we had succeeded in preventing any successes on unconquerable devotion of confederate soldiers the part of our enemy, it would have been a mir-will inspire the hearts, and encourage the hopes, acle. What we have accomplished, with a popu- and strengthen the faith of all who labor to oblation so inferior in numbers, and means so vastly tain their freedom. diers are not a consolidated mass, an unthinking machine, but an army of intelligent units. to excite hostility to the government. Recent and public as have been the occurrences, it is strange that a misapprehension exists as to the conduct of the two governments in reference to peace. disproportionate, has excited the astonishment For three years this cruel war has been waged and admiration of the world. against us, and its continuance has been seized The war in which we are engaged was wick-upon as a pretext by some discontented persons edly, and against all our protests, and the most earnest efforts to the contrary, forced upon us. South-Carolina sent a commission to Washington to adjust all questions of dispute between her and the United States. One of the first acts of the provisional government was to accredit agents to visit Washington, and use all honorable means to obtain a satisfactory settlement of all questions of dispute with that Government. Both efforts failed. Commissioners were deceived and rejected, and clandestine but vigorous preparations were made for war. In proportion to our perseverance and anxiety, have been the obstinacy and arrogance in spurning offers of peace. It seems we can be indebted for nothing to the virtues of our enemies. We are obliged to his vices, which have inured to our strength. We owe as much to his insolence and blindness as to our precaution. | Allusion has been made to the unsuccessful efforts, when separation took place, to procure an amicable adjustment of all matters in dispute. These attempts at negotiation do not comprise all that has been done. In every form in which expression could be given to the sentiment-in public meetings, through the press, by legislative resolves—the desire of this people for peace, for the uninterrupted enjoyment of their rights and prosperity, has been made known. The President, more authoritatively, in several of his mes sages, while protesting the utter absence of all desire to interfere with the United States, or acquire any of their territory, has avowed that the "advent of peace will be hailed with joy. Our desire for it has never been concealed. Our ef forts to avoid the war, forced on us as it was by the lust of conquest and the insane passions of our foes, are known to mankind.” The wager of battle having been tendered, it was accepted. The alacrity with which our people flew to arms is worthy of all praise. Their deeds of heroic daring, patient endurance, ready submission to discipline, and numerous victories, are in keeping with the fervent patriotism that The course of the Federal Government has prompted their early volunteering. Quite recent-proved that it did not desire peace, and would ly scores of regiments have reënlisted for the war, not consent to it on any terms that we could postestifying their determination to fight until their sibly concede. In proof of this, we refer to the liberties were achieved. Coupled with and con- repeated rejection of all terms of conciliation and tributing greatly to the enthusiastic ardor, was compromise, to their recent contemptuous refusal the lofty courage, the indomitable resolve, the to receive the Vice-President, who was sent to self-denying spirit of our noble women, who, by negotiate for softening the asperities of war, and their labors of love, their patience of hope, their their scornful rejection of the offer of a neutral unflinching constancy, their uncomplaining sub- power to mediate between the contending parties. mission to the privations of the war, have shed an If cumulative evidence be needed, it can be found immortal lustre upon their sex and country. in the following resolution, recently adopted by the House of Representatives in Washington: Our army is no hireling soldiery. It comes not from paupers, criminals, or emigrants. It was originally raised by the free, unconstrained, unpurchasable assent of the men. All vocations "Resolved, That as our country and the very existence of the best Government ever instituted by man are imperilled by the most causeless and wicked rebellion that the world has seen, and believing, as we do, that the only hope of saving this country and preserving this Government is by the power of the sword, we are for the most vigorous prosecution of the war until the Constitution and the laws shall be enforced and obeyed in all parts of the United States; and to that end we oppose any armistice, or intervention, or mediation, or proposition for peace, from any quarter, so long as there shall be found a rebel in arms against the Government; and we ignore all party names, lines, and issues, and recognize but two parties in this war-patriots and traitors." The motive of such strange conduct is obvious. The Republican party was founded to destroy slavery and the equality of the States, and Lincoln was selected as the instrument to accomplish this object. The Union was a barrier to the consummation of this policy, because the Constitution, which was its bond, recognized and protected slavery and the sovereignty of the States. The Union must, therefore, be sacrificed, and to insure its destruction, war was determined on. The mass of the Northern people were not privy to, and sympathized in no such design. They loved the Union and wished to preserve it. To rally the people to the support of the war, its object was proclaimed to be "a restoration of the Union," as if that which implied voluntary assent, of which agreement was an indispensable element and condition, could be preserved by coercion. It is absurd to pretend that a government, really desirous of restoring the Union, would adopt such measures as the confiscation of private property, the emancipation of slaves, systematic efforts to invite them to insurrection, forcible abduction from their homes and compulsory enlistment in the army, the division of a Sovereign State without its consent, and a proclamation that one tenth of the population of a State, and that tenth under military rule, should control the will of the remaining nine tenths. The only relation possible between the two sections under such a policy is that of conqueror and conquered, superior and dependent. Rest assured, fellow-citizens, that although restoration may still be used as a war cry by the Government, it is only to delude and betray. Fanaticism has summoned to its aid cupidity and vengeance; and nothing short of your utter subjugation, the destruction of your State governments, the destruction of your social and political fabric, your personal and public degradation and ruin, will satisfy the demands of the North. Can there be a man so vile, so debased, so unworthy of liberty as to accept peace on such humiliating terms? itures, to seduce, or by its legions of "Hessian" mercenaries, to overawe the masses, to control the elections, and to establish an arbitrary despotism. It cannot be possible that this state of things can continue. The people of the United States, accustomed to freedom, cannot consent to be ruined and enslaved, in order to ruin and enslave us. Moral, like physical, epidemics, have their allotted periods, and must sooner or later be exhausted and disappear. When reason returns, our enemies will probably reflect, that a people like ours, who have exhibited such capabilities, and extemporized such resources, can never be subdued; that a vast expanse of territory, with such a population, cannot be governed as an obedient colony. Victory would not be conquest. The inextinguishable quarrel would be transmitted "from bleeding sire to son," and the struggle would be renewed between generations yet unborn. impoverish us would only be to dry up some of the springs of Northern prosperity-to destroy Southern wealth is to reduce Northern profits, while the restoration of peace would necessarily reëstablish some commercial intercourse. To It may not be amiss, in this connection, to say that at one time it was the wish and expectation of many at the South to form a treaty of amity and friendship with the Northern States, by which both peoples might derive the benefits of commercial intercourse and move on side by side in the arts of peace and civilization. History has confirmed the lesson taught by divine authority, that each nation, as well as each individual, should seek their happiness in the prosperity of others, and not in the injury or ruin of a neighbor. The general welfare of all is the highest dictate of moral duty and economic policy, while a heritage of triumphant wrong is the greatest curse that can befall a nation. Until some evidence is given of a change of policy on the part of the Government, and some assurance is received, that efforts at negotiation will not be spurned, the Congress are of opinion that any direct overtures for peace would compromise our self-respect, be fruitless of good, and intepreted by the enemy as an indication of weakness. We can only repeat the desire of the people for peace, and our readiness to accept terms, consistent with the honor and integrity and independence of the States, and compatible with the safety of our domestic institutions. Not content with rejecting all proposals for a peaceful settlement of the controversy, a cruel war of invasion was commenced, which, in its progress, has been marked by a brutality and disregard of the rules of civilized warfare, as stand out in unexampled barbarity in the history of modern wars. Accompanied by every act of cruelty and rapine, the conduct of the enemy It would hardly be fair to assert that all the has been destitute of that forbearance and magNorthern people participate in these designs. nanimity which civilization and Christianity On the contrary, there exists a powerful political have introduced to mitigate the asperities of party, which openly condemns them. The Ad- war. The atrocities are too incredible for narraministration has, however, been able thus far, by tion. Instead of a regular war our resistance of its enormous patronage and its lavish expend- the unholy efforts to crush out our national ex istence is treated as a rebellion, and the settled international rules between belligerents are ignored. Instead of conducting the war as betwixt two military and political organizations, it is a war against the whole population. Houses are pillaged and burned; churches are defaced; towns are ransacked; clothing of women and infants is stripped from their persons; jewelry and mementoes of the dead are stolen; mills and implements of agriculture are destroyed; private saltworks are broken up; the introduction of medicines is forbidden; means of subsistence are wantonly wasted to produce beggary; prisoners are returned with contagious diseases; the last morsel of food has been taken from families, who are not allowed to carry on a trade or branch of industry; a rigid and offensive espionage has been introduced to ferret out "disloyalty;" persons have been forced to choose between starvation of helpless children and taking the oath of allegiance to a hated government. On the twenty-fourth June, 1776, one of the reasons assigned by Pennsylvania for her sepa ration from the mother country was that, in her sister colonies, the "King had excited the negroes to revolt" and to imbue their hands in the blood of their masters, in a manner unpractised by civilized nations. This, probably had reference to the proclamation of Dunmore, the last royal Governor of Virginia, in 1775, declaring freedom to all servants or negroes, if they would join "for the reducing the colony to a proper sense of its duty." The invitation to the slaves to rise against their masters, the suggested insurrection, caused, says Bancroft, "a thrill of indignation to run through Virginia, effacing all differences of party, and rousing one strong, impassioned purpose to drive away the insolent power by which it had been put forth." A contemporary annalist, adverting to the same proclamation, said: "It was received with the greatest horror in all the colonies." "The policy adopted by Dunmore," says LawThe cartel for the exchange of prisoners has rence in his notes on Wheaton, "of arming the been suspended, and our unfortunate soldiers slaves against their masters, was not pursued subjected to the grossest indignities. The during the war of the Revolution; and when newounded at Gettysburgh were deprived of their goes were taken by the English, they were not nurses and inhumanly left to perish on the field. considered otherwise than as property and plunHelpless women have been exposed to the most der." Emancipation of slaves as a war measure cruel outrages and to that dishonor which is in-has been severely condemned and denounced by finitely worse than death. Citizens have been the most eminent publicists in Europe and the murdered by the Butlers and McNeils and Mil- United States. roys, who are favorite generals of our enemies. The United States, "in their diplomatic relaRefined and delicate ladies have been seized, tions, have ever maintained," says the Northern bound with cords, imprisoned, guarded by ne-authority just quoted, "that slaves were private groes, and held as hostages for the return of re- property, and for them, as such, they have recaptured slaves. Unoffending non-combatants peatedly received compensation from England." have been banished or dragged from their homes Napoleon I. was never induced to issue a proclato be immured in filthy jails. Preaching the mation for the emancipation of the serfs in his Gospel has been refused, except on condition of war with Russia. He said: "I could have armed taking the oath of allegiance. Parents have against her a part of her population, by proclaimbeen forbidden to name their children in honoring the liberty of the serfs. A great number of of "rebel" chiefs. Property has been confis-villages asked it of me, but I refused to avail my cated. Military governors have been appointed self of a measure which would have devoted to for States, satraps for provinces, and Haynaus for cities. These cruelties and atrocities of the enemy have been exceeded by their malicious and bloodthirsty purpose and machinations in reference to the slaves. Early in this war, President Lincoln averred his constitutional inability and personal unwillingness to interfere with the domestic institutions of the States and the relation between master and servant. Prudential considerations may have been veiled under conscientious scruples. Mr. Seward, in a confidential instruction to Mr. Adams, the Minister to Great Britain, on tenth March, 1862, said: "If the Government of the United States should precipitately decree the immediate abolition of slavery, it would reinvigorate the declining insurrection in every part of the South." Subsequent reverses and the refractory rebelliousness of the seceded States caused a change of policy, and Mr. Lincoln issued his celebrated proclamation, a mere brutem fulmen, liberating the slaves in the "insurrectionary districts." death thousands of families." In the discussions growing out of the treaty of peace of 1814, and the proffered mediation of Russia, the principle was maintained by the United States that "the emancipation of enemy's slaves is not among the acts of legitimate warfare." In the instructions from John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State, to Mr. Middleton, at Saint Petersburgh, October eighteenth, 1820, it is said: "The British have broadly asserted the right of emancipating slaves (private property) as a legitimate right of war. No such right is acknow ledged as a law of war by writers who admit any limitation. The right of putting to death all prisoners in cold blood, and without special cause, might as well be pretended to be a law of war, or the right to use poisoned weapons, or to assassinate." Disregarding the teachings of the approved writers on international law and the practice and claims of his own Government in its purer days, President Lincoln has sought to convert the South into a St. Domingo, by appealing to the cupidity, lusts, ambition, and ferocity of the slave. Abraham Lincoln is but the lineal descendant of Dunmore, and the impotent malice. of each was foiled by the fidelity of those who, by the meanness of the conspirators, would only, if successful, have been seduced into idleness, filth, vice, beggary, and death. But we tire of these indignities and enormities. They are too sickening for recital. History will hereafter pillory those who committed and encouraged such crimes and immortal infamy. General Robert E. Lec, in a recent battle order, stated to his invincible legions, that seeks the "cruel foe to reduce our fathers and mothers, our wives and children, to abject slavery." He does not paint too strongly the purposes of the enemy or the consequences of subjugation. What has been done in certain districts is but the prologue of the bloody drama that will be enacted. It is well that every man and woman should have some just conception of the horrors of conquest. The fate of Ireland at the period of its conquest, and of Poland, distinctly foreshadows what would await us. The guillotine, in its ceaseless work of blood, would be revived for the execution of the "rebel leaders." The heroes of our contest would be required to lay down their proud ensigns, on which are recorded the battle-fields of their glory, to stack their arms, lower their heads in humiliation and dishonor, and pass under the yoke of abolition misrule and tyranny. A hateful inquisition, made atrocious by spies and informers; starchamber courts, enforcing their decisions by confiscations, imprisonments, banishments, and death; a band of detectives, ferreting out secrets, lurking in every family, existing in every conveyance; the suppression of free speech; the deprivation of arms and franchises; and the everpresent sense of inferiority would make our condition abject and miserable beyond what freemen can imagine. Subjugation involves every thing that the torturing malice and devilish ingenuity of our foes can suggest. the ignominy and poverty of Yankee domination. The sad story of the wrongs and indignities endured by those States which have been in the complete or partial possession of the enemy, will give the best evidence of the consequences of subjugation. Missouri, a magnificent empire of agricultural and mineral wealth, is to-day a smoking ruin and the theatre of the most revolting cruelties and barbarisms. The minions of tyranny consume her substance, plunder her citizens, and destroy her peace. The sacred rights of freemen are struck down, and the blood of her children, her maidens, and her old men is made to flow, out of mere wantonness and recklessness. whispers of freedom go unpunished, and the very instincts of self-preservation are outlawed. The worship of God and the rites of sepulture have been shamefully interrupted, and, in many instances, the cultivation of the soil is prohibited to her own citizens. These facts are attested by many witnesses, and it is but a just tribute to that noble and chivalrous people, that, amid barbarities almost unparalleled, they still maintain a proud and defiant spirit toward their enemies. No In Maryland, the judiciary, made subservient to executive absolutism, furnishes no security for individual rights or personal freedom; members of the Legislature are arrested and imprisoned without process of law or assignment of cause, and the whole land groaneth under the oppressions of a merciless tyranny. In Kentucky, the ballot-box has been overthrown, free speech is suppressed, the most vexatious annoyances harass and embitter, and all the arts and appliances of an unscrupulous despotism are freely used to prevent the uprising of the noble patriots of "the dark and bloody ground." Notes of gladness, assurances of a brighter and better day, reach us, and the exiles may take courage and hope for the future. In Virginia, the model of all that illustrates human heroism and self-denying patriotism, although the tempest of desolation has swept over The destruction of our nationality, the equali- her fair domains, no sign of repentance for her zation of whites and blacks, the obliteration of separation from the North can be found. Her State lines, degradation to colonial vassalage, and old homesteads dismantled, her ancestral relics the reduction of many of our citizens to dreary, destroyed, her people impoverished, her territory hopeless, remediless bondage. A hostile police made the battle-ground for the rude shocks of would keep "order" in every town and city. contending hosts, and then divided, with hireling Judges, like Busteed, would hold our courts, parasites mockingly claiming jurisdiction and auprotected by Yankee soldiers. Churches would thority, the Old Dominion still stands with proud be filled by Yankee or tory preachers. Every crest and defiant mien, ready to tramp beneath office would be bestowed on aliens. Absentee her heel every usurper and tyrant, and to illusism would curse us with all its vices. Superadd-trate afresh her sic semper tyrannis, the " prouded to these, sinking us into a lower abyss of de-est motto that ever blazed on a nation's shield or gradation, we would be made the slaves of our a warrior's arms." slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water for To prevent such effects, our people are now those upon whom God has stamped indelibly the prosecuting this struggle. It is no mere war of marks of physical and intellectual inferiority. calculation, no contest for a particular kind of The past of foreign countries need not be sought property, no barter of precious blood for filthy unto to furnish illustrations of the heritage of lucre. Every thing involved in manhood, civilishame that subjugation would entail. Baltimore, zation, religion, law, property, country, home, is St. Louis, Nashville, Knoxville, New-Orleans, at stake. We fight not for plunder, spoils, pilVicksburgh, Huntsville, Norfolk, Newbern, Lou- lage, territorial conquest. The government isville, and Fredericksburgh are the first fruits of tempts by no prizes of "beauty or booty," to be |