government he and his compatriots were endeavoring to establish. He knew those men. He knew there was a powerful party at that early day opposed to the government established for he saw the evidence in the Convention, that sooner or later this faction who were opposed to the kind of government adopted, would seek to overthrow the Union, using the sectional slavery question as their Archimedean lever. He knew these things, and he felt he could not retire from office and go down to his grave without leaving the weight of his advice to check the mad passions of those who would be seeking every occasion to overthrow this government, in hopes to build up one more to their liking. In his Farewell Address he said:

"My conntrymen, frown indignantly upon every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest. BEWARE OF SECTIONAL ORGANIZATIONS!-of arraying the North against the South, or the South against the North. In the end it will prove

fatal to our liberties."

General JACKSON had the reputation of "seeing through a man at a glance He knew there were a large class of malcontents who desired the overthrow of the Union, and like WASHINGTON and JEFFERSON, he readily discovered the lever they would use. He knew the struggle when it came would assume a sectional phase, for by such pretext only, could the Union be overthrown. He has left his warning voice for us to ponder over. In his farewell address he says:

*

*

"What have you to gain by divisions and dissentions? Delude not yourselves with the hope that the breach once made would be afterwards easily repaired. If the Union is once severed, the separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated, and settled in the Halls of Legislation, will be tried in the field of battle, and determined by the sword. Neither should you deceive yourselves with the hope that the first line of separation would be the permanent one. * * 營 Local interests would still be found there, and unchastened ambition.If the recollection of common dangers, in which the people of the United States have stood side by side against the common foe, the prosperity and happiness they have enjoyed under the present Constitution-if all these recollections and proofs of common interests, are not strong enough to bind us together, as one people, what tie will hold united the warring divisions of empire, when those bonds have been broken, and the Union dissolved. The

first line of separation would not last longnew fragments would be torn off-new leaders would spring up, and this glorious Republic would soon be broken into a multitude of petty States, armed for mutual aggressions-loaded with taxes to pay armies and leaders, seeking insulted and trampled upon by the nations of aid against each other from foreign powersEurope, until harrassed with conflicts, and humbled and debased in spirit, they would be willing to submit to a domination of any military adventurer, and surrender their liberty for the sake of repose."

Gen. HARRISON also early saw the disunion purposes of the Hartford Convention-SlaveryAgitators, and he warns us of the danger in a letter to Mr. MONROE, in 1820:

"I am, and have been, for many years, so much opposed to slavery, that I will never live in a slave state. But I believe the Constitution has given no power to the General Government to interfere in this matter, and, that to have slaves or no slaves, depends upon the people in each state alone. But besides the constitutional objection, I am persuaded that the obvious tendency of each interference on the part of the States which have no slaves with the property of their fellow-citizens of the others, is to produce a state of discord and jealousy, that will, in the end, prove fatal to the Union. I believe that in no other state are such wild and dangerous sentiments entertained on this subject, as in Ohio."

HENRY CLAY, the cotemporary of HARRISON and JACKSON, and the political opponent of the latter, knew the haters of the Union would, on the first favorable opportunity seize upon the slavery question to further their schemes, and in a speech in Congress in 1839, he said:

*

"Abolitionism should no longer be regarded as an imaginary danger. The Abolitionists, let me suppose, succeeded in their present aim of uniting the inhabitants of the free States as one man against the inhabitants of the slave States. Union upon one side will beget union on the other, and this process of reciprocal consolidation will be attended with all the violent prejudices, embittered passions and implacable animosities, which ever degraded or deformed human nature. * * One section will stand in menacing and hostile array against the other. The collissions of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms. I will not attempt to describe scenes which now happily lie concealed from our view. Abolitionists themselves would shrink back in dismay and horror at the contemplation of desolated fields, conflagrated cities, murdered inhabitants, and the overthrow of the fairest fabric of human government that ever rose to animate the hopes of civilized man

CHAPTER IX.

EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE-WHO RESPONSIBLE, The Statement of Douglas... His last Letter...Senator Pugh's Statement... Endorsed by Douglas...Chicago Tri

bune wouldn't Yield an Inch... The Peace Congress...

Efforts of Republicans to Hush it Up...Senator Chandler's" Blood-letting" Epistle, &c.

And when the crash predicted by JEFFERSON, JACKSON, HARRISON and CLAY had come-when the "tornado" of the "geographical question" which so much annoyed JEFFERSON, had burst over the heads of the people, to show that those who had caused it were bent on consummating their plans at the pense of the Union, we quote the last letter written by Senator DOUGLAS:

66 WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 1860.

"MY DEAR SIR: * * * You will have received my proposed amendments to the constitution before you receive this. The South would take my proposition if the Republicans would agree to it. But the extremes, North and South, hold off, and are precipitating the country into revolution and civil war.

"While I can do no act which recognizes or countenances the doctrine of secession, my policy is peace, and I will not consider the question of war until every effort has been made for peace, and all hope shall have vanished. When that time comes, if unfortunately it shall come, I will then do what it becomes an American Senator to do on the then state

of facts. Many of the Republican leaders desire a dissolution of the Union, and urge war as a means of accomplishing disunion; while others are Union men in good faith. We have now reached a point where a compromise on the basis of mutual concession, disunion and war, are inevitable. I prefer a fair and just compromise. I shall make a speech in a few days.

"Yours, truly, S. A. DOUGLAS." Thus, by this testimony it will be seen that 'the "extreme" men of both North and South held back, and refused terms of accommodation, not-as we may reasonably suppose, from a long line of antecedents-that the northern extremists hated slavery more than they loved the Union, or the Southern "extremists" loved slavery more than they hated the Union-but in reality, because both factions saw in the then existing facts, the occasion for getting rid of the old Union. The Northern "extremists" declared they would "not yield an inch" and the Southern "extremists" would "not yield an inch" well knowing that the least mutual yielding would produce just what neither "extreme" wanted-a continued Union.

During the pendency of the deliberations or

Senator PUGH, of Ohio, has put on record the following testimony as to what could have been done under a proper desire to save the

Union:

"The CRITTENDEN proposition has been indorsed by the almost unanimous vote of the Legislature of Kentucky. It has been indorsed by the Lagislature of the noble old commonwealth of Virginia. It has been petitioned for by a larger number of electors of the United States than any proposition that was ever before Congress. believe in my heart to-day, that it would carry an overwhelming majority of the people of my state; aye, sir, and of nearly every state in the Union. Before the Senators from the state of Mississippi left this Chamber I heard one of them, who assumes at least to be President of the Southern Confederacy, propose to accept it and maintain the Union if that proposition, could receive the the Chamber. Therefore, all of your propovote it ought to receive from the other side of sitions, of all your amendments, knowing as I do, and knowing that the historian will write it it down, at any time before the first of Janolutions in this Chamber would have saved evuary, a two-thirds vote for the Crittenden resery state in the Union but South Carolina.— Georgia would be here by her representatives, least would have broken the whole column of and Louisiana, those two great states which at secession."-p. 1480, Globe.

To show that yielding would have saved us, we quote the lamented DOUGLAS at an earlier

period, while in his official robes:

"The Senator (Mr. Pugh) has said that if the Crittenden proposition could have passed early in the session, it would have saved all the states except South Carolina. I firmly

"Truly your friend, "His Excellency, Gov. BLAIR.

Z. CHANDLER.

Judge DOUGLAS said in a speech in the Senate, January 3, 1861:

"P. S.-Some of the Manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful. Without a little blood-letting, this Union, in my estimation, will not be worth a rush."

These politicians cared nothing for saving the Union, but to "save the Republican party" was their great desire.

CHAPTER X.

THE MOTIVE FOR PRECIPITATING A CONFLICT.

At one time it was likely the Peace Congress would affect some amicable arrangement to compromise and save the Union. Prior to this several Northern States had refused to send delegates to that Congress, but as some of the Administration States had, and their action was likely to compromise the Administration in a compromise for peace, the politicians who now declare they don't believe in the Constitution, took immediate steps to break up, or defeat the purposes of that Peace Congress.

CARL SCHURZ, then being East, telegraphed to Gov. RANDALL, of Wisconsin, to favor the move and to appoint him as one of the delegates (SCHURZ boasted of his opposition to Peace compromises) as it will strengthen our side."

For the same reason Senator CHANDLER wrote to Gov. BLAIR, of Michigan, as follows:

"WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 1861. "MY DEAR GOVERNOR:-Gov. BINHAM and myself telegraphed you on Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the Peace or Compromise Congress. They admit that we are right and they are wrong that no Republican State should have sent delegates; but they are here and can't get away. Ohio, Indiana and Rhode Island are coming in, and there is danger of Illinois, and they beg us for God's sake to come to their rescue, and save the Republican party from a rupture! I hope you will send stiff-backed men or none! The whole thing was got up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thick smoke. Still, I hope as a matter of

Administration resort to a Trick" to Force the Rebels to Commence the Attack...Letter from the Hon. Harlow S. Orton... His charges of a "Trick" proved by Extracts from... The New York Times... Charleston Mercury... New York Tribune, &c,... The United States Armada take no part to Relieve Major Andersoa... New York Post details the Trick... Radicals Prophesying an Easy and Early Victory... Seward's Promise to deliver up Sumter.

It is not of so much moment now to ascertain the cause of the war as it is the motive.— The former cannot now be remedied, so as to effect present results, while by duly exposing the latter we may avoid its repetition for some time to come, as the expose of Federal designs prevented a disruption of the Union in 1814-16.

LETTER FROM JUDGE ORTON.

We cannot better illustrate the animus of the party in power to provoke actual hostili| ties, with a view of throwing the onus of war's inception on the rebels, than by copying entire the letter and "accompanying documents" by the Hon. HARLOW S. ORTON, Judge of the 9th Wisconsin Circuit, to the Wisconsin Patriot, as follows:

"TO THE EDITORS OF THE PATRIOT:

"The Journal, in its generally correct report of what I said in the recent Democratic Convention, says:

"He charged that this war was brought upon the country by the present administration in accordance with an infamous plot-a disgraceful political trick! That the sending of a vessel to Fort Sumter with the avowed object of sending provisions to the men in the Fort, was only a pretense, gotten up to provoke South Carolina to make an attack! to form an excuse for the administration to de.

clare war! The party in power would not hear to any terms of compromise," &c.

"The general sense of what I said on that point, is perhaps sufficiently conveyed by the above report, yet much of the language used I respectfully disown. I said, in effect, that the inception of the war, (by which I meant the firing on Fort Sumter,) was the result of a trick of the administration. That the fleet

with provisions and men was sent to lie off Charleston harbor, ostensibly for the purpose of reinforcing the Fort, but in fact with no such real design, but to provoke and induce the enemy to make their threatened attack in order to arouse and unite the North for the war. That the attempt to so reinforce the Fort at that time was in violation of a pledge given to the Southern Commissoners, that such an attempt would not then be made,

"I pledged myself able to prove this charge, if it was denied. It has been denied, and I have been made the subject of much personal abuse for having made it. Two years is not a very long time to remember the important facts which make up the history of the present war, and it is remarkable, that a fact so well known and discussed at the time, and especially in Washington, and never then contradicted by by anybody, should now be denounced as worse than a falsehood.

"Now for some of the proof.

"These mysterious movements were the dispatching of eight vessels of war; with twentysix guns and thirteen hundred and eighty men, between the 6th and 8th of April, with sealed orders for the south. On the 8th, information was communicated by the Government to the authorities at Charleston that they desired to send supplies to Fort Sumter by an unarmed vessel. They were informed that the vessel would be fired upon and not permitted to enter the port. On the same day official notification was given by the government that supplies would be sent to Major Anderson, peaceably if possible, otherwise by force. On the 9th the Southern Commissioners were dismissed from Washington, by the Secretary of State declining to receive them officially, but expressing great deference for them personally. On the 10th United States vessels were reported off

"The question of reinforcing Fort Sumter has been under consideration in the Cabinet, and it is understood that the question, whether or no, it is not desirable to withdraw all the troops except two or three men, rather than incur the bloodshed which will probably occur, before troops and supplies are put into it, is now to be decided. The question has been under discussion in high military circles for some days. Gen. SCOTT advises that reinforcements cannot now be put in without an enormous sacrifice of life. He is understood to say, that we have neither military or naval force at hand sufficient to supply the Fort against the threatened opposition, which it would require twenty thousand men to overcome. Besides, if it should initiate civil war, in addition to uniting the South, and overwhelming the Union sentiment there, in the waves of passion, it would require two hundred and fifty thousand Government soldiers to carry on the struggle, and a hundred millions of money to begin with."

"It is a fact of the current history of the time, that this discussion and under the advice of Gen. SCOTT, resulted in the unanimous decision of the Cabinet, that the fort should be evacuated, and the President's order for that purpose was anxiously awaited and expected by the public for several days, and the people had generally acquiesced in the wisdom and conciliation of the measure. It was at this juncture that Mr. SEWARD, or some other person having authority, pledged the Southern Commissioners that the fort would not be reinforced, and this was communicated to the Southern rebel authorities. In consequence of this understanding, the Charleston Mercury proclaimed

"Sumter is to be ours without a fight! All will rejoice that the blood of our people is not to be shed in our harbor either in small or great degree."

"The fact that this pledge was given by Mr. SEWARD or some other member of the Cabinet, is charged in the last communication of the Southern Commissioners to the Secretary of State, and has never been denied officially or otherwise.

"So matters remained until the 5th of April.

The New York Tribune of that date says:

harbor.

"On the 11th, preparations were made by the military of Charleston for an attack on the Fort, in anticipation of a forcible attempt on the part of the Federal fleet to supply it. On the 12th, after a demand for its surrender, the Fort is fired into, and the war is commenced! During this infamous and cowardly attack upon the small and starved garrison of Sumter, the United States fleet is in sight, making no attempt to enter the harbor, or cooperate with the Fort, lying idly by, and witnessing the desperate and heroic yet useless struggle of the gallent ANDERSON and his men, to defend his Fort and his flag against an overwhelming force of rebels, unaided and alone. The deed is done, and the bloody struggle of a relentless civil war has commenced! The Fort has fallen into the hands of the rebel states, and its guns turned against the Govlines are obliterated, and the people of the ernment; and behold the effect. All party Northern States, with one mind, and with the the insult by fierce and bloody war. most patriotic impulses, rush to arms, to avenge Scott predicted would be the consequence of As Gen. initiated, the South is united, and the Union an attempt to reinforce the Fort, 'Civil war is sentiment there is overwhelmed in the waves of passion.'

The Border States, hitherto reluctant, now make haste to rush into the whirlpool of secession, and join the Southern Confederacy. All pending efforts and measures for compromise are scouted and contemned; and a peaceful solution of the sectional controversy is now rendered impossible.

Since that time, I have never once questioned the right and the imperative duty of the Administration to use all possible and adequate means to conquer and subdue a rebellion so causeless and wicked-only insisting that all the efforts of the Government to that end should be to restore the Union and maintain