The result of the deliberations of the Convention was communicated to Congress on the 27th of February; but Congress failing to submit the proposed amendment to the States for ratification, the Convention, as was expected, proved a failure. This, however, was little to be regretted. Virginia had, through her leading citizens, declared her de termination, if force were employed against the rebel States, to join the Confederacy; and as these were determined on a separation at all events; and as coercive measures could not have been deferred until the States could have acted upon the proposed amendments, neither Virginia nor any other of the subsequently seceding States would have been retained. Nor was it at all probable that the propositions of the Convention would have been ratified by three-fourths of the adhering States.

A few days after the adjournment of the "Peace Convention," Mr. Buchanan's administration expired. President Buchanan came into office at a time and under circumstances which enabled him, with ordinary prudence and honesty of purpose, to make his administration a popular one. But it gained notoriety by its imbecility and corruption, and the incalculable amount of mischief which it wrought. A more faithful servant the Slave Power never had in that office. One good, however, has been ascribed to him, for which he is especially entitled to the gratitude of his immediate predecessor: He made the unpopular administration of Franklin Pierce appear respectable! Probably no man ever carried from the Presidential chair into retirement so little public respect and such a weight of popular odium, as James Buchanan. Well had it been for his own honor as well as for the honor and good of his country, if he had retired to private life before his election to the Presidency.

CHAPTER X.

Administration of Abraham Lincoln.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN entered upon the duties of his office as President of the United States, on the 4th of March, 1861. Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address gave great satisfaction. He assured the people of the Southern States that "their property, their peace and personal security would not be endangered;" that he had "no purpose to interfere with the institution of Slavery in the States where it exists ;" and declared that he had no right nor inclination to do so. He acknowledged the binding force of the constitutional provision for reclaiming fugitive slaves. A law designed to carry this provision into effect, ought to guard effectually against the surrender of free men as slaves; and he suggested that it would, at the same time, be well to provide by law to enforce that clause of the Constitution which guaranties, that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

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The Constitution, he said, "contemplates the Union to be perpetual;" no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union ;" and "acts of violence within any State against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary." He considered that, "in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union was unbroken, and to the extent of his ability, he should take. care that the laws of the Union were faithfully executed in all the States." The mails, unless repelled, would continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union.

In respect to "the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court," he said he did "not deny that such decision must be bind

ing in any case upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while it is also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government."

Mr. Lincoln appointed, as members of his Cabinet, William H. Seward, of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney-General; and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, Postmaster-General.

Although the President had declared his intention to see the laws faithfully executed, he deferred the employment of force until an overt act of war had been committed by the State of South Carolina. On the 12th of April, the assault upon Fort Sumter was made. Long before this, however, an act of war had been committed, by firing into the Star of the West, which had been sent to reënforce Fort Sumter, but was compelled to return without accomplishing the purpose for which she had been sent. On the 15th of April, President Lincoln issued his Proclamation, declaring that the laws were opposed and their execution obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and calling for 75,000 troops "to cause the laws to be duly executed," and repossess the forts, places, and property which had been seized from the Union." And before midsummer, the nation was in the midst of one of the most sanguinary and desolating civil wars recorded in history. The Proclamation also summoned Congress to meet on the 4th of July.

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The call for troops was promptly responded to in all the Northern States; and money was liberally pledged for the volunteers and their families. Legislatures also made appropriations in aid of the General Government. The call on the Slave States still in the Union met with a very different response. The Governors of all these States, except Delaware and Maryland, positively refused to obey the requisition. Some were unwilling to aid the Government in subduing their sister States; others doubted the constitu

tionality of the call. Gov. Hicks, of Maryland, would raise troops only for the defense of Washington. Delaware promptly took her stand with the loyal States.

The Proclamation of President Lincoln was soon followed by a similar one on the part of President Davis, calling on the Southern States for volunteers. The latter also offered liberal inducements for persons to take out letters of marque and reprisal as privateers.

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Virginia had long been in a state of indecision. Intimation had been given that, if the Government should employ force against the rebel States, she would join the Confederacy. Immediately after the issuing of the Proclamation, her Convention declared the State out of the Union. the election at which the delegates to the Convention had been chosen indicated a majority against Secession, the act is presumed to have been effected by menace or fraud. The States of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas, also soon after joined the Confederacy, which was then composed of eleven States. Four Slave States only remained in the Union; and three of these contained a strong seces. sion element, which rendered their adherence to the Union for a time doubtful.

Early in May, the President issued a proclamation calling for 42,000 additional volunteers, and directed an increase of the regular army and of the navy. In and about Washington were many secret traitors and spies, who did great mischief. Not a few of them were men employed in the public offices. Numerous arrests were made; and some of the persons seized got released by means of the writ of habeas corpus; which induced the President, as a measure of safety, to suspend the privilege of this writ. The calling out of the troops, and the summary arrest and imprisonment of persons on suspicion of their being traitors, and the suspension of this writ, have caused much discussion. It is held by some that the powers exercised by the Executive in these acts belong to, or can be authorized, only by Congress. Others maintain that the powers exercised by the Executive are, by a just and liberal construction of the Constitution, implied in the powers conferred upon the Executive; and that, according to any other in

terpretation, the Government might, in certain emergencies, be overthrown. It is also held, that, in a case of imminent peril to the life of the nation, for which no adequate provision has been made, an Executive would be justified in acting without the authority of a positive law. Upon what ground the President justified his acts, will soon appear from some extracts from his Message to Congress at the extra session in July.

Congress met in special session on the 4th of July, 1861. The Message of President Lincoln was calm in tone and temper, and firm in purpose to preserve the Union. In speaking of the state of the nation as it was at the time of his Inauguration, he said, among other things:

"A disproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into these (Southern) States, and had been seized to be used against the Government. Accumulations of the public revenue, lying within them, had been seized for the same object. The navy was scattered in distant seas, leaving but a very small part of it within the immediate reach of the Government. Officers of the Federal army and navy had resigned in great numbers, and of those resigning a large proportion had taken up arms against the Government. Simultaneously and in connection with all this, the purpose to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed; and the Confederate States were already invoking recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign Powers.

"Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be an imperative duty upon the incoming Executive, to prevent, if possible, the consummation of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to that end became indispensable. This choice was made, and was declared in the Inaugural Address. The policy chosen looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to any stronger ones. It sought only to hold all the public places and property not already wrested from the Government, and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the ballot-box. It promised a continuance of the mails, at Government expense, to the very people who were resisting the Government; and it