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South, and why place at its head the destroyer of the old Whig party and the inventor and propagator of a law higher than the Constitution as a means of destroying the slave institutions of the South-the man who labored to precipitate a conflict between the North and South, as a means of abolition? There can be but one satisfactory answer, and that is, that he designed to inaugurate a civil war as the only possible means of abolishing slavery in the South. The Albany Evening Journal avowed that this was the object of his nomination and election, and we cannot doubt that it truly stated the intention of those controlling the Republican party.

104.-FIRING THE FIRST GUN.

The first gun was fired by order of Governor Pickens from a sand-hill battery in Charleston Harbor at the steamer Star of the West, sent, by advice of General Scott, to succor Major Anderson in Fort Sumter on the 9th of January, 1861, when that vessel, failing in its object, returned to New York. But these shots were comparatively harmless and did not fire up the masses North or South. Major Anderson did not return the fire, believing it to have been unauthorized. If the war-steamer Brooklyn had been sent, as Mr. Buchanan desired, and but for the advice of General Scott would have been sent, she would have entered the harbor, defended herself, and relieved Fort Sumter. The rickety sidewheel steamer Star of the West proved perfectly useless for the occasion. The first gun by the secession Confederacy was discharged upon Fort Sumter on the 12th of April, 1861, and the fight was continued thirty-three hours, when it was surrendered. This battle fired every heart in the nation North and South, arousing the secessionists in support of their new Confederacy, and all others against it, and in favor of defending the Constitution and the old flag. The whole North and West were aroused as one man, and all felt like hazarding every thing in defence of the Union. But different motives actuated partisans on both sides. Secession was flagging, and would have soon cooled and died off, but for invigorating excitement. It operated upon many of them like laughing-gas, and they leaped for joy. But there were those

among them who felt sad, and feared the final conclusion. At the North, and West, where all seemed moving one way, two widely-differing motives existed at the bottom. The abolitionists, and those who espoused their cause as well as their party though claiming to be shocked and outraged at the folly and crime of the South, secretly rejoiced, as they saw that the conflict would make abolitionism a fixed fact, if not as to the whole Union, at least as far as it should be preserved. But the Democracy and the conservatives of the old Whig party felt and meant what they said, and were ready to peril lives and fortunes in the preservation of the Union which they loved and cherished. Thus all parties North and West agreed in action but not in motive, while at the South there was much halting, there being many real Union men there, and others doubting the policy of secession, and fearing the result. The true Union men seldom changed their real feelings, even when forced into the army by conscription or otherwise, though some, in consequence of our unnatural and unwise policy, and the unnecessary tyranny practised, were led to the belief that the war was prosecuted for other than the avowed object, and then ceased to aid the Union cause, though occasionally one turned against it. It is not our purpose to justify what occurred, but to show the fatal effect of bad management and how it destroyed Union feeling and spread secession sentiments. We give extracts from a letter written by one of Tennessee's purest and best and most widely-known men-Hon. Cave Johnsonunder date of March 2, 1862, not as a justification of any acts or opinions, but to show the consequences that naturally flowed from misgovernment:

"In our elections, February 9, 1861, the majority against secession exceeded sixty-four thousand, and that after the election of Lincoln, with the declaration in his mouth, that the whole country must be free or slave territory. But after the proclamation making war upon the States, and his other acts disregarding the Constitution, and sustained with so much apparent unanimity in the North, at the elections in June, the majority against the Union was over fifty-nine thousand, and I believe if a new election could be held to-morrow, the majority against it would dou

ble that number. So intense is the feeling against the North, and the prospect of independence so much diminished by their recent victories, that a reunion with England or France, as colonies, has become a frequent subject of conversation, and would secure the approbation of the Southern people so soon as the hope of success is lost. I cannot but think, when looking over the foreign papers, that England and France would rejoice to see each section exhausted in prosecuting the war, under the hope of the restoration of their colonies, or the certain diminution of the power of the United States, which they have dreaded ever since the days of General Jackson, or fearing the rivalship of the United States in the commerce and trade of the world. A restoration of the old Union, under any possible oppression, I believe to be impossible. . . . I have, as you know, always been a Union man, and violently opposed to secession, and was selected as the Union candidate in my old district, because of my long and determined hostility to nullification and secession, and received a unanimous vote in it. I would have spent my last dollar in its defence, or cheerfully yielded up my life for the preservation of the Union. But when I saw the President and Congress had set aside the Constitution, and under the tyrant's plea, necessity; that all security for property was gone-the habeas corpus suspended-citizens arrested and imprisoned without warrant, upon the suspicion of the Secretary, or other inferior officerspublic trials refused-the civil authorities made subordinate to the military-martial law declared by their generals, under which I am now writing, and for which I would be sent to Fort Warren, if deemed of sufficient importance-I could not but believe that our people acted rightly in seeking protection elsewhere than in such a Union. What could I promise them under such men as Lincoln and Seward, backed by two or three hundred thousand troops and a subservient Congress? When Andy Johnson with fifty or a hundred thousand men is sent here for our Governor, and Fremont is sent to abolitionize Eastern Tennessee and Western Virginia, can there be a doubt that subjection and the abolishment of slavery are the main objects of the war? If it shall end in subjugation and emancipation, it will be succeeded

by horrors, such as the world never witnessed-more destructive to the black than the white race, exceeding in cruelty the bloody scenes in Paris in '89, and our great and glorious Union will share the fate of Rome; military chieftains, ambitious and unprincipled, will be found to play the part of Cæsar, Lepidus, and Anthony, partition our country into Northern and Southern, instead of Eastern and Western empires, and the South, the beautiful, sunny South, will be divided out to the Goths and Vandals, who conquer us, and the people be made slaves of petty tyrants, like the Italians for hundreds of years, and for what? Because we thought we could not live in peace with our brethren of the North! or because they would not, and enslave us that they might emancipate the blacks! or because they wished our beautiful country to reward their Germans for conquering us.

"I am now too old and infirm to engage in any business, and sit in my room, day after day, meditating on the misfortunes which have fallen on my country, until my heart sinks with its future prospects."

This shows the operation of a good man's mind when reflecting upon passing events. Whether it took the correct view, is not the question; which is, did it, in fact, thus view things? This cannot be denied. The Union men South were led to take the views here presented some of which seem prophetic-and many acted accordingly. It was the acts of Mr. Lincoln and a Republican Congress that changed the Southern Union sentiment to what this letter states. The acts that produced this change were nearly or quite all of them wholly unnecessary, and might have been avoided, and the Union sentiment in the slave States not only preserved, but strengthened and confirmed. But this the abolitionists and real secessionists did not desire. It would have defeated the real purposes of both. They wanted war and disunion, and what has since followed, though destructive to the interests of all sections of the country. Both of these parties were glad when the first gun was fired.

105.-THE SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS.

Every instance of the violation of the Constitution, or of rights of persons or property, was heralded at the South as evidence that remaining in or defending the old Union would subject everybody to the same or like wrongs. These violations of the Constitution, and not the right of secession, became the popular questions, and were, in the state of the public mind there, promptly decided against their authors, and the Government under which they acted. The authorized suspension of the great writ of freedom, by army officers-the habeas corpus, by Mr. Lincoln, not being permitted by the Constitution, saddened many a Northern heart, and gave a new impulse to secession. Mr. Lincoln, as President, had no authority to suspend this writ, and much less to confer that power upon others, as provided in his proclamation of May 10, 1861. Neither Mr. Lincoln nor his advisers, seem to have understood, or at least to have regarded the Constitution on this subject. That instrument forbids the suspension of this writ "unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." The Constitution does not direct who shall determine the question of safety, or who shall make the suspension. It is certain that this power is not included in the enumeration of executive powers. We are necessarily thrown back upon the condition of things in England, at the time our Constitution was framed, to understand what those preparing it really contemplated. There is no difficulty in this. The writ of habeas corpus in England was designed to restrain and control the Executive power-to prevent it from shutting up men and refusing them the privileges of a trial, at the will of the executive power. This was a restraint upon the executive authority, which could only be removed by a law of Parliament, where the legislative and executive authority act together in making laws. Executive authority in England never suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, nor was it ever suspended except by law, or ever authorized to be suspended by any authority, except that of Parliament. It never occurred to the English people that it might be

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