Newspaper articles, etc. of the Day

[unionblue]

From the Charleston Mercury, February 28, 1860.

Prospects of Slavery Expansion.

"The right to have [slave] property protected in the territory is not a mere abstraction without application or practical value. In the past there are instances where the people of the Southern States might have colonized and brought new Slave States into the Union had the principle been recognized, and the Government, the trustee of the Southern States, exercised its appropriate powers to make good for the slaveholder the guarantees of the Constitution...When the gold mines of California were discovered, slaveholders at the South saw that, with their command of labor, it would be easy at the moderate outlay to make fortunes digging gold. The inducements to go there were great, and there was no lack of inclination on their part. But, to make the emigration profitable, it was necessary that the [slave] property of Southern settlers should be safe, otherwise it was plainly a hazardous enterprise, neither wise nor feasible. Few were reckless enough to stake property, the accumulation of years, in a struggle with active prejudices amongst a mixed population, where for them the law was a dead letter through the hostile indifference of the General Government, whose duty it was, by the fundamental law of its existence, to afford adequate protection -- executive, legislative, and judicial -- to the property of every man, of whatever sort, without discrimination. Had the people of the Southern States been satisfied they would have received fair play and equal protection at the hands of the Government, they would have gone to California with their slaves...Calfornia would now have been a Slave State in the Union..."

"What has been the policy pursued in Kansas? Has the territory had a fair chance of becoming a Slave State? Has the principle of equal protection to slave property been carried out by the Government there in any of its departments? On the contrary, has not every appliance been used to thwart the South and expel or prohibit her sons from colonizing there?...In our opinion, had the principle of equal protection to Southern men and Southern property been rigorously observed by the General Government, both California and Kansas would undoubtedly have come into the Union as Slave States. The South lost those States for the lack of proper assertion of this great principle..."

"New Mexico, it is asserted, is too barren and arid for Southern occupation and settlement...Now, New Mexico...teems with mineral resources...There is no vocation in the world in which slavery can be more useful and profitable than in mining...[Is] it wise, in our present condition of ignorance of the resources of New Mexico, to jump to the conclusion that the South can have no interest in its territories, and therefore shall waive or abandon her right of colonizing them...?"

"We frequently talk of the future glories of our republican destiny on the continent, and of the spread of our civilization and free institutions over Mexico and the Tropics. Already we have absorbed two of her States, Texas and California. It is expected that our onward march is to stop here? Is it not more probable and more philosophic to suppose that, as in the past, so in the future, the Anglo-Saxon race will, in the course of years, occupy and absorb the whole of that splendid but ill-peopled country, and to remove by gradual process, before them, the worthless mongrel races that now inhabit and curse that land? And in the accomplishment of this destiny is there a Southern man so bold as to say, the people of the South with their slave property are to consent to total exclusion...? Our people will never sit still and see themselves excluded from all expansion to please the North."

Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 06, 2004)

[unionblue]

Extract of an editorial from the Charleston Mercury, October 11, 1860.

The Terrors of Submission

"...Already there is uneasiness throughout the South, as to the stability of its institution of slavery. But with a submission to the rule of Abolitionists at Washington, thousands of slaveholders will dispair of the institution. While the condition of things in the Frontier States will force their slaves on the markets of the Cotton States, the timid in the Cotton States, will also sell their slaves. The general distrust, must affect purchasers. The consequence must be, slave property must be greatly depreciated. We see advirtisements for the sale of slaves in some of the Cotton States, for the simple object of getting rid of them; and we know that standing orders for the purchase of slaves in this market have been withdrawn, on account of an anticipated decline of value from the political condition of the country."

"We suppose, that taking in view all these things, it is not extravagant to estimate, that the submission of the South to the administration of the Federal Government under Messrs. LINCOLN and HAMLIN, must reduce the value of slaves in the South, one hundred dollars each. It is computed that there are four millions, three hundred thousand, slaves in the United States. Here, therefore, is a loss to the Southern people of four hundred and thirty millions of dollars, on their slaves alone. Of course, real estate of all kinds must partake also in the depreciation of slaves."

"Slave property is the foundation of all property in the South. When security in this is shaken, all other property partakes of its instability. <u>Banks, stocks, bonds, must be influenced.</u> Timid men will sell out and leave the South. Confusion, distrust and pressure must reign...The ruin of the South, by the emancipation of her slaves, is not like the ruin of any other people. It is not a mere loss of liberty, like the Italians under the BOURBONS. It is not heavy taxation, which must still leave the means of living, or otherwise taxation defeats itself. But it is the loss of liberty, property, home, country--everything that makes life worth having. And this loss will probably take place under circumstances of suffering and horror, unsurpassed in the history of nations. We must preserve our liberties and <u>institutions</u>, under penalties greater than those which impend over any people in the world. Lastly, we conclude this brief statement of the terrors of submission, by declaring, that in our opinion, they are ten-fold greater even than the supposed terrors of disunion."

Unionblue

(Message edited by unionblue on January 06, 2004)

[thea_447]

Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois.
From Anonymous. "Alabama" to Abraham Lincoln, December 22, 1860

Montgomery Alabama 22d Decr 1860

Dr Sir

You have been Elected President of the United States, and accordance with the Laws and Constitution -- But by a minority of the people Had you not been Elected by a sectional party there would have been but little or no objections to your administering the affairs of the Government -- but as it is, there are many states that will not submit to your Inauguration -- rather than do so, they will withdraw from the Union In the result of the Election, You have attained all the honors that any one Ever attained, Being thus honored, are you willing now, to sacrifice the Union in order that you may retain your commission for four years? If you are you do not possess the patriotism, that a statesman should possess-- It is in your power to save the Union and perhaps a war and for Gods sake and the safty of the Country do it, Resign your the Office and save your Country and a war. If you will you will receive the thanks of millions of your fellow beings. The Government will vote you your salrey and a thousand thanks for the sacrifice

Respectfully

Alabama

[thea_447]

Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois.
Benjamin F. Butler, Memorandum on Blockade, January 23, 1865

Memoranda of Propositions relating to the Blockade and Trade with insurgent States--

So large a portion of the Coasts and harbors of the South being now in possession of the United States and the consequent destruction of the trade heretofore existing by blockade running and in view of the effect which the revival of trade in the necessaries and luxuries of life would have upon the Citizens of the insurrectionary States -- It is proposed:

That the Blockade be raised; and that trade be permitted with every southern Port between the Chesapeake and the Rio Grande -- in all articles -- not contraband of War -- the list of articles, contraband of war however to be authoratively declared, including articles which may be deemed useful in military and or Naval operations-- An enumeration, of course much to be extended beyond the number of articles heretofore reckoned as contraband, because of the improvements in the science of War--

Officers of the Revenue to be put on board of Naval vessels which would act as Revenue Cutters for the purpose of collecting the Revenue at each of the Ports, not actually in possession of our land forces-- These Revenue officers also to collect the internal tax upon all products of the South exported for the purpose of paying for the imports, and all such products to be allowed free egress, subject only to the internal revenue tax, to the extent of return cargoes for the imports--

That an act of Congress be passed making all attempts to smuggle, and all acts of smuggling of goods contraband of war punishable by fines and imprisonment in the penetentiary--

By these means men would be deterred from smuggling any articles which involved their personal liberty-- Crews, pilots and masters of vessels would be cautious how they entered into such enterprises-- Directly -- also -- the pilots for the intricate channels of secluded inlets would become scarce -- if those who were captured were retained--

We have thus far through the War been capturing pilots and discharging them as fast as captured -- to undertake new enterprise--

Foreign nations could not object to the punishment of those of their subjects who were engaged in smuggling goods -- contraband of War -- not only in the invasion or breach of the neutrality proclamations of their own sovereigns, but also of the Revenue and municipal Laws of the United States--

Further -- this course being taken would throw open the south to the manufacture[s]rs of the World in every thing not pertaining to the support of an Army-- It would be a movement on the part of the Government which would be instantly felt in its beneficial effects upon the domestic and social life of the South as a blessing obtained to them from the Government of the United States by the circumscription of the maratime and naval power of the Confederacy--

Another advantage would be that instead of keeping a very large blockading fleet as at present -- at an enormous expense without any return -- by this a very considerable revenue amounting to millions would be collected and at the same time the Cotton the tobacco the resins and other tropical products would be thrown into the southern market and for the supply of the North manufactures of the North--

It is believed that while it could work no possible injury to the Military operations of the Union there could be no possible objection to it from any foreign nation because it would be in furtherance and not in derogation of trade--

There are precedents for this course -- early in the history of the County-- The Boston Port Bill of the Revolutionary period was legislation in this direction--

The proposed reprisals upon South Carolina by Genl Jackson for nulification in 1832 -- is also in point-- The closing of the Ports of a country is a right which was exercised by Russia against the allied forces in the Crimean War; by Holland and in the Wars of the last Century -- and never has been controvertted except perhaps in the case of China when she closed her ports against the opium trade of England, the forcible breach of which act by that Government can hardly be justified under the laws of Nations--

A little examination and care would easily draw a bill which upon becoming an act could readily be set in motion by a Proclamation from the President

Respectfully submitted

Benj F Butler

Maj Genl

Jan'y 23rd/65

[thea_447]

A Soldier's Sister's Letter (attachment)
(oops! Sorry I can't shrink this attachment, you will have to go to the site.)

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...p/~ammem_VmSC::

[thea_447]

Like Alice in Wonderland this gets "curioser and curioser"!
I can go to the attachment listed above on this thread while on this page, but I get a "Temporary file failed" when I try to go to it on my email from this thread.

Can anybody explain that one to me or is it just one of the oddities of the Internet that only the tiny people inside the computers understand!..Nevermind..

[unionblue]

Dear Thea,

In answer to your post above (Posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 03:38 pm) I give you a letter from the man himself:

"Let Us Stand By Our Duty"

From an Address at Cooper Union, New York City, February 27, 1860.

"...Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government, unless such a a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

"To be sure, what the robber demanded of me--my money--was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle..."

Abraham Lincoln.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 07, 2004)

[hawglips]

From South Carolina's Address to the Southern States:

It is seventy-three years since the Union between the United States was made by the Constitution of the United States. During this time, their advance in wealth, prosperity and power has been with scarcely a parallel in the history of the world. The great object of their Union was defence against external aggression of more powerful nations; which object is now attained, from their mere progress in power. Thirty-one millions of people, with a commerce and navigation which explore every sea, and with agricultural productions which are necessary to every civilized people, command the friendship of the world. But unfortunately, our internal peace has not grown with our external prosperity. Discontent and contention have moved in the bosom of the Confederacy for the last thirty-five years. During this time, South Carolina has twice called her people together in solemn Convention, to take into consideration the aggressions and unconstitutional wrongs perpetrated by the people of the North on the people of the South. These wrongs were submitted to by the people of the South, under the hope and expectation that they would be final. But such hope and expectation have proved to be vain. Instead of producing forbearance, our acquiescence has only instigated to new forms of aggression and outrage; and South Carolina, again assembling her people in Convention, has this day dissolved her connection with the States constituting the United States.

The one great evil, from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. The Government of the United States is no longer the Government of Confederated Republics, but of a consolidated Democracy. It is no longer a free government, but a Despotism. It is, in fact, such a Government as Great Britain attempted to set over our fathers; and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years' struggle for independence.

The Revolution of 1776 turned upon one great principle of self-government and self-taxation; the criterion of self-government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies were different and antagonistic. Great Britain was desirous of carrying out the policy of all nations towards their Colonies, of making them tributary to her wealth and power. She had vast and complicated relations with the whole world. Her policy towards her North American Colonies was to identify them with her in all these complicated relations; and to make them bear, in common with the rest of the Empire, the full burden of her obligations and necessities. She had a vast public debt; she had an European policy and an Asiatic policy, which had occasioned the accumulation of her public debt; and which kept her in continual wars. The North American Colonies saw their interests, political and commercial, sacrificed by such a policy. Their interests required that they should not be identified with the burdens and wars of the mother country. They had been settled under Charters, which gave them self-government; at least so far as their property was concerned. They had taxed themselves, and had never been taxed by the Government of Great Britain. To make them a part of a consolidated Empire, the Parliament of Great Britain determined to assume the power of legislating for the Colonies in all cases whatsoever. Our ancestors resisted the pretension. They refused to be a part of the consolidated Government of Great Britain.

The Southern States now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British Parliament. "The General Welfare," is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British Parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation this "General Welfare" requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern States are compelled to meet the very despotism their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.

The consolidation of the Government of Great Britain over the Colonies, was attempted to be carried out by the taxes. The British Parliament undertook to tax the Colonies, to promote British interests. Our fathers resisted this pretension. They claimed the right of self-taxation through their Colonial Legislatures. They were not represented in the British Parliament, and, therefore, could not rightly be taxed by its Legislation. The British Government, however, offered them a representation in Parliament; but it was not sufficient to enable them to protect themselves from the majority, and they refused it. Between taxation without any representation, and taxation without a representation adequate to protection, there was no difference. In neither case would the Colonies tax themselves. Hence, they refused to pay the taxes laid by the British Parliament.

And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British Parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States, have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue - to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.

There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern towards the Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear towards Great Britain. Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them, were expended amongst them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy was one of the motives which drove them on to revolution. Yet this British policy has been fully realized towards the Southern States by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three- fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade is almost annihilated. In 1740, there were five ship-yards in South Carolina, to build ships to carry on our direct trade with Europe. Between 1740 and 1779, there were built in these yards, twenty-five square rigged vessels, besides a great number of sloops and schooners, to carry on our coast and West India trade. In the half century immediately preceding the Revolution, from 1725 to 1775, the population of South Carolina increased seven-fold.

No man can, for a moment, believe that our ancestors intended to establish over their posterity, exactly the same sort of Government they had overthrown. The great object of the Constitution of the United States, in its internal operation, was, doubtless, to secure the great end of the Revolution - a limited free Government - a Government limited to those matters only, which were general and common to all portions of the United States. All sectional or local interests were to be left to the States. By no other arrangement would they obtain free Government, by a Constitution common to so vast a Confederacy. Yet, by gradual and steady encroachments on the part of the people of the North, and acquiescence on the part of the South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away; and the Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of limitless powers in its operations.


(Message edited by hawglips on January 07, 2004)

[hawglips]

The Spectator, April 30, 1861, p. 1, c. 5

"Your letter of yesterday . . ."

RICHMOND, April 19th, 1861.

MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of yesterday has been received. Before this you will have learned through the Press all that has occurred at Norfolk and at this place; but I cannot begin to give you a just conception of the excitement created; not only here, but throughout the whole Southern country, by the proclamation of the 15th, which, in many respects, may be regarded as the most unfortunate document that has ever issued from the Government. In the absence of that paper, this State could never have been carried out of the Union; with it, the Union party, and the Union feeling, has been almost entirely swept out of existence. You cannot meet with one man in a thousand who is not inflamed with a passion for war, and every one seems to regard the proclamation as a declaration of war for the subjugation of the entire South, and for the extermination of slavery; reason (with them on this point) would as soon arrest the motion of the Atlantic, as it would check the current of their passions.

When I saw you in Washington, some ten days since, I had the honor to lay before you and other members of the Cabinet, as well as before Mr. Lincoln himself, a plan for the settlement of our troubles, through the medium of a National Convention, to give to the seceded States leave to withdraw. I thought then, as I do now, that the plan then suggested was the only solution of the dreadful crisis which was upon us. Since that time, matters have assumed a far more frightful aspect, and I now venture to make one more effort to save the unnecessary effusion of brothers' blood; and, in the name of liberty, humanity, and Christianity, I implore you to give it your earnest and solemn deliberation.

I need hardly say that no man in this nation has held in higher appreciation the value of our blessed Union. No man has labored more freely for its loss than mine; no man can mourn more sorrowfully for its overthrow than I will. No man can condemn more severely the immediate causes that have so unnecessarily led us into this awful and terrible catastrophe than I do. Yet for the first time, after an entire night of sleepless reflection, when I prayed as I never prayed before for wisdom and strength to do my duty, my mind has been brought to the conclusion that a dissolution is an inevitable decree of fate.

I am satisfied that a contest on the part of the General Government, with its perfect military organization, powerful Naval forces, its command of the money, and its credit without limit, backed by eighteen or twenty millions of people, against eight millions without military organization, without naval forces, and without money or credit, is not likely to be of doubtful result in the end--but after that, what then? Can the Union be preserved on such terms, or would it be worth preserving if it could? After the best blood of the country has been shed in war, which has passion, prejudice, and unnatural but mutual hate for its foundation, intensified by the conflict, could the two sections ever be brought together as one people again?-- and would it not require large standing armies, in constant active service, to conquer and maintain peace? And would not that end at last in a hateful, loathsome military despotism?

If I am right in all this, would not a peaceful separation, not as a military necessity, but as a triumph of reason, order, law, liberty, morality, and religion, over passion, pride, prejudice, hatred, disorder, and the force of the mob, be a far wiser and more desirable solution of the problem that such scenes as will result from a purely sectional warfare, (result as it may,) and from which the heart sickens, and the soil recoils with horror?

You may cut, maim, kill and destroy; you may sweep down battalions with your artillery; you may block up commerce with your fleets; you may starve out the thousands and tens of thousands of the enemies of the Government. You may overrun, but you cannot subjugate the United South; and if you could do all this, you could not do it without inflicting an equal amount of misery upon those who are its best friends, and who have stood as long as there was a plank to stand upon, by the side of the Union, the Constitution and the laws. Our streets may run red with blood; our dwellings may be leveled with the earth; our fields may be laid waste; our hearthstones may be laid desolate; and then at the last, what end has been gained? Why, the Government has exhibited its power which has never been questioned, but by the idle, the ignorant and the deluded, and for the display of which there will be abundant opportunities, without an effort now, of either side, to cut each other's throats!

So far from its being regarded as a betrayal of weakness by the other powers of the Globe, will it not be looked upon in the present emergency as an act of magnanimity and heroism on the part of the more powerful party to propose terms of peace? Let me, then, as a strong, devoted, unalterable friend of the Union, (if it could be maintained,)--let me as a conscientious and unchangeable opponent of the fatal heresy of secession, urge upon this Administration the policy of issuing another proclamation, proposing a truce to hostilities, and the immediate assembling of a National Convention to recognize the Independence of such of the States as desire to withdraw from the Union, and make the experiment of separate Government, which it will not, as I think, take them long to discover is the most egregious error that man, in his hour of madness, ever committed.

In five years from this time the remaining United States would be stronger and more powerful than the thirty-four States were six months ago--and you will have a Government permanent and enduring for all time to come, to which all who seek an asylum from oppression may resort hereafter.

I will not undertake to speculate on the experiment of a Southern Republic;--my opinion on that subject are well defined, and too well understood to make it necessary that they should be canvassed here. Let it be tried, and let it work out its own salvation.

If this policy can be adopted, all I shall ask for myself, will be the privilege of retiring to some secluded spot, where I can live in peace, and mourn over the downfall of the best Government--wisely administered--with which man was ever blessed.

I could not willingly take up arms against a Union that I have been taught and accustomed to adore, as indispensable to my own liberties, and I never will raise my hand against my native State, although her arm has ever been against me and mine.

For God's sake, let me implore you to let wisdom, magnanimity, true courage and humanity prevail in your councils, and give peace to a distracted and disssevered country.

I write as one who feels that he is standing on the brink of the grave of all he has cherished on earth; my head is bowed down with grief over the madness that rules the hour, and I pray God to give the wisdom to know, and the strength to perform my duty, my whole duty to my country, my State, and my friends.

I am, with great respect, yours, &amp;c.
JNO. M. BOTTS.
Hon. EDWARD BATES, Attorney General, &amp;c.

Will you grant me the favor to lay this last effort to serve my country before the Cabinet at its first meeting? I appeal to you as a native son of Virginia to do it.
J. M. B.


(Message edited by hawglips on January 07, 2004)

[unionblue]

From the Staunton Spectator, January 22, 1861, p 2, c. 3.

http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/vahisto...12261p2c3.html

I apologize to all on this thread that have taken the time and effort to fully type out the listed newspaper articles for using the above link. I tried to type it out in it's entirety and lost it due to computer down times.

I wish to express my appreciation to Thea who came up with the idea for this wonderful thread and for each person who has posted here to let each newspaper or letter/article speak for itself with no input from the poster to highlight or expound on his favorite theme, except for the highlighting of certain passages with bold print, etc. You have made this an excellent forum to let the writers and speakers of the past speak for themselves. I salute you.

Sincerely,
Unionblue