Newspaper articles, etc. of the Day

[thea_447]

The Richmond Enquirer

Friday, January 18, 1861

Compromise and Ultimatum
(page 1, column 2)

The legislatures of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, have tendered men and money to the General Government, to coerce and subjugate Virginia, should the Convention of her sovereign people determine that secession is the only safety of the State. The action of those States, intended to be offensive and degrading, was deliberately and determinedly made at the very moment of intensest excitement, to show the authorities of Virginia that they condemn and despise the slave States, and are determined to degrade them into conquered provinces.
The unnecessary and wicked action of those States should open the eyes of the people to Virginia, to the purpose and disposition of the three largest Northern States. This tender of men and money to coerce and subjugate sovereign States, has increased the difficulties of adjustment, and should cause the manhood of Virginia to shrink from the debasement of offering any compromise, or even intimating a willingness to compromise with States that gratuitously offer the Southern States another insult. The Legislature of Virginia having called the people of the State together on Convention, are, as to all maters of compromise and ultimatum, functus officio -- the people in Convention assembled, are the only power authorized to submit any ultimatum. The Legislature has no power, and will be treated with contempt by the Republicans -- which will only aggravate and intensify the feeling in Virginia. We have no idea that the Convention of Virginia will ever agree to any compromise that has not been previously adopted by the Northern States in an authoritative and binding manner. Virginia will never tie herself to a Northern Confederacy, which may be rejected by her Southern Sisters. The North must first adopt such amendments as they are willing to abide by, and these being submitted to all the Southern States must be agreed to by all of them. Virginia will patch up no compromise and agree to no amendments as long as the Northern States, by such action as that taken by New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, deny the fundamental principle of consent of the governed to the government upon which this Union was formed. The sovereignty of the States, the rights of the States and the remedies of the States, have been assailed and denied, and all must be admitted and provided for in any amendments that Virginia can agree to. -- She will compromise into the Constitution no precedent which may, at some future day, arise in judgment against her people, or some other State. The tender of men and money to coerce and subjugate sovereign States, is consolidation and federalism more odious than ? and written laws, because directed not only against individual liberty, but is subversive of the sovereignty of the States.
Virginia cannot, and will not, agree to any such compromise as the Crittenden amendment; because it is not one that of itself and by ? self action, protects and guaranties the Southern States in the ? of their constitutional rights.

[unionblue]

The following are a cross-section of Southern newspapers commenting on the idea of forming black regiments for the Confederate army, by promising those troops their freedom.

From the North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865.

"...it is abolition doctrine...the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down."

From the Lynchburg Republican, Nov. 2, 1864.

"if such a terrible calamity is to befall us, we infinitely prefer that Lincoln shall be the insturment of our disaster and degradation, than that we ourselves should strike the cowardly and suicidal blow."

From the Charleston Mercury, Jan. 26, 1865.

"...the poor man...reduced to the level of a negroe,... His wife and daughter are to be hustled on the street by black wenches, their equals. Swaggering buck negroes are to ogle them and elbow them."}

From the Charleston Mercury, Nov. 3, 1864.

"The freemen of the Confederate States must work out their own redemption, or they must be the slaves of their own slaves..."

From the Richmond Examiner, Jan. 14, 1865.

"It would surrender the essential and distinctive principle of Southern civilization..."

Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 20, 2004)

[unionblue]

From the Chicago Journal, April 17, 1861.

"The Southern rebellion has started with the contemtuous denial of the right of the majority to rule. Its boasted confederacy is a compact of violence, fraud and treachery levelled against a free government, and the only one that has had the confidence, respect and admiration of mankind...The unscrupulous character of its leaders, the bold and shameless suppression of all the rights of free men to the minority of their own citizens, and abolition of free speech and free suffrage-all show, in characters of light, that the real and ultimate aim is the total overthrow and annihilation of all republican liberty...It is no common strife of party, no collision of mere passing opinion, or transitory interest, that awaits the decision of our country. Without a Union that is free, without a Constitution that can be enforced, without an authority to command respect and obedience, without acknowledged deference to the voice of the people, in its constitutional majority, which cannot be a Government, our freedom will be quickly supplanted by anarchy and despotism, and all the cherished hopes of our country and mankind, for enduring, and national freedom, will be blasted."

Unionblue

[unionblue]

From the Philadelphia Public Ledger, June 7, 1861.

We are fighting for a great fundamental principle of republican Government-the right of the majority to rule...We are fighting to expunge this great political error, and to prove to the world, that the free Democratic spirit which established the government, is equal to its protection and its maintenance."

Unionblue

[unionblue]

From the Columbus Ohio Gazette, June 21, 1861 (a personal favorite of mine).

"It is not only now to be decided whether government shall put down insurrection, or insurgents shall put down government, but it is a struggle in the decision of which is involved the cause of constitutional liberty the world over. It is not only an issue whether we have a government or not, here, but we believe it is now being decided whether a free government shall spring up in any quarter of the globe...We believe that this struggle rises to a magnitude, equalled by no former struggle, recorded in history...Give liberty and law to America: then the oppresses in Europe shall be free. Not before."

Unionblue

[hawglips]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed there conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States:

And whereas a combination of present, engaged in such insurrection, have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas and in waters of the United States;

And whereas an Executive proclamation has been already issued requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine thereon:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, ad to the protection of the public peace ad the lives ad property of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled ad deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, i pursutates and of the law of nations in such case provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance ad exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach, or shall attempt to leave either of the said ports, she will be duty warned by the commander of one of the blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port for such proceedings against her and her cargo as prize as may be deemed advisable.

And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person under the pretended authority of the said States, or under any order pretense, shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such persons will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this nineteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of War.
WAR DEPARTMENT,
Washington, April 19, 1861.

[hawglips]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, for the reasons assigned in my proclamation if the 19th instant, a blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas was ordered to be established;

And whereas since that date public property of the United States has been seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly commissioned officers of the United States while engaged in executing the orders of their superiors have been arrested and held in custody as prisoners, or have been impeded in the discharge of their official duties without due legal process by persons claiming to act under authorities of the States of Virginia and North Carolina:

An efficient blockade of the ports of those States will also be established.

It witness whereof I have hereupon set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this twenty-seventh day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of War.
WAR DEPARTMENT,
Washington, April 27, 1861.

[unionblue]

From the Laws of War: General Orders No. 100,
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD.

Prepared by Francis Lieber, promulgated as General Orders No. 100 by President Lincoln, 24 April 1863.

SECTION X
Insurrection - Civil War - Rebellion

Art. 149
Insurrection is the rising of people in arms against their government, or a portion of it, or against one or more of its laws, or against an officer or officers of the government. In may be confined to mere armed resistance, or it may have greater ends in view.

Art. 150
Civil war is war between two or more portions of a country or state, each contending for the mastery of the whole, and each claiming to be the legitimate government. The term is also sometimes applied to war of rebellion, when the rebellious provinces or portions of the state are contiguous to those containing the seat of government.

Art. 151
The term rebellion is applied to an insurrection of large extent, and is usually a war between the legitimate government of a country and portions of provinces of the same who seek to throw off their allegiance to it and set up a government of their own.

Art. 152
When humanity induces the adoption of the rules of regular war to ward rebels, whether the adoption is partial or entire, it does in no way whatever imply a partial or complete acknowledgement of their government, if they have set up one, or of them, as an independent and sovereign power. Neutrals have no right to make the adoption of the rules of war by the assailed government toward rebels the ground of their own acknowledgment of the revolted people as an independent power.

Art. 153
Treating captured rebels as prisoners of war, exchanging them, concluding of cartels, capitulations, or other warlike agreements with them; addressing officers of a rebel army by the rank they may have in the same; accepting flags of truce; or, on the other hand, proclaiming Martial Law in their territory, or levying war-taxes or forced loans, or doing any other act sanctioned or demanded by the law and usages of public war between sovereign belligerents, neither proves nor establishes an acknowledgment of the rebellious people, or of the government which they may have erected, as a public or sovereign power. Nor does the adoption of the rules of war toward rebels imply an engagement with them extending beyond the limits of these rules. It is victory in the field that ends the strife and settles the future relations between contending parties.

Art. 154
Treating, in the field, the rebellious enemy according to the law and usages of war has never prevented the legitimate government from trying the leaders of the rebellion of chief rebels for high treason, and from treating them accordingly, unless they are included in a general amnesty.

Art. 155
All enemies in regular war are divided into two general classes-that is to say, into combatants and noncombatants, or unarmed citizens of the hostile government.

The military commander of the legitimate government, in a war of rebellion, distinguishes between the loyal citizen in the revolted portion of the country and the disloyal citizen. The disloyal citizens may further be classified into those citizens known to sympathize with the rebellion without positively aiding it, and those who, without taking up arms, give positive aid and comfort to the rebellious enemy without being bodily forced thereto.

Art. 156
Common justice and plain expediency require that the military commander protect the manifestly loyal citizens, in revolted territories, against the hardships of the war as much as the common misfortune of all war admits.

The commander will throw the burden of the war, as much as lies within his power, on the disloyal citizens, of the revolted portion or province, subjecting them to a stricter police than the noncombatant ememies have to suffer in regular war; and if he deems it appropriate, or if his government demands of him that every citizen shall, by oath of allegiance, or by some other manifest act, declare his fidelity to the legitimate government, he may expel, transfer, imprison, or fine the revolted citizens who refuse to pledge themselves anew as citizens obedient to the law and loyal to the government.

Whether it is expedient to do so, and whether reliance can be placed upon such oaths, the commander or his government have the right to decide.

Art. 157
Armed or unarmed resistance by citizens of the United States against the lawful movements of their troops is levying war against the United States, <u>and is therefore treason.</u>

Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 21, 2004)

[hawglips]

Staunton Spectator, October 8, 1861

As long as the Union was a temple of freedom, at whose shrine all the devotees of Liberty might worship--as long as it was a beacon light guiding the tempest lost on the sea of despotism to a haven of peace--as long as it attracted the gaze and admiration of the friends of liberty throughout the world, and excited the hopes of the down trodden victims of tyranny, wherever found bending beneath the galling yoke--as long as it promised to hand down to posterity the rich inheritance bequeathed us by our patriotic ancesters [sic], we were the devoted friend of its preservation and perpetuation; but when it was changed from a temple of freedom to a prison for the friends of liberty--when its vast powers were used to rivet the chains of despotism upon the limbs of freemen--when it was perverted to the destruction of every principle of free government--when the Goddess of Liberty was dethroned and the gorgon of tyranny was installed in its stead, we rejoiced that the people, in the majesty of their strength, arose with the might of Sampson, and razed it to the ground. They were not such blind devotees as to worship the temple when the Genius of Liberty had been driven from it--they did not mistake the temple for the indwelling Goddess. The Southrons were people who knew their rights and dared to maintain them without reference to the perils which surrounded or the vast expenditure of treasure attending it. They were resolved to be free, and [when] they could not be so by remaining in association with the people of the North, they resolved to dissolve all the bonds binding them to that section of the country. Lincoln drew the sword, seemingly ignorant of the fact that it is an instrument which may cleave assunder [sic], but has no healing virtues, and with it severed the bonds which bound us to the North. We would not now consent at any time, or under any circumstances, to be again brought into Governmental association with the people of the North. We are opposed to reconstruction on any terms whatever. The silver chord has been severed, the golden bowl has been broken, the Union lies in ruins and we hope it will never, never, NEVER be reconstructed. The following extract from the address of Robert E. Scott, of Fauquier, announcing himself a candidate for Congress, expresses our views much better than we could in language of our own:

"Let no one entertain a thought of re-constructing the old Union. The time for re-construction has past. The people of the North have interposed between us and them a wall of fire and a river of blood, so that henceforth we must live as separate States both independent and free to follow its own system of government and civilization, or one subject to the other. We can never live together again as members of one family, associated under a common government. In the name of the Union the Northern people have trampled upon its most sacred rights; in the name of the Constitution they have broken its strongest covenants; in the name of free speech and a free press they have destroyed both; in the name of liberty they have established a galling despotism, and impelled by a blind zeal, inspired by hatred to us, they rejoice madly in the chains that fetter their own liberties. Such an example of a civilized people, born to the inheritance of freedom, thus wickedly surrendering their birthright, is without a parallel in the history of the world from the remotest origin of man. People thus willing to become slaves themselves are fit instruments to make slaves of others, and to this end the war is prosecuted. We will meet it bravely and fight it successfully. Eight millions of Confederated freemen can never be conquered. Great Bethel, Manassas and Springfield will prove to be but typifications of the victories hereafter to be won in the battles wherein Southern Independence is to be defended.

Of the issues that formerly defined political parties among us, I shall say nothing. The occasions that gave rise to them have passed, and let these divisions pass with them. When all are engaged in a common cause, when every man's dearest interest is at hazard, when each individual is struggling for his personal liberty, when our armies are filled by men from every State and politicians of every opinion, when the energy of all, the strength of all, and the union of all are demanded for the common safety, I hold him to be the worst enemy of the country who would recur to past political diversities, and in this hour of trial stimulate afresh those domestic dissensions out of which already so much injury has been wrought, and by which alone our cause can now suffer shame."

[hawglips]

Republican Vindicator, April 12, 1861

The fact is that Lincoln's "peace policy" has been, in our belief, a sham--a miserable lie--from the first, and everything that has emanated from him or his Cabinet a tissue of falsehood and deceit, from the famous inaugural down to the letter of the Hon. Simon Cameron to Maj. McCue, in reference to the removal of the guns from Bellona Arsenal--and for the one sole purpose of defeating any attempt of Virginia to assume her sovereignty. How successful that is to be, a few days must show us--for we do not suppose that the "Grand Council" can prolong its sessions beyond the end of next week. What effect the "warlike movements" of the past week may have upon their deliberations, we know not; but from their past we do not augur much good in the future. The Commissioners appointed a few days since to visit Washington and enquire of Mr. Lincoln his "policy" will, we have no doubt, be very blandly received by that Arch Priest of Abolitionism, Seward, and be as completely hoodwinked by him as the various members of the Convention, who have visited Washington, have heretofore been. They will no doubt call upon "King Abram," who will amuse them prodigiously with "flat boat yarns," and again assure them that "nothing hurts anybody"--"nobody is going wrong"--gracefully bow them out, adding, by way of a parting assurance, the fact that if the "policy" is enquired of when they return to Richmond, they can "tell 'em you don't know!"

We pray we may be mistaken, but we do not see a hope--a ray of light--a straw to grasp at-- nothing but war will satisfy the intense hatred that is borne at the North to the institutions of the South--nothing can satisfy their hatred but the shedding of "their brother's blood." It is too late now to talk of "Compromise," "Conference," or "Commission." The golden hour, when all this train of horrors could have been avoided has been lost, by the miserable submission policy that rules in the Convention at Richmond. If Virginia, or rather that Convention, had have fearlessly told the Administration--"you shall not make war upon our sister States--you shall not shed a drop of Southern blood--that moment the match is applied to the first gun to be fired upon the South, that moment Virginia goes out and unites herself with them, to conquer or die"--there never would have sailed the first man from New York against the South. Separated those States would have been, 'tis true, (for nothing will ever bring them back,) but the country would be saved what is now inevitable--internal war. And at whose hands but those of the Submisssionists of the Virginia Convention, can every drop of blood that is shed in this contest be demanded?