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July 21st,-alluding to the Battle of Bull Run, and Beauregard's excuses for not pursuing the Union troops, says:

"I think you are unjust to yourself in putting your failure to pursue the Enemy to Washington, to the account of short supplies of subsistence and transportation. Under the circumstances of our Army, and in the absence of the knowledge since acquired-if, indeed, the statements be true-it would have been extremely hazardous to have done more than was performed. You will not fail to remember that, so far from knowing that the Enemy was routed, a large part of our forces was moved by you, in the night of the 21st, to repel a supposed attack upon our right, and the next day's operations did not fully reveal what has since been reported of the Enemy's panic."

And Jefferson Davis's statement* is corroborated by the Report of Colonel Withers, of the 18th Virginia, who, after starting with other regiments, in an attempt to cut off the Union retreat, was recalled to the Stone Bridge,—and who says: "Before reaching the point we designed to occupy (near the Stone Bridge) we were met by another order to march immediately to Manassas Junction, as an attack was apprehended that night. Although it was now after sunset, and my men had had no food all day, when the command to march to Manassas was given, they cheerfully took the route to that place.'

Colonel Davies, who, as we have seen, commanded McDowell's stubborn Left Wing, was after all, not far wrong, when, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, he declared, touching the story of the Bull Run Battle: "It ought to have read that we were victorious with the 13,000 troops of the Left Wing, and defeated in the 18,000 of the Right Wing. That is all that Bull Run amounts to."

In point of fact, the Battle of Bull Run-the first pitched battle of the War-was a drawn battle.

War was now fully inaugurated-Civil War-a stupendous War between two great Sections of one common

* See pp. 507–508, series i., vol. ii., Official Records, War of the Rebel

Country; those of our People, on the one side, fighting for the dissolution of the Union—and incidentally for Free Trade, and for Slavery; those on the other side, fighting for the preservation of the Union—and incidentally for Protection to our Free Industries, and for the Freedom of the Slave.

As soon as the Republican Party controlled both Houses of Congress it provided Protection to our Free Industries, and to the Free Labor engaged in them, by the Morill Tariff Act of 1860-the foundation Act of all subsequent enactments on the subject. In subsequent pages of this work we shall see how the Freedom of the Slave was also accomplished by the same great Party.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE COLORED CONTRABAND.

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THE KNELL OF SLAVERY-THE IMPLIED POWERS OF CONGRESS IN THE CONSTITUTION PATRICK HENRY'S PREDICTION - JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S PROPHECY-JOHN SHERMAN'S NON-INTERFERENCE-WITH-SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS-JOHN Q. ADAMS ON EMANCIPATION-POWERS OF CONGRESS AND MILITARY COMMANDERSGENERAL MC CLELLAN'S WEST VIRGINIA PROCLAMATION OF NONINTERFERENCE WITH SLAVES-GENERAL BUTLER'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH GENERAL SCOTT AND SECRETARY CAMERON-CAMERON'S REPLY-MILITARY TENDERNESS FOR THE DOOMED INSTITUTION CONGRESS, AFTER BULL RUN-CONFISCATION, AND EMANCIPATION, OF SLAVES USED TO AID REBELLION-RINGING WORDS OF TRUMBULL, WILSON, MC DOUGALL, AND TEN EYCK, IN THE SENATE-ROMAN COURAGE OF THE HOUSE-CRITTENDEN'S STATEMENTS-WAR RESOLUTIONS BRECKINRIDGE'S TREASONABLE SPEECH UPON THE SANCTITY OF THE CONSTITUTIONBAKER'S GLORIOUS REPLY HIS MATCHLESS APOSTROPHE TO FREEDOM-HIS SELF-SACRIFICING DEVOTION AND HEROIC DEATH AT BALL'S BLUFF.

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WHEN the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter, its sullen echoes sounded the funeral knell of Slavery. Years before, it had been foretold, and now it was to happen. Years before, it had been declared, by competent authority, that among the implications of the Constitution was that of the power of the General Government to Emancipate the Slaves, as a War measure. Hence, in thus commencing the War of the Rebellion, the South marched with open' eyes upon this, as among other of the legitimate and logical results of such a War.

Patrick Henry, in opposing the ratification by Virginia of the Federal Constitution, had declared to the Slaveholders of that State that "Among ten thousand implied powers" which Congress may assume, "they may, if we be engaged in War, liberate every one of your Slaves, if they please.

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* Have they not power to provide for the General Defense and Welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of Slavery? May they not pronounce all Slaves Free? and will they not be warranted by that power? * * * They have the power, in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."

So, too, in his great speech of May 25, 1836, in the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams had declared that in "the last great conflict which must be fought between Slavery and Emancipation," Congress "must and will interfere" with Slavery, "and they will not only possess the Constitutional power so to interfere, but they will be bound in duty to do it, by the express provisions of the Constitution itself." And he followed this declaration with the equally emphatic words: "From the instant that your Slave-holding States become the theatre of War-civil, servile, or foreign-from that instant, the War powers of Congress extend to interference with the Institution of Slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with."

The position thus announced by these expounders of the Constitution—the one from Virginia, the other from Massachusetts-was not to be shaken even by the unanimous adoption, February 11, 1861, by the House of Representatives on roll call, of the resolution of Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, in these words:

"Resolved, That neither the Congress of the United States nor the people or governments of the non-Slaveholding States have the Constitutional right to legislate upon or interfere with Slavery in any of the Slaveholding States in the Union."

Ex-President J. Q. Adams's cogent exposition of the Constitution, twenty-five years before, in that same House, demonstrating not only that Congress had the right but the Constitutional power to so interfere-and his further demonstration April 15, 1842, of his statement that under the laws of War, "when a Country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the Commanders of both Armies have power to Emancipate all the Slaves in the invaded territory". was not to be overcome by a mere

vote of one House, however unanimous. For the time being, however, it contributed, with other circumstances, to confuse the public mind and conscience. Indeed as early as May of 1861, the attitude of our Government and its troops toward Negro Slaves owned or used by Rebels in rebellious States, began to perturb the public, bother the Administration, and worry the Military officers.

For instance, in Major-General McClellan's proclamation to the Union men of West Virginia, issued May 26, 1861, he said:

"The General Government cannot close its ears to the demand you have made for assistance. I have ordered troops to cross the river. They come as your friends and brothers—as enemies only to armed Rebels, who are preying upon you; your homes, your families, and your property are safe under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected, notwithstanding all that has been said by the Traitors to induce you to believe our advent among you will be signalized by an interference with your Slaves. Understand one thing clearly not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand crush any attempt at insurrection on their part."

On the other hand, the very next day, May 27, 1861, Major-General Butler, in command of the "Department of Virginia," wrote to Lieutenant-General Scott as follows:

"Since I wrote my last dispatch the question in regard to Slave property is becoming one of very serious magnitude. The inhabitants of Virginia are using their Negroes in the batteries, and are preparing to send the women and children South. The escapes from them are very numerous, and a squad has come in this morning to my pickets bringing their women and children. Of course these cannot be dealt with upon the theory on which I designed to treat the services of able-bodied men and women who might come within my lines, and of which I gave you a detailed account in my last dispatch. I am in the utmost doubt what to do with this species of Property.

"Up to this time I have had come within my lines men

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