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AN ILLEGAL MILITARY LEAGUE.

383

tion between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Confederate States of America," which provided that, until the union of Virginia with the league should be perfected, "the whole military force and military operations, offensive and defensive, of said Commonwealth, in the impending conflict with the United States," should be under the chief control and direction of Jefferson Davis. So eager were the Virginia conspirators to "perfect the Union," that on the following day, the Convention, appealing • April 25, to the Searcher of all hearts for the rectitude of their conduct, passed an ordinance ratifying the treaty, and adopting and ratifying the

Convention,

Committee of the

1861.

John Tyler
Ballard Prestony
J. 108. Moore
Sames P. Holcombe.

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Provisional Constitution of the Montgomery League. They proceeded to appoint delegates to the "Confederate Congress" that was to assemble on the 29th; authorized the banks of the State to suspend specie payments; made provision for the establishment of a navy for Virginia, and for enlistments for the State army, and adopted other measures preparatory for war. They also invited Jefferson Davis and his confederates to make Richmond their head-quarters. The so-called annexation of the Commonwealth to the "Confederacy" was officially proclaimed

* April.

1 These were copied from the original parchment upon which the convention or treaty was engrossed and signed. 2 John Tyler, who was a chief manager among the conspirators of the Virginia Convention, telegraphed as follows to Governor Pickens, at three o'clock that afternoon:-"We are fellow-citizens once more. By an ordinance passed this day, Virginia has adopted the Provisional Government of the Confederate States."

384

USURPATION OF THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS.

by Governor Letcher; and the "Mother of States," the "Mother of Presidents," and equally the Mother of Disunion, was forced into the position of an important member of the league against the Republic. Eastern and Northern Virginia soon became the theater of great battles, fought by immense armies, at various times during the war that ensued.

When the time approached for the people of Virginia to vote on the Ordinance of Secession, in accordance with its own provisions, Senator James M. Mason, one of the most malignant and unscrupulous of the conspirators, addressed a letter to them from his home near Winchester, in which, after saying that the Ordinance "withdrew the State of Virginia from the Union, with all the consequences resulting from the separation," annulling "all the Constitution and laws of the United States within its limits," and absolving "its citizens from all obligations or obedience to them," he declared that

JAMES M. MASON.

a rejection of the Ordinance by the people would reverse all this, and that Virginia would be compelled to fight under the banner of the Republic, in violation of the sacred pledge made to the "Confederate States," in the treaty or "Military League" of the 25th of April. He then said:"If it be asked, What are those to do who, in their conscience, cannot vote to separate Virginia from the United States? the answer is simple and plain. Honor and duty alike require that they should not vote on the question; and if they retain such opinions, they must leave the State." The answer was, indeed, "simple and plain," and in exact accordance with

the true spirit of the conspirators, expressed by their chosen leader :-" All who oppose us shall smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel." Submission or banishment was the alternative offered by Mason, in the name of traitors in power, to Virginians who were true to the principles of the Father of his Country, whose remains were resting within the bosom of their State, and to the old flag under which the independence of their common country had been achieved. He well knew that his words would be received as expressions of the views of the usurpers at Richmond, and that thousands of citizens would thereby be kept from the polls, for in Virginia the votes were given openly, and not by secret ballot, as in other States.

Mason's infamous suggestion was followed by coincident action. Troops had been for some time pouring into Virginia from the more Southern • May 23, States, and the vote on the Ordinance of Secession was taken

1861. toward the close of May, in the midst of bayonets thirsting for the blood of Union men, Terror was then reigning all over Eastern Virginia. Unionists were hunted like wild beasts, and compelled to fly from

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Letter to the Editor of the Winchester Virginian. May 16, 1861.

NORTH CAROLINA RULED BY USURPERS.

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their State to save their lives; and by these means the conspirators were enabled to report a vote of one hundred and twenty-five thousand nine hundred and fifty for secession, and only twenty thousand three hundred and seventy-three against it. This did not include the vote in Northwestern Virginia, where the people had rallied around their true representatives in the Convention, and defied the conspirators and all their power. They had already placed themselves boldly and firmly upon earnest professions of loyalty to the Union, and in Convention assembled at Wheeling, ten days before the voting, they had planted, as we shall observe hereafter, the vigorous germ of a new Free-labor Commonwealth.

1861.

The conservative State of North Carolina, lying between Virginia and the more Southern States, could not long remain neutral. Her disloyal politicians, with Governor Ellis at their head, were active and unscrupulous. We have already observed their efforts to array the State against the National Government, and the decided condemnation of their schemes by the people. Now, taking advantage of the excitement caused by the attack on Fort Sumter, and the call of the President for troops, they renewed their wicked efforts, and with better success. Ellis issued a proclamation, calling an extraordinary session of the • February 17, Legislature on the 1st of May, in which he shamelessly declared that the President was preparing for the "subjugation of the entire South, and the conversion of a free republic, inherited from their fathers, into a military despotism, to be established by worse than foreign enemies, on the ruins of the once glorious Constitution of Equal Rights." With equal mendacity, the disloyal politicians throughout the State stirred up the people by making them believe that they were about to be deprived of their liberties by a military despotism at Washington. Excited, bewildered, and alarmed, they became, in a degree, passive instruments in the hands of men like Senator Clingman and others of his party. The Legislature acted under the same malign influences. It authorized a convention to consider the subject of the secession of the State, and ordered an election of delegates therefor, to be held on the 13th of May. It gave the Governor authority to raise ten thousand men, and appropriated five millions of dollars for the use of the State. It empowered the treasurer to issue notes to the amount of five hundred thousand dollars, in denominations as low as three cents; and by act defined treason to be the levying of war against the State, adhering to its enemies in establishing a government within the State without the consent of the Legislature, and in holding or executing any office in such government.

The Convention assembled on the 20th of May, the anniversary of the "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence," and on the same day an Ordinance of Secession was adopted by a unanimous vote. In the mean time the Governor had issued an order for the enrollment of thirty thousand

1 See pages 62 and 198.

* In 1775 a Convention of the representatives of the citizens of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, held at Charlotte, passed a series of patriotic resolutions, equivalent in words and spirit to a declaration of independence of the Government of Great Britain. There is a well-founded dispute as to the day on which that declaration was adopted, one party declaring it to be the 20th of May. and another the 31st of May. For a minute account of that affair, see Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution.

VOL. I.-25

386

TENNESSEE IN DANGER OF RUIN.

minute-men, and the forces of the State had seized, for the second time, the National forts on the sea-coast; also the Mint at Charlotte, and • April 20, the Government Arsenal at Fayetteville, in which were thirtyseven thousand stand of arms, three thousand kegs of gunpowWithin three weeks

1861.

• April 23.

der, and an immense amount of munitions of war.

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after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, there were not less than twenty thousand North Carolina volunteers under arms. They adopted a flag which was composed of the colors red, white, and blue, differently arranged from those in the National

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NORTH CAROLINA FLAG.

flag.

The Governor of Tennessee (Harris) and a disloyal majority of the Legislature now commenced the work of infinite mischief to the people of their State. Harris called the Legislature together on the 25th of April, and delivered to that body a message, in which he strongly urged the necessity for the immediate secession of the State. Remembering that • February 9, less than eighty days before the people had declared in favor of the Union by sixty-five thousand majority, he was unwilling to trust the question of secession to them now. He argued, that at the opening

1861.

of a revolution so vitally important, there was no propriety in wasting the time required to ascertain the will of the people by calling a convention, when the Legislature had the power to submit an ordinance of secession to

1 See page 161.

The colors were arranged as follows in this flag of the "Sovereign State of North Carolina:"-The red formed a broad bar running parallel with the staff, on which was a single star, and the dates arranged as seen in the engraving, "May 20, 1775," which was that of the promulgation of the so-called "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence" (mentioned in note 2, page 885), and "May 20, 1861," on which day the politicians of North Carolina declared the bond that bound that State to their own chosen Union was forever dissolved.

TENNESSEE LEAGUED WITH THE "CONFEDERACY."

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them without "encumbering them with the election of delegates." He accordingly recommended the Legislature to adopt such an ordinance at once, and call upon the people to vote upon it speedily.

• April 30, 1861.

A few days after the Governor's message was submitted to the Legislature, Henry W. Hilliard, a leading member of the "Methodist Church South," appeared before that body as a commissioner of Jefferson Davis and his confederates, clothed by them with authority to negotiate a treaty of alliance between the State of Tennessee and the "Confederate States of America," similar to that already completed between the Virginia politicians and the conspirators at Montgomery. He was allowed to submit his views to the Legislature. He regarded the question at issue "between the North and the South" as one "of constitutional liberty, involving the right of the people to govern themselves." He believed there was not a true-hearted man in the South who would not rather die than submit to "the Abolition North." The idea of reconstruction must be utterly abandoned. They would never think of "going back to their enemies." He considered the system of government founded on Slavery, which had been established at Montgomery, as the only permanent form of government that could be maintained in America. His views were warmly supported by some prominent Tennesseans. Ex-Governor Neil S. Brown, in a letter published at about that time, expressed his belief that it was "the settled policy of the Administration" and of "the whole North, to wage a war of extermination against the South," and urged the people to arm themselves, as the Border States, he believed, would be the battleground. Ex-Congressman Felix R. Zollicoffer declared that Tennessee was "already involved in war," and said, "We cannot stand neutral and see our Southern brothers butchered."

On the 1st of May the Legislature authorized the Governor to enter into a military league with the "Confederate States," by which the whole military rule of the Commonwealth should be subjected to the will of Davis. He appointed Gustavus A. Henry, Archibald O. W. Totten, and Washington Barrow as commissioners for the purpose. They and Mr. Hilliard negotiated a treaty, and on the 7th the Governor announced to the Legislature the conclusion of the business, and submitted to it a copy of the "Convention." By it Davis and his confederates were authorized to exercise absolute military control in Tennessee until that Commonwealth should become a member of the "Confederacy" by ratifying its permanent constitution. The vote on the treaty in the Senate was fourteen ayes to six noes, and in the lower House, forty-two ayes to fifteen noes. Eighteen of the members, chiefly from East Tennessee, were absent or did not vote.1

May.

1 It was stipulated by the convention, in addition to the absolute surrender of all the military affairs of the State to Jefferson Davis, that the State of Tennessee should, "on becoming a member of said Confederacy, under the permanent Constitution of said Confederate States, if the same shall occur, turn over to said Confederate States all the public property, naval stores, and munitions of war, of which she may then be in possession, acquired from the United States, on the same terms and in the same manner as the other States of said Confederacy have done in like cases." Governor Harris had already (on the 29th of April) ordered the seizure of Tennessee bonds to the amount of sixty-six thousand dollars, and five thousand dollars in cash, belonging to the United States, which were in possession of the Collector of the Port of Nashville. The pretext for the seizure was, that the amount might be held in trust, as a sort of hostage, until the Government should return to the State and its citizens property contraband of war which had been taken from the steamer Hillman, at Cairo,

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