E )viou.s to require argument or authority to support it. This is the gist of the Monroe doctrine, as the manifesto made to preserve ourselves agaifist this mode of subverting our pl»pu]ar institutions has been called, ever since President Monroe declared his purpose to resist such design wlien broached by th(; Holy Alliance in 1823. He states the proposition to which I have alluded in this language : "The political system of the allied powers is essentially diflerent in this respect from that of America. And to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of iheir most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to caudor and to the amiijable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare that ive should considir any attempt on their part to extend their sys- tem to any portion of tliis hemisphere as dani/erous to our peace and safety." Again, in 1824, he said: " It is impossilde for the European governments to interfere in their concerns, f.the affairs of our neighbors, J es])eci,ally in" those alluded to, Ctheir systems of government, _) which are vital, without affecting us ; ii/de'-d, the motive lokich. might induce such •interference in the present state of the war between the parties, if a war it may be caUed, would appear to be equally applicable tv us." Could language be framed more appropriate to portray tiie designs of the French Uoverument in thwir.int'-rvention in Mexico, and the feelings of our people in regard to it ? — and the representatives of the people, in the session before the last, adopted a declaration of the saiue purport, even at the risk of bringing Trench recognition and open alliance to the rebels whilst our contest was at the hi;;hest. There is no blinking the fact, that the French war on Mexico was the Emperor's contingent in aid of th^ rebellion against free government, and the rebellion has not ended whilst French bayonets main- tain a despotism there. Do I propose, then, to send our veterans to put it down at once ? I do not. 1 believe it will not be necessary. But it is necessary, to prevent war, that the French Emperor should be no longer deceived as to the feed, ings of the American people in regard to his position there. We need uoft Bay what we are able to do. He has seen that we are able to hold the territory which our fathers bequeathed us. We should make it manifest ^also, in a becoming manner, that we mean to maintain the Government which they framed for us, and the principles which they asserted as necessarv to preserve it— asserted, too, when they were comparatively a feeble po"wer, in defiance of the allied powers of the whole continent of Kurope. The course of our Foreign Secretary and War Secretary will warrant the French Emperor in asserting that the policy he has adopted U engraft French power on the institutions of this continent, which are cut down to make a stock for its support, is approved by our Government. See how both our state and War Departments have been subordinated to Napoleon's policy. Our House of Representatives re-echoed the voice of the Conven- tion that nominated Lincoln and Johnson as candidates, pledged, if elected to the Presidency, to reassert and maintain, even in the midst ot the rebel- lion the Monroe doctrine, as a protest against the invasion of France to overthrow the republican system established as that of our continent, taken from the type of that of the United States. The State Department instantly dispatched a disclaimer to the Emperor of the French, through our minister at Paris, containing the assurance that the opinion of the House was not that of the Government, and giving him to und^-stand that the Executive would not co-operate with the House. The War Office con- firmed this intimation of the State Department immediately, l\v its action. An order was entered against the exportation of arms, wliich were essen- tial to enable the Mexicans to defend themselves, while the French were allowed forage and transportation, '^lich were all they wanted. We had an equal right to stop the means of sujiply, which were as essential to maintain the Emperor's army in Mexico, as to stop the export of arms, lest they might fall into the hands of the invaded Republicans, who, thus dis- armed, were compelled to submit to an enemy that came accoutred with the best the armories of Europe could furnish. The Mexicans sought, and might have obtained but for this order, the arms exported from Europe and rejected by our army as not equal to the Springfield gun, bat o\ir War Secretary, in complaisance to Fiance, played the part of the dog in the manger, and denied the contractors and merchants the right to re-ex- port what he bad refused to receive. This interdict was continued even to the last of June, for so late were the refuse arms purchased by the Mexican agents in San Francisco withheld, although President Johnson or- dered its removal within one week after his accession to power. Neverthe- less, the revocation was not communicated to our officers in that quarter, and hence the Mexican arms were seized, and continue so to be held even now. But the Emperor of the French is not left to infer the acquiescence of our Government in his policy in reference to this continent from even these pregnant facts. He has it coiipled with a justification in the handwriting of our Minister, under the authority of our Secretary of State. Louis Na- poleon's Minister of State, M. Rouher, read to the French Legislative body this extract from an official communication of our Minister, Mr. Bigelow, containing an assurance of our submission to the estahlislnnent of his Mexican Empire, with a view to disarm opposition to it from the represen- tatives of the French people, and to quiet their discontents. The Moni- tenr, the Government official paper of France, reports Mr. Bigelow's words thits : " We four Government} do not like of course to see a monarchy es- tablished in Mexico; we prefer, of course, repi\blican institutions • but we respect the will of the people ; we can understand how Mexico, 'hat was for a long time ruled by a monarchical government, would like to return to that form of gOTernmeiit, and we would not go to war for the sake of a form of government."* *NoTB.— The following reply of Mr. Seward to this stntemenl appeared as a despatch to the Associated Press: "The iNTEBvii!V between our Ministf.r at Paris akd the French Minister for Fokeicj? Affaius relating to Mexico. Washington, July 20.— Mr. Bigelow, our Minister at Paris, so soon as he saw (he ver- sion which had been given by .M. Rouher, Secretary of State, in France to a eonversa- tion which had previously taken place betwetsn Mr. Bigelow and M. iirnyn de 1/Hiiys, the Freneh .Minister of Foreign Affairs, concerning Mexico, addressed a note to tliat jrentleman di'iiyicjc (lie statements made hy M. Rouher. M. Druyn de I/Huys nn- Fwered, admittiiifi; Mr Bittelow's statement to be correct, and tlie statement of M. Roulier incorrect. This correspondenee has been long since received at tlie State Department, and in due time will \m submitted to Congress."' Why is not Mr. Bigeh>w's correction of Mr. Rouhcr's stalement, referred to as long sinee m the LepiU-cmeut, given tlie public now. 'Jin .• i i'niice of the Dejiari^ ment with France eoTninunicnted to Congress nt its I I I — mmI yet published, I believe. '1 he course of events will, no doubt, render -1 _ - correction (which is probably not on u very material point) of very little liuiM.i t;air.- ihis time next year. Now, here is not oulj acquiescence against our inclinations to the con- spiracy which seeks the surrender of Mexico as tlie prey of tne French and Austrian potentates, but assigns as reasons for it falsehoods, which are made to give it the appearance of a submission' to an honest, democratic principle. While all the world knows that republican institutions were put dovrn in Mexico by French bayonets, neither the party of Mlramon nor Juarez, at war for the Presidency, consenfing to surrender their form of government, our American Minister is made to say that tlwy were put down by the people themselves ! And yielding submission to this flagrant act of war upon the Mexican Republic, and our own, of which it was the ©ifspring, we are told is but respect to tha will of the people I And thus it is argued that the Mexican people, having consented to relinquish their independence te the mandate of a foreign usurper, the people of the United States must abandon the time-honored policy of our fathers, which the public opinion of liberal Europe so sanctioned as to compel even the Holy Alliance U) respect it. Our Minister in Paris next gives the assurance to the French Emperor and the legislative body, ^' That we (speaking for our Administration^ car} understand how Mexio, that was for a lone/ time ruled bif a monarchical (t'lvernmenl, would like to return to that form of yoverament.'''' Miglit not the representative of our country at the French or English Court apply the same remark with equal truth to the people of this country as to the peo- ple of Mexico? If the French usurper should conquer us and set a Haps- burg over us as a Viceroy, doubtless some sycophant to ambition and.power among us would give the world to understand how the American people, as well as the Mexicans, ^ they were for a long time ruled by a monarchi- cal government, would like to return to that form of government! It would be just as true of the'first as the last. The missive to France having performed its function for the Emperor there, the State Department employs its oigan, the New York Times, to subserve the purposes of the usurper and maker of thrones here, by advo- cating his cause before the American people. Three columns and a-lialf of that journal, conducted by Weed and Raymond, well-fed favorites from the drippings of the State and War < 'ffices, are employed in arguing away the Monroe doctrine, and asserting the lawfulness and justice of the policy of the invader of Mexico. The article is ushered in by an editorial ap- proval, and has the ear-mark of its Cabinet origin, by putting in the salvo which makes a feature in our Minister, Mr. Bigelow's communication to Napoleon's Minister of State, M. Rouher, as read by him to the legislative body. It has the very tone of our Secretary. It has his diplomatic cm precisely as he gave it to Mr. Bigelow. " Of course ("says the Times in its colonnade articlej the people of the United States would prefer to see Mexi- co liourisli under the republican institutions which sealed their indepen- dence in 1808. But it must be admitted that the experience of republi- canism in Mexico has not been, on the whole, flattering. Had the case been otherwise, the occasion would never have arisen for the European in- tervention of 1861." From this position everything done by France in re- gard to Mexico is vindicated, and the violation of the Monroe doctrine, sanctioned by so many years of tacit admission, is justified. The article insists that as Juarez did not pay the debts due the subjects of France, had "no material means of honoring his signatu.-e, in which case he re- presented only an illusory or inadequate government; or he did not mean to honor it, in which case it was proper to punish.' Upon this, the Euro- pean governments broke relations with him and united to obtain redress. Such, in a few words, was the origin of the Mexican expedition. It had but one object — the recovery of sums due to France, and security for French citizens." 6 Now, this is the ground upon which the overthrow of Mexican indepen- dence, and of the Monroe doctrine, is justified. England and ^pain, we are told, united with France to obtain redress for the grievances com- plained of. I admit it. But did they unite witli France in makinpj the independence of tlie country and the liberties of the people a forfeiture because Juarez had no matotial meanit of lionorinr/ liis signature, or did not me'in to honor it ^" England and Spain, on the contrary, renounced the alliance and turned their- prows homeward when they ascertained the French Emperor's design was not to exact payment of a debt or indem- nity for injury to his subjects, but to overthrow a republic with the liberties of a people. IS'eith^r England nor Spain understood, as the des- patch from our State Departm,ent authorizes our Minister at Paris to de- clare to the French Minister df State " iw understood,'^ that this sudden and bold consummation of an enterprise begun under pretence of obtain- ing justice, but ending in conquering a natioir, was simply the result of respect for the will of that nation. What can be more humbling to the pride of our country than to witness its Premier, through our highest functionary abroad, making the degrading declaration that his countrymen believe that the Mexican people invited and brought in the foreign master, while the very allies of France in the origin of the attempt turn their backs on it as soon as the real design of conquest was disclosed by Napo- leon ? Indeed, he himself had the frankness, when fairly embarked on its expedition, to despise such subterfuges and to avow his real purpose to the* woild, proclaiming through the press of Europe that his object was " «o give the ascendency to the Latin race " throughout the southern section of our continent. This was an appeal to all of French or Spanish lineage holding possessions in the regions washed^by the Gulf of Mexico to join his standard. It was in the spirit of the* design of the Holy Alliance, when the arbiter of thrones, after settling affairs in Europe, it proposed to re-establish its viceroyships. which the pojiular power on this continent had repudiated. The British Minister, Canning, saw in the restoration of European potentates on this continent a renewal of colonial bondage and . commercial monopoly. The American President, Monroe, saw in it a war upon republican commonwealths which inevitably involved our own. Upon these considerations, the American and British Cabinets concurred that it was wise to confront the design of the Holy Alliance with the Mon- roe doctrine. It was this concurrence of the Anglo-Saxon governments, looking to the preservation of the free institutions on ijhich they were founded, that arrested the steps of the Holy Allies tencfing to the re- establishment of the Latin race witli its imperial absolutism in all the Gulf regions. Louis Napoleon renews the attempt, making the principal member of the Holy Alliance his colleague in the undertaking. Will the north of Europe — will England, espcsially — see with indifference this second marriage of France with Austria, meant to give the Bonaparte dynasty the mines and men, and the vast commercial material of Spanish- America to agrandise its powers in Europe as well as America, and to render it more than it was under the first Emperor — the arbiter of both continents. The present Emperor is ambitious to restore in his own person the reign of those great Casars whose occasional advents, he assumes in his history, are essential to the progress of the human race. England, it is certain, did not contribute tabuild up the power of the last of them, nor as yet does she seem willing to assist the grand schemes of his successor. She would not countenance his Mexican conquest, nor listen to his repeated importu- nities to recognize the States late in rebellion against our Union — States ho- sought to cut off fi om our Republic and bring under his wing as consum- mating his darling project of " e a^pe.-t given tu the cuuferences a> H 1 !■; u i; ids by the coiiunentary of Mr. s. •, . . - !ir;.il exponent in tln^ Press, ■M . , , , ..lie the p:i.ius to unravel for us il, . , i ,— wldch were hiililiii in our >, . - ,;iiMj;iiou^ language nboul "extri : > ,^ /;v.v." As Jlr. Widic-s brief .s,,_,c 1 1- iii.l vi instiuclion to us, as well i\.- in;-!'; , ^ii-.m Tut Mo.\rc£ Uoi'irime, I suljjoin it: '■Mr. WHITE felt compelled, by the remarks of the hon. baronet the membter for Ayr aud his hon. friend tiie memUer for Horsham, to ask those gentlemen wliat they piopo.~ed to do lor llie defence of Canada, and whether they were prvp m 1 -. a leiion :iii .mioimt of exuHuditure wiiich would soun double the ^National i' ilieiii ni'Miiwiuie to forego all hope of the reduction of the malt duty (■■ ,,. , .and biu^hter), and sending up the income-tax immediately to Is. Lvej; >.:i a i :Mi;ted Willi ilie geographical position of Canada and tht? extent of frontier to bt' d.-K'naed would know that these things must be looked plainly in the face if England undertook to hold thai coun'ry against a hostile attempt on the part of the Americans. The right hull, iienllenian the rnember for Calne represeut"4 the opinion of every one wliose opinion was wortii having when he spoke of ihe utter impossibility of holding Canada without an e.'wpenditure of money and blood on the part of Great Kritain whico was fearful to couieniplate. As to the alarm created by the recent conference between the JSortnern and Confederate Commissionei-.^. mi, I the .■,,vi-<^^i.oii'!eM— hPtwetn >lr. Soward and i\lr. .'Vdaiiis, It would bi sufficient to t:;: > ;,iii,, ; .!■ ■.'■■: y...: ■■•■'. <<■■'. -w the part of the present billigerent:-! had rei.:' ii ■ ^ ' '! - . - nid be expelled fiom Mexico. Any on- eonv.-i ;'ii \\;Mi im. >- \ji,ii,;iii \.-:.y\^-- v.naXd. see that this wa^ tlie most temjiting Uait wiueu im.- i..onleuer;ues, a-i lbe\' thought, could uiier to the North. The light hua. member for Calne had mentioned the Monroe doc rihe; he much wished he had explained its nature tu the House. p;very))ody ac- quainted with English and Ann la-in hi-toi-y knew tli^u ihe doctrine in question was es-sentiallv of Bi'itish origin, a ' . ,: ,» ■: -,-,:■ Wr. Canning. France, having put doun'the constitutional I'll. : '■ . -i.ain, entertained the notion of defraving herself lor the ix] . ,:,:_ ny acquiring portions oi the Snuni^^h '"«^™f ^^J^/^Jei^ euaee as would cause his advent to power to be regarded by the Americans as a decla- THE REBELLION -WHERE THE GUILT LIES, SP»EEC H OF THE HON. MONTGOMERY BLAIR, DELIVEEED AT Clarksville, Howard County, Md., on August 26, 1865. Fellow-Citizens: It cannot be said that States or men loyal to the Union, that remained steadfast to it nntil vanquished b}' the superior force of a victorious usurpation wliich reduced all the civil and military authorities within the States to subserviency, became rebels by submis- sion. Much less can it be said of such States or individuals, entitled by their allegiance to the General Government to its protection, Lait which Mere surrendered to that usurpation without a blow struck in their de- fence by it, became traitors by ceasing to resist frhen effectual resistance was no longer possible. Now, tbis was exactly the case of the loyal peo- ple of the Seuth, a majority of whom were unquestionably loyal before the fall of Fort Sumter, but who found themselves at that moment abso-' lutely at the mercy ot the conspirators against the National Republic. This state of things was the result of the connivance of the Government of the United States with the traitors, who, by the aid of secret societies, had organized an overwhelming military force and secured by political in- trigue the executive, legislative, and judicial power in the Slave States. But mark, especially the part which the Federal authority exerted in ^ establishing this usurping power in the South. The President of the / United States, Buchanan, was their Executive. Every Cabinet officer ap- pointed by him was of their dictation. They had a controlling majority in both branches of Congress. The Supreme Court was at their devotion. The head of the army, the venerable Li-utenant General Scott, stood alone, of all Buchanan's controlling functionaries, true to his country. Every other head of administration, with the exception of this time-worn patriot, contributed to betray the South into the hands of its enemies. The Senate and House of Representatives, in their debate.-, were converted into hot-beds of sedition to fire the Southern h^art. Tlie Supreme Court fulminated a decision, meant, like the Papal Bull which once consigned, the newly-discovered continent to the yoke of Spain, to re-open all that part of it which had been freed by State constitution or territorial com- pacts to slavery again. — i The President declared that if the Slave States seceded, as it was pro- I claimed by the Representatives in Congress, they would, if balked in their designs, tiiat there was no power in the General Government to coerce them to submit to the Constitution and laws, and to defeat even the at- tempt at coercion. The army was sent under (ieneral Twiggs to the In- dian border of Texas to be surrendered to the traitors there, and the navy was dispersed in all directions to the ends of the earth. This was the situation at the opening of the Congress which was to usher Mr. LiBcoln into his severed government. J 12 ' But in the interim between the meeting of Congress and the accession o^ Mr. Lincoln, the influential men in the Cabinet designated by him, and those playing their last cards in Buchanan's Cabinet, were busied in in- trigue with conspirators who were setting up their power over the Slave States. Buchanan's Secretary of War was doing all he could to confirm it, by stripping the armories of the United States, surrendering the army and its arms, and handing over all the munitions of war and forts in his power to the enemy. Toucey did the same with everything in his power, by putting disaflected or imbecile officers in the navy yards and fortified naval places in the South, to make the conquest of them easy. Almost all were lost before Mr. Lincoln had time to organize his departments and look about him. Meantime, Mr. Seward, as the designated Premier of Mr, Lincoln's Cabi- net, still retaining his place in the Senate of the United States, took his part in tlie game — played for and against the Union — the contest, until war in the field broke out, being confined to the halls of Congress. Mr. Seward's policy then and since, -ind hi a motives, are still a mystery ; but the result of his devious course was manifestly detrimental to the cause of the Union. In response to the leaders of the rebellion, on the floor of the Senate, and who in efi'ect as the Executive power directed the conspira- cy from its council chamber in caucus in Washington, Mr. Seward answer- ed : "I have such faith in this republican system of ours that there is no political good which 1 desire that 1 am not content to seek through its peaceful forms of administra' ion without invoking revolutionary action. If others shall invoke th.-fl; form of action to oppose and overthrow Govern- ment, they shall not, as far as it depends on me, have the excuse that I obstinately left myself to be misunderstood. In such a case I can afford to meet prejudice with conciliation, exaction with concession which surren- ders no principle, and violence with the right hand of peace." This decla- ration was justly construed to pledge him to sustain President Buchanan's programme, "not to coerce a State," and, therefore, not to resist the dis- solution of the Union, the proclaimed purpose of the Senators and Repre- sentatives of the Slave States, who were about to leave their seats in the National Legislature, and call a Confederate Congress to assume all the power over the South, from which it was resolve-l that the Constitution of the United States should be banished. The first step ("the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, in March, accomplishedj after Mr. Seward was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate, brought John Forsyth, Martin J. Craw- ford, and A. B. Roman, "commissioners from the Confederate States," who, to use their own language, ^' asked audience to adjust, in a spirit of amitu and peace, the new relations springing from a manifest and accomjdished revolution in the government of the Union.*.' This was on the 12th of March. This applicaticn was not answered until the 8th of April, although Mr. Seward's declination was prepared on the 15th of March ; but a memoran- dum at the close of it adds : " ^1 delivery of the same, hoioever, was delayed to Messrs. Forsyth and Crauford, as 2vas understood, with their consent." In the interval, communication between Secretary Seward and the Confeder- ate Commissioners was carried on by Judge Campbell of the Supreme Court of the United States, whose conversations with the Secretary of State were witnessed by Judge Nelson, also of the Supreme Court, who sanction- ed the following note of the result given, on 15th of March, 1861, to Judge Crawford, for information to the Confederate States : " / feel entire confidence that Fort Sumter will he evacuated in the next five ■ days; and this measure is felt as imposing great responsibility on the Ad- ministration. " I feel entire confidence that no measure changing the existing statiia pr^U' liitsiuUif tif th» Southern Con/^eradB States is atpretbnt cMrten^/aMe^. 13 " / feel an entire confidence that an answer to the communication of the Vonfederate Commissioners wUl be productive of evil, not good, I do not be- lieve it ought now to be jtressed.'" Mr. Seward, it seems, made no direct reply to a letter of Judge Camp- bell referring to tlie pledges lie coiarauuicated from liim to the (.Confeder- ate Commissioners, and stating to liim that '^ the pledge to evacuate Fort Sumter is less forcible than the words you empfoijed. Tliese words luere, be- fore this Utter reaches you (a proposed letter bi/ me to President D ivis) umter WILL HAVE BEEN EVACUATED." Mr. Seward did, however, in an authorized statement made in the Albany Evening Journal, by Mr. Thurlow Weed, admit it. Weed says that " Governor Seioard, i-onversed freely with Judge Campbell we do nut denij, imr do we doubt that in these conversations, at one period, he intimated that Fort Sutnter would be evacuated. He certainty believed so, founding his opinion on his Icnoivledge "/' General Scott^s recommendation." Now, this mode of escaping the responsibility of his assurance to .JeflF. Davis th it Sumter would be evacuated, is like that of Teucei skulking from danger by shooting his arrows under the cover of the shield of Ajax. It is well known that General' Soott. before Buchanan sent his non-coer- cion message to Congress, and as soon as preparation for revolt in the South was seen, urged the President by letter to put all the forts in Charleston harbor in a state of defence. In this he evinced the alacrity that prompted him under Gen. Jackson's orders, when he brought Charleston and the rebellion into submission, by bring ng the guas of the army and navy to bear upon that city when it hoisted the flag of uullification against the Union in 1832. Scott meant to crush the rebellion in the egg in this instance as in that ; but Buchanan foiled it as his superior. When Mr. Lincoln came in, and his Premier undertook to quell the revolt by concession, Scott could only say, in the confidential letter he wrote when acquiescing under the superiority of the civil to the railittry power. " Let our erring sisters depart in peace." Yet I am confident, from the patriotic course of the brave old man afterwards, that nothing could have induced him to acquiesce in Mr. Seward's course but the committals of Mr. Seward, who had ardently supported him for the Presidency against Mr. Pierce, and the persuasions that his diplomacy would bring all right after sur- rendering our flag, and with it the authority of our Government in the South, to that of the Confederacy. Tiie dalliance of Mr. Seward with the Confederate and the convention committees from Virginia, up to th-i fall of Fort Sumter, was but a prolongation of the agreement made with Davis, by order of Buchanan, under llie signatures of his Secretaries of War and of the Navy, that no aut of war would take place on the part of the United States during his term. This gave the Confederate General Beau- regard, an opportunity to build batteries under the guns of Fort Sumter, which could not have been done had not its cannon been muzzled by treaty stipulation. Mr. Seward's acquiescence in this state of things rendered the preparation for the attack more complete, while the forbearance to furnish provisions or reinforcements lo the garrison, on our part, effectually made good Mr. Seward's pledge for its surrender. It is apparent, from the whole course of public affairs, that Mr Seward acted in concert with Buchanan's Administration during the last three months of its term. He was, no doubt, advised, through Mr. Stanton, who was in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, of the policy it had adopted in reference to the seizure of everything that appertaint-d to the nation in the Soath. It was owing to the coalition then formed between Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton that the latter became Secretary of War to Mr. Lincoln. He apprised Mr. Seward of this treaty of the War and Navy Departments, under Buchanan, to makti uo resistance to the policy of disaolviug the Union — to offer no co> u ercion to impede its march to independence — and Mr. Seward's course shows that he approved ai.d adopted this policy. Is it not strange that Mr. ISeward should have kept that paralysis on the countiy from the 4th of March to the 13th of April, when the coiitiagration of biimter aroused the people ? Did Mr. Seward partake of the feeling which prompted Mr. Chase, his colleague in the Treasury, to exclaim, ^^ Let the South yo ; it is not worth Jiyhiitiy for? " Is it possible that these ambitious aspirants, who have shown such eagerness for the Presidency, are williug to sacrifice that vast, rich section of our Union to the petty object of personal aggrandize- ment ? Let me illustrate by example how the boldest Union men were paralyzed by the condition of things I have emieavorerl to portray. Judge Campbell, of Alabama, of whom I have spoken as transformed into a rebel commis- sioner, had been a devoted Union man. I knew of his heroic resistance to nullification. He had been the fir.-t man to breast the storm in Alabama in 1832, which threatened to bring on the rebellion then. I naturally looked to him to meet the new danger, and his feelings were unchanged, and he wrote and published earnest remonstianci-s agaiust the secession movement. I begged him to go again before his people in person, as in 1832; he replied, that it would be of no use. His private letters which he read to me showed that the unsupported Union men were obliged to succumb before the organized and armed conspirators. The circumstances in the two eras, he said, were widely different. Then Jackson was here asserting the authority of the Government, and he felt that he could with such backing resist to some purpose, but no sensible man, however patri- tic, could tliiuk so now. Nor was it Southern Union men alone whose natural promptings to de- fend the Union were checked by the efforts of the existing and prospect ive authorities in Washington who were co-operating in this purpose. It was through these influences that the movements throughout the North for the armed defence of the Union were repressed, and the imjjression con- veyed to the South that secession would be peaceful. Let me recall an instance. The Pennsylvania Legislature met in January, IStJl, and a resolution was immediately presented, which, I believe, was unanimously adopted, declaring it to be the duty of the State authorities to raise, organize, and equip a military force for the defence of the Union. This movement was stopped from Washington, and among the means resorted to for the purpose, as I was informed by Speaker Pennington at the time, the Legislature were told by a distiuguisiied member from Maryland, then be- lieved to hold confidential relations witli the incoming Premier, that Mary- land would secede if the movement were persisted in. The movement was abandoned, and it was abandoned undoubtedly through his counsels and in reference to his position as the incomiug Premier. Non-resistance was, we have seen, his publicly declared policy in the Senate as it was in the Cabinet. He agreed with Judge Campbell, the rebel commissioner, for the surrender of fort Sumtei', and when the President came to a different determination, ne nevertheless made good his promise. He it was, undoubtedly, who gave the notice by the telegram sent through Mr. Harvey, then and still our Minister to Portugal, of the President's pur- po^e to reinforce. But the sucior never came. Mr. Seward got an order directly from the President withdrawing the Powhatan, the armed vessel assigned to the expedition by the Secretary of the Navy, without the knowledge of the Secretary, and witliout the President's knowing that the Powhatan was the vessel ordered to relieve Sumter. The men and provisions came, but not a sailor with them to put them in the fort, the Powhatan having been withdrawn. It was in deference to him that Gen. 15 Scott recommended the surrender of the fort — because the General during the previous Administration had wished to reinforce it, and had been refused permission to do so hy Mr. Holt, then Secretary of War. Mr. Holt, now the head of the Bureau of Military Justice, was then also a power in Washington. Whilst Secretary of War, as already stated, he refused to permit General Scott to reinforce Sumter, and he had, whilst Postmaster General, written and published a letter dated 3Uth November, 1860, justifying the rebellion. H« says in that letter, the people of the North "have been taught that they are responsible for the doiuestic institutions of the South, and that they can be faithful to God oftly by being unfaithful to the compact they made with their fellow-men. Hence those liberty bills which degrade the statute books of some ten of the free States, and which are confessedly a shameless violation of the Federal Constitution in a point vital to her honor. We have here presented from year to year the humiliating spectacle of free and sovereign States, by a solemn act of legislation, leiializing the tht^/t of their neighbor's property. I say THEFT, since it is not the less so because the subject of the despicable crime chances to be a slave, instead of a horse or a bale of goods." After much to the same purport, he says : "I am still for the Union, because I have yet a, faint, hesitating hope that the North will do justice to the South and save the Republic before the wreck is complete. But the action must be prompt. If the free States will sweep the liberty hills from their codes, propose a convention of the States, and offer guaranties which will afford the same repose and safety to Southern homes and property enjoyed by those at the North, the impending tragedy may yet be averted, bctt not otherwise." Simultaneously with his refusal to permit succor to Fort Sumter and his armistice with the rebel Secretary, he refused his sanction to a bill introduced into the Senate, by Mr. Preston King, t > authorize the Union men in the South to organize themselves under the authority of the United States — refusing thus to allow them to defend themselves. Mr. Stanton, now Secretary of War, then Attorney General, was in full sympathy with the leaders in Congress who dragged the South into rebel- lion. He met Senator Brown, of Mississippi, at the door of the Supreme Court as he passed from the hall of the Senate, after taking leave of it as a secessionist forever. He encouraged him ; told him he was right ; it was the only course to save the South ; he must keep his constituents up to it, &;c. This is proved by Mr. Brown, former Senator from Mississippi, ■who mentioned it at the time to the Hon. James S. Rollins, of Missouri. Mr. Saulsbury, Senator from Delaware, by a resolution offeied to the Sen- ate last winter, proposed to substantiate it before a committee of that bndy ; but the committee was not granted. The fact is confirmed, too, by the known relations of the Secretary to parties at the time, and I have been assured by one of his colleagues in Buchanan's Cabinet that in his inter- course with IJls associates of that ilk he was most violent in denouncing any attempt to maintain the Union by force, and continued his denuncia- tions till he entered Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. Is it not for this that he was so lauded and glorified by the Thad. Stevens party in the resolutions of the recent convention at Harrisburg, in which President Johnson is substantially pronounced an usurper for presuming to set up governments in the Southern States, instead of call- ing on Congress to take the subject in hand, to which they claim it be- longs exclusively ? They declare also that these States should not be al- lowed State governments, and their motive for claiming authority for Congress is evidently because they believe Congress would not sanction the organization of such governments. Mr. Stanton concurs with them, and has been and is yet aiding them effectively in their scheme. This ex- 16 plains the retention so long of a vast and unnecessary military force, and some of the remarkable movements made by portions of it, involving enormous expenditures, as I believe, against the wif^hes of the General-in- Chief and the remonstrances of the Secretary of the Treasury. Besides the corruption fund thus secured, it serves to bankrupt the Treasury, and thus compel the call of Congress, a great point in the game of his asso- ciates. I revert to these facts to prove that the Government of the United States— the great functionaries entrusted with the administration — are responsible for the subjugation of the Southern people to the usurpation of the conspirators who plotted secession in the halls of Congress and in the caucuses they held in the Capitol. It was here, from year to year, that the scheme was plotted and the missive's and emissaries were sent that got up the secret societies, that organized the military force under the Knights of the Golden Circle, and provided arms from the arsenals of the Union. The Federal Government, which, from the time that Jeflf. Davis was Secretary of War, was in the hands of men secretly conspiring against the liberties of the North and South, was constantly used to give resurrection to the rebellion which General Jackson had supp essed. If Mr. Buchanan had allowed the orders to be revived and acted on, given by General Jackson to General Scott, and again recommeuded by the lat- ter, the rebellion would have been strangled in its birth. No navy yard or fort would have been taken ; no army surrendered ; no arms provided. Instead of this, the Government of the United States, as I have shown, contributed the essential aid which enabled the conspirators to put down the unarmed people of the South and compel them to suffer conscription to fill their armies ; impressment of every species of supply — horses, food, clothing, wagons, everything — to surrender every vestige of protection of law of their own States as well as the United States. The scheme for the dissolution of the Union had been for more than thirty years brooding in Washington. It had its origin with the slave- holding autocrats, sickened with the inferiority to which their section and themselves were doomed by the servile institution, which inflamed at once their vanity and ambition. The politicians who gathered at Washington as the representatives of this class, constituted, as they thought, an order of nobility destined to put down the popular government which subjected them to an irksome dependence on the people. It was this Congress-bred gentility from the South, flushed with the triumph of their intrigues in bringing the Government undfer their control, that contrived, organized, and directed the conspiraoy. Like all conspiracies which have led to civil wars, it was born and bred in the capital. Rome, London, Paris, through successive ages, have been the centres where the plots were laid which, on explosion, shook not only their home governments, but those of foreign nations. The great body of the people of the south had no hand in the concoction of the plot which has actually convulsed this country. They were as innocent as the people of the North, yet in every shape in which wretchedness can be visited, the South has been the victim. It was the highest constitutional duty of the Government of the United States to have warded oS' the blow which has prostrated this region. The arm was raised to strike in its very presence The men in the capital, in both halls of Congress, the usurpers themselves, announced the fact that they had given orders that it should be struck. They formally took their leave of the Government whose authority they were about to prostrate in the' de- voted section they had resolved to rule or ruin ; and they were told by the head of the Administration going out, "Go ahead, we will not ' coerce ' the usurped State power you have contrived to get in your hands." The 17 1 Premier of the incoming Administration says, also, "Go ahead, we wil confront your revolutionary movements with concession, violence with conciliation and the right-hand of fellowship." The fall of Sumter imme- diately followed this, the attempt to saccor it being turned aside by the hand of the Premier, who had engaged that it should fall. What were the people of the South to infer from this ? An immense majority, some sixty or seventy thousand, of the people of Virginia had given their voice for the Government of their fathers. In those States farther south, where the Knights of the Golden Circle exerted all their secretly armed police to dragoon and drag the people to vote to throw off the Union aud substitute the Confederacy, a majority of voters could no where be brought to sanction it. But when Sumter fell, what could individuals expect who were everywhere under the heel of the usurpers ? Would the nation's Government defend them in any loyal effort? Mr. Buchanan, the head of the Government, said, "It had no right to do it," and Mr. Seward, the Premier of the new Administration, had said, we icill not succor nor defend even the strongholds of Gncernment — strongholds built to keep rebellion and ususpati(m in check. What could loyal men do under such circumstances but submit ? They were pressed into the army by conscriptiom If they lied from their homes and hid in morasses to escape, they were hunted down by blood- hounds, and put in the front of battle with the reguL-irs of tin- Golden Cir- cle in their rear. The property of everybody was a prey, and those only who professed the utmort zeal to the military power could hope to have any share in what belonged to them. Is it not monstrous that our Government should hold a people, put in this predicament, if we may not say by its own acts, yet certainly by its supineness and acquiescence, responsible for the crimes of an usurpation thus put over them ? And yet the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens takes this stard for the Govern- ment of the United States in the resolutions which h« recently got up a convention to pass at Harrisburg. He thinks that as Pennsylvania elected Mr. Buchanan President, who devoted his administration to hatch the treason which has trodden down the great commonalty of our own race ii the South, so it has elected liim as an agent to complete their d(!struction and set up a foreign race to take their place in the National Commonwealth. According to the j.rogramme of the Stevens resolutions, there are no loyal men in the South but the enfran hised blacks ; the white man who sttccumbed to the usurpation and obeyed its behests — and this every man was compelled to do — is disfranchised as disloyal. In logical sequence from this state of facts, the National Legislature is to absorb all legisla- tion, State and National, over the wliole South. It is to assume absohitu power over everything south of Mason and Dixon's line — and how is it to be exercised ? Mr. Stevens, forgetting that our Government was bound by the Constitti- tion to protect the people of every State from all domestic violence and usurpation, as well as foreign invasion, and in failing to do it might be jtistly held to indemnify the loyal people who have suffered by the rebel- lion, has the hardihood to declare in his resohitions that the people of the South, en masse, confounding the innocent with the guilty, are bound, out of their substance, to paj the whole national debt incurred by the war. This is somewhat like tying a millstone round the neck of every man of the commonalty and throwing him into the ocean. It certainly overwhel.us him in the flood from which he can hardly swim out with such a weight. But this, it may be said, is only a life-long incumbrance of generations, rightfully imposed on the poor white posterity dwelling in slave States, to 18 expiate as the children the sins of their forefathers. But lest some men wlio have considerable substance in land or other estate that has survived the war may go to work and build up again an independence for them- selves and thcii- devoted country, Mr. Stevens has provided another sweeping resolution, which cuts down at one blow all such aspirations. The resolution is that confiscation, like our great reaping machines, shall be driven like a steam engine of our absolute Government — absolute over the South — and reduce all foitunes to $10,000 value. It does not say whether the valuation is to be Confederate paper or greenbacks. But wlieiher it be one or the other, the stubble-field will be little worth the gleaning when we shall have first extracted the war debt from the un- happy subjects of the rebellion. To get a Government sufficiently hardened^ to execute these decrees, Mr. Stevens appeals to the soldiers, and tells them that no man is everto be noniiiiatt^d for any office unless ho has served in the fit-Id. So they are to be the dispensers of all the spoils of the stript, the naked children. IIow little this veteran politician knows the magnanimous patriots who fought their battles for the liberal and luerciful institutions ot our country ! They are the last men in the world to urge to cruelty in cold blood. These men when hungry took the bread out of their own haversacks and gave their canteens to their pros- trate foes. Let them judge the South, and we are all brothers. Mr. Stevens next promises the manufacturers unbounaed protection if they will onl^' help him to strip the South and reduce it to utter ruin. The manufacturers, so far from doing this, will lend it their capital, at least ere it, that they may cloth the South and enable it to produce fresh material for their operatives, and rich markets for the result of their suc- cessful industry. He appeals to the holders of the Government bonds, saying the plunder of the South is to pay their debt. They will reply, we will not kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Rut who is to execute the Draconic dt- crees of Thaddeus and his omni- potent parliament ? Who is to squeeze out the taxes from the desolated South to pay the whole war debt? Who is to carry out the sweeping confiscation throughout all rebeldom and divide the lands among the only loyal people of the South — tlie negroes ? 'I'he resolutions name the President as a proper sort of man ; but he it plainly told that his scheme of restoring the Union will not do. It is too rose-water, milk-water, too lenient ; and yet Mr. Stevens says the rebels reject it. But Thaddeus knows a man who can do the business, who can compile his doomsday book of conquests and confiscations. Who could be better fitted lor it than the man to whose prodigious energies and ex- cellencies it would seem all our succtice of adhering to thejilaiii letter of the Constitution, there is no answer, but ambition backed by power will justify itself with very little regard for right or even of appearances. Richard, when he orderedHast- iugs to execution, showing his withered arm as evidence that he had be- witched him, did so to scoflf at his victim ; and the affected fears of the crushed South, assumed by the ambitious leaders of the Noth to justify the destruction of th.'ir political rights, sounds not unlike the mockery of Gloster. liut tlie lust of dominicm from which such actions spring is the most unreasoning, intolerant, and remorseless passion of the humau ~ bosom. It knows no Constitution, and does not listen to truth or justice. Vv'e will appeal in vain to tlie words of the Constitution to protect us in our rights to leaders phrenzied with tlie imperial idea of ruling the conti- nent by holding one-half of it without responsibility to its people, requir ing a militai-y force to do so, which would make them masters of the whole. In vain we shall ask for justice to the Union men of the 8outh from such men. They cannot Iprego their lofty aspirations to recognize the existence of any such class/^ You cannot have forgotten how fiercely '"my head was demanded when I ventured to assert the rights of the Union nu'u of the tioulh against this form of imperialism when broached in 18o3. I had been fiom early manliood an opponent of slavery ; I had assisted my brother in organizing the first and only victorious emancipation party wiiicli existed in the South prior to the rebellion; I was in favor of main- taining Fremont's proclamation ; and, failing in that, I had recommended, iu writing, Presideut Lincoln to make one himself in his annual message of 18G1. I had defended Lincoln's emancipation proclamation when it was made, in a speech, which Senator Sumner himself did me the honor to quote with approbation. I had lead in the emancipation movement in Maryland, and never faltered till its success was achieved. But, notwith- standing the furore about emanciiation by those people, this early, earnest, and constant support of emancipation on my part did not satisfy them. So far from it, I was, I believe, the most odious man to them on the conti- nent. No, there was one still more odious, one still better abused by Phillips, Cliase, Davis & Co. I need not tell you that man was Abraham Lincoln, the atithor of the emancipation proclamation ; and to such an ex- tent had these men poisoned the minds of some of our true men against me, that I apprehended that my continuance in the Cabinet might affect the elec- tion, and therefore insisted upon withdrawing. Nor was it because I had done anything to make myself personally offensive. My only offence con- sisted in asserting the equal rights of my p(iople ; and you see they would not tolerate any Southern man in the Cabinet who stood for the rights of the Union men of the South under the Constitution. // U^ I have not referred to myself in this connection"to give myself im- portance. I have done so because the example was required to illustrate the true spirit of those who seek in the g^ise of pre-eminent loyalists and transcendent emancipationists to annihilate the States and destroy the Constitution; and Mr. Raymond, the chairman of the committee by whom the resolution relating to the Cabinet was reported in the late National Convention, has publicly stated that the managers aimed there- by to give themselves authority for demanding my removal by the Presi- 21 dent. The people of the country may see in this that it is not Unionism and emancipation they seek — and it concerns the people of the whole country to mark it. They propose, indeed, to strike the South down first. The Union men then must sulfer with th^ rebels for the misfortune of being born in the same region. Their most precious rights are to be wrenched from them, regardless of their devotion to the Union, through good and tlirough evil report, for the crime of not being able to resist se- cession when enforced by color of State authority, sanctioned and acquiesced in by the National Groveniment. Every one- who raises his voice against this llagrant injustice is denounced as an ally of Copperheads and traitors. As it is proposed to treat all Southern men alike, it is necessary, to elfect this puj^ose, that the people of the North should be taught to regard us all as criminals. All are in fact equally olfenders in their eyes. It is the claim for themselves and their fellows of their rights as citizens which offends. It is the monopoly of power which is sought, and that design is equally frustrated by allowing the Southern States tlieir rights, whetlii r in the hands of Union men or rebels. All agree in discarding the shibbo- leth of the Imperialists. There are some, indeed, who give private assu- rances that they will work up to it by-and-by, and who, by joining in the clamor against the dead rebellion, arc co-operating with the Imperialists in propagating the idea that the safety of the eountry requires the exclu- sion Irom Congress of re^esentatives from the South, and thus uontribu- ting to fix the conviction upon the public mind that it is necessary to sub- vert tiie rule of the white man in the South before that region can be restored to a share in the Government. Swarms of hireling writers are sent over the South, who go there as the English tourists come to America, with a foregone conclusion against the country — most of them in the pay of the War Department, but of the non-combatant species, whose continuance in the service depends on making the impression that secession is not dead but sleepeth. The Southern man who joins in continuing this clamor against the South is aiding in disfranchising the Soitth, and thew/iole South, Maryland included. We may, indeed, have persons from Maryland filling seats, but those who reflect the feelings of our people will be without power. Tliose only who are elected as the member from the First District in the last Congress and one of our present Senators were elected will find favor with the Imperialists. That is, by the use of public money and military force directly applied. Let me give some particulars. A regular Commissary was removed from Baltimore last .winter, as the Senatorial election was coming on, and a politician in the volunteer service, recommended for the position by Mr. Davis to the Secretary of War, because of his being an anti Blair man, was put in the place. This man and Ihe Quarter- master assessed the merchants dealing with the Government heavily to raise money to be tised m the election against me and my friends. The Quartermaster, I learn, raised $40,000. How much the Commissary raised I do not know, but he has been heard to boast that it was by the money he raised that I. was beaten. Some of the preliminary steps were taken openly by the Department. A number of the Senators elected by the people were arrested, and others threatened till compelled to resign, and their successors were elected by the same use of military power as the member from the First District had been in 18G3. On that occasion the most earnest Union men in the district were arrested — such men as Col, Spencer, Jesse Hines, and others, who had boldly sustained Governor Hicks, whilst Mr. Creswell their senatorial nominee was openly denouncing him and demanding, by his resolations adopted at Elkton, that our rebel Legislature should be called together, and pledging Maryland to go with the 22 South. Mr. Claytou, who was Mr. Creswell's nominee for MarsLal lately, ];ad blank warrants furnished him without limit, signed by Don Piatt, to ar- reitanj'man he should consider in the way of Creswell's election. If was proved, also, I understand, before a committee of the Legislature, that some time prior to this election Mr. Davis informed a gentleman on the Eastern Shore, believing him to be of his party, that all the necessary measures would be taken to carry the election ; that the order had been prepared and printed by General Schenck, but that it would not do to publish it till within a few days before the election, because Blair would get Lincoln te revoke it, and this proved to be the fact. The order was revoked, but the revocation, as had been well calculated, did not reach the Eastern Shore in time. Members so chosen represent Mr. Stanton, not th^people of Alarylaud, and serve but to delude our happier and freer neighoors as to our sentiments. It would be far better and more consistent witli ,true dignity lor us to share the absolute disfranchisement of the other Southern States, than to have our seats lilled by the nominees of Mr. Stanton. And this brings me to c -nsider a measure adapted by the Legislature, as eliminated, remodeled, and corrupted by the instruments of this ma^, which threatens to disturb the harmony of our people, and to plant rank- ling and bitterness in the liearte of neighbors. 1 allude to the law for the registration of voters By the terms of fhat law three members of the dominant party constitute a tribunal in each selection district, (dothed with absolute power to' disfranchise whom they please. Thus a penalty which has heretoioie been inflicted only upon persons convicted of infa- mous Climes, after a fair and opt-n trial by a court and jury, may be im- posed by a secret inquisition. That multitudes of good citizens, against whom no one would dare publicly to make any dishonorable charge, will thus be branded as felons is most probable. Men who are earnest in a cause, even when disinterested, are apt to doubt the patriotism of zealous oppo- nent-?. But when they have a selfish motive to heat their passions, toleration is almost impossible. But many of our registers are expectant candidates for the suffrages they are deciding upon. They are generally, too, the nomiuees of the county committees, who are made up for the mo.st part of standing candidates of the party. Nothing but a strong public sentiment can prevent a partizan enforcement of such a law. I have been against it from the begiiniing for this reason. Exasperation against the rebellion affected most of those, who voted for it, but it was instigated, I fear, by partisanship. It bears the stamp of a disfranchising spirit which existed before the rebellion, the leaders in which taught the rebels how to organize in secret to carry elections against the public will. In my opinion there never was any justification for such a law, and cer- tainly there* is none now. The ostensible reason has passed with the rebellion, .and the maxim that the law ought to cease with the reason for it applies in- such a case undoubtedly. Secession is not indigenous to Maryland. Calhoun had not a half a dozen friends in the State in 1S32. If Governor Hicks had yielded, the State would have been forced into secession. I doubt not but it would have been recognized by the rebel Government then installed in Washington, of which as we h