I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families—second families perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams and others in Macon county, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham county, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks county, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he grew up literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.There were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond reading, writing, and ciphering to the rule of three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher, to the rule of three; but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon county. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard county, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store.
I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families—second families perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams and others in Macon county, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham county, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks county, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.
My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he grew up literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.There were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond reading, writing, and ciphering to the rule of three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher, to the rule of three; but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon county. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard county, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store.
In addition to the foregoing I may add that among my acquaintance in central Pennsylvania were several sisters whose maiden name was Winters. Two of these sisters were wives of Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Another sister was the wife of William Potter, a member of Congress of some note from that State and son of General Potter of the Revolution. These sisters were the great aunts of President Lincoln, and I subjoin an obituary notice of the younger sister, Mrs. Potter, who died in 1875, at the advanced age of eighty-four. There are some incidents not immediately connected with the subject that might be omitted, but I think it best to present the obituary in full:
Died, in Bellefonte, at the residence of Edward C. Humes, on Sunday morning, the 30th of May A. D. 1875, Mrs. Lucy Potter, relict of Hon. William W. Potter, deceased, aged eighty-four years, nine months, and two days.Mrs. Potter was a member of a large and rather remarkable family; her father having been born in 1728, married in 1747, died in 1794; children to the number of nineteen being born to him, the eldest in 1748, the youngest in 1790—their birth extending over a period of forty-two years. William Winters, the father of the deceased, came from Berks county to Northumberland, now Lycoming county, in the year 1778, having purchased the farm lately known as the Judge Grier farm, near what was called Newberry, but now within the corporate limits of the city of Williamsport. Mr. Winters was twice married. His first wife was Ann Boone, a sister of Colonel Daniel Boone, famous in the early annals of Kentucky. His marriage took place in the year 1747 in the then province of Virginia. By this union there were issue eleven children, four males and seven females. His eldest daughter, Hannah, married in Rockingham county, Virginia, Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of President Lincoln. Shortly before his death, Lincoln, who was killed by the Indians, visited his father-in-law at what is now Williamsport, and John Winters, his brother-in-law, returned with him to Kentucky, whither Mr. Lincoln had removed after his marriage; John being deputed to look after some lands taken by Colonel Daniel Boone and his father.They travelled on foot from the farm, by a route leading by where Bellefonte now is, the Indian path "leading from Bald Eagle to Frankstown."John Winters visited his sister, Mrs. Potter, in 1843, and wandering to the hill upon which the Academy is situated, a messenger was sent for him, his friends thinking he had lost himself; but he was only looking for the path he and Lincoln had trod sixty years before, and pointed out with his finger the course from Spring creek, along Buffalo run, to where it crosses the "Long Limestone Valley," as the route they had travelled.Upon the death of Mr. Winters's first wife, in 1771, he again, in 1774, married. His second wife was Ellen Campbell, who bore him eight children, three males and five females, of which latter the subject of this notice was the youngest.The father of Mrs. Potter died in 1794, and in 1795 Mrs. Ellen Winters, his widow, was licensed by the courts of Lycoming county to keep a "house of entertainment" where Williamsport now is—where she lived and reared her own children as well as several of her step children.Here all her daughters married, Mary becoming the wife of Charles Huston, who for a number of years adorned the bench of the Supreme Court of this State; Ellen, the wife of Thomas Burnside, who was a member of Congress, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and finally a Justice of the Supreme Court; Sarah, the wife of Benjamin Harris, whose daughter, Miss Ellen Harris, resides on Spring street in this borough; Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Alexander, a carpenter and builder, who erected one of the first dwellings in Williamsport, at the corner of what are now Pine and Third streets in that city, and many of whose descendants are still living in Lycoming county; Lucy, the wife of William W. Potter, a leading politician in this county, who died on the 15th day of October, 1888, while a member of our national Congress.Mrs. Potter continued with her mother's family in Lycoming county, frequently visiting her two sisters, Mrs. Huston and Mrs. Burnside, who resided in Bellefonte, where, in 1815, she was united in marriage, by Rev. James Linn, with William W. Potter, a young and rising lawyer, and son of General James Potter, one of the early settlers of the county. Here, with her husband until his death, and then, upon the marriage of her niece, Miss Lucy Alexander, with Mr. Edward C. Humes, she made her home, living continuously in this town since her marriage, and having survived her husband for the long period of thirty-seven years, being that length of time a widow.
Died, in Bellefonte, at the residence of Edward C. Humes, on Sunday morning, the 30th of May A. D. 1875, Mrs. Lucy Potter, relict of Hon. William W. Potter, deceased, aged eighty-four years, nine months, and two days.
Mrs. Potter was a member of a large and rather remarkable family; her father having been born in 1728, married in 1747, died in 1794; children to the number of nineteen being born to him, the eldest in 1748, the youngest in 1790—their birth extending over a period of forty-two years. William Winters, the father of the deceased, came from Berks county to Northumberland, now Lycoming county, in the year 1778, having purchased the farm lately known as the Judge Grier farm, near what was called Newberry, but now within the corporate limits of the city of Williamsport. Mr. Winters was twice married. His first wife was Ann Boone, a sister of Colonel Daniel Boone, famous in the early annals of Kentucky. His marriage took place in the year 1747 in the then province of Virginia. By this union there were issue eleven children, four males and seven females. His eldest daughter, Hannah, married in Rockingham county, Virginia, Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of President Lincoln. Shortly before his death, Lincoln, who was killed by the Indians, visited his father-in-law at what is now Williamsport, and John Winters, his brother-in-law, returned with him to Kentucky, whither Mr. Lincoln had removed after his marriage; John being deputed to look after some lands taken by Colonel Daniel Boone and his father.
They travelled on foot from the farm, by a route leading by where Bellefonte now is, the Indian path "leading from Bald Eagle to Frankstown."
John Winters visited his sister, Mrs. Potter, in 1843, and wandering to the hill upon which the Academy is situated, a messenger was sent for him, his friends thinking he had lost himself; but he was only looking for the path he and Lincoln had trod sixty years before, and pointed out with his finger the course from Spring creek, along Buffalo run, to where it crosses the "Long Limestone Valley," as the route they had travelled.
Upon the death of Mr. Winters's first wife, in 1771, he again, in 1774, married. His second wife was Ellen Campbell, who bore him eight children, three males and five females, of which latter the subject of this notice was the youngest.
The father of Mrs. Potter died in 1794, and in 1795 Mrs. Ellen Winters, his widow, was licensed by the courts of Lycoming county to keep a "house of entertainment" where Williamsport now is—where she lived and reared her own children as well as several of her step children.
Here all her daughters married, Mary becoming the wife of Charles Huston, who for a number of years adorned the bench of the Supreme Court of this State; Ellen, the wife of Thomas Burnside, who was a member of Congress, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and finally a Justice of the Supreme Court; Sarah, the wife of Benjamin Harris, whose daughter, Miss Ellen Harris, resides on Spring street in this borough; Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Alexander, a carpenter and builder, who erected one of the first dwellings in Williamsport, at the corner of what are now Pine and Third streets in that city, and many of whose descendants are still living in Lycoming county; Lucy, the wife of William W. Potter, a leading politician in this county, who died on the 15th day of October, 1888, while a member of our national Congress.
Mrs. Potter continued with her mother's family in Lycoming county, frequently visiting her two sisters, Mrs. Huston and Mrs. Burnside, who resided in Bellefonte, where, in 1815, she was united in marriage, by Rev. James Linn, with William W. Potter, a young and rising lawyer, and son of General James Potter, one of the early settlers of the county. Here, with her husband until his death, and then, upon the marriage of her niece, Miss Lucy Alexander, with Mr. Edward C. Humes, she made her home, living continuously in this town since her marriage, and having survived her husband for the long period of thirty-seven years, being that length of time a widow.
The biographers of President Lincoln have none of them given these facts because they did not know them, nor was the President himself aware of them. Of their authenticity so faras the relationship of Mr. Lincoln with the family of Winters is concerned, I have no doubt. His ancestry in this country, paternal and maternal—Lincoln, Boone, and Winters—is to be traced to the county of Berks, Pennsylvania.
A roving child of the forest, where there were not even village schools, Abraham Lincoln had little early culture, but his vigorous native intellect sought information wherever it could be obtained with limited means and opportunities, and overcame almost insuperable obstacles. His quick perception and powers of observation and reflection, and his retentive memory were remarkable; his judgment was good, his mental grasp and comprehension equal to any emergency, his intentions were always honest, and his skill and tact, with a determination to always maintain the right, begot confidence and made him successful and great. Party opponents imputed his success under difficulties that seemed insurmountable to craft and cunning; but while not deficient in shrewdness, his success was the result not of deceptive measures or wily intrigue, but of wisdom and fidelity with an intuitive sagacity that seldom erred as to measures to be adopted, or the course to be pursued. It may be said of him, that he possessed inherently a master mind, and was innately a leader of men. He listened, as I have often remarked, patiently to the advice and opinions of others, though he might differ from them; treated unintentional errors with lenity, was forbearing, and kind to mistaken subordinates, but ever true to his own convictions. He gathered information and knowledge whenever and wherever he had opportunity, but quietly put aside assumption and intrusive attempt to unduly influence and control him.
Like all his Cabinet, with the exception of Mr. Blair, who had been educated at West Point, he was without military pretension when he entered upon his executive duties and encountered at the very threshold a civil war which had been long maturing, was deeply seated, and in its progress was almost unprecedented in magnitude. Neither he nor any of his advisers had personal, official, practical experience in administering the civil service of the Federal Government. The commencement of hostilities, before they had time to become familiar with their duties, imposed upon each and all labors and cares beyond those of any of their predecessors. To these were added the conduct of military operations as novel as they were responsible. Unprepared as the country was for the sudden and formidable insurrection, the Administration was not less so, yet it was compelled at once to meet it, make preparations, call out immense armies, and select officers to organize and command them.
These commanders were most of them educated military officers, but possessed of limited experience. Their lives had been passed on a peace establishment, and they were consequently without practical knowledge. Many of these, as well as such officers as were selected from civil life, seemed bewildered by their sudden preferment, and appeared to labor under the impression that they were clothed not only with military but civil authority. Some in the higher grades imagined that in addition to leading armies and fighting battles, they had plenary power to administer the Government and prescribe the policy to be pursued in their respective departments. Much difficulty and no small embarrassment was caused by their mistaken assumptions and acts, in the early part of the war.
J. C. Fremont, the western explorer, a political candidate for the Presidency in 1856, and made a major general by President Lincoln at the beginning of the rebellion in 1861, was assigned to the command of the western department. He evidently considered himself clothed with proconsular powers; that he was a representative of the Government in a civilcapacity as well as military commander, and soon after establishing his headquarters at St. Louis assumed authority over the slavery question which the President could neither recognize nor permit. General Hunter, at Port Royal, and General Phelps, in the Gulf, each laboring under the same error, took upon themselves to issue extraordinary manifestoes that conflicted with the Constitution and laws, on the subject of slavery, which the President was compelled to disavow. The subject, if to be acted upon, was administrative and belonged to the Government and civil authorities—not to military commanders. But there was a feeling in Congress and the country which sympathized with the radical generals in these anti-slavery decrees, rather than with the law, and the Executive in maintaining it. The Secretary of War, under whom these generals acted, not inattentive to current opinion, also took an extraordinary position, and in his annual report enunciated a policy in regard to the slavery question, without the assent of the President and without even consulting him. Mr. Lincoln promptly directed the assuming portion of the report, which had already been printed, to be cancelled; but the proceeding embarrassed the Administration and contributed to the retirement of Mr. Cameron from the Cabinet. These differences in the army, in the Administration, and among the Republicans in Congress, extended to the people. A radical faction opposed to the legal, cautious, and considerate policy of the President began to crystallize and assume shape and form, which, while it did not openly oppose the President, sowed the seeds of discontent against his policy and the general management of public affairs.
The military operations of the period are not here detailed or alluded to, except incidentally when narrating the action of the Administration in directing army movements and shaping the policy of the Government. Nearly one-third of the States were, during the Presidency of Mr. Lincoln, unrepresented in the national councils, and in open rebellion. A belt of border States, extending from the Delaware to the Rocky mountains, which, though represented in Congress, had a divided population, was distrustful of the President. Yielding the Administration a qualified support, and opposed to the Government in almost all its measures, was an old organized and disciplined party in all the free States, which seemed to consider its obligations to party paramount to duty to the country. This last, if it did not boldly participate with the rebels, was an auxiliary, and as a party, hostile to the Administration, and opposed to nearly every measure for suppressing the insurrection.
There were among the friends of the Administration, and especially during its last two years, radical differences, which in the first stages of the war were undeveloped. The mild and persuasive temper of the President, his generous and tolerant disposition, and his kind and moderate forbearance toward the rebels, whom he invited and would persuade to return to their allegiance and their duty, did not correspond with the schemes and designs of the extreme and violent leaders of the Republican party. They had other objects than reconstruction to attain, were implacable and revengeful, and some with ulterior radical views thought the opportunity favorable to effect a change of administration.
These had for years fomented division, encouraged strife, and were as ultra and as unreasonable in their demands and exactions as the secessionists. Some had welcomed war with grim satisfaction, and were for prosecuting it unrelentingly with fire and sword to the annihilation of the rights, and the absolute subversion of the Southern States and subjection of the Southern people. There was in their ranks unreasoning fanaticism, and ferocity that partook of barbarism, with a mixture of political intrigue fatal to our Federal system. These men, dissatisfied with President Lincoln, accused him of temporizing, of imbecility, and of sympathy with the rebels because he would not confiscate their whole property, and hang or punish them as pirates or traitors. These radical Republicans, as they were proud to call themselves, occupied, like all extreme men in high party and revolutionary times, the front rank of their party, and, though really a minority, gave tone and character to the Republican organization. Fired with avenging zeal, and often successful in their extreme views, though to some extent checked and modified by the President, they were presuming, and flattered themselves they could, if unsuccessful with Mr. Lincoln, effect a change in the administration of the Government in 1864 by electing a President who would conform to their ultra demands. Secret meetings and whispered consultations were held for that purpose, and for a time aspiring and calculating politicians gave them encouragement; but it soon became evident that the conservative sentiment of the Republicans and the country was with Mr. Lincoln, and that the confidence of the people in his patriotism and integrity was such as could not be shaken. Nevertheless, a small band of the radicals held out and would not assent to his benignant policy. These malcontents undertook to create a distinct political organization which, if possessed of power, would make a more fierce and unrelenting war on the rebels, break down their local institutions, overturn their State governments, subjugate the whites, elevate the blacks, and give not only freedom to the slaves, but by national decree override the States, and give suffrage to the whole colored race. These extreme and rancorous notions found no favor with Mr. Lincoln, who, though nominally a Whig in the past, had respect for the Constitution, loved the Federal Union, and had a sacred regard for the rights of the States, which the Whigs as a party did not entertain. War two years after secession commenced brought emancipation, but emancipation did not dissolve the Union, consolidate the Government, or clothe it with absolute power; nor did it impair the authority and rights which the States had reserved. Emancipation was a necessary, not a revolutionary measure, forced upon the Administration by the secessionists themselves, who insisted that slavery which was local and sectional should be made national.
The war was, in fact, defensive on the part of the Government against a sectional insurrection which had seized the fortresses and public property of the nation; a war for the maintenance of the Union, not for its dissolution; a war for the preservation of individual, State, and Federal rights; good administration would permit neither to be sacrificed nor one to encroach on the other. The necessary exercise of extraordinary war powers to suppress the Rebellion had given encouragement and strength to the centralists who advocated the consolidation and concentration of authority in the general Government in peace as well as war, and national supervision over the States and people. Neither the radical enthusiasts nor the designing centralists admitted or subscribed to the doctrine that political power emanated from the people; but it was the theory of both that the authority exercised by the States was by grant derived from the parental or general Government. It was their theory that the Government created the States, not that the States and people created the Government. Some of them had acquiesced in certain principles which were embodied in the fundamental law called the Constitution; but the Constitution was in their view the child of necessity, a mere crude attempt of the theorists of 1776, who made successful resistance against British authority, to limit the power of the new central Government which was substituted for that of the crown. For a period after the Revolution it was admitted that feeble limitations on central authority hadbeen observed, though it was maintained that those limitations had been obstructions to our advancing prosperity, the cause of continual controversy, and had gradually from time to time been dispensed with, broken down, or made to yield to our growing necessities. The civil war had made innovations—a sweep, in fact, of many constitutional barriers—and radical consolidationists like Thaddeus Stevens and Henry Winter Davis felt that the opportunity to fortify central authority and establish its supremacy should be improved.
These were the ideas and principles of leading consolidationists and radicals in Congress who were politicians of ability, had studied the science of government, and were from conviction opponents of reserved rights and State sovereignty and of a mere confederation or Federal Union, based on the political equality and reserved sovereignty of the States, but insisted that the central Government should penetrate further and act directly on the people. Few of these had given much study or thought to fundamental principles, the character and structure of our Federal system, or the Constitution itself. Most of them, under the pressure of schemers and enthusiasts, were willing to assume and ready to exercise any power deemed expedient, regardless of the organic law. Almost unrestrained legislation to carry on the war induced a spirit of indifference to constitutional restraint, and brought about an assumption by some, a belief by others, that Congress was omnipotent; that it was the embodiment of the national will, and that the other departments of the Government as well as the States were subordinate and subject to central Congressional control. Absolute power, the centralists assumed and their fanatical associates seemed to suppose, was vested in the legislative body of the country, and its decrees, arbitrary and despotic, often originating in and carried first by a small vote in party caucus, were in all cases claimed to be decisive, and to be obeyed by the Executive, the judiciary, and the people, regardless of the Constitution. Parliamentary discussions were not permitted, or of little avail. The acts of caucus were despotic, mandatory, and decisive. The several propositions and plans of President Lincoln to reëstablish the Union, and induce the seceding States to resume their places and be represented in Congress, were received with disfavor by the radical leaders, who, without open assault, set in motion an undercurrent against nearly every Executive proposition as the weak and impotent offspring of a well meaning and well intentioned, but not very competent and intelligent mind. It was the difference between President Lincoln and the radical leaders in Congress on the question of reconciliation, the restoration of the States, and the reëstablishment of the Union on the original constitutional basis, which more than even his genial and tolerant feelings toward the rebels led to political intrigue among Republican members of Congress for the nomination of new candidates, and opposition to Mr. Lincoln's reëlection in 1864. At one period this intrigue seemed formidable, and some professed friends lent it their countenance, if they did not actually participate in it, who ultimately disavowed any connection with the proceeding.
Singular ideas were entertained and began to be developed in propositions of an extraordinary character, relative to the powers and the construction of the Government, which were presented to Congress, even in the first year of the war. Theoretical schemes from cultivated intellects, as well as crude notions from less intellectual but extreme men, found expression in resolutions and plans, many of which were absurd and most of them impracticable and illegal. Foremost and prominent among them were a series of studied and elaborate resolutions prepared by Charles Sumner, and submitted to the Senate on the 11th of February, 1862. Although presented at that early day, they were the germ of the reconstruction policy adopted at a later period. In this plan or project for the treatment of the insurrectionary States and the people who resided in them, the Massachusetts Senator manifested little regard for the fundamental law or for State or individual rights. The high position which this Senator held in the Republican party and in Congress and the country, his cultured mind and scholarly attainments, his ardent if not always discreet zeal and efforts to free the slaves and endow the whole colored race, whether capable or otherwise, with all the rights and privileges, socially and politically, of the educated and refined white population whom they had previously served, his readiness and avowed intention to overthrow the local State governments and the social system where slavery existed, to subjugate the whites and elevate the blacks, will justify a special notice; for it was one of the first, if not the very first of the radical schemes officially presented to change the character of the Government and the previously existing distinctions between the races. His theory or plan may be taken as the pioneer of the many wild and visionary projects of the central and abolition force, that took shape and form not only during the war, but after hostilities ceased and the rebels were subdued.
Mr. Sumner introduced his scheme with a preamble which declared, among other things, that the "extensive territory" of the South had been "usurped by pretended governments and organizations"; that "the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, cannot be displaced in its rightful operation within this territory, but must ever continue the supreme law thereof, notwithstanding the doings of any pretended governments acting singly or in confederation in order to put an end to its supremacy." Therefore:
Resolved, 1st. That any vote of secession, or other act by which any State may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory, is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and when sustained by force it becomes a practicalabdicationby the State of all rights under the Constitution, while the treason which it involves still further works an instantforfeitureof all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being, according to the language of the law,felo de se, ceases to exist.2d. That any combination of men assuming to act in the place of such State, attempting to ensnare or coerce the inhabitants thereof into a confederation hostile to the Union, is rebellious, treasonable, and destitute of all moral authority; and that such combination is a usurpation incapable of any constitutional existence and utterly lawless, so that everything dependent upon it is without constitutional or legal support.3d. That the termination of a State under the Constitution necessarily causes the termination of those peculiar local institutions which, having no origin in the Constitution, or in those natural rights which exist Independent of the Constitution, are upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State.... Congress will assume complete jurisdiction of such vacated territory where such unconstitutional and illegal things have been attempted, and will proceed to establish therein republican forms of government under the Constitution.
Resolved, 1st. That any vote of secession, or other act by which any State may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory, is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and when sustained by force it becomes a practicalabdicationby the State of all rights under the Constitution, while the treason which it involves still further works an instantforfeitureof all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being, according to the language of the law,felo de se, ceases to exist.
2d. That any combination of men assuming to act in the place of such State, attempting to ensnare or coerce the inhabitants thereof into a confederation hostile to the Union, is rebellious, treasonable, and destitute of all moral authority; and that such combination is a usurpation incapable of any constitutional existence and utterly lawless, so that everything dependent upon it is without constitutional or legal support.
3d. That the termination of a State under the Constitution necessarily causes the termination of those peculiar local institutions which, having no origin in the Constitution, or in those natural rights which exist Independent of the Constitution, are upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State.
... Congress will assume complete jurisdiction of such vacated territory where such unconstitutional and illegal things have been attempted, and will proceed to establish therein republican forms of government under the Constitution.
It is not shown how a usurpation or illegal act by conspirators in any State or States could justify or make legal a usurpation by the general Government, as this scheme evidently was, nor by what authority Congress could declare that the illegal, inoperative, and void acts of usurpers who might have temporary possession of or be a majority in a State, could constitute a practical abdication by the State itself of all rights under the Constitution, regardless of the rights of a legal, loyal minority, guilty of no usurpation or attempted secession—the innocent victims of a conspiracy; nor where Congress or the Federal Government obtained authority to pronounce "an instantforfeitureof all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of a State as a body politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being, according to the language of the law,felo de se, ceases to exist."
The administration of Mr. Buchananhad laid down as a rule of government that a State could not be coerced. The whole country not in rebellion had declared there should be no secession, division, or destruction of the Federal Union, but here was the most conspicuous leader of the Republican party in the Senate proposing a scheme to punish a State, to annihilate and destroy its government, to territorialize it, to exclude or expel it from the Union, to make no discrimination in its exclusions and denunciations between the loyal and disloyal inhabitants, but to punish alike, without trial or conviction, the just and the unjust. There were, though he was unwilling to admit it, and was perhaps unaware of it, vindictive feelings, venom, and revenge in his resolutions and in his whole treatment of the States and the white people of the South. From the time that he had been stricken down by the bludgeon of Brooks in the Senate, Mr. Sumner waged unrelenting war on the whites in the Southern States, and seemed to suppose it was his special mission—he certainly made it the great object of his life—to elevate the negro race—to give them at least equal rights and privileges with the educated and refined class—and did not conceal his intention and expectation to bring them in as auxiliaries to the Republican party, and thereby give it permanent ascendancy. All this was done in the name of humanity, and with apparent self-convinced sincerity. He was unwilling to acknowledge that he was governed or influenced by personal resentments in his revolutionary plans to degrade the intelligent white and exalt the ignorant black population by tearing down the constitutional edifice. In frequent interviews which I held with him then and at later periods, when he found it impossible to hold his positions under the Constitution, he claimed that he occupied higher ground, and that his authority for these violent measures was the Declaration of Independence, which declared all men were born equal, etc. Mr. Sumner was an idealist—neither a constitutionalist nor a practical statesman. He could pull down, but he could not construct—could declare what he considered humane, right, and proper, and act upon it regardless of constitutional compromises or conventional regulations which were the framework of the Government. No man connected with the Administration, or in either branch of Congress, was more thoroughly acquainted with our treaties, so familiar with the traditions of the Government, or better informed on international law than Charles Sumner; but on almost all other Governmental questions he was impulsive and unreliable, and when his feelings were enlisted, imperious, dogmatical, and often unjust.
Why innocent persons who were loyal to the Government and the Union should be disfranchised and proscribed because their neighbors and fellow citizens had engaged in a conspiracy, he could not explain or defend. By what authority whole communities and States should be deprived of the local governments which their fathers had framed, under which they were born, and with the provisions and traditions of which they were familiar, was never told.
His propositions found no favor with the Administration, nor were they supported at the beginning by any considerable number even of the extremists in Congress. It required much training by the centralizing leaders for years and all the tyranny of caucus machinery after the death of Mr. Lincoln to carry them into effect by a series of reconstruction measures that were revolutionary in their character, and which to a certain extent unsettled the principles on which the Government was founded.
But the counsel and example of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts were not without their influence. Resolutions by radical Republicans and counter resolutions, chiefly by Democrats, relative to the powers and limitations of the Federal Government and the status of States, followed in quick succession. On the 11th of June, thesubject having been agitated and discussed for four months, Mr. Dixon, a Republican Senator from Connecticut, whose views coincided in the main with those of Mr. Lincoln and the Administration, submitted, after consultation and advisement, the following:
Resolved, That all acts or ordinances of secession, alleged to have been adopted by any legislature or convention of the people of any State, are as to the Federal Union absolutely null and void; and that while such acts may and do subject the individual actors therein to forfeitures and penalties, they do not, in any degree, affect the relations of the State wherein they purport to have been adopted to the Government of the United States, but are as to such Government acts of rebellion, insurrection, and hostility on the part of the individuals engaged therein, or giving assent thereto; and that such States are, notwithstanding such acts or ordinances, members of the Federal Union, and as such are subject to all the obligations and duties imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States; and the loyal citizens of such States are entitled to all the rights and privileges thereby guaranteed or conferred.
Resolved, That all acts or ordinances of secession, alleged to have been adopted by any legislature or convention of the people of any State, are as to the Federal Union absolutely null and void; and that while such acts may and do subject the individual actors therein to forfeitures and penalties, they do not, in any degree, affect the relations of the State wherein they purport to have been adopted to the Government of the United States, but are as to such Government acts of rebellion, insurrection, and hostility on the part of the individuals engaged therein, or giving assent thereto; and that such States are, notwithstanding such acts or ordinances, members of the Federal Union, and as such are subject to all the obligations and duties imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States; and the loyal citizens of such States are entitled to all the rights and privileges thereby guaranteed or conferred.
The resolution of Dixon traversed the policy of Sumner and was the Executive view of the questions that were agitated in Congress as to the effect of the rebellion and the condition of the States in insurrection. The Administration did not admit that rebellion dissolved the Union or destroyed its federative character; nor did it adopt or assent to the novel theory that the States and the whole people residing in them had forfeited all sovereignty and all reserved State and individual rights, because a portion of the inhabitants had rebelled; nor did it admit that the usurpation of a portion of any community could bring condemnation and punishment on all. The usurpations and acts of the rebels were considered not legal acts, but nullities.
Gideon Welles.
Out of the dreary distance and the darkI stretch forth praying palms—yet not to pray;Hands fold themselves for heaven, while mine, alas!Are sundered—held your way.Brief moments have been ours, yet bright as brief;Oh! how I live them over, one by one,Now that the endless days, bereft of you,Creep slowly, sadly on.Garnered in memory, those bewildering hours,A golden harvest of enchantment yield;Here, like a pale, reluctant Ruth, I gleanA cold and barren field—Barren without a shelter: and the hedgeIs made of thorns and brambles. If I fainWould lean beyond the barrier, do you seeThe wounding and the stain?Did God make us to mock us, on the earth?Why did he fuse our spirits by His word,Then set His awful Angel in our path,His Angel with the sword?Why, when I contrite kneel confessing all,And seek with tears the way to be forgiven—Why do your pleading eyes look sadly downBetween my face and heaven?Why does my blood thrill at your fancied touch—Stop and leap up at your ideal caress?Ah, God! to feel that dear warm mouth on mineIn lingering tenderness!To lie at perfect peace upon your heart,Your arms close folded round me firm and fast,My cheek to yours—oh, vision dear as vain!That would be home at last.Leon, you are my curse, my blessing too,My hell, my heaven, my storm that wrecks to save:Life daunts me, and the shadows lengthen outBeyond the grave.
Out of the dreary distance and the darkI stretch forth praying palms—yet not to pray;Hands fold themselves for heaven, while mine, alas!Are sundered—held your way.
Brief moments have been ours, yet bright as brief;Oh! how I live them over, one by one,Now that the endless days, bereft of you,Creep slowly, sadly on.
Garnered in memory, those bewildering hours,A golden harvest of enchantment yield;Here, like a pale, reluctant Ruth, I gleanA cold and barren field—
Barren without a shelter: and the hedgeIs made of thorns and brambles. If I fainWould lean beyond the barrier, do you seeThe wounding and the stain?
Did God make us to mock us, on the earth?Why did he fuse our spirits by His word,Then set His awful Angel in our path,His Angel with the sword?
Why, when I contrite kneel confessing all,And seek with tears the way to be forgiven—Why do your pleading eyes look sadly downBetween my face and heaven?
Why does my blood thrill at your fancied touch—Stop and leap up at your ideal caress?Ah, God! to feel that dear warm mouth on mineIn lingering tenderness!
To lie at perfect peace upon your heart,Your arms close folded round me firm and fast,My cheek to yours—oh, vision dear as vain!That would be home at last.
Leon, you are my curse, my blessing too,My hell, my heaven, my storm that wrecks to save:Life daunts me, and the shadows lengthen outBeyond the grave.
Mary L. Ritter.
Do you know, gentle reader, what an interesting, valuable, and useful book an "Almanack" once was? You are gorged with books, and newspapers lie about thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Do you ever buy an Almanac for five cents? I trow not. Therefore you do not know how much careful calculation, skill, and knowledge are to be had for that small piece of money.
Therefore you cannot sit down in the evening and pore over its mystic signs. Indeed, I fear you do not know what a zodiac is, or what the meaning of "Cancer the Crab" and "Gemini the Twins" may be. It is more than likely you will reply, "Oh, yes; if the Crab had a Cancer, he would cry Gemini to the Twins"—and in that light and flippant way you will try to hide your brutal ignorance, if a male, your shallow understanding, if a female.
Now I have just had a sort of musty satisfaction in looking over some old Almanacs, which dated as far back as 1727. They seem to have been the property of somebody whose letters were W. S. His almanacs were so prized that he had interleaved them, and then he recorded his profound observations. He thus had learned, what I fear you have not, that the moon had many mysterious influences besides making the tides rise and fall, if it does. It seems, if we can believe "A Native of New England," who made B. Greene's Almanack for 1731, that the "Moon has dominion over man's body," and that when she gets into "Cancer the Crab" you must expect every sort of bedevilment in your breast and stomach. When she gets into "Gemini," the same in your arms and shoulders. When she is in "Scorpio" your bowels and belly are in danger, and so on all through your body; so that we might well enough wish the moon were wholly abolished; for the little wishy-washy light she gives to lovers and thieves is not at all a balance for such fearful threatenings.
Who was the "Native of New England" is a secret, and well it is, for in 1727 he graced his title-page with this poem:
——Man—that Noble Creature,Scanted of time, and stinted by Weak Nature,That in foretimes saw jubilees of years,As by our Ancient History appears;Nay, which is more, even Silly Women then,Liv'd longer time than our grave Graybeard Men.
——Man—that Noble Creature,Scanted of time, and stinted by Weak Nature,That in foretimes saw jubilees of years,As by our Ancient History appears;Nay, which is more, even Silly Women then,Liv'd longer time than our grave Graybeard Men.
"Graced," did I say? May we not put adisbefore it? "Silly Women!" "Noble Creature!" Did the Native mean that woman then was silly and man then noble? Well for him is it that our "Mrs. Ward Howes" and "Mrs. Lillie Blakes" cannot make rhymes uponhisname; well for him that he went his way holding his mantle before his face.
But he himself did not hold himself lightly. He knew all about Apogé and Perigé (we now spell them Apogée and Perigée). But does the Radical Club itself know anything at all about Apogée and Perigée? He knew when some "fine moderate weather" would come, when "winds enough for several" would blow, when "bad weather for hoop petticoats" would be; and that was on the 29th and 30th of January, 1727. Fearful weather, we may believe; but he, theNative, knew. But alas for us! On the 2d, he puts it down as "sloppy and raw cold." Now it so chances that W. S. has kept his MS. notes against this day, and he has it "Very fine and pleasant," and the next day, "Dry and dusty." Lamentable indeed for the Native! But he is not to be shaken for all that; he prognosticates through all the year just as if all was to come exactly right. One would like to know what W. S. thought of his prognosticator, and if he kept on studying and believing just the same as if all had come right.Ido not doubt he did.
And now we come to some positive statements about Eclipses, and learn what we may depend on in that quarter.
The Native goes on to say, "As to the effects, they chiefly affect those Men that live by their Ingenuity; I mean Painters, Poets, Mercurialists, &c." What is a mercurialist? Does he mean the worshippers of Mercury, thieves, and that sort? "But"—and mark the cautious tone here—"but whether it forbodes good or ill to them I shall not now determine; only advise them to prepare for the worst!" Pretty good advice in all times of eclipse; and in these days even when there is no eclipse. Mark his modesty: "I do not pretend to Infallibility in my Conjectures, yet (as I said last year) they many times come out too True to make a jest of." Then he goes on: "I have read of a story whichThaurusis said to relate ofAndreas Vesalius, a great Astrologer who lived in the reign ofHenry the VIII.; to wit, that he toldMaximilianthe Day and Hour of his Death, who, giving credit thereto, ordered a great feast to be made, inviting his Friends, sat and Eat [ate?] with them; and afterwards, having distributed his Treasures among them, took leave of them and Dyed at the time predicted." Most kind of this Maximilian, for it must have secured a good patronage to the astrologers.
"Yet it does not from hence follow that a certain rule may be laid down"—a very fine astrologer, you perceive, may fail—"whereby exactly to discover the Divine appointments. But there are many concurring Causes of Mundane Accidents of which Humanity must be content to remain Ignorant, and (as a wise Author affirms) No Index can be found or formed whereby to give us any certain Diary or Destiny saving that of our dear-bought Experience." But how can we learn about our own dying by experience—which is what we die to know about? He continues: "And here I cannot but take notice of ourNegro-mancers, who, under pretence of knowledge in the Motions of theHeavens, take upon them to Fore tell the Appointments of Fate with respect to particular Persons, and thereby betray the Ignorant part of the World Inevitably into the Worship of the Devil. But if the Wholesome Laws of the Province were duly executed on suchNegro-mancers, I could venture to Fore tell what would soon be their Fortune; You may Read it at large in this Province, New Law Book,page117.
"Marblehead, Sept. 28, 1726."N. Bowen."
Ah, friend Bowen was too alarmingly near the Salem witch times when Minister Parris and Judge Hawthorne had come so nigh putting the Devil to rout by hanging an old woman or two and squeezing poor Giles Cory to death. He knew what the Law could do to those wicked negro-mancers if they went about predicting things in a wicked way. And what a bore it might become to have a negro-mancer foretelling in a rash and miscellaneous way one's death and bringing it to pass too some fine and inconvenient day! Who would not hang a negro-mancer like that?
But suppose they should go on and squeeze the life out of such mild negromancers as N. Bowen, Esq., too. What then?
In 1729 we get an Almanac made by a studentwitha name—Nathaniel Ames, junior,student in Physick and Astronomy. He does not apply his intellect to such great speculations as Bowen grappled with, but runs easily into poetry of the true Homeric stamp. Listen:
January—
The Earth is white likeNeptune's foamy face,When his proud Waves the hardy Rocks embrace.
The Earth is white likeNeptune's foamy face,When his proud Waves the hardy Rocks embrace.
February—
Boreas's chilly breath attacks our Nature,And turns the Presbyterian to a Quaker.
Boreas's chilly breath attacks our Nature,And turns the Presbyterian to a Quaker.
What wicked waggery is here hidden, who can tell? One thing is sure, that Februarys ought to be abolished by the General Court if such is true; for a Quaker then was an abominable thing.
March—
Phœbus and Mars conjoined do both agree,This month shall Warm (nay, more than usual) be.
Phœbus and Mars conjoined do both agree,This month shall Warm (nay, more than usual) be.
We pray that our Almanac makers will conjoin Phœbus and Mars in all our Marches hereafter, so that we too may "Warm (more than usual) be." How melodious that line!
Aprilgives a sweet strain, possibly premature—
The Birds, like Orphans, now all things inviteTo come and have Melodious, sweet delight.
The Birds, like Orphans, now all things inviteTo come and have Melodious, sweet delight.
Like Orphans! Why? ShouldOrpheuscome in there, or are orphans children of Orpheus? We are perplexed. The words sound alike.
Maylike a Virgin quickly yields her Charms,To the Embrace of Winter's Icy Arms.
Maylike a Virgin quickly yields her Charms,To the Embrace of Winter's Icy Arms.
It is not easy to see how that can be. Does he mean that winter had come back and given May a late frost? And then Virgins do not, so far as I know, yield to the Embrace of Winter's Icy Arms. Do they? I ask persons of experience.
Junecomes upon us heavily—
Sol's scorching Ray puts Blood in Fermentation,And is stark raught to acts of Procreation.
Sol's scorching Ray puts Blood in Fermentation,And is stark raught to acts of Procreation.
That has a terrible sound. What does he mean?
July—
The Moon (this Month), that pale-faced Queen of Night,Will be disrobed of all her borrowed light.
The Moon (this Month), that pale-faced Queen of Night,Will be disrobed of all her borrowed light.
No month for lover's madness, this. Not a lover can steal forth by the light of the moon, or do any foolish thing this month, thanks be to God!
August—
The Earth and Sky Resound with Thunder Loud,And Oblique streams flash from the dusky Cloud.
The Earth and Sky Resound with Thunder Loud,And Oblique streams flash from the dusky Cloud.
That first line demands many capital letters, and what a fine word Oblique is in the second.
Septembersays—
The burthened earth abounds with various fruit,Which doth the Epicurean's Palate Suit.
The burthened earth abounds with various fruit,Which doth the Epicurean's Palate Suit.
It is to be hoped these wicked Epicureans got no more than their share, and that church members were not converted to the heathen philosophy by such baits.
October—