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Constitution of the United States waving over our heads. (Applause.) Let the fanatics of the North break the Constitution, if such is their fell purpose; let the responsibility be upon them. I shall speak presently more of their acts. But let not the South, let us not be the ones to commit the aggression. We went into the election with this people; the result was different from what we wished, but the election has been constitutionally held. Were we to make a point of resistance to the government, and go out of the Union on that account, the record would be made up hereafter against us.

"But, it is said, Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against the Constitution, and that, if he carries them out, it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. If he violates the Constitution, then will come our time to act. Do not let us break it, because, forsooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for us to strike. (Applause.) I think it would be injudicious and unwise to do this sooner. I do not anticipate that Mr. Lincoln will do any thing to jeopardize our safety or security, whatever may be his spirit to do it; for he is bound by the constitutional checks which are thrown around him, which at this time render him powerless to do any great mischief. This shows the wisdom of our system. The President of the United States is no emperor, no dictator; he is clothed with no absolute power.. He can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Representatives is largely in the majority against him. In the Senate he will also be powerless: there will be a majority of four against himthis, after the loss of Bigler, Fitch, and others, by the

unfortunate dissensions of the Democratic party in their states. Mr. Lincoln can not appoint an officer without the consent of the Senate; he can not form a cabinet without the same consent. He will be in the condition of George III. (the embodiment of Toryism), who had to ask the Whigs to appoint his ministers, and was compelled to receive a cabinet utterly opposed to his views; and so Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to ask of the Senate to choose for him a cabinet, if the Democracy of that body choose to put him on such terms. He will be compelled to do this, or let the government stop, if the National Democratic men-for that is their name at the North-the conservative men in the Senate, should so determine. Then how can Mr. Lincoln obtain a cabinet which would aid him, or allow him, to violate the Constitution?

Why, then, I say, should we disrupt the bonds of this Union, when his hands are tied-when he can do nothing against us?

"I believe in the power of the people to govern themselves, when wisdom prevails and passion is silent. Look at what has already been done by them for their advancement in all that ennobles man. There is nothing like it in the history of the world. Look abroad from one extent of the country to the other; contemplate our greatness; we are now among the first nations of the earth. Shall it, then, be said that our institutions, founded upon principles of self-government, are a failure?

"Thus far it is a noble example, worthy of imitation. The gentleman (Mr. Cobb), the other night, said it had proven a failure. A failure in what? In growth? Look

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at our expanse in national power! Look at our population and increase in all that makes a people great! A failure? Why, we are the admiration of the civilized world, and present the brightest hopes of mankind.

"Some of our public men have failed in their aspirations, that is true; and from that comes a great part of our troubles. (Prolonged applause.)

"No, there is no failure of this government yet. We have made great advancement under the Constitution, and I can not but hope that we shall advance still higher. Let us be true to our cause."

Occurrences were now soon to take place which all true-hearted American citizens must forever deplore, and which the friends and supporters of republican freedom can never cease most profoundly to lament. The opening scene of the war has imparted to Charleston, the boasted commercial emporium of South Carolina, a deathless claim to the mournful yet respectful sympathy of all who admire manliness, and valor, and skill in arms, and elevated patriotism, and wheresoever the honored names of Anderson and Beauregard, and of those who were associated with either of these renowned chieftains in the memorable affair of the siege and capture of Fort Sumter shall be printed or enunciated in any of the spoken languages of earth. It is not for me to record what was done and suffered on either side in the fratricidal contest which sectional strife had at last wrought up to the shedding of American blood upon American soil, and by American hands. I shall cheerfully leave to others, to whom this grim task may prove grateful, an account of the fighting of sanguinary and wasteful battles that never

should have been fought, and the description of victories won or of defeats endured, the memory of which will ever be, in my judgment, a far fitter subject for painful remembrance and poignant lamentation, than for agreeable reminiscence and patriotic rejoicing. The rival merits of illustrious military commanders on either side whose unhappy fate it was to be drawn into sanguinary conflictof Grant and of Lee, of Stonewall Jackson and Lyon, of Sherman and Joe Johnston, of Price and Thomas, of Sheridan and Ewell, and a host of bright names besides too numerous for recital, it is not probable that I shall ever undertake either to compare or portray. Should it happen hereafter that such personages as I have mentioned shall be associated upon fields of glory opened to them by our country's presiding genius upon a foreign soil, with commingled energies and blended sympathies, to maintain the venerated principles of our fathers; should it become needful that all the spotless chivalry of our whole vast country of the North, the South, the East, and the West should go forth to vindicate the honor of republican institutions in this hemisphere against the usurping violence of imperial despotism, and no fitter pen than mine can be found to record exploits which will at the same time redound to our own country's honor, and lend encouragement and inspiration to the oppressed strugglers for freedom contending in unequal contest against the efforts of earth's tyrants to enslave them, then shall I be prepared to render such aid as I can for the recounting of achievements, the fame of which will be as enduring as the mountains of our natal land, and as splendid as the unclouded rays of Heaven's grand luminary shining down on us from the central point of the firmament.

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CHAPTER XVII.

Beginning of the War.-Its gross Impolicy.-Mr. Davis and his official Associates did not comprehend its true Dimensions.—Mr. Davis's several exultant Speeches after having been made President.—Striking Declaration made by the Confederate Secretary of War, Leroy Pope Walker, at Montgomery, Alabama. - Mr. Lincoln's View of the physical Impracticability of Secession.-Philosophic Views of the Effects of War in general, and of Civil War in particular.-View of the existing Condition of Things as the Result of the late War.-Responsible Attitude of President Johnson, and Duty of all good Citizens to sustain him. Short Explanation of Author's own Attitude in the beginning of the War.-The Confederate Provisional Congress.-Its extraordinary Harmony and Unanimity, and the Causes thereof.-View of the permanent Confederate Congress.-Rapid Review of Mr. Davis's Conduct as Executive Chief.-Peace Efforts in the Confederate Congress. -Their signal Failure, and the Causes thereof.-Informal Efforts of Author, in Connection with many influential Persons of the South, to make Peace in Spite of Mr. Davis, and, if need be, by a Counter-revolution. Failure of those Efforts, and probable Causes therefor.-Author asks Passport across the Ocean, which is granted him.-Close of the War, and Remarks thereupon.

WAR was now initiated by the firing upon Fort Sumter, under orders suddenly received from Mr. Davis's Secretary of War, Mr. Leroy Pope Walker, of Huntsville, Alabama, whose clear and sonorous tones had been heard, only a month or two before, in the goodly city of Nashville (up to that time still a Union-loving city), expounding the opening glories of secession. As some sprightly and vivacious urchin, who jocosely casts his lighted cracker at the heels of the way-side passenger,