liged to state to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford that he has no authority, nor is he at liberty, to recognize them as diplomatic agents, or hold correspondence or other communication with them. with my duty to those loyal citizens of the United States who are also citizens or residents of the States which acknowledge Mr. Jefferson To Davis as their political Chief?” these questions, inevitably presenting themselves to every intelligent mind, Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford indicate no reply whatever. They represented a power which had declined coöperation with even a majority of the Slave States-which had not even considered the propriety of calling a National Convention—and which now proffered to the Union no compromise, no middle ground, but the naked alternative of 'Surrender or fight!' Finally, the Secretary of State would observe that, although he has supposed that he might safely and with propriety have adopted these conclusions without making any reference of the subject to the Executive, yet, so strong has been his desire to practice entire directness, and to act in a spirit of perfect respect and candor toward Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, and that portion of the Union in whose name they present themselves before him, that he has cheer-jority fully submitted this paper to the President, who coincides generally in the views it expresses, and sanctions the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse with Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford." These memorable papers are too lucid to require or justify extended comment. The Commissioners, it will be seen, place the alleged Secession of the Cotton States expressly and exclusively on the true and proper ground-" the inherent right of every free people to change or reform their political institutions"-in other words, the Right of Revolutionthus precluding all discussion as to the pretended constitutional right, or reservation of right, to secede at will from the Union. But this position, however wisely and honorably taken, does not at all preclude the question which Mr. Lincoln was bound to ask, and, in some way, to answer--“What right have I, the fairly chosen Chief Magistrate of the Union-chosen, too, at an election wherein the seven States now alleged to have seceded fully participated to recognize those States as a foreign nation, as independent of the remaining States as Russia or Peru? How will such recognition, and the action necessarily consequent thereon, accord with my solemn oath of office, and the weighty obligations it imposes? How Gov. Seward's reply, though pacific in temper, and evidently animated by a hope that hostilities may yet be avoided, is eminently frank and explicit. That the Executive could recognize Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford only as citizens of the United States, not as plenipotentiaries of an independent and foreign power-that the alleged secession and confederation of the seven States in question was not, and could not be, recognized by the Government as valid; their secession being impliedly, and their confederation expressly, forbidden by the Federal Constitution-that there could be no secession save through the agency of a National Convention, which those States had declined to invoke, and were now unwilling to submit to that their alleged grievances could be redressed only through such Convention, or by the Congress of the United States, wherein the right of those States to an equal representation had been, and still was, unquestioned-and that the President had been consulted respecting, and fully JUDGE CAMPBELL TO GOV. SEWARD. concurred in, these views of his Secretary of State- so much seems plainly set forth in this 'memorandum,' with all the perspicuity which can be attained through the employment of our mother tongue. How is it possible, then, that complaint should nevertheless be made that the Confederates were deluded by Gov. Seward into anticipations of an early and easy concession of their independence? Yet that charge is made; and, since it rests wholly on the testimony of a Confederate who once held, and had not then resigned, the exalted position of a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, it may be well to consider it fully. The testimony is that of Judge Campbell aforesaid, (a prominent disciple of Mr. Calhoun), who, about the time of his taking final leave of Washington to enter more openly into the service of the Confederacy, wrote to Gov. Seward as follows: 'WASHINGTON CITY, "SATURDAY, April 13, 1861. "SIR:-On the 15th March ult., I left with Judge Crawford, one of the Commissioners of the Confederate States, a note in writing to the following effect: 'I feel entire confidence that Fort Sumter will be evacuated in the next ten days. And this measure is felt as imposing great responsibility on the Administration. I feel an entire confidence that no measure changing the existing status, prejudicious to the Southern Confederate States, is at present contemplated. 'I feel an entire confidence that an immediate demand for an answer to the communication of the Commissioners will be productive of evil, and not of good. I do not believe that it ought, at this time, to be pressed.' "The substance of this statement I communicated to you the same evening by letter. Five days elapsed, and I called with a telegram from Gen. Beauregard, to the effect that Sumter was not evacuated, but that Maj. Anderson was at work making repairs. "The next day, after conversing with you, I communicated to Judge Crawford, in writing, that the failure to evacuate Sumter was not the result of bad faith, but was attributable to causes consistent with the intention to fulfill the engagement; and that, as regarded Pickens, I should have notice of any design to alter the existing status there. 28 433 | Mr. Justice Nelson was present at these con- "The 30th of March arrived, and at that time a telegram came from Gov. Pickens, into Charleston, he supposed, had a connection quiring concerning Col. Lamon, whose visit with the proposed evacuation of Fort Sum ter. "I left that with you, and was to have an answer the following Monday (1st April). On the first of April, I received from you a Government will not undertake to supply statement, in writing, 'I am satisfied the Fort Sumter without giving notice to Gov. for me to use as expressive of confidence in the remainder of the declaration. Pickens.' The words 'I am satisfied' were "The proposition, as originally prepared, Sumter, but will not do so,' etc., and your was, 'The President may desire to supply verbal explanation was that you did not bethat there was no design to reenforce Sumter. lieve any such attempt would be made, and "There was a departure here from the pledges of the previous month; but, with the verbal explanation, I did not consider it a matter then to complain of--I simply stated to you that I had that assurance previously. "On the 7th April, I addressed you a letter on the subject of the alarm that the preparations by the Government had created, and asked you if the assurances I had given were well or ill founded. In respect to Sumter, your reply was, 'Faith as to Sumter fully kept-wait and see.' In the morning's paper, I read, 'An authorized messenger from President Lincoln informed Gov. Pickens and Gen. Beauregard that provisions would be sent to Fort Sumter peaceably, or otherwise by force.' "This was the 8th of April, at Charleston, the day following your last assurance, and is the evidence of the full faith I was invited to wait for and see. In the same paper, I read that intercepted dispatches disclose the fact that Mr. Fox, who had been allowed to visit Maj. Anderson, on the pledge that his purpose was pacific, employed his opportunity to devise a plan for supplying the fort by force, and that this plan had been adopted by the Washington Government, and was process of execution. in My recollection of the date of Mr. Fox's visit carries it to a day in March. I learn he is a near connection of a member of the Cabinet. "My connection with the commissioners and yourself was superinduced by a conversation with Justice Nelson. He informed me of your strong disposition in favor of peace, and that you were oppressed with a demand of the Commissioners of the Confederate States for a reply to their first letter, and that you desired to avoid, if possible, at that time. I told him I might, perhaps, be of some service in arranging the difficulty. I came to your office entirely at his request, and without the knowledge of the Commissioners. Your depression was obvious to both Judge Nelson and myself. I was gratified at the character of the counsels you were desirous of pursuing, and much impressed with your observation that a civil war might be prevented by the success of my mediation. You read a letter of Mr. Weed, to show how irksome and responsible the withdrawal of troops from Sumter was. A portion of my communication to Judge Crawford on the 15th of March was founded upon these remarks, and the pledge to evacuate Sumter is less forcible than the words you employed. Those words were, 'Before this letter reaches you [a proposed letter by me to President Davis], Sumter will have been evacuated.' "The Commissioners who received those Judge Campbell, it will be noted, takes up the thread of the furtive negotiations exactly where the Commissioners had dropped it. They had made their demand on the 12th; had been answered by Gov. Seward on the 15th; but the answer withheld; for on this day Judge C. makes his first appearance on the scene, with an assurance to the Commissioners that he felt "entire confidence that Fort Sumter would be evacuated within the next ten days," if the Commissioners would not push matters too hurriedly to a crisis. Still later, he gave these Commissioners assurances that no attempt would be made to supply the closely invested and scantily provisioned garrison of Fort Sumter, until due notice of the intent had been given to Gov. Pickens; which promise was fulfilled to the letter. communications conclude they have been abused and overreached. The Montgomery Government hold the same opinion. The Commissioners have supposed that my communications were with you, and, upon that hypothesis, prepared to arraign you before the country in connection with the President. I placed a peremptory prohibition upon this, as being contrary to the terms of my communications with them. I pledged myself to them to communicate information upon what I considered as the best authori-ed it? But did he ever avow an inty, and they were to confide in the ability of myself, aided by Judge Nelson, to determine upon the credibility of my informant. "I think no candid man who will read over what I have written, and consider for a moment what is going on at Sumter, will agree that the equivocating conduct of the Administration, as measured and interpreted in connection with these promises, is the proximate cause of the great calamity. Judge Campbell quotes Justice Nelson as testifying to Gov. Seward's "strong disposition in favor of peace." Who ever denied or doubt、 clination to Peace on the basis of Disunion? That is the vital point; and it is not covered, even by assertions, on the part of the Confederates. That he clung tenaciously to the hope of some adjustment' or conciliation,' whereby civil war might be averted, and the just authority of the Federal Government acknowl 6 "I have a profound conviction that the telegrams of the 8th of April, of Gen. Beauregard, and of the 10th of April, of Gen. Walker, the Secretary of War, can be re-edged and respected by the Confedferred to nothing else than their belief that erate States, is manifest; and that there has been systematic duplicity practiced is the whole truth, and affords a simupon them throughout. It is under an oppressive sense of the weight of this respon- ple and obvious explanation of what sibility that I submit to you these things for seems to Confederates so mysterious, your explanation. so crafty, or so atrocious. The manifest, controlling fact is, that the parties to this unique correspondence occupied positions so contrasted, so "Very respectfully, 'JOHN A. CAMPBELL, "Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. "Hon. Wм. H. SEWARD, “Secretary of State.” THE CONFEDERATE ENVOYS TO GOV. SEWARD. 435 The undersigned, in behalf of their Governthus thrown down to them; and, appealing ment and people, accept the gage of battle to God and the judgment of mankind for the righteousness of their cause, the people of erties to the last against this flagrant and open attempt at their subjugation to sectional power." the Confederate States will defend their lib incompatible, that it was scarcely possible that they should seriously engage in a negotiation, much less bring it to a happy issue. It was much as if a plenipotentiary should address the government to which he was accredited in Greek, knowing no other tongue, and his dispatch be As the world has not been gratireceived and answered by one who fied with a sight of the credentials was equally ignorant of any language and instructions of these gentlemen, but Choctaw. The only possible re- it may be discourteous to assume sult of such diplomacy is a postpone that their eagerness to "accept the ment of hostilities; and that seems, gage of battle" carried them beyond in this case, to have been achieved: the strict limits of their powers and for the Confederate envoys, in sha- duties; but the subtile casuistry | king from their feet the dust of which enabled them to discriminate Washington and returning to their between a recognition of Confederate own 'nation,' addressed, on the 9th independence and an "audience to of April, a vituperative letter to Gov. adjust the new relations springing Seward, whereof all that is not mere from a manifest and accomplished rhetoric, of a peculiarly Southern revolution," might have secured to stamp, or has not already been here- them fame and fortune in some more in stated, is as follows: poetic and imaginative vocation. "The undersigned clearly understand that you have declined to appoint a day to enable them to lay the objects of the mission with which they are charged before the President of the United States, because so to do would be to recognize the independence and separate nationality of the Con federate States. This is the vein of thought that pervades the memorandum before us. The truth of history requires that it should distinctly appear upon the record that the undersigned did not ask the Government of the United States to recognize the independence of the Confederate States. They only asked an audience to adjust, in a spirit of amity and peace, the new relations springing from a manifest and accomplished revolution in the government of the late Federal Union. Your refusal to entertain these overtures for a peaceful solution, the active naval and military preparations of this Government, and a formal notice to the commanding general of the Confederate forces in the harbor of Charleston that the President intends to provision Fort Sumter, by forcible means, if necessary, are viewed by the undersigned, and can only be received by the world, as a declaration of war against the Confederate States; for the President of the United States knows that Fort Sumter cannot be provisioned without the effusion of blood. As the Commissioners seem to apprehend that they would be charged with a lack of energy if it should be understood that they had allowed the Government of the United States nearly four weeks wherein to decide between recognizing-or, if they choose, admitting and acting upon--the independence of the Confederate States, and an acceptance of the 66 gage of battle," it may be requisite to give one more extract from their valedictory, as follows: "This delay was assented to for the express purpose of attaining the great end of the mission of the undersigned, to wit: a pacific solution of existing complications. The inference, deducible from the date of your memorandum, that the undersigned had, of their own volition and without cause, consented to this long hiatus in the grave duties with which they were charged, is therefore not consistent with a just exposition of the facts of the case. The intervening twenty-three days were employed in active unofficial efforts, the object of which was to smooth the path to a pacific solution, the distinguished personage alluded to [Judge Campbell] coöperating with the undersigned; and every step of that effort is recorded in writing, and now in possession of the undersigned and of their Government. It was only when all these anxious efforts for peace had been exhausted, and it became clear that Mr. Lincoln had determined to appeal to the sword to reduce the people of the Confederate States to the will of the section or party whose President he is, that the undersigned resumed the official_negotiation temporarily suspended, and sent their secretary for a reply to their note of March 12th." But that the Confederacy was allowed, in no respect, to suffer by this brief breathing-spell mistakenly accorded by her plenipotentiaries to the Union-that the peace' which we enjoyed was of an equivocal and one-sided character-will appear, not only from the close investment of menaced Fort Sumter-with which no one was allowed to communicate, save by Gov. Pickens's gracious permission--but by the active, aggressive hostility to Federal authority manifested throughout the South, as evinced in the following order: And, all through the seceded States, those Unionists who dared to indicate their devotion to the flag of their fathers were being treated with a still more active and positive illustration of Confederate amity than was accorded to the garrison of Sumter and the fleet off Pensacola. Whether President Lincoln did or did not, for some days after his inauguration, incline to the withdrawal of Major Anderson and his brave handful from closely beleaguered Sumter, is not certain. It is certain that great doubt and anxiety on this point pervaded the country. Some of the newspaper correspondents at Washington, who were very properly and keenly on the watch for the least indication of the Presidential purpose, telegraphed, quite confidently, on the 14th, that Sumter was to be peaceably evacuated; that Gen. Scott had given his opinion that this was a military necessity; that the fortress was so surrounded and enveloped by Confederate forts and batteries that it could not now be reënforced, nor Į even provisioned, save at an enormous and unjustifiable cost of human blood; so that there was no practical alternative to its abandon "HEAD-QUARTERS TROOPS CONFEDERATE STATES, NEAR PENSACOLA, FLA., March 18, 1861. "The Commanding General learns with surprise and regret that some of our citizens are engaged in the business of furnishing supplies of fuel, water, and provisions, to the armed vessels of the United States now occupying a threatening appearance off this harbor. "That no misunderstanding may exist upon this subject, it is announced to all concerned that this traffic is strictly forbidden; and all such supplies which may be captured in transit to said vessels, or to Fort Pickens, will be confiscated. "The more effectually to enforce this pro-reduced hibition, no boat or vessel will be allowed to visit Fort Pickens, or any of the United States naval vessels, without special sanction. "Col. John H. Forney, Acting InspectorGeneral, will organize an efficient Harbor Police for the enforcement of this order. By command of Brigadier General "BRAXTON BRAGG. "ROBERT C. WOOD, Jr., Ass't. Adj't.-Gen." |