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REPLY
TO THE
SPEECH OF HON. J. C. BRECKINRIDGE,
DELIVERED IN THE
UNITED STATES SENATE, JULY 16TH, 1861.
By ANNA ELLA CARROLL,
OF MARYLAND.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED BY HENRY POLKINHORN.
1861.
This article was written some weeks since, and was designed for the newspaper Press. Its length made it “too voluminous” for that source of publication; and at the solicitation of many distinguished friends, it now appears in the present form.
A. E. C.
Maryland,
September 9th, 1861.
the Crittenden Compromise. Abusing the confidence reposed in him by Mr. Crittenden, he being in the entire interest of the traitors, artfully introduced into it the very platform on which the secessionists had supported him for the Presidency. This was done to make its passage through Congress an impossible thing.
This was an audacious insult to every party but the supporters of Mr. Breckinridge,
per se,
because each of these parties had expressly repudiated the doctrine by an overwhelming vote of the American people at the Presidential election. But the
people
were clamorous for the salvation of the Union, and without reference to this objectionable feature, they at once committed themselves to the proposition, and when it was rejected, thousands at the South went over to secession! Men who, in voting for Bell or Douglas, had planted themselves defiantly against that doctrine, were unwittingly cheated and captured by the dastardly secession
manœuvre!
An illustration of the use made of the Crittenden Compromise may be proper. The State of Georgia passed an ordinance of secession in Convention, but agreed to refer it to the people. During the canvass it became apparent that the people would
defeat
it; and the secessionists resorted to the strategy of
agreeing to abide by the Crittenden Compromise,
in order to commit the Union party to the measure; and Toomb; returned to the Senate for the purpose of
defeating
that Compromise, while ostensibly favoring it!
There was a majority in the Senate committee of thirteen in favor of its passage, had
the secessionists voted for it.
They went into that Committee with the express design (as they afterwards boasted) of entrapping the Opposition into a vote rejecting the proposition. They assumed in committee that as the Compromise was a tender to the South, the North should make the terms, and thereby declined to vote with such a supercilious bearing as to constrain Northern men to reject it
in toto.
One of the conspirators then jesuitically
suggested
that they had better adopt the “Chicago platform,” when some of the Republicans most unwisely assented; whereupon the secessionists hurried off telegrams to all parts of Georgia, that “
all hope of compromise is gone. The Crittenden proposition has been rejected, and the Chicago platform adopted as the ultimatum!
” The people were thus deceived by these lying dispatches and the Union party was silenced and subdued.
The doctrine found in Seabrook's letter is the doctrine of the conspirators to-day—that
the Government cannot use force against a State;
and if so, it is an act of war! This fatal idea was introduced by Buchanan in his message in December; and, whether by his own treachery or by the traitorous advisers who controlled his Administration, it thrust a knife into the ribs of the Constitution which is now pouring out its life's blood. Had he been true to his oath and exercised his constitutional authority he would have sent a military force to South Carolina, as General Jackson did in 1833, to suppress the rebellion, and enabled men to rally to the flag of the Union throughout the South.
It was on this heretical idea that the General Government cannot use force in a State to execute
its
laws, that Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas seceded. Mr. Breckinridge, in connection with Magoffin, used the doctrine in his State; Jackson did so in Missouri; and the secession party in Maryland.
The Southern people in 1851 would not sustain the leaders in sufficient strength to enable them to carry out their treasonable designs at that period. These men, therefore, went into the Democratic party to expedite their ambitious and wicked designs against the Union. They were in the Baltimore Convention in 1852, andThey failed,
and adjourned to Richmond; but finding only the delegates of the cotton States in attendance, they feared to risk a nomination, and adjourned temporarily, sending a portion of their members to Baltimore, under the jesuitical pretense of harmonizing the Democratic party! Their real purpose was to draw recruits from the border slave States, which being accomplished they again seceded, and nominated Mr. Breckinridge. Then, returning with his name to Richmond, they
renominated
him; and he thus became the disunion candidate
per se
—formally accepting the same!
The object of that nomination was, if they should fail in the election,
to prevent by armed force
the inauguration of a Republican President. They had planned to inaugurate Breckinridge. I have the avowal of one of the conspirators, who, when asked if Breckinridge assented, replied, we have not asked him; but he accepted our nomination, and of course will carry out our views.
In fact, they addressed to the ambition of the Vice President the exciting language of Maxy Gregg to Gen. Quitman, in 1851:
“In this great struggle the South wants a great leader; with the mind and the ‘name to impel and guide revolution.
Be that leader,
and your place in history will ‘remain conspicuous for the admiration of all ages to come.”
The chiefs of the conspirators went to Washington after the election and assumed the direction of the entire treason movement, and proceeded to organize a military force for the purpose of seizing the Government, expelling Lincoln, and inaugurating Breckinridge. But failing to secure Maryland and Virginia, by ordinances of secession, they fell back in January upon their original programme; and they directed the seceded States to assemble in Convention at Montgomery, Alabama, on the 4th of February, for the purpose of installing the provisional government organized at Washington, with Senator Davis at its head. They resolved to seize the entire property belonging to the General Government in the Southern States; and to retain in their seats a sufficient number of Senators from the seceded States to embarass any legislation of Congress which might be inimical to their movements, and to act as spies upon the Government.
They improvised armies, and continued to exercise all the functions of the provisional government until its formal installation at Montgomery on the 4th of February.
I have it upon the authority of a Senator who was present, that Mr. Breckinridge united with the conspirators in their consultations, and gave to them the influence and sanction of his high position. It is a phenomenon in the history of governments, without a parallel, and will be an everlasting disgrace upon our civilization, that Cabinet Ministers, the Vice President, Senators, and members of Congress should for weeks and months, by the apparent sanction of the President of the United States,
After the formal meeting of the Confederate Government and the inauguration of Mr. Davis at its head, they continued the augmentation of the army by recruits from all the Southern States, including Maryland and the District of Columbia. They invested Fort Pickens, stormed Fort Sumter, and put in motion a formidable army for the capture of Washington and the overthrow of the Government.
In the sight of these astounding facts, the President issues his Proclamation, appealing to the patriotism of the nation for the salvation of the Union, and Mr. Breckinridge grossly insults the intelligence of the country by charging that the President made war against the South!
The facts adduced establish beyond controversy that the President
did not
make the war as charged, but that the traitors made the war, which now threatens the subversion of the Government, and endangers our national existence.
Under this fearful exigency, I proceed to inquire what are the duties imposed upon the President by the Constitution?
I maintain that the Government of the United States is a Government of limited powers; that the President of the United States can exert no power that is not granted in express terms, or clearly implied, as necessary to carry into effect the powers which are expressed. I should be the last person to defend any usurpation of power, or unconstitutional act of any one in authority, much less a President of the United States. The Constitution is written thus:
“
Art.
2,
Sec.
1. The executive power shall be vested in the President of the ‘United States of America.”
By another clause of the same section he is required to swear:
“I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to ‘the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United ‘States.”
Article 2. “The President shall be Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of ‘the United States and of the militia of the several States when called into the ‘actual service of the United States.”
Section 3. “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Article 4. “This Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance ‘thereof * * is the supreme law of the land, * * anything in the constitution ‘or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
This supreme law is administered in our
duple
system, by various authorities, each in its appropriate department, acting in harmony with the general whole.
“The executive power is vested in the President,” and he is required “to take care” that each government, State and Federal, and the several authorities are maintained in their respective spheres.
In the event of the rebellion or insurrection assuming such proportions as to overthrow the “
republican form of government guaranteed to every State in the Union,
” so that the officers can no longer execute the supreme law, the President is required by his oath
Our fathers presumed not to foresee all the dangers which in time might beset the Constitution, or to prescribe the mode of its defense, but in making the President its defender, it was wisely left to him to resist the sword raised against the nation's heart, by the sword. The express grant of the
war-conducting power
conferred upon the President carries with it the implied power to use every belligerent right known to the law of war.
Now, an atrociously wicked war is waged against the Government, and its formidable armies have overwhelmed every civil right, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and threatens the annihilation of the Government and the nation itself. By virtue of the express and implied powers of the Constitution just indicated, it is impossible to question the duty of the President to use every belligerent right, every instrument known to the law of war:—To annoy, to weaken, to destroy the enemy, until its armies are overthrown and the civil authority is re-established. If there was no statute law, or no act of Congress authorizing an army and navy, and even if the act of 1795 did not apply to this exigency, still the act of the President in improvising an army for the defense of the government was strictly in accordance with the principles of the Constitution. And if Congress had failed to perform its duties, it was still the right and duty of every American citizen to rally under the flag in its defense.
It is a maxim at common law, “when a known felony is about to be committed ‘upon any one, not only the party assaulted may repel force by force, but his
servant ‘attending him, or any other person present
may interpose to prevent the mischief, and if ‘
death
ensue, the party so interposing
will be justified.
”
Upon this principle of common law, which justifies a servant or by-stander in slaying the felon who attempts the life of a friend,
a fortiori,
is a citizen of the United States justified, who rises at the call of the President, and slays the enemy endeavoring to kill, not one man only, or a generation of men, but the nation itself!
According to Rutherford, “no action can be unlawful, if it is not possible for a ‘man to have done otherwise. Whatever is unavoidoble is not unlawful. An act ‘done from compulsion or necessity, is not a crime, is not unlawful. To this proposition ‘the law makes no exception.”
Mr. Breckinridge cites the authority of Webster and Douglas against the blockade of the Southern ports. Their opinions have no application whatever to a state of war. Blockade is a
belligerent
right, and can be exercised only by the President as Commander-in-Chief in time of war, and against the enemy.
The following authority from the Father of his Country, is of greater weight and much more applicable to the extraordinary exigence under which the President is placed.
April 17th, 1776, General Washington wrote to the Committee of Safety in New York: “If in the prosecution of such measures as shall appear to me to have a ‘manifest tendency to promote the interest of the great American cause, I
shall encounter ‘the local convenience of individuals or even a whole colony,
I beg it may beeither in a state of peace or war
with Great Britain. If the former, ‘
why are our ports shut up, our trade destroyed, our property seized, our towns burnt, and ‘our wealthy and valuable citizens led into captivity, and suffering the most cruel hardships?
‘ * * * It is indeed so glaring to permit intercourse with the ‘enemy's ships of war, that even the
enemy themselves must despise us for suffering it to ‘be continued;
for besides their obtaining supplies of every kind, by which they are ‘enabled to continue in your harbors, it also opens a regular channel of intelligence ‘by which they are from time to time made acquainted with the number and extent ‘of our works, our strength, and all our movements, by which they are enabled to ‘regulate their own plans to our great disadvantage and injury. * * Relying ‘on your zeal in the cause of American Liberty, I ask your assistance in putting ‘a stop to this evil— * * either to prevent any future correspondence with ‘the enemy or in bringing to condign punishment such persons as may be hardy and ‘wicked enough to carry it on otherwise than by a prescribed mode, if any can possibly ‘require it.”
Now the Senator himself cannot deny that the enemy had repudiated the Constitution of the United States, organized a hostile government, seized all the Southern ports, filled them with privateers, and blockaded them against the commerce of the United States.
Under these circumstances, it became the manifest duty of the President to close these ports against the enemy, as a Constitutional war-measure. Had the President not done so, he would have subjected our Government to the contempt of the civilized world; and in the language of Washington, whose letter I have just cited, it would have been “so glaring to permit intercourse with ‘the enemy's ships * * that even the
enemy
itself must
despise
us for suffering it ‘to be continued.”
The Senator assumes that the power to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus
is vested only in Congress. He concedes that there is nothing in the language of the grant which so restricts it; but, following Chief Justice Taney, he rests his argument simply on the fact that it is found classified under the grant of legislative powers. But that argument has no value whatever, because there is in the tenth section, under the same article, an enumeration of powers
denied
to the States, which Congress even cannot exercise.
Judge Taney, in using his mandate to liberate the man who had been imprisoned upon the charge of complicity with the enemy, by Gen. Butler, was as guilty as any private person who should have attempted to free him by force. The opinion of the Chief Justice adds nothing whatever to the argument. His extreme age and his known and cherished sympathies with the secession heresy, (of which the Dred Scott decision furnished mournful evidence,) prepared the public mind for that given in the present case.
The Senator asserts that “George Washington conducted the Revolution of the ‘thirteen colonies without martial law.” He may have stated this ignorantly, but every student of American history should have known that there was really nothing but martial law during that war.
Washington wrote to the Secret Committee of the Convention of the State of New York, July 13, 1776:
* * * “I have mentioned the necessity of the body falling on some ‘measure to remove from this city and environs persons of known disaffection and ‘enmity to the American cause. The safety of the army, the success of every enterprise, ‘and the security of all, depend on adopting the most speedy and effectual ‘steps for this purpose; * * and I do most earnestly entreat you to adopt some ‘plan for this purpose * * * so as to remove those disquieting and discouraging ‘apprehensions which pervade the whole army on this subject. * * * I ‘foresee very dangerous consequences in many respects, if a remedy for the evil is ‘not soon and efficaciously applied.
“The removal of Tory prisoners confined in this city is a matter to which I ‘would solicit your attention. In every view it is dangerous and alarming. In case ‘of attack or alarm, there is no doubt what part they would take, and none can tell ‘what influence they might have,” &c.
This letter from Washington caused the thirteen Tory prisoners who had been most obnoxious for their principles and conduct to be removed, by order of the Convention, to
the jail at Litchfield, Connecticut.
The crimes alleged against them were,
disaffection to the rights and liberties of the American States; * * * Corresponding with the enemy; or engaging in treasonable conspiracies.
The
mayor
of the city of New York was among the number.
June 30th, 1776, General Washington wrote to the Committee of Essex county, New Jersey, in regard to Governor Franklin, of that colony, * * “that he had ‘evinced a most unfriendly disposition to our cause, and the Colony Convention ‘having ordered him to Connecticut, * * I am of opinion that your Committee ‘should interfere in the matter, and give immediate orders to the officer of the guard ‘to proceed with him in the execution of the duty wherewith he is charged. * * ‘If there is the
least danger of his rescue,
or the guard appointed being remiss in their ‘duty, your Committee should appoint a strong escort for the purpose, * * and ‘
conduct him securely to the place fixed for him.
” The New Jersey Convention had declared Governor Franklin an enemy to his country, and the Continental Congress ordered him to be sent
under guard to Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, with a request to treat him as other prisoners
if he refused to give his parole. Washington's letter settled the matter.
June 7th, 1776, Washington referred to the case of Sir John Johnson in his communication to Congress. This man Johnson was possessed of large wealth, and lived about forty miles west of Albany, New York. He had several hundred Highlanders as tenants, and these, with many Indians under him, he incited against the American cause. General Schuyler ascertained that Johnson had virtually broken his parole, and likely to produce much mischief; but he fled under an apprehended arrest. Sir John's papers were searched in his house, and
his wife was removed to Albany as a kind of hostage for the peaceful conduct of her husband.
Lady Johnson wrote to General Washington asking his interference for her release, but he
declined
to take the matter out of the authority of Schuyler and the Albany Committee.
Dr. Benjamin Church, of Massachusetts, an active member of the Provincial Congress, was sent on a special mission to the Continental Congress, and was appointed by that body Surgeon General of the Army. He was recommended to Washington by the Massachusetts delegation as worthy of special confidence. He was detected October 1, 1775, in correspondence with a Mr. Fleming, in Boston, who adhered to the enemy. The discovery of his treason was somewhat remarkable. The letter was sent by a woman, who was betrayed in her efforts to deliver it. The letter was shown to the Commander in Chief by General Greene. It was written in cypher. He was tried before the General Court of Massachusetts, and expelled from the House. Then by the Continental Congress, as laid before them by General Washington, and they decided that “Dr. Church should be confined
in jail in ‘Connecticut, without the use of pen, ink, or paper, and that he should not be allowed to converse ‘with any person, except in the hearing of a magistrate of the town, or the sheriff of ‘the county.
” He was accordingly imprisoned at Norwich.
The case of the arrest of the Pennsylvania
Friends
is another instance. Twenty of these persons were arrested and imprisoned by the authorities of Pennsylvania, who refused to surrender these prisoners to the civil power, or allow them a hearing.paid by said prisoners,
two of whom had died in the meantime from privation and suffering.
I might cite instances where Tories were shot and hung, and their property confiscated without the form of law, during the American Revolution. In fact, martial law transeended all civil authority while our ancestors were struggling to establish our national existence.
Mr. Breckinridge was careful to refrain from referring to the authority of General Jackson. The suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus
in 1815, and the imprisonment of the Judge, as well as the arrest and execution of Arluthnot and Ambrister without trial, have received the unanimous sanction of the American people.
Mr. Jefferson, to whom the Senator refers as authority, said in his letter to J. B. Colvin, December, 1810, that—
“A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the highest duties of ‘a good citizen: but it is not
the highest.
The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, ‘of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our ‘country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, ‘with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us—thus absurdly ‘sacrificing the end to the means. When in the battle of Germantown, General ‘Washington's army was annoyed from Chew's house, he did not hesitate to ‘plant his cannon against it, though the property of a citizen. When he besieged ‘Yorktown, he leveled the suburbs, feeling that the laws of property must be postponed ‘for the safety of the nation. While the army was before Yorktown, the ‘Governor of Virginia took horses, carriages, provisions, and even men, by force, to ‘enable the army to stay together till it could master the public enemy—and he was ‘justified. In all these cases, the unwritten law of necessity, of self-preservation, ‘and of the public safety, control the written law of
meum and tuum.
”
If there had been no express grant in the Constitution to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus,
still the power to suspend all civil authority when necessary to maintain our national existence would have been complete. It stands upon “
the unwritten laws of necessity, of self-preservation, and of the public safety.
”
The Senator charges that the blood-bought rights of the people secured by the 4th article of the Constitution, have been wantonly violated by the President. This has no foundation in fact. On the contrary, the enemy which commands all the sympathies of the distinguished Senator are themselves the violators of these sacred rights.
The fourth article of the Constitution which secures the right of the people to their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against searches or seizures without warrant of law, does not apply to the public enemy in time of war. This article does not conflict with or control the constitutional principles which have been adduced, but strictly harmonizes with them. Should a spy be found within the American camp, or the chances of war throw Davis or Beauregard in the hands of our army, no one would think their arrest and imprisonment nnconstitutional, or doubt the duty of the commander to disregard any writ of
habeas corpus
issued for their liberation. Should a commander capture a cargo of provisions or a wagon load of Enfield rifles
in
transitu
to the enemy, no one could pretend to believe that he had violated this article of the Constitution!
The Senator complains that this article of the Constitution has been infracted in Maryland and Missouri, by the arrest of private persons and the seizure of private property. He assumes that the parties in Baltimore were innocent. They may have been so; but yet their arrest and imprisonment was justifiable under the maxim of the common law—“if the circumstances were such as to furnish reasonable ‘ground for apprehending a design to commit felony, &c., and there is also a ‘reasonable ground for believing the danger imminent that such design will be ‘accomplished; although it may afterwards turn out that the appearances were ‘false, and there was in fact no such design, nor any danger that it would be ‘accomplished.”
The letter of Mr. Jefferson, already quoted, referring to the conspiracy of Burr, says of Gen. Wilkinson:
“In judging this case, we are bound to consider the state of the information, correct ‘and incorrect, which he then possessed. He expected Burr and a band from ‘above, a British fleet from below, and he knew there was a formidable conspiracy ‘within the city. Under these circumstances was he justifiable, first, In seizing ‘notorious conspirators? On this there can be but two opinions; one of
the guilty ‘and their accomplices,
the other that of all
honest men.
Second. In sending them to ‘the seat of government, when the written law gave them a right to a trial in the ‘Territory? The danger of their rescue, of their continuing their machinations, ‘the tardiness and weakness of the law, apathy, of the judges, active patronage of ‘the whole tribe of lawyers, unknown disposition of the juries, an hourly expectation ‘of the enemy,
salvation of the city
and of the
Union itself,
which would have ‘been convulsed to its center had the conspiracy succeeded; all these constituted a ‘law of necessity and self preservation, and rendered the
salus populi
supreme over ‘the written law. The officer who is called to act on this superior ground does ‘indeed risk himself on the justice of the
controlling powers of the Constitution,
and ‘his STATION makes it his duty to incur that risk. But those controlling powers ‘and his fellow-citizens generally are bound to judge according to the circumstances ‘under which he acted. They are not to transfer the information of this place or ‘moment to the time and place of his action; but to put themselves in his situation. ‘We knew here that there never was danger of a British fleet from below, and that ‘Burr's band was crushed before it reached Mississippi. But General Wilkinson's ‘information was very different; and
he could act on no other.
”
Our military commanders in Maryland and Missouri are fully justified upon the precise principle upon which Mr. Jefferson exonerated General Wilkinson.
Finally, Mr. Breckinridge charges that the Constitution was violated by the suppression of a St. Louis press!
This is a grave charge. The freedom of speech and the press are especially guarded by constitutional provisions. I hold the right as inalienable to citizen and Christian. It has a priceless value to our civil liberty; and as an independent member of the press I will never consent to see its power trammeled or its freedom abridged by President or ruler.
It is unquestionably true that the press seized in St. Louis was in the service of the Southern rebellion, and engaged in the destruction of
these very rights,
and of the entire Constitution and Government.
Upon the principles of the Constitution, which I have heretofore cited in this article, it necessarily follows that any one who is aiding the rebellion by treasonable utterances, whether spoken or written, is as amenable to martial law as though enrolled in the Confederate army; and by the same authority it is as much the duty of the commander-in-chief to arrest and hold subject to martial law any one found
In the progress of events the rebellion may assume such formidable proportions as to override both the judicial and legislative powers, leaving the military as the only visible power in the land. It would then be the clear duty of the President, as commander-in-chief, to maintain the military authority over every foot of territory of the United States until the judicial and legislative power conld be restored. In such an exigency it may be his duty to call several millions of men into the service. It may be necessary to arrest traitorous Senators and members of Congress, Judges of Courts, &c., who are in complicity with the rebellion, and treat them as public enemies. Instead of suppressing one press, he may extend it to all presses engaged in exciting and stimulating the treason. Instead of arresting a few traitors he may arrest all traitors, and deprive them of the means of warring on the Government.
This Government relies on individual duty and obligation. It has the power to tax
individuals
in any mode and to any extent to maintain it; and to call out citizens, as individuals, for military service to defend it.
In this supreme struggle for its existence men of all sections should adhere to it. They should not only sustain it, but, if necessary, meet death to preserve it until the roar of the final fire, and the Judgment of the quick and dead.
Better that Washington had perished like Hampden. That Jefferson had never drafted the Declaration of Independence. That Lee, Hancock, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, Livingston, &c., had died like Sydney and Russell upon the block, than that this Union, created to be the
day-light
to break the night of ages, should finally collapse, and
traitors
be permitted to write the epitaph, “it lived and died.”
ANNA ELLA CARROLL.
Maryland,
August 8, 1861.