Volume I Part 22 (1/2)

”1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country, other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pa.s.s such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

”2. Congress shall also have the power to prohibit the introduction [pg 262] of slaves from any state not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.”

In the case of the United States, the only prohibition is against any interference by Congress with the slave-trade for a term of years, and it was further legitimized by the authority given to impose a duty upon it. The term of years, it is true, had long since expired, but there was still no prohibition of the trade by the Const.i.tution; it was after 1808 entirely within the discretion of Congress either to encourage, tolerate, or prohibit it.

Under the Confederate Const.i.tution, on the contrary, the African slave-trade was ”hereby forbidden,” positively and unconditionally, from the beginning. Neither the Confederate Government nor that of any of the States could permit it, and the Congress was expressly ”required” to enforce the prohibition. The only discretion in the matter intrusted to the Congress was, whether or not to permit the introduction of slaves from any of the United States or their Territories.

Mr. Lincoln, in his inaugural address, had said: ”I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the inst.i.tution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Now, if there was no purpose on the part of the Government of the United States to interfere with the inst.i.tution of slavery within its already existing limits-a proposition which permitted its propagation within those limits by natural increase-and inasmuch as the Confederate Const.i.tution precluded any other than the same natural increase, we may plainly perceive the disingenuousness and absurdity of the pretension by which a fact.i.tious sympathy has been obtained in certain quarters for the war upon the South, on the ground that it was a war in behalf of freedom against slavery.148 [pg 263] I had no direct part in the preparation of the Confederate Const.i.tution. No consideration of delicacy forbids me, therefore, to say, in closing this brief review of that instrument, that it was a model of wise, temperate, and liberal statesmans.h.i.+p. Intelligent criticism, from hostile as well as friendly sources, has been compelled to admit its excellences, and has sustained the judgment of a popular Northern journal which said, a few days after it was adopted and published:

”The new Const.i.tution is the Const.i.tution of the United States with various modifications and some very important and most desirable improvements. We are free to say that the invaluable reforms enumerated should be adopted by the United States, with or without a reunion of the seceded States, and as soon as possible. But why not accept them with the propositions of the Confederate States on slavery as a basis of reunion?”149

Footnote 133: (return) See Appendix K.

Footnote 134: (return) ”War between the States,” vol. ii, col. xix, p. 389.

Footnote 135: (return) See Article II, section 1.

Footnote 136: (return) Ibid., section 2, -- 3.

Footnote 137: (return) Article I, section 6, -- 2.

Footnote 138: (return) Article I, section 8, -- 1.

Footnote 139: (return) Ibid.

Footnote 140: (return) Ibid., section 9, -- 10.

Footnote 141: (return) Ibid., -- 9.

Footnote 142: (return) Ibid., section 7, -- 2.

Footnote 143: (return) Ibid., section 2, -- 5.

Footnote 144: (return) Ibid., section 10, -- 3.

Footnote 145: (return) Article IV, section 3, -- 1.

Footnote 146: (return) Article V.

Footnote 147: (return) Article I, section 8, ---- 1 and 4, section 9, -- 6; Article III, section 2, -- 1; Article IV, section 3, -- 3.

Footnote 148: (return) As late as the 22d of April, 1861, Mr. Seward, United States Secretary of State, in a dispatch to Mr. Dayton, Minister to France, since made public, expressed the views and purposes of the United States Government in the premises as follows. It may be proper to explain that, by what he is pleased to term ”the revolution,” Mr. Seward means the withdrawal of the Southern States; and that the words italicized are, perhaps, not so distinguished in the original. He says: ”The Territories will remain in all respects the same, whether the revolution shall succeed or shall fail. The condition of slavery in the several States will remain just the same, whether it succeed or fail. There is not even a pretext for the complaint that the disaffected States are to be conquered by the United States if the revolution fails; for the rights of the States and the condition of every being in them will remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether it shall fail. In the one case, the States would be federally connected with the new Confederacy; in the other, they would, as now, be members of the United States; but their Const.i.tutions and laws, customs, habits, and inst.i.tutions, in either ease, will remain the same.”

Footnote 149: (return) ”New York Herald,” March 19, 1861.

CHAPTER XI.

The Commission to Was.h.i.+ngton City.-Arrival of Mr. Crawford.-Mr. Buchanan's Alarm.-Note of the Commissioners to the New Administration.-Mediation of Justices Nelson and Campbell.-The Difficulty about Forts Sumter and Pickens.-Mr. Secretary Seward's a.s.surances.-Duplicity of the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton.-Mr. Fox's Visit to Charleston.-Secret Preparations for Coercive Measures.-Visit of Mr. Lamon.-Renewed a.s.surances of Good Faith.-Notification to Governor Pickens.-Developments of Secret History.-Systematic and Complicated Perfidy exposed.

The appointment of Commissioners to proceed to Was.h.i.+ngton, for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng friendly relations with the United States and effecting an equitable settlement of all questions [pg 264] relating to the common property of the States and the public debt, has already been mentioned. No time was lost in carrying this purpose into execution. Mr. Crawford-first of the Commissioners-left Montgomery on or about the 27th of February, and arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton two or three days before the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's term of office as President of the United States. Besides his official credentials, he bore the following letter to the President, of a personal or semi-official character, intended to facilitate, if possible, the speedy accomplishment of the objects of his mission: