became as violent a disunionist as any to be found in the military or civil service of the Confederacy.

that which just precedes it, but such is the testimony of Mr. Baldwin on this point; and as it might, in the opinion of some, throw a shadow of doubt on the truth of the statement made first by Mr. Lincoln to me, as contained in the text of this volume, and next as to the statement made by me to Mr. Lewis, and subsequently to others, I feel it to be imperatively incumbent upon me now and here to remove every shade of doubt, by supplying such testimony as to the veracity of Mr. Lincoln, and the fidelity of my own representation of the facts, as will arrest all pretext for assault on the part of the most prejudiced and vindictive of his assailants or of mine.

On the 15th of February last I was summoned before the committee, and examined on this particular point at some length. My testimony is too voluminous to be copied here. I can only make a general reference to it; but it was positive, emphatic, and unequivocal; no ifs nor ands, no equivocation and no qualification either as to the statement of Mr. Lincoln or the acknowledgment of Mr. Baldwin. As to the truth of that statement, see Reconstruction Report, p. 114-117. What Mr. Lewis and myself have sworn to is either true or false; if not true, then we are both perjured men; and the perjury has been committed willfully and deliberately, and we can no longer claim the countenance or respect of honorable men, while it is equally true that Mr. Baldwin has either committed perjury, or his "unusually good memory" has failed him sadly, and is too treacherous and unreliable ever to be depended upon hereafter. With those who know Mr. Baldwin better than I do, it will be ascribed to a defective memory, and I have no desire to raise an issue on that point, but I can not permit my own testimony to be questioned by any one.

I will not say it was any part of Mr. Baldwin's calculation, in the event of the success of that ill-fated star in the galaxy of nations (the Confederacy), to claim the chief credit for Southern independence, on the ground of his refusal to accept an overture by which it would have been defeated, but it does not require a large amount of penetration to perceive that this would have been a natural sequitur.

I have the best authority for saying that Mr. Lincoln made the same representation to Governor Pierpont, General Millson, of Virginia, Dr. Stone, of Washington, Hon. Garrett Davis, Robert A. Gray, of Rocking

THE VIRGINIA STATE-RIGHTS" CONVENTION.

Previous to this, the more extreme and violent portion of the disorganizers had sent out a secret circular to their se

ham (brother-in-law to Mr. Baldwin), Campbell Tarr of Wheeling (and Treasurer of West Virginia), and three other gentlemen in company with Mr. Tarr (TARR), in almost the precise words testified to by me. Letters are before me to sustain this assertion, and, in every instance but one, voluntarily sent.

But all this having occurred in April, 1861, spoken of as it has been in social circles among the best friends of Mr. Baldwin at intervals throughout that period, why is it that no denial of its truth has ever reached my ear during the lifetime of Mr. Lincoln, or during the great struggle for life by the Southern Confederacy, whose ultimate independence for nearly four years Mr. Baldwin did not doubt, and, as he testifies, "expected to be hanged if it failed?"

But I have said, when Mr. Lewis gave his testimony he did not believe in the possibility of a denial by authority of Mr. Baldwin, and still less that that denial would be made on oath by Mr. Baldwin himself, and, therefore, he was less circumspect and minute than he would otherwise have been. See, however, what he now says in a letter written on the 7th of April, 1866, now before me.

He says, "You and I know that Baldwin did acknowledge that Mr. Lincoln made the proposition to withdraw the troops from Sumter upon the condition that the Virginia Convention would adjourn without passing an ordinance of secession. Some of the Secesh have been trying to persuade me that there was only a mistake between Baldwin and myself. I have always answered, my statement of the matter is before the public. I am as certain of its truth as I am of my own existence. I am not mistaken. If my evidence is not correct, I am a perjured man. I can make no compromise."

Again, in a letter of the 14th, he says, "I have seen the report of your evidence, and I think it as nearly correct as it could be, unless you had written it out at the time the interview took place. Baldwin and myself talked over the matter going to and returning from your house, and it is almost impossible for me at this date to report what was said in your presence, and what was said in going to and from your house. That Bald

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cession friends throughout the entire state, urging them all to assemble in Richmond on the 16th of April, and not only

win admitted to me before we got to your house, and to you after our getting to your house, that Mr. Lincoln did propose to him that, if the Convention would adjourn without passing an ordinance of secession, he would withdraw the troops from Fort Sumter, is as certain as that the sun rose this morning. I recollect the expression he used. He, Mr. Baldwin, said that Mr. Lincoln made the proposition, and that he asked, 'What! adjourn without a day?' (It was the first time in my life that I had heard the English for sine die, and, though I knew the general meaning of the term, I never knew the literal translation, and it made an impression that I have never forgotten. I am not a Latin scholar.) Baldwin said Lincoln replied, 'Certainly.' Baldwin then said the Convention would not entertain such a proposition for a moments I have talked with Colonel Gray (Algernon S. Gray, a colleague of Mr. Lewis in the Convention, and a warm personal friend of Mr. Baldwin) several times about He is not anxious to be a witness, etc. this during and since the war. Colonel Gray and myself, as you know, boarded and roomed together. The morning after you informed me of the interview between Baldwin and Mr. Lincoln I commenced telling Gray about it, thinking he was as ignorant as myself, when, to my utter astonishment, he sprang up in the bed and asked, in the most excited manner, 'How, in the name of God, did you hear that?' I remarked that it was true such an interview had taken place. He replied, 'I thought there were only three men in Richmond who knew such an interview had taken place.'. . . . . Gray is the only member of the Convention that I have met with who acknowledged that he knew any thing about the matter."

that a

Here, then, is proof conclusive on this head. I need only say more scrupulous, conscientious, and truthful Christian gentleman does not live than John F. Lewis, and that there is not a man in this state, friend or foe, who will say otherwise; and if any Copperhead at the North or traitor at the South shall hereafter charge that Abraham Lincoln made unnecessary war upon the South, or that he came into office under a pledge to war upon Southern institutions, his friends may exultingly point to this record for a refutation of the slander, and to show what great personal sacrifices that generous-hearted and patriotic man was prepared to make to avert the heavy calamities of a civil war, and to throw the responsibility where it properly belongs.

to bring every secessionist of their respective, but of neighboring counties, the object of which was to exercise an outside influence by giving it the appearance of a great uprising of the people of the state from every part, demanding, in their sovereign capacity, the immediate passage of an ordinance of secession; and if that could not be obtained by peaceable means, then to inaugurate a revolution, the first step in which was to depose the governor, who was at that time supposed to be as strongly in favor of the Union as he now declares himself to be inveterate in his hostility to it, to turn the legitimate Convention out of doors, and establish a provisional government of their own.

THE REBELLION INAUGURATED.

Of all this, of course, there is no record proof, for the purpose was not divulged until after the passage of the ordinance, when many of the leaky vessels did not hesitate to avow this to have been the design, which before had been suspected, from the time the secret circular first came to light, and from the general tone and feeling manifested by the party.

On Wednesday night, the 10th of April, Mr. Roger A. Pryor, who was supposed to have been deputed by his coadjutors in Richmond, as otherwise he would scarcely have ventured to take such a responsibility upon himself, made a speech in Charleston, in which he gave the most solemn assurance and sacred pledges that if they would begin the war by firing upon Fort Sumter, the Virginia Convention would immediately pass an ordinance of secession, notwithstanding the vote that had just been taken, which stood 45 for secession and 90 against it. But upon this assurance from Mr. Pryor the state determined to act; they did not wait for the arrival of Mr. Lincoln's cargo of bread. The next day

they commenced the attack on Fort Sumter, and an old gray-haired octogenarian from this state, who had been preaching secession for a number of years, claiming and proclaiming every where that it was his mission to break up the government at Washington by dissolving the Union, was permitted the high privilege of firing the first gun, but who was the first to take to his heels when the enemy, at a subsequent period, made their appearance in his own vicinity, and has taken good care never to be near enough to them to fire a gun since.

This attack of the 11th resulted in the lowering of the flag of the United States. News of the capitulation reached Washington on the evening of the 13th; then, as I have already said, threats became current and unconcealed of the contemplated attack on Washington by an armed mob collected together from the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk, etc., which was so confidently looked for, that before I left the city (where I happened to be) on the 15th, many of the windows of the Treasury building had been already barricaded as before mentioned. The Secretary of War at Montgomery, as I have also already said, declared in at speech on the night of the surrender of the fort that in thirty days the Southern flag should float over the Capitol at Washington; and then it was, and these the circumstances under which Mr. Lincoln issued his proclamation on the 15th of April calling for seventy-five thousand men for the protection of the Capitol of the nation, which afforded the pretext to the Virginia Convention to pass an ordinance declaring the connection of this state with the government of the United States as dissolved.