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NORTHERN SYMPATHY WITH THE SOUTH.'

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to the Democracy of the North. I do not | extinguished, though its more obvious believe that our friends at the South have manifestations were in good part supany just idea of the state of feeling, hurrying at this moment to the pitch of intense ex- pressed for a season. A very few asperation, between those who respect their persons-hardly a score in all-of political obligations, and those who have apparently no impelling power but that the most uncontrollable Southern which a fanatical position on the subject of sympathies, left the North to enter the domestic Slavery imparts. Without discuss- Confederate armies; but many thouing the question of right-of abstract power to secede-I have never believed that actual sands remained behind, awaiting the disruption of the Union can occur without opportunity, which disappointment blood; and if through the madness of Northern Abolitionists that dire calamity must and disaster were soon to present, come, the fighting will not be along Mason wherein they might take ground and Dixon's line merely. It will be within against the prosecution of the Abolition War,' and in favor of a compromise' that was not to be had-at all events and on any terms, of 'Peace.' There is, or has been, a quite general impression, backed by constant and confident assertions, that the people of the Free States were united in support of the War until an anti-Slavery aspect was given to it by the Administration. Yet that is very far from the truth. was no moment wherein a large portion of the Northern Democracy were not at least passively hostile to any form or shade of 'coërcion;' while many openly condemned and stigmatized it as atrocious, unjustifiable aggression. And this opposition, even when least vociferous, sensibly

our own borders, in our own streets, between the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred. Those who defy law and scout constitutional obligations, will, if we ever reach the arbitrament of arms, find occupation enough at home. Nothing but the state of Mrs. Pierce's health would induce me to leave the country now, although it is quite likely that my presence at home would be of little service. I have tried to impress upon our people, especially in N. H. and Connecticut, where the only elections are to take place during the coming Spring, that, while our Union meetings are all in the right direction and well enough for the present, they will not be worth the paper upon which their resolutions are written unless we can overthrow political Abolitionism at the polls, and repeal the unconstitutional and obnoxious laws which in the cause of "Personal Liberty" have been placed upon our statute-books. I shall look with deep interest, and not without hope, for a decided change in this relation. Ever and truly your friend,

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

Hon. JEFF. DAVIS, Washington, D. C.

There

Such are specimens of the North-subtracted from the power and diminern letters wherewith Southern states- ished the efficiency of the North. men were misled into the belief that the North would be divided into hostile camps whenever the South should strike boldly for her 'rights.' It proved a grievous mistake; but it was countenanced by the habitual tone of 'conservative' speakers and journals throughout the canvass of 1860, and thence down to the collision at Sumter. Even then, the spirit which impelled these assurances of Northern sympathy with, and readiness to do and dare for, the South,' was not

XIV. Whether there was greater unanimity at the South or at the North in sustaining the Union or the Confederacy in the prosecution of their struggle, will, perhaps, never be conclusively determined. There were moments during its progress when the South appeared almost a unit for Secession, while the disheartened North seemed ready to give up the contest for the Union; as there were crises wherein the Rebellion seemed to reel on the brink

of speedy dissolution: but neither of these can justly be taken as an accurate test of the average popular sentiment of the respective sections. Yet we have seen that a majority of the Southern people could never, until frenzied by the capture of Fort Sumter, and by official assurances (undenied in their hearing) that Lincoln had declared unprovoked and utterly unjustifiable war upon them, be induced to lift hostile hands against their country; and that Secession was only forced down the throats of those who accepted it by violence, outrage, and terror. A few additional facts on this head, out of thousands that might be cited, will here be given:

Rev. John H. Aughey, a Presbyterian clergyman of Northern birth, but settled in Northern Mississippi for some years prior to the outbreak of the Rebellion, in his "Iron Furnace, ""gives a synopsis of a Secession speech to which he listened in Atala county, Miss., just after President Lincoln's election, running thus:

"The halter is the only argument that should be used against the submissionists; and I predict that it will soon, very soon, be in force.

"We have glorious news from Tallahatchie. Seven tory submissionists were hanged there

in one day; and the so-called Union candidates, having the wholesome dread of hemp before their eyes, are not canvassing the county," etc., etc.

When the election was held for delegates to the Convention which assumed the power to take Mississippi out of the Union, Mr. Aughey attended it, and says:

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made out a Union ticket, and voted it, amidst the frowns and suppressed murmurs of the judges and bystanders; and, as the result proved, I had the honor of depositing the only vote in favor of the Union which was polled in that precinct. I knew of many who were in favor of the Union, but who were intimidated by threats, and by the odium attending it, from voting at all."

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Such was the case at thousands

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of polls throughout the South, or wherever the Confederates were strong enough to act as their hearts prompted. Mr. Clingman's boast, in the Senate, that free debaters' were hanging on trees' down his way, was uttered, it should be noted, in December, 1860. And thus it was that several Counties in Tennessee" sion, while Shelby (including Memgave not a single vote against Secesphis) gave 7,132 for Secession to five against it, and a dozen others gave respectively 3, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 23, and 28 votes for the Union to many thousands for Secession. There was only the semblance of an election. "If you vote the Union ticket, you must prepare to leave the State," said Senator Mason; and the more reckless and less responsible Secessionists readily translated such words into deeds. Where Slavery had undivided sway, a voter had just the same liberty to be a Unionist as he had to be an Abolitionist-that is, none at all.

But there were many communities, and even entire counties, throughout the South, wherein Slavery had but a nominal or limited existence; as in Texas, thirty-four counties-some of them having each a considerable free population-were returned, in 1860, as containing each less than a hundred slaves. Some of these could be,

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THE PEOPLE FOR THE UNION.

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and were, controlled by their mana-mensely strong-in the traditions, ging politicians, holding offices and the affections, the instincts, and the earning perquisites by the grace of the aspirations, of the great majority of Slave Power enthroned at the State the American People. Its preserva capital; others were incorrigible, and tion was inseparably entwined with were managed in this way: In Gray- their glories, their interests, and their son county (having 8,187 inhabitants, hopes. In the North, no one had, of whom 1,291 were slaves), when Se- for forty years, desired its dissolution, cession was proposed, a county meet- unless on account of Slavery; at the ing was held, to consider the project; South, the case was essentially the by which, after discussion, it was de- same. No calculations, however imcided to negative the movement, and posing and elaborate, had ever conhold no election for delegates to the vinced any hundred persons, on proposed State Convention. This whichever side of the slave line, that gave the Secessionists the opportu- Disunion could be really advantagenity they wanted. They proceeded ous to either section. No line could to hold an election, and to choose be drawn betwixt the South' and delegates, who helped vote the State the North' which would not leave out of the Union. And this was one one or the other exposed to attackcase like many others. none which six plain citizens, fairly chosen from either section, could be induced to adopt as final. Multitudes who supported Secession did so only as the most efficacious means of inducing the North to repudiate the 'Black Republicans' and agree to the Crittenden or some kindred Compromise-in short, to bully the North into giving the South her 'rights'— never imagining, at the outset, that this could be refused, or that Disunion would or could be really, conclusively effected. Thousands died fighting under the flag of treason whose hearts yearned toward the old banner, and whose aspiration for an 'ocean-bound republic'-one which should be felt and respected as first among nationscould not be quenched even in their own life-blood. And, on the other hand, the flag rendered illustrious by the triumphs of Gates and Greene and Washington-of Harrison, Brown, Scott, Macomb, and Jackson-of Truxtun, Decatur, Hull, Perry, Porter, and McDonough-was through

Gen. Edward W. Gantt, who had, in August, 1860, been chosen to Congress as an independent Democrat, from the Southern district of Arkansas, and who was an early and ardent Secessionist, testifies, since his reclamation to Unionism, that the poor farmers and other industrious nonslaveholders of his region were never Secessionists-that, where he had always been able to induce three-fourths of them to vote with him as a Democrat, he could not persuade half of them to sustain him as a Secessionist -that their hearts were never in the cause; and that those who could be persuaded to vote for it did so reluctantly, and as though it went against the grain. No rational doubt can exist that, had time been afforded for consideration, and both sides been generally heard, a free and fair vote would have shown an immense majority, even in the Slave States, against Secession.

For the Union was strong-im

out a tower of strength' to the
Unionists. In the hours darkened
by shameful defeat and needless dis-
aster, when the Republic seemed
rocking and reeling on the very brink
of destruction-when Europe almost
unanimously pronounced the Union
irretrievably lost, and condemned the
infatuation that demanded persist-
ence in an utterly hopeless contest-free, happy people.

the heart of the loyal Millions never
faltered, nor was their faith shaken
that, in spite of present reverses, the
flag of their fathers would float once
more over Richmond and Charleston
and Montgomery, over Raleigh, At-
lanta, and Houston, the symbol of Na-
tional authority and power, accepted,
beloved, and rejoiced in, by a great,

XXXII.

WEST VIRGINIA.

THE Virginia Convention of 1861, of which a majority assumed to vote their State out of the Union, as we have seen, had been elected not only as Unionists, but under an express stipulation that their action should be valid only in case of its submission to and indorsement by a vote of the People. How shamefully that condition was evaded and circumvented, we have seen. The vote to secede, taken on the 17th of April, and already anticipated by acts of hostility to the Union under the authority of the State, was, so far as possible, kept secret until the 25th, when it was proclaimed by Gov. Letcher that the Convention had, on the preceding day, adopted the provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, and placed the entire military power of the State under the control of Jefferson Davis, by a 'convention,' whereof the material provision is as follows:

whole military force and military operations, wealth, in the impending conflict with the offensive and defensive, of said Common

United States, shall be under the chief con

trol and direction of the President of said Confederate States, upon the same principle, basis, and footing, as if said Commonwealth were now, and during the interval, a member of said Confederacy."

Thus it will be seen that the Union

ists of Virginia were liable, that day and every day thereafter, to be called out as militia, and ordered to assault Washington, seize Pittsburg, or invade any portion of the loyal States, as Davis and his subordinates might direct; and, having thus involved themselves in the guilt and peril of flagrant treason against the Union, they were to be allowed, a month later, to vote themselves out of the Confederacy and back into the Union again! The stupendous impudence of this mockery of submission was so palpable as almost to shield it from the reproach of imposture; and, as if to brush aside the last fig-leaf of disguise, Letcher, nine days thereafter,' issued a fresh proclamation, calling out the militia of the State to repel May 3d, 1861.

"1st. Until the union of said Commonwealth with said Confederacy shall be perfected, and said Commonwealth shall be come a member of said Confederacy, according to the Constitutions of both Powers, the

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