THE PEACE POLICY PROCLAIMED.

Governor Horatio Seymour of New York was chosen president, and on taking the chair made the most elaborate and important address of the Convention. He was exceedingly popular with his party, and was justly recognized as among the ablest defenders of its views. By virtue both of his official position and of his personal strength he was looked to more than any other leader for the exposition of Democratic policy. Singularly prepossessing in manner, endowed with a rare gift of polished and persuasive speech, he put in more plausible form the extreme and virulent utterances of intemperate partisans. He was skilled in dialectics, and his rhetorical dexterity had more than once served him and his friends in good stead. He was well-nigh the idol of his party, and no other man could so effectively rally its strength or direct its policy. His address as presiding officer was intended to be free from the menacing tone which marked most of the speeches of the Convention, but it veiled the same sentiment in more subtle and specious phrase. He charged both the cause and the continuance of the war upon the Republican party. "Four years ago," he said, "a convention met in this city when our country was peaceful, prosperous, and united. Its delegates did not mean to destroy our government, to overwhelm us with debt, or to drench our land with blood; but they were animated by intolerance and fanaticism, and blinded by an ignorance of the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people, and the condition of our land. They thought they might safely indulge their passions, and they concluded to do so. Their passions have wrought out their natural results." Governor Seymour had no criticism for those who had drawn the sword against the government; he did not impute to them any responsibility for the war; but he charged the wrong upon those who were defending the Union. In advocating an armistice which would involve a practical surrender of the contest he said: "The Administration will not let the shedding of blood cease, even for a little time, to see if Christian charity or the wisdom of statesmanship may not work out a method to save our country. Nay, more, they will not listen to a proposal for peace which does not offer that which this government has no right to ask." It was the abolition of slavery which "this government has no right to ask." As he advanced towards his conclusion Governor Seymour grew more pronounced and less discreet. "But as for us," he said, "we are resolved that the party which has made the history of our country since its advent to power seem like some unnatural and terrible dream, shall be overthrown. We have forborne much because those who are now charged with the conduct of public affairs know but little about the principles of our government." The entire speech was able, adroit, and mischievous.

In the preparation of the platform the champions of the peace policy had their own way. The friends of General McClellan were so anxious to secure his nomination and to conciliate the opposition that they studiously avoided provoking any conflict with the predominant peace sentiment. The substance and vital spirit of the platform were contained in the second resolution as follows: "That this Convention does explicitly declare as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which under the pretense of a military necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities with a view to an ultimate convention of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." The few remaining resolutions pledged fidelity to the Union, condemned the alleged interference of the military authority with certain State elections, denounced what were recited as arbitrary acts of Administrative usurpation, reprobated "the shameful disregard of the Administration of its duty in respect to our fellow-citizens who now are and long have been prisoners of war," and declared the sympathy of the Democratic party with the soldiers of the Republic.

The extreme Peace party having carried the platform, the less radical section of the Convention secured the candidate for President. But General McClellan was not nominated without a vehement protest. The presentation of his name was the signal for a stormy debate. Mr. Harris of Maryland passionately declared that one man named as a candidate "was a tyrant." "He it was," continued the speaker, "who first initiated the policy by which our rights and liberties were stricken down. That man is George B. McClellan. Maryland which has suffered so much at the hands of that man will not submit in silence to his nomination." This attack produced great confusion, and to justify his course Mr. Harris read General McClellan's order for the arrest of the Maryland Legislature. He proceeded, "All the charges of usurpation and tyranny that can be brought against Lincoln and Butler can be made and substantiated against McClellan. He is the assassin of State rights, the usurper of liberty, and if nominated will be beaten everywhere, as he was at Antietam."

General Morgan of Ohio warmly defended McClellan. He declared that there was a treasonable conspiracy in Maryland to pass an ordinance of secession, and that McClellan had thwarted it. Mr. Long espoused the other side. "You have arraigned Lincoln," he said, "as being guilty of interfering with the freedom of speech, the freedom of elections, and of arbitrary arrests, and yet you propose to nominate a man who has gone even farther than Lincoln has gone in the perpetration of similar tyrannical measures. McClellan is guilty of the arrest of the Legislature of a sovereign State. He has suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and helped to enforce the odious Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln, the wiling instrument of a corrupt and tyrannical administration. He has aided while possessing military power all its efforts to strip American freemen of their liberties."

The heated debate lasted till darkness forced an adjournment, and on re-assembling in the morning a ballot was immediately taken. General McClellan received 162 votes, and 64 votes were divided among Horatio Seymour, Thomas H. Seymour of Connecticut and others; but before the result was announced several changes were made, and the vote as finally declared as 2021/2 for McClellan and 231/2 for Thomas H. Seymour. For Vice-President two ballots were taken. On the first, James Guthrie of Kentucky had 651/2 votes; George H. Pendleton of Ohio, 541/2; Governor Powell of Kentucky, 321/2; George W. Cass of Pennsylvania, 26. Mr. Guthrie had been identified with the war party; Mr. Pendleton as a member of Congress had opposed the war and was the favorite of the Peace party; and on the second ballot Mr. Guthrie's name was withdrawn and Mr. Pendleton unanimously nominated. This act completed the work of the Convention.

RE-ACTION AGAINST THE DEMOCRACY.

The response of the country to the action of the Democratic representatives was an immediate outburst of indignant rebuke. There were thousands of patriotic Democrats who deeply resented the hostility of the Convention to the loyal sentiment of the people, and who felt that it was as fatal as it was offensive. The general expression of condemnation, and the manifestations on all sides foreshadowed the doom of the Chicago ticket. General McClellan and his friends felt the necessity of doing something to placate the aroused sentiment which they could not resist, and he vainly sought to make his letter of acceptance neutralize the baneful effect of the Democratic platform.

In truth General McClellan practically disavowed the platform. He ignored the demand for a cessation of hostilities and the declaration that the war was a failure. "The re-establishment of the Union," he said, "in all its integrity is and must continue to be the indispensable condition in any settlement. So soon as it as clear, or even probable, that our present adversaries are ready for peace upon the basis of the Union, we should exhaust all the resources of statesmanship practiced by civilized nations and taught by the traditions of the American people, consistent with the honor and interests of the country, to secure such peace, re-establish the Union, and guarantee for the future the constitutional rights of every State. The Union is the one condition of peace. We ask no more." While thus proposing to "exhaust the resources of statesmanship" to secure peace, he indicated that if such efforts were unavailing the responsibility for consequences would fall upon those who remained in arms against the Union. But the letter failed to attain its object. Its dissent from the dangerous and obnoxious propositions of the platform was too guarded and reserved to be satisfactory. The people felt moreover that the deliberate declarations of the Convention and not the individual expressions of the candidate defined the policy of the party.

One of the first results of the Democratic position was the withdrawal of General Fremont from the canvass. As a loyal man he could not fail to see that his position was entirely untenable. Either Mr. Lincoln or General McClellan would be the next President and his duty was made so plain that he could not hesitate. The argument for Mr. Lincoln's re-election addressed itself with irresistible force to the patriotic sentiment and sober judgment of the country. Apart from every consideration growing out of the disloyal attitude of the Democratic Convention, it was felt that the rejection of Mr. Lincoln would be regarded by the rebels as the condemnation of the war policy and would encourage them to renewed, prolonged, and more desperate resistance. This conviction appealed to patriotic men of all parties. Mere political feeling largely subsided, and the people were actuated by a higher sense of public duty. Especially was every effort made to remove all grounds of difference which had divided members of the Union party. The Baltimore platform indicated some dissatisfaction with the Cabinet, and, acting upon this suggestion, the President requested and received the resignation of Postmaster-General Blair. It is but just to Mr. Blair to say that he gave to Mr. Lincoln his earnest and faithful support in the election.

From the hour of the Chicago Convention the whole course of events steadily strengthened the canvass for Mr. Lincoln. The turn of the political tide came with sudden and overpowering force. The news of the capture of Fort Morgan burst upon the Democratic Convention while it was declaring the war a failure, and the day after its adjournment brought the still more inspiring intelligence that Sherman had taken Atalanta. The swift successes of Farragut in Mobile Bay, following the fall of the rebel stronghold in the South, filled the country with joy. Within two days from the hour when the Chicago delegates separated with the demand for a practical surrender to the rebellion, President Lincoln was able to issue a proclamation for thanksgiving in all the churches for the great Union triumphs; and this was followed by national salutes from every navy-yard and arsenal and from all military headquarters. The political effect of the victories was instantaneous and overwhelming. As Secretary Seward expressed it in a public speech, "Sherman and Farragut have knocked the planks out of the Chicago platform."

GREAT VICTORY FOR MR. LINCOLN.

The tide of victory swept on. While Grant was holding Lee as in a vise at Petersburg, and Sherman was breaking the shell of the Confederacy at Atlanta, Sheridan was dashing through the Shenandoah Valley. Three striking victories crowned his bold and brilliant progress. The battles of Winchester and Fisher's Hill came within three weeks of Atlanta and within three days of each other. The third exploit at Cedar Creek was still more dramatic and thrilling. The succession of matchless triumphs was the theme of every journal and every orator, and the North was aflame with the enthusiasm it kindled. In the light of the answer flashed back from a score of battle-fields, the Chicago declaration that the war was a failure was not only seen to be unpatriotic and mischievous but was made contemptible by universal ridicule and obloquy.

The political effect of these victories was precisely what Mr. Lincoln had foreseen and foretold. Speaking of the issue to a friend, he said, "With reverses in the field the case is doubtful at the polls. With victory in the field the election will take care of itself." And so it was. Vermont and Maine in September, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana in October, registered in advance the edict of the people in regard to the Presidency. The result in November was an overwhelming triumph for Mr. Lincoln. Of the twenty-two States participating in the election, General McClellan received the electoral vote of but three. It is perhaps a still stronger statement to say that of the eighteen free States he received the vote of but one. New Jersey gave him her electors, and Kentucky and Delaware, angered by the impending destruction of Slavery, turned against the Administration and against the prosecution of the war. Maryland had escaped from all influences connected with Slavery by its abolition the preceding October, and now cast her vote for Mr. Lincoln. Missouri and West Virginia, the only other slave States loyal to the Union, stood firmly by the President. Mr. Lincoln received two hundred and twelve electoral votes and General McClellan received twenty-one.

The chief interest of the whole country for the last month of the campaign had centred in New York. As nearly as Mr. Lincoln was willing to regard a political contest as personal to himself, he had so regarded the contest between Mr. Seymour and Mr. Fenton. Governor Seymour's speech in the Chicago Convention had been an indictment of a most malignant type against the Administration. The President felt that he was himself wholly wrong or Governor Seymour was wholly wrong, and the people of New York were to decide which. They rendered their verdict in the election of Reuben E. Fenton to the Governorship by a majority of thousands over Mr. Seymour. Without that result Mr. Lincoln's triumph would have been incomplete. For its accomplishment great credit was awarded to the Republican candidate for the admirable thoroughness of his canvass and for the judicious direction of public thought to the necessity of vindicating the President against the aspersions of Mr. Seymour. The victory in the Nation was the most complete ever achieved in an election that was seriously contested.

CHAPTER XXV.

President's Message, December, 1864.—General Sherman's March.— Compensated Emancipation abandoned.—Thirteenth Amendment.—Earnestly recommended by the President.—He appeals to the Democratic Members. —Mr. Ashley's Energetic Work.—Democratic Opportunity.—Unwisely neglected.—Mr. Pendleton's Argument.—Final Vote.—Amendment adopted.—Cases arising under it.—Supreme Court.—Change of Judges at Different Periods.—Peace Conference at Fortress Monroe.— Secretary Chase resigns.—Mr. Fessenden succeeds him.—Mr. Fessenden's Report.—Surrender of Lee.—General Grant's Military Character.— Assassination of President Lincoln.—His Characteristics.—Cost of the War.—Compared with Wars of Other Nations.—Our Navy.—Created during the War.—Effective Blockade.—Its Effect upon the South.— Its Influence upon the Struggle.—Relative Numbers in Loyal and Disloyal States.—Comparison of Union and Confederate Armies.— Confederate Army at the Close of the War.—Union Armies compared with Armies of Foreign Countries.—Area of the War.—Its Effect upon the Cost.—Character of Edwin M. Stanton.

Sustained by so emphatic a vote of popular confidence, President Lincoln greeted Congress on the first Monday of December, 1864, with a hopeful and cheerful message. He reported that our armies, holding all the lines and positions gained, "have steadily advanced, thus liberating the regions left in the rear." The President regarded "General Sherman's march of three hundred miles directly through an insurgent country" as the "most remarkable feature in the military operations of the year." It was in progress when the President delivered his message, and "the result not yet being known, conjecture in regard to it cannot be here indulged." The President reported that the actual disbursements in money from the Treasury for the past fiscal year were $865,234,087.86.

Mr. Lincoln had finally abandoned the project of compensating the Border States for their loss of property in slaves. The people of those States had, through their representatives, blindly and willfully rejected the offer when it was urged upon them by the Administration, and had defeated the bill embodying the proposition on the eve of its passage in the House when it had already passed the Senate. The situation was now entirely changed. Maryland, without waiting for National action and regardless of compensation, had in the preceding October taken the matter under her own control and deliberately abolished slavery. Mr. Lincoln now announced the State as "secure to liberty and union for all the future. The genius of rebellion will no longer claim Maryland. Like another foul spirit being driven out, it may seek to tear her, but it will woo her no more." There was no reason why the other Border States should not follow her example—and there was the strongest argument against compensating another State for doing what Maryland had done of her own free will and from an instinct of patriotism, as the one act which would conclusively separate her from all possibility of sympathy with the rebellion.

Freed thus from what he may have regarded as the obligations of his Border-State policy and upheld by the great popular majority which he had received in the election, the President warmly recommended to Congress the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. He called attention to the fact that it had already received the sanction of the Senate, but failed in the House for lack of the requisite two-thirds vote. There was no doubt that the large Republican majority, already elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress, would adopt the Amendment, but such adoption implied postponement for a whole year, with loss of the moral influence which would be gained by prompter action. It implied also that the Amendment would depend solely upon Republican votes, and the President was especially anxious that it should receive Democratic support. Still another reason wrought upon the President's mind. He believed the rebellion to be near its end, and no man could tell how soon a proposition might come for the surrender of the Confederate Armies and the return of the Rebel States to their National allegiance. If such a proposition should be made, Mr. Lincoln knew that there would be a wild desire among the loyal people to accept it, and that in the forgiving joy of re-union they would not insist upon the conditions which he believed essential to the future safety and strength of the National Government. Slavery had been abolished in the District of Columbia by a law of Congress, and in Maryland by her own action. It still existed in the other Border States and in Tennessee, and its abolition in the remaining States of the Confederacy depended upon the validity of the President's Proclamation of Emancipation.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.

Without discussing the validity of the Proclamation Mr. Lincoln incidentally assumed it, with an emphatic assertion of his own position, which came nearer the language of threat than his habitual prudence and moderation had ever permitted him to indulge. "In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war," said the President, "I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. . . . While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that Proclamation or by any of the Acts of Congress. If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.." This was fair notice by Mr. Lincoln to all the world that so long as he was President the absolute validity of the Proclamation would be maintained at all hazards.

This position enabled the President to plead effectively with Congress for the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment and the consequent avoidance of all possible conflicts between different departments of the Government touching the legal character of the Proclamation. Recognizing the fact that he was addressing the same House of Representatives which had already rejected the anti-slavery amendment, he made a special appeal, though without using partisan names, to the Democratic members. "Without questioning the wisdom or patriotism of those who stood in opposition," said the President, "I venture to recommend the reconsideration and passage of the measure at the present session. Of course the abstract question is not changed, but an intervening election shows almost certainly that the next Congress will pass the measure if this Congress does not. Hence there is only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment will go to the States for their action, and as it is to go at all events, may we not agree that the sooner the better?" He urged the argument still more closely upon the Democratic members. "In a great national crisis like ours, unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable, almost indispensable, and yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority." Mr. Lincoln found much encouragement in the fact that in the national election "no candidate for any office whatever, high or low, ventured to seek votes on the avowal that he was in favor of giving up the Union. . . . In the distinct issue of Union or no Union the politicians have shown their instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people."

The proposed Constitutional amendment was brought before the House on the 6th of January by Mr. Ashley of Ohio, upon whose motion to reconsider the adverse vote of the preceding session, the question continued to have a parliamentary status. He made a forcible speech in support of the amendment, but the chief value of his work did not consist in speaking, but in his watchful care of the measure, in the quick and intuitive judgment with which he discerned every man on the Democratic side of the House who felt anxious as to the vote he should give on the momentous question, and in the pressure which he brought to bear upon him from the best and most influential of his constituents. The issue presented was one that might well make thoughtful men pause and consider. The instant restoration to four millions of human beings of the God-given right of freedom so long denied them, depended upon the vote of the House of Representatives. It addressed itself to the enlightened judgment and to the Christian philanthropy of every member. Each one had to decide for himself whether so far as lay in the power of his own vote he would give liberty to the slave, or forge his fetters anew. The constitutional duty of not interfering with slavery in the States could not be pleaded at the bar of conscience for an adverse vote. There was no doubt that under the terms of the Constitution such interference was unwarranted. But this was a question of changing the Constitution itself so as to confer upon Congress the express power to enlarge the field of personal liberty and make the Republic free indeed. It came therefore as an original and a distinct question whether millions of people with their descendants for all time should be doomed to slavery or gifted with freedom.

It was a singular opportunity for the Democratic party. Its members had always professed to be endued with a broader spirit of liberty than their opponents who under various organizations had confronted them in the political contests of the preceding half-century. In their evangelization of Liberty the Democrats had halted at the color-line, but, as they alleged, only because the solemn obligations of the Constitution forbade a step beyond. Here by the converging exigencies of war it became of vast interest to the white race that slavery should be smitten and destroyed. Its destruction was indeed the deadliest blow that could be given to the Rebellion which was threatening destruction to the Republic. It was not unfair to say, as was said by many during the crisis, that it was brought to every man's conscience to decide whether he would continue to imperil the fate of the Union by refusing the enfranchise the slave.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.

It fell to Mr. George H. Pendleton to play an important part in this crisis. His leadership on the Democratic side of the House had been confirmed by the popular voice of his party in the nomination for the Vice-Presidency, and though he had been defeated in the election he returned to the House with increased prestige among his own political associates. The argument he had made the preceding session was now repeated with earnest spirit and in plausible form. He maintained that "three-fourths of the States do not possess the constitutional power to pass this amendment." A colleague from Ohio (Mr. S. S. Cox) had made a radical argument in the other direction, asserting that "three-fourths of the States have the right to amend the Constitution in every particular except the two specified in the instrument; they have the right to do any thing, even to erect a monarchy!" Without carrying the argument so far, Mr. Cox might well have reminded his colleague that four years before, in the winter of compromise preceding the war, the one point sought to be gained by all who asked additional guaranties for slavery was that the power to abolish the institution by constitutional amendment should be taken from the States. It would have been a precious consolation at the time to Mr. Pendleton's Southern friends, to hear from him the argument that no such power existed and that slavery was in no danger from its attempted exercise. Such action by the Federal Government was the one thing which the South had especially dreaded and which all the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Congress of 1861 aimed to prevent. Mr. Pendleton omitted his argument therefore at the most pertinent time for its submission, but he made it now with freshness and vigor and with evident effect upon his political associates.

Mr. Pendleton was very effectively answered by many members on the Republican side of the House; by General Garfield elaborately, by Mr. Boutwell briefly but most pointedly. The debate was prolonged and able. At least one-third of the entire House took part in it. The ground was somewhat beaten, but many of the arguments were of permanent historic interest. Among the most valuable were the speeches of Mr. Glenni W. Scofield of Pennsylvania, Mr. John A. Kasson of Iowa, and Mr. James S. Rollins of Missouri. As the representative of a slave-holding constituency the argument and vote of Mr. Rollins were of special weight. The tone and temper of the speeches exhibited assurance on one side and failing confidence on the other. The moral pressure was steadily for the Amendment and its strength grew rapidly both in Congress and the country. It had been borne into the minds of the people that slavery had produced the war, and it seemed a righteous retribution that slavery should end with the war. It had drawn the sword; let it perish by the sword.

When the hour arrived for the final struggle, on Tuesday, January 31, 1865, the galleries of the House were filled in every part, largely no doubt by friends of the measure. There were eight absentees, without pairs. They were all Democrats. It may be assumed that they assented to the amendment, but that they were not prepared to give it positive support. This list comprised Jesse Lazear of Pennsylvania, John F. McKinney and Francis C. Le Blond of Ohio, Daniel W. Voorhees and James F. McDowell of Indiana, George Middleton and A. J. Rogers of New Jersey, and Daniel Marcy of New Hampshire. The members of the Democratic party who gave their votes for the amendment, and thus secured its passage by the Thirty-eighth Congress, were James E. English of Connecticut, Anson Herrick, William Radford, Homer A. Nelson, John B. Steele and John Ganson of New York, A. H. Coffroth and Archibald McAllister of Pennsylvania, Wells A. Hutchins of Ohio, and Augustus C. Baldwin of Michigan. Mr. Nelson had not voted at the first session, but all the others are recorded against the proposition. With the aid of these eleven, the vote was 119 yeas to 56 nays—more than the constitutional two-thirds. When the announcement was made, the Speaker became powerless to preserve order. The members upon the Republican side sprang upon their seats cheering, shouting, and waving hands, hats, and canes, while the spectators upon the floor and in the galleries joined heartily in the demonstration. Upon the restoration of order Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois rose and said, "Mr. Speaker, in honor of this immortal and sublime event, I move that this House do now adjourn." The Speaker declared the motion carried, but Mr. Harris of Maryland demanded the ayes and noes, and the House adjourned by a vote of 121 to 24.

The great act of Liberation, so far as Congress could control it, was complete. The amendment was at once submitted to the States, and by official proclamation of December 18, 1865,—less than eleven months after Congress had spoken,—the Secretary of State announced that it had been ratified by the Legislatures of twenty-seven States and was a part of the Constitution. The result was attained by the united action of one party and the aid of a minority of the other party. The co-operation of the Democratic members had gained for the cause of emancipation a whole year. The action was of transcendent importance,—lofty in conception, masterful in execution. Slavery in the United States was dead. To succeeding and not distant generations its existence in a Republic, for three-quarters of a century, will be an increasing marvel.

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT IN COURT.

The language of the Thirteenth Amendment is so comprehensive and absolute that vital questions of law are not likely at any time to arise under it. The Article is in two parts. First, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Second, Congres shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation." By this Amendment the relation between the National and State Governments, respecting the question of Human Liberty, was radically changed. Before its adoption slavery could be established or abolished in any State at the will of the majority. The National prohibition now extended everywhere that the flag floated; freedom of the person became thenceforth a matter of National concern. The power of the State was subordinated to the continuing and supreme authority of the Nation.

The Supreme Court has had occasion in a few cases only to deal with the Thirteenth Amendment, and in those cases the questions raised did not touch the validity or scope of the Article. In the case of White v. Hart, reported in 13 Wallace, the Court held that a note given for slaves at a time prior to emancipation was a valid contract and could be enforced. This judgment was rendered in the face of the fact that the Reconstructed Constitution of the State of Georgia, where the contract was made, contained a provision that no Court should have or take "jurisdiction in any case of debt the consideration of which was a slave or the hire thereof." The Court held that the provision in the Georgia Constitution was invalid as to all agreements made prior to its adoption, upon the ground that it was a violation of the Constitution of the United States which provides that no State shall make any law "impairing the obligation of contracts." In the case of Osborne v. Nicholson, 13 Wallace, where the cause of action was a note given for a slave in Arkansas, March 20, 1861, the Court held that the Thirteenth Amendment did not constitute a bar to the claim. These cases serve to show the narrow and restricted character of the issues made under the Article —issues long since passed by the limitation of time.

One point in the adoption of the Amendment caused much speculation at the time, not unaccompanied with anxiety. The whole number of States was thirty-six. The assent of three-fourths of that number was required to amend the Constitution. Twenty-seven States voted through their Legislatures in favor of the Amendment—precisely the requisite number. But of these, nine had been in rebellion and had not at the time been restored to the enjoyment of their rights as States in the Union. They had not been re-admitted to representation either in the House or the Senate. The majority of these States were not considered to be entitled to representation in Congress for three years after they had given their formal assent to the Thirteenth Amendment. The question as to whether they could give valid assent to an amendment to the Constitution was one which might possibly be raised. If they were not in condition to enjoy representation in Congress, it might be asked how they could be in condition to perform a much higher function. If they could not participate in the enactment of Statute Law, how could they participate in the far weightier duty of framing the Organic Law of the Republic?

If the same judges who pronounced the Dred Scott decision had been still on the Bench, serious trouble might have arisen. But there had been a radical change in the Judicial Department, not simply in the personnel of the judges but in the views they entertained touching the functions, powers, and duties of the Federal Government. It fell to Mr. Lincoln's lot to appoint a majority of the judges and thus practically to constitute a new Court. Washington, the elder Adams, and Jackson were the only Presidents before him who had appointed a Chief Justice, and when he nominated Mr. Chase, there had been only one other chief justice named for sixty-three years. He appointed as associate justices Noah Swayne of Ohio, Samuel F. Miller of Iowa, David Davis of Illinois, all in 1862, and Stephen J. Field of California the year following. Mr. Lincoln's sound judgment was apparent in this as in other great duties. There are single judges in our history who, in point of learning, rank higher in the estimation of the legal profession, but perhaps never a majority of the court who were superior in all the qualities which adorn the Judicial character.

THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT.

Considering that the tenure is for life, it seemed as if an extraordinary number of Judicial appointments fell to one President. But as the eminence which fits a man for the high station is not attained until past the middle period of life, the changes are necessarily somewhat rapid. Washington in his Presidency of eight years nominated, for a Court of six members, eleven judges who served, besides one who declined and one who was rejected. Down to this period in our history (1884) it has fallen to the lot of each of our twenty-one Presidents except Harrison, Tyler, and Johnson, to nominate at least one associate justice. Under Jackson and Van Buren the entire Court was revolutionized. A Chief Justice and six associates were appointed, selected exclusively from their political supporters. From that time onward until the Administration of Mr. Lincoln, every judge was selected from the Democratic party, with the exception of Benjamin R. Curtis who was appointed by President Fillmore. When Mr. Lincoln entered upon his official duties, the Judicial Department of the Government differenced in every conceivable way from his construction of the Constitution in so far as the question of slavery was involved. But one judge could be expected to look with favor upon the course he would pursue. The venerable John McLean, though placed on the Bench by Jackson, had changed his political views and relations, and he alone of all the justices sympathized with Mr. Lincoln.

The Southern States prior to 1860 had secured a large majority of appointments on the Supreme Bench. In originally constituting the Court Washington had equally divided the judges between the slave States and the free States. After his Administration and until the incoming of President Lincoln, the Court uniformly contained a majority of Southern men. From the beginning of the Government until the election of Mr. Lincoln, there had been eighteen associate justices appointed from the slave States, and but fifteen from the free States. The average term of service of the judges from the South had been about fourteen years; from the North about twelve years. From 1789 to 1860, the Chief Justice had been from the South during the whole period with the exception of twelve years. It is a fact worth noting that neither the elder nor the younger Adams appointed a Northern man to the Bench. They appointed three from the South. It is not among the least of the honors belonging to the elder Adams that he gave to the country the illustrious Chief Justice Marshall.

Directly after the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment came a wide- spread rumor that negotiations for peace were in progress which might interfere with the anti-slavery action of Congress. On the 8th of February Mr. Thaddeus Stevens moved and the House unanimously adopted a resolution requesting "the President to communicate to the House such information as he may deem not incompatible with the public interest relative to the recent conference between himself and the Secretary of State and Messrs. Alexander H. Stephens, Robert M. T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell in Hampton Roads." Mr. Lincoln replied at once, giving in detail every step which had led to the conference, and all that was accomplished by it. It was brought about by the elder Francis P. Blair, who under a flag of truce had visited Richmond early in January. Mr. Lincoln had steadily insisted on three preliminary conditions: First, the absolute restoration of the national authority in all the States; second, no receding from the positions taken on the slavery question; third, no cessation of military operations on the part of the Government till the hostile forces surrendered and disbanded. On these conditions the Confederate agents could not treat, and the conference came to no agreement. In his message Mr. Lincoln made one significant remark. "By the other party it was not said that in any event or on any condition they would ever consent to re- union; and yet they equally omitted to declare that they would not so consent." The proceedings left no special interest, except one characteristic anecdote of Mr. Lincoln. The Confederate agents desired the recognition of the power of "President" Davis to make a treaty. Mr. Lincoln would not consent to this, would not in any event or in any way recognize another "President" within the territory of the United States. Mr. Hunter cited the example of Charles I. treating with rebels in his own kingdom. Mr. Lincoln replied that his only distinct recollection of that matter was that Charles lost his head!

MR. FESSENDEN IN THE TREASURY.

Soon after the Baltimore Convention, Mr. Chase resigned his position as Secretary of the Treasury. The relations between himself and the President had become personally somewhat unpleasant, but that there had been no loss of confidence or respect was proven by the President's nomination of Mr. Chase to be Chief Justice of the United States as the successor of the venerable Roger B. Taney, who died on the 12th of October (1864). William Pitt Fessenden succeeded Mr. Chase in the Treasury, and entered upon his duties on the fifth day of July. He was admirably fitted by every mental and moral quality for the position, but he did not possess the physical strength necessary for the arduous labor which it imposed. He consented in response to the very earnest request of Mr. Lincoln to accept the trust for a brief period. It was of great importance to the country, to the Administration, and to Mr. Lincoln personally that Mr. Chase should be succeeded by a man of no less eminent character.

In his report of December 6, 1864, Mr. Fessenden discussed the financial situation with comprehensive ability. He urged additional taxation, some plan for making the public lands available as a source of revenue, and arrangements for carrying out the laws for a sinking-fund. He opposed the suggestion of resorting to foreign loans for any part of the money needed. He said, "This nation has been able thus far to conduct a domestic war of unparalleled magnitude and cost without appealing for aid to any foreign people. It has chosen to demonstrate its power to put down insurrection by its own strength, and furnish no pretense for doubt of its entire ability to do so, either to domestic or foreign foes. The people of the United States have felt a just pride in this position before the world. In the judgment of the secretary it may well be doubted whether the national credit abroad has not been strengthened and sustained by the fact that foreign investments in our securities have not been sought by us, and whether we have not found a pecuniary advantage in self-reliance." Reciting the steps which he had taken for placing loans, he declared; "These negotiations have afforded satisfactory evidence not only of the ability of the people to furnish at a short notice such sums as may be required but of the entire confidence felt in the national securities. After nearly four years of a most expensive and wasting war, the means to continue it seem apparently undiminished, while the determination to prosecute it with vigor to the end is unabated."

Liberal response was made by Congress to Mr. Fessenden's request for enlarged power to borrow money. The internal revenue was made more stringent, the tariff was amended and made still more protective, and to facilitate the raising of troops the Conscription Act was made more severe and exacting. Congress proceeded as if the war were still to continue for years. Nothing was neglected, nothing relaxed. But every one could see that the Confederacy was tottering to its fall. Sherman's magnificent march across Georgia, to which the President referred as in progress when he sent his message to Congress, had been completed with entire success, with an eclat indeed which startled Europe as well as America. He had captured Savannah, and was marching North driving the army of General Joseph E. Johnston before him. General Grant meanwhile was tightening his hold on Richmond and on the army of General Lee. From his camp on the James he was directing military operations over an area of vast extent. The great victory which General Thomas had won over Hood's army in the preceding December at Nashville had effectually destroyed the military power of the Confederacy in the South-West, and when Congress adjourned on the day of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration there was in the mind of the people everywhere a conviction that the end was near.

The President himself spoke guardedly in his Inaugural address. He simply said that "the progress of our armies is reasonably satisfactory and encouraging. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured." The tone of the address, so far from being jubilant as the mass of his hearers felt, was ineffably sad. It seemed to bear the wail of an oppressed spirit. The thought and the language were as majestic as those of the ancient prophets. As if in agony of soul the President cried out: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

The fall of the military power of the rebellion was in the end more rapid and more complete than the most sanguine had dared to expect. The month of March was one of great activity with our military forces. Three weeks after his inauguration the President went to City Point, Virginia, partly to escape the pressure of duty at Washington and party to be near the scene of the final triumph to settle any important questions that might arise, if an offer of surrender should be made by the Confederate commander. On the day before his inauguration he had directed the Secretary of War to say to General Grant that he wished him to "have no conference with General Lee unless for the capitulation of his army or for some purely military matter." The President did "not wish General Grant to decide, discuss or confer upon any political question." He would not submit such questions "to military conferences or conventions." He returned to Washington on the 8th of April and on the succeeding day the Army of Lee surrendered to General Grant.

THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE.

The rejoicing throughout the Loyal States cannot be pictured. Congratulation was universal. The end had come. Sympathy with the South in her exhausted and impoverished condition mingled largely with the exultant joy over a restored Union, a triumphant flag, an assured future of National progress. Admiration was not withheld from the soldiers of the Confederacy, who had borne their banner so bravely against every discouragement on a hundred fields of battle. The bearing of General Grant and General Lee at the final surrender was marked by a spirit of chivalric dignity which was an instructive lesson to all their countrymen—alike to the victor and to the vanquished.

General Grant's active service in the field closed with the surrender of Lee. All the commanders of Confederate forces followed the example of their General-in-Chief, and before the end of the month the armed enemies of the Union had practically ceased to exist. The fame of General Grant was full. He had entered the service with no factitious advantage, and his promotion, from the first to the last, had been based on merit alone,—without the aid of political influence, without the interposition of personal friends. Criticism of military skill is but idle chatter in the face of an unbroken career of victory. General Grant's campaigns were varied in their requirements and, but for the fertility of his resources and his unbending will, might often have ended in disaster. Courage is as contagious as fear, and General Grant possessed in the highest degree that faculty which is essential to all great commanders,— the faculty of imparting throughout the rank and file of his army the same determination to win with which he was himself always inspired.

One peculiarity of General Grant's military career was his constant readiness to fight. He wished for no long periods of preparation, lost no opportunity which promptness could turn to advantage. He always accepted, without cavil or question, the position to which he might be assigned. He never troubled the War Department with requests or complaints, and when injustice was inflicted upon him, he submitted silently, and did a soldier's duty. Few men in any service would have acquiesced so quietly as did General Grant, when at the close of the remarkable campaign beginning at Fort Henry and ending at Shiloh, he found himself superseded by General Halleck, and assigned to a subordinate command in an army whose glory was inseparably associated with his own name. Self-control is the first requisite for him who aims to control others. In that indispensable form of mental discipline General Grant exhibited perfection.

When he was appointed Lieutenant-General, and placed in command of all the armies of the Union, he exercised military control over a greater number of men than has any general since the invention of fire-arms. In the campaigns of 1864 and 1865, the armies of the Union contained in the aggregate not less than a million of men. The movements of all the vast forces were kept in harmony by his comprehensive mind, and in the grand consummation which insured Union and Liberty, his name became inseparably associated with the true glory of his country.

Six days after the surrender of Lee, the Nation was thrown into the deepest grief by the assassination of the President. The gloom which enshrouded the country was as thick darkness. The people had come, through many alterations of fear and hope, to repose the most absolute trust in Mr. Lincoln. They realized that he had seen clearly where they were blind, that he had known fully where they were ignorant. He had been patient, faithful, and far-seeing. Religious people regarded him as one divinely appointed, like the prophets of old, to a great work, and they found comfort in the parallel which they saw in his death with that of the leader of Israel. He too had reached the mountain's top, and had seen the land redeemed unto the utmost sea, and had then died.

CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Mr. Lincoln had been some time in the Presidency before the public estimate of him was correct or appreciative. The people did not at first understand him. In the glamour of the Presidential canvass they had idealized him,—attributing to him some traits above and many below his essential qualities. After his election and before his inauguration there was a general disposition to depreciate him. He became associated in the popular mind with an impending calamity, and tens of thousands who had voted for him, heartily repented the act and inwardly execrated the day that committed the destinies of the Union to his keeping. The first strong test brought upon Mr. Lincoln was this depressing re-action among so many of his supporters. A man with less resolute purpose would have been cast down by it, but Mr. Lincoln preserved the mens aequa in arduis. Through the gloom of the weeks preceding his inauguration he held his even way. Perhaps in the more terrible crises through which he was afterwards called to pass, a firmer nerve was required, but not so rare a combination of qualities as he had shown in the dismal months with which the year 1861 opened.

Mr. Lincoln united firmness and gentleness in a singular degree. He rarely spoke a harsh word. Ready to hear argument and always open to conviction, he adhered tenaciously to the conclusions which he had finally reached. Altogether modest, he had confidence in himself, trusted to the reasoning of his own mind, believed in the correctness of his own judgment. Many of the popular conceptions concerning him are erroneous. No man was farther than he from the easy, familiar, jocose character in which he is often painted. While he paid little attention to form or ceremony he was not a men with whom liberties could be taken. There was but one person in Illinois outside of his own household who ventured to address him by his first name. There was no one in Washington who ever attempted it. Appreciating wit and humor, he relished a good story, especially if it illustrated a truth or strengthened an argument, and he had a vast fund of illustrative anecdote which he used with the happiest effect. But the long list of vulgar, salacious stories attributed to him, were retailed only by those who never enjoyed the privilege of exchanging a word with him. His life was altogether a serious one—inspired by the noblest spirit, devoted to the highest aims. Humor was but an incident with him, a partial relief to the melancholy which tinged all his years.

He presented an extraordinary combination of mental and moral qualities. As a statesman he had the loftiest ideal, and it fell to his lot to inaugurate measures which changed the fate of millions of living men, of tens of millions yet to be born. As a manager of political issues and master of the art of presenting them, he has had no rival in this country unless one be found in Jefferson. The complete discomfiture of his most formidable assailants in 1863, especially of those who sought to prejudice him before the people on account of the arrest of Vallandigham, cannot easily be paralleled for shrewdness of treatment and for keen appreciation of the reactionary influences which are certain to control public opinion. Mr. Van Buren stands without rival in the use of partisan tactics. He operated altogether on men, and believed in self- interest as the mainspring of human action. Mr. Lincoln's ability was of a far higher and broader character. There was never the slightest lack of candor or fairness in his methods. He sought to control men through their reason and their conscience. The only art the employed was that of presenting his views so convincingly as to force conviction on the minds of his hearers and his readers.

The Executive talent of Mr. Lincoln was remarkable. He was emphatically the head of his own Administration, ultimate judge at all points and on all occasions where questions of weight were to be decided. An unwise eulogist of Mr. Seward attributes to him the origination and enforcement of the great policies which distinguished the Administration. So far is this from the truth that in more than one instance the most momentous steps were taken against the judgment and contrary to the advice of the Secretary of State. The position of control and command so firmly held by Mr. Lincoln was strikingly shown when the Peace Conference was about to assemble at Fortress Monroe. He dispatched Mr. Seward to the place of meeting in advance of his own departure from Washington, giving him the most explicit instructions as to his mode of action, —prescribing carefully the limitations he should observe, and concluding with these words: "You will hear all they may choose to say, and report it to me. You will not assume to definitely consummate any thing." Assuredly this is not the language of deference. It does not stop short of being the language of command. It is indeed the expression of one who realized that he was clothed with all the power belonging to his great office. No one had a more sincere admiration of Mr. Seward's large qualities than the President; no one more thoroughly appreciated his matchless powers. But Mr. Lincoln had not only full trust in his own capacity, but a deep sense of his own responsibility—a responsibility which could not be transferred and for which he felt answerable to his conscience and to God.

CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

There has been discussion as to Mr. Lincoln's religious belief. He was silent as to his own preference among creeds. Prejudice against any particular denomination he did not entertain. Allied all his life with Protestant Christianity, he thankfully availed himself of the services of an eminent Catholic prelate—Archbishop Hughes of New York—in a personal mission to England, of great importance, at a crisis when the relations between the two countries were disturbed and threatening. Throughout the whole period of the war he constantly directed the attention of the nation to dependence on God. It may indeed be doubted whether he omitted this in a single state paper. In every message to Congress, in eery proclamation to the people, he made it prominent. In July, 1863, after the battle of Gettysburg he called upon the people to give thanks because "it had pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and prayers of an afflicted people and to vouchsafe signal and effective victories to the Army and Navy of the United States," and he asked the people "to render homage to the Divine Majesty and to invoke the influence of his Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion." On another occasion, recounting the blessings which had come to the Union, he said, "No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out, these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy." Throughout his entire official career,—attended at all times with exacting duty and painful responsibility,—he never forgot his own dependence, or the dependence of the people, upon a Higher Power. In his last public address, delivered to an immense crowd assembled at the White House on the 11th of April, to congratulate him on the victories of the Union, the President, standing as he unconsciously was in the very shadow of death, said reverently to his hearers, "In the midst of your joyous expression, He from whom all blessings flow must first be remembered"!

Not only in life but in treasure the cost of the war was enormous. In addition to the large revenues of the Government which had been currently absorbed, the public debt at the close of the struggle was $2,808,549,437.55. The incidental losses were innumerable in kind, incalculable in amount. Mention is made here only of the actual expenditure of money—estimated by the standard of gold. The outlay was indeed principally made in paper, but the faith of the United States was given for redemption in coin—a faith which has never been tarnished, and which in this instance has been signally vindicated by the steady determination of the people. Never, in the same space of time, has there been a National expenditure so great.

Other nations have made costly sacrifices in struggles affecting their existence or their master passions. In the memorable campaigns of the French in 1794, when the Republic was putting forth its most gigantic energies, the expenses rose to 200,000,000 francs a month, or about $450,000,000 a year. For the three years of the rebellion, after the first year, our War Department alone expended $603,314,411.82, $690,391,048.66, and $1,030,690,400 respectively. The French Directory broke down under its expenditures by its lavish issue of assignats and the French Republic became bankrupt. Our Government was saved by its rigorous system of taxation imposed upon the people by themselves. Under Napoleon, in addition to the impositions on conquered countries, the budgets hardly exceeded in francs the charges of the United States for the rebellion, in dollars. Thus in 1805 the French budget exhibited total expenditures of 666,155,139 francs, including 69,140,000 francs for interest on the debt. In the same year the minister stated to the Chambers that income was derived from Italy of 30,000,000 francs, and from Germany and Holland 100,000,000, leaving 588,998,705 to be collected from France. In 1813 the French expenditures had risen to 953,658,772 francs, and the total receipts from French revenue were 780,959,847 francs. The French national debt has been measured since 1797 by the interest paid, fixed at that time at five per cent. From 1800 to 1814, the period of the Consulate and the Empire, this interest was increased by 23,091,635 francs, indicating an addition of twenty times that sum to the principal of the debt. The Government of the Restoration added in 1815, 101,260,635 francs to the annual interest. Thus the cost of the Napoleonic wars to France may be stated at about $487,000,000 added to the principal of the debt, or less than one-fifth of the increment of our national obligations on account of the rebellion. The French burdens were extended over the whole period from 1800 to 1814. Our own were concentrated into the space of four years.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURES IN THE WAR.

The total expenditures of Great Britain during the French Revolution and the career of Napoleon were L1,490,000,888, or nearly five times that sum in dollars. The largest expenditures in any single year were in 1815, L130,305,958, or in dollars, $631,976,894. After 1862 our expenditures were not so low as that in any year, and they were more than double that sum in the closing year of the war when the great armies were mustered out of service and final payment was made to all.

The British expenditures in the war against the French during the period of the Revolution were a little more than L490,000,000 and against Napoleon a little less than L1,000,000,000; or $4,850,000,000 in the aggregate, for twenty-three years. The total outlay was therefore larger than our payments on account of the rebellion. But there was no period of ten years in her wars with the French, in which Great Britain expended so much as the United States expended in four years. The loss of Great Britain by discounts in raising money or by the use of depreciated paper was greater than that incurred by the United States. A leading English authority says that of the vast burden up to 1816, the "artificial enhancements due to discounts in raising money were so great that for every L100 received into the treasury a national debt of L173 was created."

No other wars than those of England and France can be compared with ours in point of expenditure. For the war between France and Germany in 1870 the indemnity demanded by the conqueror was 5,000,000,000 francs, equivalent in American money to $930,000,000. This sum was much in excess of the outlay of Germany. The expenses of France on her own account in that contest were 1,873,238,000 francs, or $348,432,068, and this is only from one-half to one- third of the annual outlay of the United States during the rebellion. France added to the interest charge at this time 349,637,116 francs, indicating that the whole sum of the indemnity and other war expenditures has passed into the principal of the permanent debt of the country.

The one grand feature of this lavish expenditure of wealth by the Government of the United States is that it was directed and enforced by the people themselves. No imperial power commanded it, no kingly prerogative controlled it. It was the free, unbiased, unchangeable will of the Sovereign People. They declared at the ballot-box, by untrammeled popular suffrage, that the war must go on. "The American people,"—said Henry Winter Davis in the House of Representatives at one of the most exciting periods of the struggle,—"the American people, rising to the height of the occasion, dedicate this generation to the sword, and, pouring out the blood of their children, demand that there be no compromise; that ruin to the Republic or ruin to the Rebel Confederacy are the only alternatives; that no peace shall be made except under the banner of Victory. Standing on this great resolve to accept nothing but Victory or ruin, Victory is ours!"

At the outbreak of hostilities the Government discovered that it had no Navy at its command. The Secretary, Mr. Welles, found upon entering his office but a single ship in a Northern port fitted to engage in aggressive operations. In the beginning of the great contest which was at once to be waged upon the seas, wherein the Government proposed to close Southern ports, and the South to destroy Northern commerce, the advantage was clearly with the South. From Cape Henry to the Rio Grande the Navy of the United States was called upon to create an effective blockade against all ingress and egress. The conformation of the coast, which along great distances prevented the entrance and exit of ocean-going vessels, materially aided in the task, but it was still such a one as had never before been attempted in the naval history of the world. The line to be subjected to blockade was as long as the line from the Bay of Biscay to the Golden Horn and in many respects it was far more difficult to control.

This blockade was an absolute necessity imposed on the United States. The South relied with implicit faith upon its ability to secure by the sale of cotton the means of carrying on the war. The Confederate Government did not believe that the United States would hazard a conflict with the manufacturing nations of Europe, by attempting a blockade that would prevent the export of the staple; or if they did believe it, they looked upon it as the fatuous step on the part of the National Government that would promptly induce intervention by the combined power of England and France. This reliance was explicitly stated in advance by Mr. Hammond of South Carolina, who three years before the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, on the fourth day of March, 1858, made this declaration in the United-States Senate:—

"Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should the North make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain, England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No Power on earth dares to make war upon cotton. Cotton is King."

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BLOCKADE.

Boastful and impotent as the declaration of Mr. Hammond now seems, it had a better basis of fact to stand upon than many of the fiery predictions in which Southern statesmen were wont to indulge. The importance of cotton to the civilized world could hardly be exaggerated, and yet it was this very importance that forced the United States to the course which was pursued. The National Government could not permit the export of cotton without constantly aggrandizing the power of the rebellion, and it could not prevent its export without tempting the manufacturing nations of Europe to raise the blockade. The Administration wisely prepared to enforce the blockade and to meet all the consequences.

To accomplish its undertaking, the energy of the Nation was devoted to the creation of a navy. By the end of the year 1863 the government had six hundred vessels of war which were increased to seven hundred before the rebellion was subdued. Of the total number at least seventy-five were ironclad. It may be instanced with laudable pride that one enterprising man, honorably distinguished as a scientific engineer, constructed in less than a hundred days an armored squadron of eight ships, in the aggregate of five thousand tons burden, capable of steaming nine knots per hour and destined for effective service upon the rivers of the South-West. When the contractor, Mr. James B. Eads of St. Louis, agreed to furnish these steamers to the Government, the timber from which they were to be built was still standing in the forest and the machinery with which the armor was to be rolled was not constructed.

A year after the first battle was fought the naval force of the United States had practically interdicted all legitimate commerce with the Southern States. No more effective method of warfare could have been devised. At the outbreak of the war the States in rebellion were able to manufacture but few of the articles indispensable to the ordinary life of a people. Their wealth was purely agricultural. Cotton and tobacco were their only exports. For a supply of manufactures the South had depended wholly upon its trade with the North and with Europe. The natural effect of the war was greatly to lessen production, and the blockade made it impossible to find a market for any large portion of the diminished product of cotton. As a striking evidence of the prosperity in the South at the time it complained of oppression, the largest cotton crop which had ever been grown was that of 1860. It numbered more than five million two hundred thousand bales, nearly four and a half millions of which had found a ready market in Europe and the North before the outbreak of the war. The crop of 1861 was little more than one-half that of the preceding year. Of the three and a half millions which remained available for export at the end of 1861 it was estimated that up to August, 1862, not more than fifty thousand bales had been carried to England, the principal foreign consumer.

The demand for food created by the Southern army caused a majority of the plantations to raise corn, and the cotton crop of 1862 did not amount to more than one million bales, very little of which found a foreign market; and the supply and exportation diminished from this time onward. Cotton which sold in December, 1861, in Liverpool for 113/4d. per pound had risen in December, 1862, to 241/2d. per pound, and as a result, half a million persons in England, dependent for their daily bread upon this manufacturing industry, were thrown out of employment and reduced to beggary. So great was the distress that by April, 1863, nearly two million pounds sterling had been expended for their relief, and this sum does not include the vast amounts expended in local volunteer charities. English manufacturers saw that the supply of the raw product from America could no longer be depended upon, and efforts were made to introduce the manufacture of the inferior staple from India, but the experiment proved in the main unsatisfactory and unprofitable.

The stringency of the blockade which prevented the exportation of cotton, prevented also the importation of manufactured articles. While compelled to acknowledge this fact, the Confederate Secretary of State, Mr. Benjamin, attempted very cleverly to turn it to account by showing the advantages which would accrue to the commercial and manufacturing classes of England by the speedy triumph of the rebellion. Writing to Mr. Mason, who represented the Confederacy in England, Mr. Benjamin said, "The almost total cessation of external commerce for the last two years has produced the complete exhaustion of all articles of foreign growth and manufacture, and it is but a moderate computation to estimate the imports into the Confederacy at three hundred millions of dollars for the first six months which will ensue after the treaty of peace." The unexpressed part of the proposition which this statement covered was the most interesting. The merchants and ship-owners of England were to understand that the sale and transportation of this vast amount of fabrics would fall into the hands of England if the Confederacy should succeed, and that if it should fail, the domestic trade of the United States would absorb the whole of it. It was a shrewd appeal to a nation whose foreign policy has always been largely influenced by considerations of trade.

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BLOCKADE.

The economic condition of the South at this time may be compared to that of a man with full purse, lost in a desert. Southern cotton would easily sell in the markets of New York or Liverpool for four times its price in Charleston, while the manufactures of Manchester or of Lowell were worth in Charleston four times the price in Liverpool or New York. Exchange was rendered by the blockade practically impossible. When the profits of a successful voyage from Liverpool to Charleston and return, would more than repay the expense of the construction of the best steamer and of the voyage, the temptation to evade the blockade was altogether too strong to be resisted by the merchants and manufacturers of England. Blockade- running became a regular business with them, and the extent to which it was carried may be inferred from the fact that during the war the American fleet captured or sunk more than seven hundred vessels bound from British ports to ports of the Confederacy. How many vessels escaped our navy and safely ran the blockade may never be known, but for three years it was a steady contest between the navy of the United States and the blockade-runners of England. The persistent course of the latter was stimulated both by cupidity and by ill will to this country. They were anxious to make pecuniary gains for themselves and to aid the Confederacy at the same time. They were checked only by the extra-hazardous character imparted to the trade by the alertness and superior vigilance of our cruisers which sent many millions of English ventures to less profitable markets and many millions to the adjudication of our own Prize- courts.

The establishment and maintenance of a blockade is not accounted by naval officers as the most brilliant service to which in the line of their profession they may be deputed, but it was a service of inestimable value to the cause of the Union, and it was performed with a skill and thoroughness never surpassed. The blockade required an enormous force of men. In addition to the marines, to the large body of soldiers transferred from time to time to the navy, and to the rebel prisoners that joined in the service, there were 121,807 men specially enlisted in the navy during the war. But for the aid thus rendered by the navy, the hard fight would have been longer and more sanguinary. Had not the South been thus deprived of the munitions of war, of clothing and of all manner of supplies which England and France were eager to furnish her, we should not have seen the end of the civil war in 1865, and we should have been subjected to all the hazards implied by the indefinite continuance of the struggle.

The census of 1860 shows that the thirty-three States and seven Territories, which at that time composed the United States, contained a population of 31,443,791. Fifteen of these States with 12,140,296 inhabitants were slave-holding, more than four millions of the population being slaves; eighteen with an aggregate population of 19,303,494 were classed as free. Four of the fifteen slave States, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, whose people numbered three and one-half millions, constituted what were known as the Border slave States—West Virginia being added to the list in 1862. Though a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of these States, from association and interest, sympathized with the South, they contributed to the Union cause an army equal to two hundred thousand men enlisted for three years, and throughout the war they were loyal to the National Government. Many of the inhabitants of these States fought in the Confederate Army, but this loss was more than compensated by the effective aid rendered by the loyal men who joined the Union Army from the rebellious States. Tennessee furnished more than thirty thousand men to the armies of the Union, and from almost every State which formed a portion of the Confederacy men enlisted in the loyal forces. It may with reasonable precision be affirmed that the encouragement which the Confederacy received from the slave States that remained true to the Union, was more than offset by the effective aid rendered by loyal men residing within the limits of the rebellious States.

STRENGTH OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

As the source of supply for an army the Southern Confederacy had eleven States with an aggregate population of nine millions. It is difficult to estimate with accuracy the numerical strength of the army which they organized at the beginning of the war. In a semi-official publication it was asserted that the army numbered more than five hundred thousand men, but as twenty thousand of this army were credited to Maryland and thirty-five thousand to Missouri, the number given was evidently a gross exaggeration. The statement was probably made for effect upon the North rather than in the interest of truth. A member of the Confederate Congress from North Carolina stated in debate in 1864 that the Confederate muster-roll numbered more than four hundred thousand men, "of whom probably one-half were not there." During the entire period of the war it is probable that eleven hundred thousand men were embodied in the Confederate Army, though its effective strength did not at any time consist of more than one-half that number. But this force was obtained by the South at great sacrifice. The necessity of a stringent conscription act was felt as early as April 16, 1862, at which time the first Enrolment Act was passed by the Confederate Congress. Under this Act, which was amended on the 27th of September of the same year, Mr. Davis issued on the 15th of July, 1863, his first conscription proclamation which called into the service of the Confederacy all white men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five who were not legally exempted from military service. The date of the proclamation shows that it was forced upon the Confederates by Lee's abortive invasion of Pennsylvania, and was intended to fill the ranks of the army which had been shattered and beaten on the field of Gettysburg. Further legislation by the Confederate Congress in February, 1864, extended the enrolment so as to include all white male residents of the Confederate States between the ages of seventeen and fifty. In February, 1865, Mr. Davis estimated that more than one hundred and fifty thousand men were added to the Confederate armies by this forced conscription.

Comparing the strength of the Confederate Army with the population from which it was recruited, and taking into account the absolute lack of provision made for the comfort of the Southern soldier, the insufficient provision made for his sustenance and clothing, and the consequent desertion which made it imperative to repair diminished strength, it is evident that the conscription legislation bore with fearful severity upon the people of the South. Comprehensive as was the Enrolment Act, which rendered liable to military duty the entire male population between the ages of seventeen and fifty, the South was compelled to overstep its self-imposed limit. The forces which Lee and Johnston surrendered contained so many boys unfitted by youth and so many men unfitted by age for military service, that a Northern General epigrammatically remarked that for its armies the Confederacy had been compelled in the end to rob alike the cradle and the grave.

Grave misstatements however have been made in regard to the diminished forces of the Confederacy at the cessation of the war. The astounding assertion has crept into statements intended to be historical that Lee surrendered an army of only ten thousand men, and Johnston an army of most insignificant numbers in comparison with that of Sherman. An accurate count made of the forces surrendered by the Confederacy and paroled by the North at the conclusion of the war, shows that the following numbers were embodied in the various Southern armies and were rendering active service in the field:—

The army of Virginia under General Robert E. Lee . . . . 28,356 The army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston . . 37,047 The army of Florida under Major-General Samuel Jones . . . 2,113 The army of Alabama under Lieutenant-General Richard Taylor . 12,723 The Trans-Mississippi army of General E. Kirby Smith . . . 10,167 The Arkansas army of Brigadier-General M. Jeff Thompson . . 5,048

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95,454

These figures are given as the result of actual count made of the paroles signed, and have been verified by officers both of the Union Army and of the Confederate Army. They represent the actual force engaged in the field, and upon the basis of calculation adopted in the North would indicate a Confederate Army of nearly three hundred thousand men at the close of the struggle. When the frequent desertions from the Southern Army are remembered, and their losses in prisoners and those disabled in the fearful fights of the months which preceded the surrender of Lee, it will not be exaggeration to say that the South had at the opening of General Grant's campaign in Virginia the preceding summer more than five hundred thousand men borne upon the rolls of its armies. The waste of the Confederate forces during the sixty days immediately preceding the final surrender was very great. The knowledge of the situation had penetrated the ranks, and the men lost spirit and hope. The result which followed was precisely that which has always happened with armies so circumstanced. The ranks melted away, and there were neither resource nor discipline to fill them again.

THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES.

It would be but poor compliment to the soldiers of the Union to withhold just recognition of the brave opponents who met them on so many hard-fought fields. Nor is there any disposition among loyal men to stint the praise which is always due to courage. Never perhaps was an army organized with fighting qualities superior to those of the army put into the field by the Confederacy. They fought with an absolute conviction, however erroneous, that their cause was just; and their arms were nerved by the feeling which their leaders had instilled deeply into their minds, that they were contending against an intolerable tyranny and protecting the sacredness of home. In a war purely defensive, as was that of the Confederacy, an army such as they raised and maintained can baffle the efforts of vastly superior numbers. The Confederates found from their own experience how changed was the task when they assumed the offensive and ventured to leave their own territory, with their perfect knowledge of its topography and with a surrounding population of sympathizers and helpers. In their first attempt at invasion they did not get beyond cannon-sound of the Potomac, and in the second they were turned back by the result of the first battle. These facts do not impeach the prowess of the Confederate soldiery, but they illustrate the task imposed on the Army of the Union and they suggest the vast difference in the responsibilities which the invading and the defensive forces were called upon to meet.

For so large an army as the Government of the Union was compelled to raise, volunteering could not be relied upon as a steady resource for recruitment. Great as was the ardor among the loyal people at the beginning of the struggle, it was soon found, as it has always been found in other nations, that unaided patriotism could not supply the heavy demands constantly made to repair the waste from the casualties of war and from the ravages of disease. The Act of Congress of March 3, 1863, provided for the enrolment of all able- bodied male citizens between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, while the Act of February 24, 1864, granted freedom to all male slaves between the ages of twenty and forty-five who might enlist in the Northern armies. Reward was made to go with duty, and by the Act of July 4, 1864, Congress ameliorated the rigors of the conscription by paying to each drafted man a bounty for one years' service, at the same time doubling and trebling the amount for two and three years' service respectively. The Secretary of War was by the same law directed to discharge from service at the request of parents all persons under the age of eighteen years who might have enlisted in the army, and it was made an offense punishable with loss of commission for any officer knowingly to enlist a person less than sixteen years of age. Conscription laws have been unpopular in all countries, and though resisted among us on one occasion with riot, they were upheld with strong courage by the mass of the loyal people. Representatives in Congress who had voted for the enactments were returned by large majorities, and Mr. Lincoln was re-elected with an overwhelming expression of popular favor at the very time when he was directing the enforcement of the draft. The vote of 1864 was perhaps the most significant exhibition of patriotism made during the war, and had an extraordinary influence in discouraging those who were directing the fortunes of the Confederacy.

In the Loyal States the Government called for more than 2,750,000 men at various time throughout the war. In the South nearly every white person capable of bearing arms rendered at one time or another service in the army. A leading military authority of England, speaking of the strength of the armies of the United States and of the Confederacy, says, "The total number of men called under arms by the Government of the United States between April, 1861, and April, 1865, amounted to 2,759,049, of whom 2,656,053 were actually embodied in the armies. If to these be added the 1,100,000 men embodied by the Southern States during the same time, the total armed forces reach the enormous amount of nearly 4,000,000, drawn from a population of only 32,000,000 of all ages. Before this vast aggregate, the celebrated uprising of the French nation in 1793, or the recent efforts of France and Germany in the war of 1870-71, sink into insignificance. And within three years the whole of these vast forces were peaceably disbanded and the army had shrunk to a normal strength of only 30,000 men."

Germany with a population of 41,000,000 can in time of war furnish an army of 1,250,000 men. France with a population of 36,000,000 claims that she can set more than 1,500,000 men afield. With a population of less than 25,000,0000 from which to levy troops, the Government of the United States had when the war closed more than 1,000,000 men upon the muster-rolls of the army to be paid off and discharged. Of this vast force probably not more than forty per cent. were available for operations on the field. The wounded, the sick, those upon furlough, upon detail in other service, upon military service elsewhere than in the field, together with those in military parlance absent or "not accounted for," would, it is estimated, be equal to sixty per cent. of the entire army.

AREA OF THE WAR AND ITS COST.

The area over which the armies of the Union were called to operate was 800,000 square miles in extent,—as large as the German Empire, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland combined. Those who led in the secession movement relied confidently upon the impossibility of overcoming a population inhabiting so great an expanse of territory. Their judgment was confirmed by that of the best military critics of Europe who looked pityingly upon the folly of the United States for undertaking a task which after years of suffering and great loss of life could end only in defeat, with hopeless bankruptcy for the surviving remnant of the Republic. Could the Government have had the advantage of a small area for its military operations, its power to overcome the rebellion would have been greatly enhanced, and an army not exceeding half of that which was raised could have vindicated the authority of the flag and maintained the integrity of the Union. The National expenditures would have been decreased in even greater ratio, for aside from reducing the number of troops, the enormous cost involved in transportation would have been lessened by hundreds of millions of dollars in the four years of the war.

Another cause of increased expenditure was the haste necessarily attendant upon all the military preparations of the Government. Armies were to be created from the basis of an organization hardly greater than would serve as a police force for the Republic. When Fort Sumter was fired upon, the Army of the United States, rank and file, scarcely exceeded sixteen thousand men. The Government was compelled to equip its vast forces from stores of which hardly a nucleus existed. Arms, ammunition, military supplies, were all to be instantly gathered. The growth of the great host, its equipment, its marshaling, its prodigious strength, are among the marvels and the glories of our history. To admit that mistakes were made is only to say that the work was in human hands. Criticism may well be drowned in the acclaim of success. No National emergency has ever been met with greater courage, promptness, or skill.

The loss to the country and the expenditures from its Treasury could not be estimated when the war closed. We knew that a half- million citizens of the Republic had laid down their lives—three hundred thousand in defending the Union, two hundred thousand in attempting to destroy it. We knew the enormous amounts which had been paid in supporting our armies. But we were not wholly prepared for the millions that must be paid in satisfaction of claims which there had been no mode of reckoning. Nor had there been any standard by which an estimate could be made of the sums required by the pensions which the gratitude and the justice of the Government would be called upon to grant. It was soon apparent that the need of relief was proportional to the magnitude of the struggle, and the Government prepared to respond with a munificence never paralleled.