A Youth's History of the Great Civil War
Van Evrie, Horton & Co., ©1866
Revised edition, ©2006 www.ronie-mooney-encs.us
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CHAPTER XIV, Mr.LINCOLN'S FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS
So far as the "firing on Fort Sumter" had gone in the way of getting up an excitement in the North, Mr.Lincoln's plans for inaugurating a great abolition war had succeeded to his satisfaction. But there was a great legal difficulty in his way. The Constitution gave him no power to raise a volunteer army for the purpose of fighting any of the sovereign States of this Union. When in the convention which framed the Constitution a proposition was made to give the Federal Government power to use military force against a non-complying State, it was unanimously voted down, and no such power was ever given to the Federal Government in the Constitution.
Mr.Lincoln knew this very well, and after he had made up his mind to call for 75,000 men to fight the Southern States, he was at a loss to find even the shadow of a legal excuse for such a call. But usurpers have rarely waited long without inventing some excuse for any action they wished to perform. Mr.Lincoln did not wait long to find an excuse for his extraordinary call for an army to fight the States. He was not quite shameless enough to pretend that the Constitution gave him any power to make such a call, but he hunted up an old act of Congress passed in 1795, to enable the Federal Government to assist the States of Pennsylvania in putting down what is known as "the whisky rebellion" in that State.
But unfortunately for Mr.Lincoln, that act of 1795 only provided for calling forth the militia to suppress an insurrection against a State government, and made no provision that can even be used as an excuse for calling forth an army to assist in suppressing an opposition to the Government of the United States, or in plain words, to enable the Federal Government to make war against a State government.
President Buchanan understood the import of that old act of 1795 perfectly, and he said: "under the act of 1795, the President is precluded from acting even upon his own personal and absolute knowledge of the existence of such an insurrection. Before he can call forth the militia for its suppression, he must first be applied to for this purpose by the appropriate State authorities, in the manner prescribed by the Constitution."
Mr.Lincoln's call for troops based on this old act, therefore, was not only illegal, but it was supremely ridiculous. We are not to suppose that he was really so ignorant as to imagine that the act justified the call for troops to operate against the governments of States, which was passed for the sole purpose of assisting States to put down insurrections against their own Government. The very fact that the act does not permit the President to send troops into a State to assist in putting down an insurrection which he may know to exist, until called upon by the authorities of the State, settles the question forever as to the illegal and criminal use which Mr.Lincoln made of it.
His call for troops to resist the acts of State Legislatures and Conventions of the people of the States was, therefore, no more justified by the act of 1795, than old John Brown's invasion of the State of Virginia was justified by that act.
Mr.Lincoln's first call for 75,000 troops was received with a shout of joy by all the old enemies of the Union as our fathers made it in the North. With the most indecent haste they jumped to begin the slaughter. It was discovered that the State of Massachusetts had been quietly preparing for war, even before the election of Mr.Lincoln. Indeed the "Republican" party, during the Lincoln presidential campaign, was a military organization. The infinite number of "Wide-awake" clubs were simply so many military companies. They had military drills in their secret lodge-rooms, were all uniformed alike with a sort of military cape and cloak in their public parades, and had their general officers, captains, lieutenants, etc.
In fact, the Black Republican party, or at least that portion of it which did all the work of the presidential campaign, was a military organization. In case of Mr.Lincoln's election they were determined to have war. Some, as they declared, "to make an end of slavery." Others, to overthrow the sovereignty of the States, and carry out the old Federalist hope of making what Hamilton called "a strong government," by which was, as we have seen, meant, something like a monarchy. But all sorts of Black Republicans were apparently made happy by the prospect of war.
Mr.Lincoln's proclamation also aroused the greatest excitement in the whole South. Every abolition governor of course responded to the call for troops with great alacrity. But those governors who were alike opposed to abolition and secession promptly declared that under our Constitution and form of government, the President had no power to make war upon a State for any cause.
Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, informed Mr.Lincoln that his State would "furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of making war upon States."
Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, though opposed to secession, telegraphed to Washington as follows: "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of this country, and especially to this war which is being waged upon a free and independent people."
Governor Jackson, of Missouri, replied to Mr.Lincoln: "Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary, and in its objects, inhuman and diabolical."
Governor Letcher, of Virginia, who was also opposed to secession wrote to Mr.Lincoln that his call for troops was "not within the preview of the Constitution or the act of 1795."
Not until Mr. Lincoln's war proclamation did the State of Virginia pass an act of secession.
The act of secession passed by Virginia on the 17th day of April, 1861, declared that:
"The people of Virginia recognize the American principle, that government is founded on the consent of the governed, and the right of the people of the several States of this Union, for just cause, to withdraw from their association under the Federal Government, with the people of the other States, and to erect new governments for their better security;and they never will consent that the Federal power, which is, in part, their power, shall be exerted for the purpose of subjugating the people of such States to the federal authority."
There was nothing new in the principle here announced. It is precisely the same as that of our Declaration of Independence. It is precisely the same as Jefferson urged in opposition to the old monarchist party in this country. But the tide of death and destruction was then let loose. It was a grand and bloody carnival of those dark spirits who had always hated the democratic government of the United States. Those who hated the perfectly free system of government established by our fathers, and those wild fanatics who were bent on negro equality had united bloody hands over what they meant to be the grave of the old Union and the final overthrow of the democratic principle of government.
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