The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 2

by Jefferson Davis

On June 3, 1861, the little schooner Savannah, previously a pilot-boat in Charleston Harbor and sailing under a commission issued by authority of the Confederate States, was captured by the United States brig Perry. The crew were placed in irons and sent to New York. It appeared, from statements made without contradiction, that they were not treated as prisoners of war, whereupon a letter was addressed by me to President Lincoln, dated July 6th, stating explicitly that, "painful as will be the necessity, this Government will deal out to the prisoners held by it the same treatment and the same fate as shall be experienced by those captured on the Savannah; and, if driven to the terrible necessity of retaliation by your execution of any of the officers or crew of the Savannah, that retaliation will be extended so far as shall be requisite to secure the abandonment of a practice unknown to the warfare of civilized man, and so barbarous as to disgrace the nation which shall be guilty of inaugurating it." A reply was promised to this letter, but none came. Still later in the year the privateer Jefferson Davis was captured, the captain and crew brought into Philadelphia, and the captain tried and found guilty of piracy and threatened with death. Immediately I instructed General Winder, at Richmond, to select one prisoner of the highest rank, to be confined in a cell appropriated to convicted felons, and treated in all respects as if convicted, and to be held for execution in the same manner as might be adopted for the execution of the prisoner of war in Philadelphia. He was further instructed to select thirteen other prisoners of the highest rank, to be held in the same manner as hostages for the thirteen prisoners held in New York for trial as pirates. By this course the infamous attempt made by the United States Government to commit judicial murder on prisoners of war was arrested.

The attention of the British House of Lords was also attracted to the proclamation of President Lincoln, threatening the officers and crew of privateers with the punishment of piracy. It led to a discussion in which the Earl of Derby said: "He apprehended that, if one thing was clearer than another, it was that privateering was not piracy; and that no law could make that piracy, as regarded the subjects of one nation which was not piracy by the law of nations. Consequently, the United States must not be allowed to entertain this doctrine, and to call upon her Majesty's Government not to interfere." The Lord Chancellor said: "There was no doubt that, if an Englishman engaged in the service of the Southern States, he violated the laws of his country and rendered himself liable to punishment, and that he had no right to trust to the protection of his native country to shield him from the consequences of his act. But, though that individual would be guilty of a breach of the law of his own country, he could not be treated as a pirate, and those who treated him as a pirate would be guilty of murder."

The appearance of this little fleet on the ocean made it necessary for the powers of Europe immediately to define their position relative to the contending powers. Great Britain, adopting a position of neutrality, and recognizing both as belligerents, interdicted the armed ships and privateers of both from carrying prizes into the waters of the United Kingdom or its colonies. All the other powers recognized the Confederate States to be belligerents, but closed their ports against the admission of prizes captured by either belligerent.

It is worthy of notice that the United States Government (though it had previously declined) at this time notified the English and French Governments that it was now willing to adhere to all the conditions of the Paris Congress of 1856, provided the clause abolishing privateers might apply to the Confederate States. The offer, with the proviso, was honorably declined by both France and England.

In the matter of the exchange of prisoners, which became important in consequence of these retaliatory measures, and the number taken by our troops at Manassas, the people of the Northern States were the victims of incessant mortification and distress through the vacillating and cruel conduct of their Government. It based all its immense military movements on the theory that "the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed and the execution thereof obstructed, . . . by combinations too powerful to be suppressed" by the ordinary methods. Under this theory the United States are assumed to be one nation, and the distinctions among them of States are as little recognized as if they did not exist. This theory was false, and thereby led its originators into constant blunders. When the leaders of a government aspire to the acquisition of absolute, unlimited power, and the sword is drawn to hew the way, it would be more logical and respectable to declare the laws silent than to attempt to justify unlawful acts by unwarranted legislation. If their theory had been true, then their prisoners of war were insurrectionists and rebels, and guilty of treason, and hanging would have been the legitimate punishment. Why were they not hung? Not through pity, but because the facts contradicted the theory. The "combinations" spoken of were great and powerful States, and the danger was that the North would be the greater sufferer by our retaliation. There was no humane course but to exchange prisoners according to the laws of war. With this the Government of the United States refused to comply, lest it might be construed into an acknowledgment of belligerent rights on our part, which would explode their theory of insurrectionary combinations, tend to restore more correct views of the rights and powers of the States, and expose in its true light their efforts to establish the supreme and unlimited sovereignty of the General Government. The reader may observe the tenacity with which the authorities at Washington, and, behind them, the Northern States, clung to this theory. Upon its strict maintenance depended the success of their bloody revolution to secure absolute supremacy over the States. Upon its failure, the dissolution of the Union would have been established; constitutional liberty would have been vindicated; the hopes of mankind in the modern institutions of federation fulfilled; and a new Union might have been formed and held together with a bond of fraternity and not by the sword, as under the above revolutionary theory.

By the exchange of prisoners, nothing was conceded except what was evident to the world—that actual war existed, and that a Christian people should at least conduct it according to the usages of civilized nations. But sectional hate and the vain conceit of newly acquired power led to the idle prophecy of our speedy subjection, and hence the Government of the United States refused to act as required by humanity and the usages of civilized warfare. At length, moved by the clamors of the relatives and friends of the prisoners we held, and by fears of retaliation, it covertly submitted to abandon its declared purpose, and to shut its eyes while the exchanges were made by various commanders under flags of truce. Thus some were exchanged in New York, Washington, Cairo, and Columbus, Kentucky, and by General McClellan in western Virginia and elsewhere. On the whole, the partial exchanges were inconsiderable and inconclusive as to the main question. The condition at the close of the year 1861, summarily stated, was that soldiers captured in battle were not protected by the usage of "exchange," and citizens were arrested without due process of law, deported to distant States, and incarcerated without assigned cause. All this by persons acting under authority of the United States Government, but in disregard of the United States Constitution, which provides that "no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or an indictment of a grand jury, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." [4] "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated." [5] These provisions were of no avail to protect the citizens from the outrages, because those who derived their authority from the Constitution used that authority to violate its guarantees. It has been stated that the rule upon which the United States Government was conducting affairs was entirely revolutionary. Its efforts to clothe the Government of the Union with absolute power involved the destruction of the rights of the States and the subversion of the Constitution. Hence on every occasion the provisions of the Constitution afforded no protection to the citizens: their rights were spurned; their persons were seized and imprisoned beyond the reach of friends; their houses sacked and burned. If they pleaded the Constitution, the Government of the Constitution was deaf to them, unsheathed its sword, and said the Union was at stake; and the Constitution, which was the compact of union, must stand aside. This was indeed a revolution. A constitutional government of limited powers derived from the people was transformed into a military despotism. The Northern people were docile as sheep under the change, reminding one of the words of the Psalmist: "All we, like sheep, have gone astray."

Posterity may ask with amazement. What cause could there have been for such acts by a government that was ordained "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"? Posterity may further ask, Where could a government of limited powers, constructed only for certain general purposes—and on the principle that all power proceeds from the people, and that "the powers not delegated by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"— find a grant of power, or an authority to perpetrate such injuries upon the States and the people? As to the first question, it may be said: There was no external cause for such acts. All foreign nations were at peace with the United States. No hostile fleets were hovering on her coasts, nor immense foreign armies threatening to invade her territory. The cause, if any plausible one existed, was entirely internal. It lay between it and its citizens. If it had treated them with injustice and oppression, and threatened so to continue, it had departed from the objects of its creation, and they had the resulting right to dissolve it.

Who was to be the umpire in such a case? Not the United States Government, for it was the creature of the States; it possessed no inherent, original sovereignty. The Constitution says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." [6] The umpireship is, therefore, expressly on the side of the States, or the people. When the State of South Carolina, through a sovereign convention, withdrew from the Union, she exercised the umpireship which rightly belonged to her, and which no other could exercise for her. This involved the dissolution of the Union, and the extinction of the Government of the United States so far as she was concerned; but the officers of that Government, instead of justly acquiescing in that which was constitutionally and legally inevitable, drew the sword, and resolved to maintain by might that which had no longer existence by right. A usurpation thus commenced in wrong was the mother of all the usurpations and wrongs which followed. The unhallowed attempt to establish the absolute sovereignty of the Government of the United States, by the subjugation of States and their people, brought forth its natural fruit. Well might the victim of the guillotine exclaim, "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

As to the other question—Where could a government of limited powers find authority to perpetrate such injuries upon its own constituents?—an answer will be given in succeeding pages.

Up to the close of the year the war enlarged its proportions so as to include new fields, until it then extended from the shores of the Chesapeake to the confines of Missouri and Arizona. Sudden calls from the remotest points for military aid were met with promptness enough not only to avert disaster in the face of superior numbers, but also to roll back the tide of invasion on the border.