land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system, which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress, and improvement of condition to all. "No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty-none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of Liberty shall be lost. * * * The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day-it is a vast future also. * * * So too, Andrew Johnson, in his speech before the Senate, January 31, 1862, spake well and truly when he said that "there has been a deliberate design for years to change the nature and character and genius of this Government." And he added: "Do we not know that these schemers have been deliberately at work, and that there is a Party in the South, with some associates in the North, and even in the West, that have become tired of Free Government, in which they have lost confidence." Said he: "They raise an outcry against 'Coercion,' that they may paralyze the Government, cripple the exercise of the great powers with which it was invested, finally to change its form and subject us to a Southern despotism. Do we not know it to be so? Why disguise this great truth? Do we not know that they have been anxious for a change of Government for years? Since this Rebellion commenced it has manifested itself in many quarters. "How long is it since the organ of the Government at Richmond, the Richmond Whig, declared that rather than live under the Government of the United States, they preferred to take the Constitutional Queen of Great Britain as their protector; that they would make an alliance with Great *See also Footnote at p. 163, and pages preceding it. Britain for the purpose of preventing the enforcement of the Laws of the United States. Do we not know this?" Stephen A. Douglas also, in his great Union speech at Chicago, May 1, 1861-only a few days before his lamented death-said: "The election of Mr. Lincoln is a mere pretext. The present Secession movement is the result of an enormous Conspiracy formed more than a year since-formed by leaders in the Southern Confederacy more than twelve months ago. They use the Slavery question as a means to aid the accomplishment of their ends. They desired the election of a Northern candidate by a Sectional vote, in order to show that the two Sections cannot live together. "When the history of the two years from the Lecompton question down to the Presidential election shall be written, it will be shown that the scheme was deliberately made to break up this Union. They desired a Northern Republican to be elected by a purely Northern vote, and then assign this fact as a reason why the Sections cannot live together. If the Disunion candidate (Breckinridge) in the late Presidential contest had carried the united South, their scheme was, the Northern candidate successful, to seize the Capital last Spring, and by a united South and divided North, hold it. "Their scheme was defeated, in the defeat of the Disunion candidates in several of the Southern States. "But this is no time for a detail of causes. The Conspiracy is now known; Armies have been raised. War is levied to accomplish it. There are only two sides to the question. "Every man must be for the United States, or against it. There can be no Neutrals in this War; only Patriots or Traitors! [Cheer after Cheer]." In a speech made in the United States Senate, January 31, 1862, Senator McDougall of California-conceded to be intellectually the peer of any man in that Body-said: "We are at War. How long have we been at War? We have been engaged in a war of opinion, according to my historical recollection, since 1838. There has been a systematic organized war against the Institutions estab lished by our fathers, since 1832. This is known of all men who have read carefully the history of our Country. If I had the leisure, or had consulted the authorities, I would give it year by year, and date by date, from that time until the present, how men adversary to our Republican Institutions have been organizing War against us, because they did not approve of our Republican Institutions. "Before the Mexican War, it is well known that General Quitman, then Governor of Mississippi, was organizing to produce the same condition of things (and he hoped a better condition of things, for he hoped a successful Secession), to produce this same revolution that is now disturbing our whole Land. The War with Mexico, fighting for a Southern proposition, for which I fought myself, made the Nation a unit until 1849; and then again they undertook an Organization to produce Revolution. These things are history. This statement is true, and cannot be denied among intelligent men anywhere, and cannot be denied in this Senate. "The great men who sat in Council in this Hall, the great men of the Nation, men whose equals are not, and I fear will not be for many years, uniting their judgments, settled the controversy in 1850. They did not settle it for the Conspirators of the South, for they were not parties to the compact. Clay and Webster, and the great men who united with them, had no relation with the extremes of either extreme faction. The Compromise was made, and immediately after it had been effected, again commenced the work of organization. I had the honor to come from my State on the Pacific into the other branch of the Federal Congress, and there I learned as early as 1853, that the work of Treason was as industriously pursued as it is being pursued to-day. I saw it; I felt it; I knew it. I went home to the shores of the Pacific instructed somewhat on this subject. "Years passed by. I engaged in my duties as a simple professional man, not connected with public affairs. The question of the last Presidential election arose before the Country-one of those great questions that are not appreciated, I regret from my heart, by the American Nation, when we elect a President, a man who has more power for his time than any enthroned Monarch in Europe. We organize a Government and place him in front as the head and the Chief of the Government. That question came before the American People. "At that time I was advised of this state of feeling—and I will state it in as exact form of words as I can state it, that it may be understood by Senators: Mr. Douglas is a man acceptable to the South. Mr. Douglas is a man to whom no one has just cause of exception throughout the South. Mr. Douglas is more acceptable to Mississippi and Louisiana than Mr. Breckinridge. Mr. Breckinridge is not acceptable to the South; or at least, if he is so, he is not in the same degree with Mr. Douglas. Mr. Douglas is the accepted man of a great National Party, and if he is brought into the field he will be triumphantly elected. THAT MUST NOT BE DONE, because THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECESSION IS MATURED. EVERYTHING IS PREPARED, and the election of Mr. Douglas would only postpone it for four years; and NOW when we are PREPARED to carry out these things WE MUST INDULGE IN STRATAGEM, and the nomination of Mr. Breckinridge is a mere strategic movement to divide the great conservative Party of the Nation into two, so as to elect a Republican candidate AND CONSOLIDATE THE SOUTH BY THE CRY OF 'ABOLITIONIST !' "That is a mere simple statement of the truth, and it cannot be contradicted. Now, in that scheme all the men of counsel of that Party were engaged. * * I, on the * far shores of the Pacific understood those things as long ago as a year last September (1860). I was advised about this policy and well informed of it. * * * "I was at war, in California, in January (1861) last; in the maintenance of the opinions that I am now maintaining, I had to go armed to protect myself from violence. The country, whenever there was controversy, was agitated to its deepest foundations. That is known, perhaps, not to gentlemen who live up in Maine or Massachusetts, or where you are foreign to all this agitation; but known to all people where disturbance might have been effective in conse quences. I felt it, and had to carry my life in my hand by the month, as did my friends surrounding me. "I say that all through last winter (that of 1860–61) War had been inaugurated in all those parts of the Country where disturbed elements could have efficient result. In January (1861), a year ago, I stood in the hall of the House of Representatives of my State, and there was War then, and angry faces and hostile men were gathered; and we knew then well that the Southern States had determined to withdraw themselves from the Federal Union. "I happened to be one of those men who said, 'they shall not do it; and it appears to me that the whole argument is between that class of men and the class of men who said they would let them do it. * When this doctrine * I saw was started here of disintegrating the Cotton States from the rest of the Confederacy, I opposed it at once. immediately that War was to be invoked. * * * * * * "I will not say these things were understood by gentlemen of the Republican Party * * * but I, having been accepted and received as a Democrat of the old school from the olden time, and HAVING FAST SOUTHERN SYMPATHIES, I DID I KNOW THAT SECESSION I was advised of and understood the whole programme, KNEW HOW IT WAS TO BE DONE IN ITS DETAILS; and I being advised, made war against it. KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM. * * * * * * "War had been, in fact, inaugurated. What is War? Was it the firing on our flag at Sumter? Was that the first adversary passage? To say so, is trifling with men's judgments and information. No, sir; when they organized a Government, and set us at defiance, they commenced War; and the various steps they took afterwards, by organizing their troops, and forming their armies, and advancing upon Sumter; all these were merely acts of War; but War was inaugurated whenever they undertook to say they would maintain themselves as a separate and independent government; and, after that time, every man who gave his assistance to them was a Traitor, according to the highest Law." The following letter, written by one of the most active of |