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

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

18

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

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

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

When the election was held for

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

"Approaching the polls, I asked for a Union ticket, and was informed that none had been printed, and that it would be advisable to vote the Secession ticket. I

thought otherwise; and, going to a desk,

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

Such was the case at thousands

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

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

THE PEOPLE FOR THE UNION.

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and were, controlled by their mana-mensely strong-in the traditions, ging politicians, holding offices and earning perquisites by the grace of the Slave Power enthroned at the State capital; others were incorrigible, and were managed in this way: In Grayson county (having 8,187 inhabitants, of whom 1,291 were slaves), when Secession was proposed, a county meeting was held, to consider the project; by which, after discussion, it was decided to negative the movement, and hold no election for delegates to the proposed State Convention. This gave the Secessionists the opportunity they wanted. They proceeded to hold an election, and to choose delegates, who helped vote the State out of the Union. And this was one case like many others.

the affections, the instincts, and the aspirations, of the great majority of the American People. Its preserva tion was inseparably entwined with their glories, their interests, and their hopes. In the North, no one had, for forty years, desired its dissolution, unless on account of Slavery; at the South, the case was essentially the same. No calculations, however imposing and elaborate, had ever convinced any hundred persons, on whichever side of the slave line, that Disunion could be really advantageous to either section. No line could be drawn betwixt 'the South' and the North' which would not leave one or the other exposed to attacknone which six plain citizens, fairly chosen from either section, could be induced to adopt as final. Multitudes who supported Secession did so only as the most efficacious means of inducing the North to repudiate the 'Black Republicans' and agree to the Crittenden or some kindred Compromise-in short, to bully the North into giving the South her 'rights'— never imagining, at the outset, that this could be refused, or that Disunion would or could be really, conclusively effected. Thousands died fighting under the flag of treason whose hearts yearned toward the old banner, and whose aspiration for an ocean-bound republic'-one which should be felt and respected as first among nations— could not be quenched even in their own life-blood. And, on the other hand, the flag rendered illustrious by the triumphs of Gates and Greene and Washington-of Harrison, Brown, Scott, Macomb, and Jackson-of Truxtun, Decatur, Hull, Perry, PorFor the Union was strong-im- | ter, and McDonough-was through

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

out 'a tower of strength' to the | the heart of the loyal Millions never Unionists. In the hours darkened by shameful defeat and needless disaster, when the Republic seemed rocking and reeling on the very brink of destruction-when Europe almost unanimously pronounced the Union irretrievably lost, and condemned the infatuation that demanded persistence in an utterly hopeless contest-free, happy people.

faltered, nor was their faith shaken that, in spite of present reverses, the flag of their fathers would float once more over Richmond and Charleston and Montgomery, over Raleigh, Atlanta, and Houston, the symbol of National authority and power, accepted, beloved, and rejoiced in, by a great,

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

whole military force and military operations, offensive and defensive, of said Commonwealth, in the impending conflict with the United States, shall be under the chief con

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

Thus it will be seen that the Unionists of Virginia were liable, that day and every day thereafter, to be called out as militia, and ordered to assault Washington, seize Pittsburg, or invade any portion of the loyal States, as Davis and his subordinates might direct; and, having thus involved themselves in the guilt and peril of flagrant treason against the Union, they were to be allowed, a month later, to vote themselves out of the Confederacy and back into the Union again! The stupendous impudence of this mockery of submission was so palpable as almost to shield it from the reproach of imposture; and, as if to brush aside the last fig-leaf of disguise, Letcher, nine days thereafter,' issued a fresh proclamation, calling out the militia of the State to repel 1May 3d, 1861.

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

apprehended invasion from "the Gov- | was held at Wheeling on the follow

ernment at Washington," and designating twenty points throughout the State-five or six of them westward of the mountains-at which the militia from the adjacent counties respectively were required to assemble forthwith, for organization and service; and, only three days laterstill seventeen days prior to that on which the people were to vote for or against Secession-the State was formally admitted into and incorporated with the Confederacy, and Gen. Robert E. Lee' put in chief command of the Confederate forces in Virginia-by this time, largely swelled by arrivals from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and other Rebel States. The people of West Virginia, thus summoned, in the name of their State, to fight against the country they loved for a Rebellion they abhorred, saw the toils closing fast around them, and realized that they must awake and resist, or they would soon be helpless under the feet of their betrayers. Rebel officers, appointed from Richmond, were busily at work, enlisting and mustering their young men for the uses of treason, under the guise of obedience to lawful and constitutional authority. On the 4th, a strong and spirited Union mass meeting was held at Kingwood, Preston county, near the north line of the State, at which the most determined hostility to Secession was avowed, and the separation of Western from Old Virginia demanded. The meeting further resolved to vote, on the appointed day, for a member of Congress-not that of the Confederacy, but that of the Union. A like meeting, impelled by a similar spirit,

'May 6th.

ing day, whereby adherence to the Union was affirmed, separation from Eastern Virginia demanded, and a determination evinced to render no further tribute, whether military or pecuniary, to the Rebel rule at Richmond. Hon. John S. Carlile was especially decided and zealous in advocacy of separation. Another great Union meeting was held at Wheeling on the 11th, which was addressed in the same spirit by Mr. Carlile, as also by Francis H. Pierpont. The response of the masses was unanimous and enthusiastic. On the 13th, a Convention of delegates, representing thirty-five counties of West Virginia, assembled at Wheeling, to reiterate more formally the general demand that Secession be repudiated, and West Virginia severed from the Old Dominion. This Convention adjourned on the 15th, after calling a provisional Convention, to assemble on the 11th of June. The delegates were to be chosen on the 26th of May; on which day, about forty Counties held regular elections, and chose delegates in accordance with the call-usually, by a heavy vote.

The provisional Convention met on the designated day. Arthur J. Boreman was chosen permanent Chairman; and John S. Carlile, on the 13th, reported, from the Committee on Business, a Declaration, denouncing the usurpation by which the Convention at Richmond had pretended to sever Virginia from the Union, repudiating the idea of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, and vacating the offices of all who adhered to the Rebellion. In the debate which followed, Mr. Car

'Late a Colonel of Cavalry in the U. S. regular Army.