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A
PROCLAMATION.
BY
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA.
IN pursuance of the sixth section
of the act of Congress entitled "An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish
Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate the Property of Rebels, and for
other Purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which act, and the joint resolution
explanatory thereof, are herewith published, I,
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of
said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting
the existing rebellion, or any rebellion, against the Government of the United
States, and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States, on pain
of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.
In testimony whereof I have
hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington,
this 25th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight [L.S.] hundred
and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President—
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
THE SIXTH SECTION.
Annexed is the sixth section of
the Confiscation act referred to by the President in the above proclamation:
Sec. 6. And be it further
enacted, That if any person within any State or Territory of the United States,
other than those named as aforesaid, after the passage of this act, being
engaged in armed rebellion against the Government of the United States, or
aiding or abetting such rebellion, shall not, within sixty days after public
warning and proclamation duly given and made by the President of the United
States, cease to aid, countenance, and abet such rebellion, and return to his
allegiance to the United States, all the estate and property, moneys, stocks,
and credits of such person shall be liable to seizure as aforesaid, and it shall
be the duty of the President to seize and use them as aforesaid, or the proceeds
thereof. And all sales, transfers, or conveyances of any such property after the
expiration of the said sixty days from the date of such warning and proclamation
shall be null and void; and it shall be a sufficient bar to any suit brought by
such person for the possession or the use of such property, or any of it, to
allege and prove that he is one of the persons described in this section.
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1862.
A
NEW MOVE ON THE EUROPEAN BOARD.
EUROPEAN politics are a queer
puzzle. The latest news from Europe contains the statement that a new and close
alliance has been formed between France and Russia. Simultaneously, we perceive
that the Moniteur, the official organ of the French Government, has ceased to
take the side of the Southern rebels, once more eulogizes the North, and even
undertakes the defense of General Butler from British scurrility.
If Louis
Napoleon really cherishes the desire to humble
England—as Englishmen unanimously believe—events could not have shaped
themselves more conveniently for the accomplishment of his purpose. His
newspapers have encouraged the British to think that if England interfered in
this country France would side with her. Acting on this belief the London press
has pursued us with a brutal and blackguard malignity which has filled the
American heart with the most intense hostility toward England. If, in carrying
out the policy of the new Russo-French alliance the French Emperor should
resolve to quarrel with England, he would thus have the entire civilized
world—with, perhaps, the single exception of helpless Austria—on his side. Spain
would want to regain Gibraltar. Italy is burning to avenge the wrongs of 1859.
And this country, we are sorry to say, has been goaded to such a pitch of fury
by the studied unkindness and steady hostility of the British people that we
should certainly raise no hand on behalf of Great Britain.
It is a little remarkable that,
at a late review of Volunteers in England, the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston,
took pains to be present, and warned the soldiers—"with unusual and startling
earnestness," as a reporter said—to be ready, when the time came, to perform
manfully the work for which they had been organized.
TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF.
MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY W. HALLECK is
now Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, and the public may
consequently feel satisfied, in the first place, that the various operations of
our forces will be directed by a single mind; and secondly, that the directing
mind will be that of a soldier, and not that of a lawyer.
It is impossible to exaggerate
the mischief which has been done by division of counsels and civilian
interference with military movements.
General Halleck's rapid successes in the West
merely increased the obstacles in the path of
General McClellan, and enabled
Jeff Davis to call to Richmond the ablest
generals and possibly some of the troops of the Southwestern rebel army. Again,
when General McClellan embarked at Alexandria for Old Point, it was with the
distinct understanding that General McDowell would co-operate with him with
40,000 men from
Fredericksburg; it was not till his campaign
had actually commenced that the civilians
in authority at Washington
discovered that a movement by
McDowell on
Richmond might leave
Washington uncovered, countermanded their
previous orders, and paralyzed the
Army of the Potomac. If General McClellan had
understood that he could not have the co-operation of McDowell his plans might
have been very different, and the losses incurred at
Williamsburg,
Fairoaks, and the
Chickahominy might have been spared. We have it
on the best authority that when General McClellan first received intelligence
from Washington that he must dispense with McDowell's army, he covered his face
with his hands, and remained several hours plunged in sombre silence—to use the
language of one of his aids, "with an awful expression." He saw that the
carefully-laid plans which had been submitted to and approved by the civilian
authorities at Washington had been overset by an after-thought of theirs; and
that the result, which had been mathematically certain, was now rendered
problematical. If General Halleck had been at Washington, with the powers of a
Commander-in-Chief,
Beauregard would never have been set free to go
to
Richmond, and McClellan would never have been
allowed to depart on an expedition whose success could have been afterward
defeated by civilian panic.
There has been much said in the
papers about a rivalry between McClellan and Halleck. There is no foundation for
any thing of the kind. General Halleck was suggested as Commander-in-Chief by
General McClellan on 9th July, when the President visited
Harrison's Landing, and was appointed as soon
as Mr. Lincoln returned to Washington on 11th. They are old personal friends,
thoroughly appreciate each other's genius, and will work together in perfect
harmony.
It may not be amiss to refer
briefly, in this connection, to the speech of Senator Chandler, of Michigan, on
the subject of the war, and to the echoes of that speech in the press. Certain
friends of General M'Clellan are vastly indignant that a speech should have been
made criticising their hero. We do not share the feeling. In our opinion General
McClellan has not committed a single error in the work intrusted to him, and has
evinced qualities which place him in the highest rank among soldiers. History,
we think, will place his movement from the Chickahominy to the James among the
grandest military exploits on record; and will pronounce that others, not
McClellan, are responsible for the failure of the Union army to take Richmond in
July. At the same time we should be very sorry to believe that we had any
soldier in the field who was not subject to criticism, or whose performance
might not fairly be a topic of debate. Senator Chandler is entitled to his
opinion of General McClellan, and entitled to express, as the Tribune and Herald
are entitled to print it. It must go for what it is worth. General McClellan, we
are satisfied, would be the last man to object to criticism. He is enough of a
man to know that if it be unjust, his merits will shine all the brighter for his
previous depreciation; if it be just, the sooner he is got out of the way the
better for the country. Thus far Senator Chandler's attack seems to have merely
intensified both the public and the President's confidence in McClellan.
The appointment of a resident
Commander-in-Chief at Washington, and the Presidential orders directing the army
to subsist itself on the enemy, and employ
negroes in every fitting capacity, indicate
that we are turning over a new leaf in the method of carrying on the war. The
new orders from Washington command the hearty approval of all loyal people. It
is time that the rebels should be made to feel, in their hearths and homes, the
horrors of the war they have forced on us. And it is high time that, in
prosecuting the arduous task before us, we should secure any allies we can—white
men if they offer, but if not, black, brown, or yellow.
A number of well-meaning persons
complain that the Government is too slow—that we should have had a million of
men in the field—that the President ought long ago to have authorized our armies
to subsist themselves on the rebels, and employ
fugitive slaves. It is very easy to prophesy
after the event—very simple for people who have had no responsibility to bear,
to turn round upon the men who have borne the whole burden of public service on
their shoulders and say, when disaster occurs, "I told you so."
History teaches us very plainly
that revolutions are steadily progressive, and that a Government, to be safe and
strong, must never be in advance of the people. If Mr. Lincoln had commanded our
generals to seize the property of Southern men in May, 1861, three-fourths of
the North would have protested against the act as needless and barbarous. If, at
the same time, he had authorized generals to enlist negroes, at least as large a
majority of the Northern people would have opposed him; numbers of army
officers, who are now fierce abolitionists, would have resigned; and such
excellent soldiers as
General Lewis Wallace,
General Ben Butler,
General Hunter himself would have refused to
serve. Mr. Lincoln was compelled to wait until stern experience had eradicated
from the
Democratic mind the old pro-slavery prejudices,
which had been fostered for a generation. Let any one ask General Wallace what
his views were when he raised the 11th Indiana Zouaves: he will say that, while
he was for the Union, he
was heartily pro-slavery. Now he
denounces those who oppose negro regiments as little better than traitors.
Compare General Butler's letter to Governor Andrew, dated from
Annapolis, in April, 1861, with his present
dispatches: the progress is marvelous. In April, 1861, there was not a firmer
supporter of slavery in the country than Major Dave Hunter, of Illinois, who has
just raised the 1st South Carolina Regiment of Volunteers, consisting
exclusively of negroes. It is possible that Mr. Lincoln may have foreseen,
fifteen months ago, that we should be compelled to arm negroes and seize
Southern property. But whether he did or not, it is more than probable that, if
he had so far anticipated the progress of public sentiment as to inaugurate the
war with these measures, we should have had—what the rebels fondly counted upon
—a divided and powerless North.
So, again, with regard to the
numbers of our forces. Why didn't the President call out 300,000 on April 15,
1861, instead of 75,000? Let any candid man recall his sensations on the morning
when the call for 75,000 appeared and say, honestly, whether he didn't think the
number excessive. Why, Illinois doubted seriously whether she could raise 6000.
It was a new business. None of the young men knew any thing of war. The wisest
could not tell whether the people of the North would fight en masse for the
Union. If Mr. Lincoln had stated in a proclamation that 300,000 men were
required, people might have replied that the game was not worth the candle. So
in July, when he asked for 400,000 men and $400,000,000. The ex post facto
critics shriek, "Why didn't he call for a million, and finish up the work?"
Those very men, when the Message appeared on 5th July, believed and declared
that it was merely an exaggeration intended to frighten the South. They didn't
dream that 400,000 men would be wanted, much less raised, and found too few.
We do not wish to be understood
as excusing the mistakes of the Government. It was a fatal blunder to stop
recruiting last Fall. And it was an inexcusable error—one of the many
absurdities for which Mr. Cameron has to answer —to allow a single regiment to
march to the field without establishing a recruiting depot to fill up its ranks
as they became thinned by the casualties of war. These are the stupidities into
which peaceful nations always fall when they embark in the strange and unnatural
business of war. But in the main, history will decide that the Administration of
Mr. Lincoln raised as many troops and as speedily as the temper of the North
would allow.
Three hundred thousand more men
are now wanted, and they will probably be forthcoming without a draft. We trust
that the President and General Halleck will not commit the unpardonable blunder
of organizing them into raw regiments, so as to be useless, when they might be
made invaluable by being distributed among veteran battalions. But it is
possible that we may have this lesson, too, to learn by experience.
Meanwhile officials in each State
are preparing the necessary registers for a draft. It is hardly likely that the
war will be concluded without one. Even with 300,000 fresh troops, our armies
will still be outnumbered by the rebels, who have 700,000 men in the field. But
it is evidently wiser for the President to exhaust the voluntary system, and
then fall back on drafting, rather than run the risk of rendering the war
unpopular in the rural districts at the present critical moment by drafting men,
if there be no absolute necessity for resorting to such extreme measures.
By-and-by the public mind will be educated to the necessity, and then the
wiseacres will shout aloud—We told you so! We told you so!
McCLELLAN UNDER FIRE.
GENERAL SCOTT, when, after the battles upon
Manassas Plains (won so often not only before
they occurred but since, by newspaper strategists), it became necessary to
commit to some one the two-fold Herculean task of making a great army and
planning a vast and complicated campaign, recommended McCLELLAN, not only
because of the vigor and capacity which he had shown in Western Virginia, but on
account of the gallantry, skill, and indefatigable energy which he exhibited
throughout the campaign in Mexico. Into that campaign he entered in the lowest
rank of commissioned officers—that of second lieutenant—but in the highest
department of the service—the engineers—a position achieved by his graduating at
West Point with the highest honors.
In Mexico he won not only
reputation for skill and energy as a military engineer, but laurels for his
gallantry in the field. He had been working night and day in the furtherance of
SCOTT'S plan of attack upon the heights of Cerro Gordo, and so successfully as
to elicit the commendations of the veteran commander, when he was detailed to
PILLOW'S brigade in the general assault, and where he performed his duties under
the fiercest fire of the day; that brigade, which moved upon the Mexican right,
having been obliged to attack the enemy under such great disadvantages of
position, and having met with such determined resistance that it was repulsed
with heavy loss—the field having
been won by the carrying of the centre and left. In this his first battle he won
the meed of special mention. At the battles of Contreras, fought on the 19th and
20th of August, 1847, McCLELLAN again distinguished himself by his daring and
gallantry. Being detailed to
General TWIGG'S division, he led its way to the
attack on the 19th, and pushed a reconnoissance for the placing of batteries so
near the enemy's lines that he and the topographical officer with him both had
their horses shot under them. The battle coming on immediately, and the
commander of the howitzer battery having been severely wounded, McCLELLAN sprang
forward, took his post, and fought the battery with great spirit and ability
until it became so disabled as to require shelter. General TWIGGS specially
recommended him to the favorable consideration of General SCOTT for "efficiency
and gallantry" in this affair; and he was immediately brevetted First Lieutenant
of Engineers. Next came the battles of Churubusco—five desperate conflicts in a
day and a night—throughout which McCLELLAN'S conduct commanded the admiration of
every one. Then followed the assaults upon El Molino del Rey and Casa de Mata,
outposts of the Castle of Chapultepec —fearful struggles; for although both
positions were carried, it was with the almost unprecedented loss in killed and
wounded of nearly one-fourth of the attacking three. In the midst of these
bloody and apparently desperate fights McCLELLAN went imperturbably about his
work, managing the guns and placing the batteries as if he were on parade. At
the assault upon the Castle itself he was equally conspicuous, and won from
General WORTH special mention for "gallantry and conduct," besides the
commendation which he received for "signal service" as an engineer in the report
of the commander of that corps. And finally, at Mexico, he was the first officer
to push into the city, which he entered at the head of his sappers and miners at
three o'clock in the morning, and where he encountered that most dreadful of all
attacks, firing from windows and house-tops, which was kept up by two thousand
released convicts; the Mexican regular army having fled. His previous services
on the 12th of September had caused him to be brevetted Captain; but as he
modestly declined the honor of a sword from Philadelphia last year because he
"had done nothing to deserve it," so here he declined his captaincy; but when
upon the taking of the city of the Montezumas he was again brevetted Captain
"for gallant and meritorious conduct at Chapultepec and Mexico," he accepted the
twice-won honor.
There remains but a word to be
said to the profound strategists who would at once put him to school as a
general, and degrade him in the eyes of the country as a man. It is, that
although they may choose to disregard his subsequent services as an organizer at
West Point, as an explorer at the West, and as a theorist in the Crimea, which
gained him distinction in the records of the War Department, and, finally, his
bringing order out of the chaos which succeeded Bull Run; and although he has
not yet entered Richmond, it would be prudent for them not to attack a man for
the lack of soldierly qualities who, by conspicuous gallantry and daring, as
well as by professional skill, won his captaincy upon bloody fields before he
was twenty-two years old.
THE
LOUNGER.
KEEPING A GOOD HEART.
IN the prosecution of a great war
two things are essential—money and spirit; and of the two the latter is the most
important. That at least is a lesson which we ought long ago to have learned
from the rebels. We were wont, in the early days of the trouble, to console
ourselves with the reflection that they had no money, and no credit, and no
food, and that they must very soon starve and surrender. But had we not an
earlier lesson? Had we not Valley Forge in our history? People will go shoeless,
and hungry, and cold. By all the logic of circumstances they will be beaten a
dozen times, yet still fight desperately. Why? Because there is no shoe so
stout, no dinner so satisfactory, no fire so warm, as an idea. Good or bad makes
little difference. In the great religious wars the Protestants and Catholics
fought with equal fury. It can not be denied that Philip II. was quite as much
in earnest as William of Orange and the stout Hollanders.
Now we have plenty of money, but
if we lack spirit we are beaten already. "Couldst thou not watch with me one
hour?" Are we such faint hearts that, if success will not tumble from sheer
over-ripeness into our arms, we will shake our heads dolefully and suck our
imbecile thumbs in despair? We have a great work to do. It is of a kind that can
not be done in a month or a year. We have to suppress an armed insurrection, and
then establish and guarantee peace. It is a tremendous business. It demands men
of robust hearts and strong arms and the most cheerful wills. It is precisely
the kind of task that should be most welcome to a nation of our race and
breeding. It is to educe order from chaos; to squelch a miserable semi-barbaric
system of civilization, with its few enormously rich, and its hordes of
wretchedly poor and abject, and establish a uniformity of right and advantage.
It is to banish the hideous old night of Slavery with the jocund young
day-spring of Liberty. (Next
Page)
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