July 5, 1861. |
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| Hannibal Hamlin. |
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[562]
The proceedings of the Senate, over which Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice-President of the United States, presided, were opened by prayer by the Rev. Byron Sunderland, D. D., and those of the House of Representatives by the Rev. T. H. Stockton, chaplain of the last House.1 This was the first session of this Congress, and the House of Representatives was organized by the election of Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, to be speaker or presiding officer.
On the second day of the session,
President Lincoln sent into Congress, by the hands of his private secretary, J. G. Nicolay, a message, devoted almost exclusively to the consideration of the important subject which occasioned the assembling of that body in extraordinary session.
He recited
the many and grave offenses of the conspirators, such as the seizure and appropriation of public property, the preparations for war, and the seeking of recognition by foreign powers, as an independent nation; and then he gave an outline history of events connected with Fort Sumter, already recorded in this volume.
Speaking of the assault on that work, he said that it was in “no sense a matter of self-defense upon the part of the assailants,” 2 for they “knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon them.”
By the affair at Fort Sumter, he said, “the assailants of the Government began the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the fort, sent to that harbor years before for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in whatever was lawful.
In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, ‘immediate dissolution or blood.’
And this issue embraces more than these United States.
It presents to the whole family of man the question, whether a constitutional republic or democracy — a government of the people by the same people — can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes.
It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in number to control administration according to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily, ”
1 See page 65.
2 The excuse of the conspirators for their revolutionary act alluded to by the President, like all others, was only a pretext, and so transparent that no well-informed person was deceived by it. Such was, evidently, the Peace Convention (see page 235) at Washington, planned by the Virginia conspirators. Such, also, was the mission of Forsyth and Crawford (see page 800), who were sent by Jefferson Davis to Washington to say that they were “intrusted with power, in the spirit of humanity, the civilization of the age,” et coetera, to offer to the National Government the olive-branch of peace (see page 808), when it is known that while they were in the Capital, these “peace ambassadors” made large contracts with Northern manufacturers (to the shame of these contractors be it recorded!), for arms and ammunition, in preparation for war.
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