Josiah Gilbert Holland

“ The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession. They have assumed to make a national constitution of their own, in which, of necessity, they have either discarded or retained the right of secession, as they insist it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they thereby admit that on principle it ought not to exist in ours; if they have retained it, by their own construction of ours they show that, to be consistent, they must secede from one another whenever they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts, or effecting any other selfish or unjust object. ”

“ No one among them seemed to doubt that the rebellion might be crushed in a few months, at most. They did not comprehend the almost infinite detail of a war. Patience was a virtue which it took four years to teach them; and when every man connected with the government was making all the efforts possible to forward the preparations for the struggle, the popular press--meaning well, but much misapprehending the difficulties of the situation--were already finding fault with the tardiness of operations. ”

“ The General, it was evident, did not comprehend the character of the rebellion, or he failed to recognize the fact that in such a struggle there could be no such thing as the neutrality which Kentucky was professedly desirous to maintain.
The tenderness of the government, as well as of the generals it had appointed, toward slavery, is worthy of note at this juncture. Mr. Lincoln had always taken great pains to show that he respected the legal rights of slavery under the Constitution. The republicans, in national convention and in Congress, had done the same. ”

“ 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 cannot maintain its territorial integrity, against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretences made in this case, or on any other pretences, or arbitrarily, without any pretence, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. ”

“ The principle itself is one of disintegration, and upon which no government can possibly endure.
"If all the states save one should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would at once deny the power, and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon state rights. ”

“ It remained to be demonstrated to the world that those who could fairly carry an election could also suppress a rebellion--"that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets--that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections." ”

“ Peace then would have left four million slaves in bondage. Peace then would have left the "house divided against itself" still, with the possibility of an indefinite extension of slavery. It was not so to be. A thousand plagues were yet to come before the public mind would be ready to let the bondman go. ”

“ The emergency which the rebellion forced upon the government found that government no less prepared to meet it than it found the loyal people of the country wanting in military knowledge and experience. The people were so eager to furnish men and supplies that they at once became impatient for results. ”

“ Lyon promptly thwarted the scheme, and secured the arms for the government forces. A secession camp, forming in the same city, was captured, and many within it taken prisoners. The Governor of Missouri was disloyal, and did what he could to throw that state into the hands of the rebels; and General Harney, for a short time in command of the military department of the West, so far aided his schemes as to agree with Sterling Price that the whole duty of maintaining order in the state should be intrusted to the state authorities. ”

“ Western Virginia was loyal, and, on the seventeenth of June, in convention at Wheeling, repudiated the ordinance of secession passed by the state convention, and promptly inaugurated a new state government, with Francis H. Pierpoint for Governor. This was the first step toward "reconstruction," and it was taken under the direct sanction of Mr. Lincoln. The doctrine of secession thus early returned to plague the inventors. Rebel forces and rebel sympathizers were of course in Western Virginia ”

“ With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the government the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the farcical pretence of taking their state out of the Union, who could haye been brought to no such thing the day before. ”

“ The impatient people could not know how poorly, because it would expose the weakness of the government to the enemy; so they clamored for a movement, and it was made. On the twenty-fourth of May, General Mansfield began his passage into Virginia. The gallant and lamented Colonel Ellsworth was sent with his regiment of Zouaves to Alexandria; and troops to the number of thirteen thousand were moved across the river, and set to work in the erection of forts for the defense of Washington. ”

“ The troops fought well, but were badly handled. Enough was learned, however, of the bravery of the Yankee, to give prophecy of fine results when the art of war should be better learned.
These comparatively small and widely separated movements were but ripples shot out into the coves and reaches of treason from the tidal sweep of the loyal armies, crowding southward to dash against the grand front of the rebellion. The government had no lack of men ”

“ But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of being called 'driving the one out,' should be called 'the seceding of the others from that one,' it would be exactly what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed, they make the point that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do what the others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully do. ”

“ It greatly encouraged the rebels, their sympathizers abroad sent up a shout of triumph, and the loyal masses were put to such a test of their patriotism and determined bravery as they had never been subjected to. ”

“ Lincoln himself assuming the position of chief mourner.
After the accumulation of a large army on the Virginia side of the Potomac, it was determined to push forward the forces then under the command of Major General McDowell, for a battle with the rebel army which had been gathered at Manassas. For this battle each side had been preparing with great industry. The enemy had withdrawn his forces from the occupation of Harper's Ferry, and that important point had passed into federal control. From every quarter he gathered in his troops, or held them within easy call, and waited for the attack. ”

“ It had its advantages in holding to vigilance and industry all who were in responsible positions, but it had disadvantages in sometimes compelling precipitancy of action, and in breeding in the administration the idea that the people were to be managed like children whose food should be carefully prepared in the departments whenever it was administered, or carefully withheld when their stomachs were not able to receive it. ”

“ General Rosecrans and General Thomas A. Morris had this campaign in hand, and, on the twenty-third of June, General McClellan arrived. On the tenth of July, a skirmish was had with the rebels at Laurel Hill, and two days later the battle of Rich Mountain was fought, which resulted in the defeat and surrender of the rebel Colonel Pegram, with a thousand men. ”