Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/500

494: ABRAHAM LINCOLN nah harbor, was reduced ; and New Orleans was captured. But Mr. Adams, United States minister at London, found it impossible to in- duce the British government to stop the fitting out of confederate privateers in English ports, though in repeated instances he offered the most specific evidence as to the character of the vessels. When the No. 290, afterward famous as the Alabama, escaped from the yard of the Messrs. Laird at Birkenhead (July, 1862), the British government was notified that the United States would hold it respon- sible for whatever damage the vessel might inflict on American commerce. On Sept. 5, 1863, Earl Russell, the secretary for foreign affairs, having announced to Mr. Adams that the government would do nothing to prevent the fitting out in Liverpool of two iron-clad rams for the confederates, Mr. Adams in his reply said: "It would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war. ... In my belief it is impossible that any nation, retaining a proper degree of self- respect, could tamely submit to a continuance of relations so utterly deficient in reciprocity." The British government receded from the po- sition it had taken, and ordered the detention of the rams. A few days later Mr. Adams re- ceived from "Washington instructions to do that which he had already done, and the letter a,dded: "If this condition of things is to re- main and receive the deliberate sanction of the British government, the navy of the Uni- ted States will receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which thus, in violation of the law of nations and the obli- gations of neutrality, become harbors for the pirates." The emperor of the French, after failing to secure the cooperation of England and Russia in an attempt at mediation between the federal government and the confederates, made the offer alone, intimating that separa- tion was " an extreme which could no longer be avoided." The president's reply, Feb. 6, 1863, after briefly reciting what had been ac- complished in recapturing large portions of the seceded states, emphatically rejected the idea that the government could ever consent to hold a conference with rebels in arms to discuss a possible dissolution of the Union, and pointed out the fact that the empty seats in congress were still accessible to representatives con- stitutionally chosen from the insurrectionary states, and that congress was the proper and sufficient arbiter on all questions between the states and the general government. This put an end to the talk of foreign intervention. In December, 1862, Secretary Smith was suc- ceeded by John P. Usher of Indiana. West Virginia was admitted into the Union on the 31st. The president had first suspended the writ of habeas corpus on May 3, 1861, in an or- der addressed to the commander of the forces on the Florida coast. On the 27th of the same month Gen. Oadwalader, being authorized by the president, refused to obey a writ issued by Chief Justice Taney for the release of a Mary- land secessionist imprisoned in Fort McHenry. The chief justice then read an opinion that the president could not suspend the writ, and most of the journals opposed to the administration violently assailed its action ; whereupon some of them were refused transmission in the mails, and at the same time restrictions were placed upon the use of the telegraph. The suspension of the writ was continued in spite of the opin- ion of the chief justice, and under it, on Sept. 16, nine members of the Maryland house of delegates, with the officers of both houses, were arrested by Gen. McClellan to prevent the pas- sage of an ordinance of secession which was contemplated for the next day. Congress passed an act (December, 1861) approving the action of the president, and authorizing the suspension of the writ so long as he should deem it necessary. In July, 1862, Attorney General Bates sent in an elaborate opinion on the subject, favorable to suspension ; and there- after the war department, to which the power had been transferred in February, exercised it freely for the imprisonment of notorious or suspected spies and secessionists, and of per- sons in the northern states who discouraged enlistments, opposed drafts, or promoted de- sertions. The most noted case was that of Clement L. Vallandigham, who for a violent disunion speech was arrested by Gen. Burn- side, May 4, 1863, and condemned by a military commission to imprisonment ; the president commuted the sentence to banishment beyond the military lines. The affair created consid- erable excitement, and the action of the gov- ernment was formally condemned by a large meeting of opponents of the administration at Albany, N. Y., among whom was the governor of the state, and by similar meetings elsewhere. In reply to the Albany resolutions the presi- dent wrote a letter in which he discussed at considerable length and in his usual clear and forcible style the constitutional provision for suspension of the writ and its application to the circumstances then existing. At the next state election in Ohio Mr. Vallandigham was the democratic candidate for governor, but was defeated by a majority of 100,000. Colored soldiers were first enlisted into the federal service in January, 1863, and within the year their number reached 100,000, about 60,000 actually bearing arms ; before the close of the war they numbered about 170,000. These were not assigned as state troops, though credited to the quotas of the states from which they enlisted, but mustered in as "United States colored volunteers." The atrocities commit- ted by the confederates when colored soldiers were captured, caused the president to issue an order, July 30, 1863, that "for every sol- dier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be exe- cuted ; and for every one enslaved by the ene- my or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works."