Message To Congress

Message To Congress ". . .Commencing in March last, with the affectation of ignoring the secession of seven States, which first organized this Government; persevering in April in the idle and absurd assumption of the existence of a riot, which was to be dispersed by a posse comitatus; continuing in successive months the false representation that these States intended an offensive war, in spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary, furnished as well by official action as by the very basis on which this Government is constituted, the president of the United States and his advisers succeed in deceiving the people of these States into the belief that the purpose of this Government was not peace at home, but Conquest abroad; not defence of its own liberties , but subversion of those of the people of the United States. ". . . Enormous preparations in men and money, for the conduct of the war, on a scale more grand than any which the new world ever witnessed, is a distinct avowal, in the eyes of civilized man that the United States are engaged in a conflict with a great and powerful nation. They are at last compelled to abandon the pretence of being engaged in dispersing rioters and suppressing insurrections, and are driven to the acknowledgment that the ancient Union has been dissolved. ". . . In this war, rapine is the rule; private houses in beautiful rural retreats , are bombarded and burnt; grain crops in the field are consumed by the torch, and, when the torch is not convenient, careful labor is bestowed to render complete the destruction of every article of use or ornament remaining in private dwellings after their inhabitants have fled from the outrages of brute soldiery. ". . . it is not alone in their prompt pecuniary contributions that the noble race of freemen who inhabit these States evidence how worthy they are of those liberties which they so well know how to defend. In numbers far exceeding those authorized by your laws they have pressed the tender of their services against the enemy. ". . . To speak of subjugating such a people, so united and determined is to speak in a language incomprehensible to them; to resist attack on their rights or their liberties is with them an instinct. Whether this war shall last one, or three, or five years, is a problem they leave to be solved by the enemy alone. It will last till the enemy shall have withdrawn from thenborders ; till their political rights, their altars, and their homes are freed from invasion. . . ." Jefferson Davis at Richmond, July 20, 1861, to the Congress of the Confederate States of America. 16 ...