PART V.

THE STARS AND STRIPES.

A.D. 1861-1865.

OUR FLAG IN THE GREAT REBELLION.

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AGAINST OUR FLAG AND UNION. OUR FLAG AT FORT SUMTER. LOYAL FLAG-RAISINGS.

"In the language of our great leader, General Grant, we will never apologize for the deeds done in 1861-65, but will treasure up their memory, and on every suitable occasion, as long as life lasts, will present them anew to the youth of this country, as noble examples of heroism and patriotism; for they saved this nation from absolute annihilation, or at least from a long period of intestine war and anarchy." — General William T. Sherman, Decoration Day, New York, 1878.

“I am, totis viribus, against any division of the Union by the North River, or by the Delaware River, or by the Potomac, or by any other river, or by any chain of mountains. I am for maintaining the independence of the nation at all events.” —John Adams's Letter, March 13, 1789.

"If Kentucky, to-morrow, unfurls the banner of resistance, I never will fight under that banner; I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union, a subordinate one to my own State." - Henry Clay.

"When my eyes shall turn to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing in all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, 'LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND for ever, one AND INSEPARABLE.'"'— Daniel Webster.

"Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, — only patriots or traitors. I express it as my conviction before God, that it is the duty of every American citizen to rally round the flag of his country."— Stephen A. Douglass.

“I have served my country under the flag of the Union for more than fifty years; and as long as God permits me to live I will defend that flag with my sword, even if my own State assails it."- Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott.

"It is a matter of great anxiety and concern to me that the slave trade is sometimes perpetrated under the flag of liberty, our dear, noble stars and stripes, to which virtue and glory have been constant standard-bearers." — Lafayette to John Adams, 1786. "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, could I have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.” — Lafayette.

"The national ensign, pure and simple, dearer to all our hearts at this moment as we lift it to the gale and see no other sign of hope upon the storm-cloud which rolls and settles above it save that which is reflected from its own radiant hues, dearer, a thousand-fold dearer to us all than ever it was before while gilded by the sunshine of prosperity, and playing with the zephyrs of peace. It speaks for itself far more eloquently than I can speak for it. Behold it! listen to it! Every star has a tongue. Every stripe is articulate. There is no language or speech where their voices are not heard. There's magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question. It has a solution for every doubt and every perplexity. It has a word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of despondency. Behold it! listen to it! It speaks of earlier and later struggles. It speaks of heroes and patriots among the living and among the dead. But before all and above all other associations and memories, whether of glorious men or glorious deeds or glorious places, its voice is ever of union and liberty, of the constitution and the laws. Behold it! listen to it! Let it tell the story of its birth to these gallant volunteers as they march beneath its folds by day, or repose beneath its sentinel stars by night. Let it recall to them the strange, eventful history of its rise and progress. Let it rehearse to them the wondrous tale of its trials and its triumphs in peace as well as in war.” — Robert C. Winthrop, Oct. 3, 1861.

"Death never comes too soon, if necessary in defence of the liberties of our country."— Judge Story.

WHEN the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, pledged to resist the extension of slavery into the Territories, and to confine it to constitutional limits, was ascertained, the existence of a well-organized conspiracy against the unity of our republic was revealed. The leaders of this attempt to blot from our banner and escutcheon the stars of their States had chosen their time well; but in the providence of God, Old Glory, as our flag was baptized by our soldiers, emerged from the smoke and fire of four years of civil conflict with the lustre of its constellation increased,1 and its galaxy brightened and strengthened from the experiences of the war.

The choice of the presidential electors took place Nov. 6, 1860, when Mr. Lincoln received 180 of the 303 votes of the electoral college, or 123 over all opponents. But of the national popular vote he was in a minority 979,163. This fact, and that in the nine slave States no Republican electoral ticket was elected, gave a degree of plausibility to the unfounded assertion that he would be a sectional ruler, and was pledged to wage a relentless war upon slavery and

1 West Virginia was admitted as the thirty-fifth State of the Union on the 3d of June, 1863, by an act of Congress approved Dec. 31, 1862. Nevada was admitted October, 1864. Nebraska and Colorado have been admitted since the close of the war.

the rights of the slave States. That his election had been fairly and legally conducted was undenied, or that he was pledged to non-interference with the rights and domestic policy of the States; but these facts were studiously concealed from the Southern people by their political leaders.

Robert Barnwell Rhett, one of the Hotspurs of South Carolina, declared that "all true statesmanship in the South consisted in forming combinations and shaping events, to as speedily as possible bring about a dissolution of the Union, and a Southern confederacy." Lawrence M. Keith, a representative from South Carolina to the United States Congress, about the same time publicly declared that "South Carolina would shatter the accursed Union." Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, wrote a Northern friend: "The South will not wait for the 4th of March. We will be well under arms before then." Howell Cobb, of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury, while on a visit to New York, pending the canvass, said, at a public meeting, "he did not believe another Congress of the United States would meet ;" and in an address to the people of Georgia, "on the 4th of March, 1861, the federal government will pass into the hands of the Abolitionists, it will then cease to have the slightest claims either upon your confidence or your loyalty, and, in my honest judgment, each hour that Georgia remains thereafter a member of the Union will be an hour of degradation, to be followed by speedy and certain ruin. I entertain no doubt either of your right or duty to secede from the Union." Two days after this treasonable address he resigned his place as a cabinet officer of the United States.

On November 20, 1860, Jacob Thompson, the Secretary of the Interior, wrote: "My allegiance is due to Mississippi. A confederacy of the Southern States will be strong enough to command the respect of the world, and the love and confidence of the people at home."

Mr. Johnson, of Georgia, in the United States Senate, Dec. 5, 1860, announced that the slave States intended to revolt. "We intend to go out of the Union." "I speak what I believe, before the 4th of March five of the Southern States at least will have declared their independence. We intend to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must. If five or eight States go out of this Union, I would like to see the man who would propose a declaration of war against them; but I do not believe with the senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Hale, that there is going to be any war."

These and there were many more like them were treasonable utterances, but were considered by the people of the Northern and Western States as the intemperate outpourings of disappointed poli