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PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



the state of the Confederacy as to render it unneces- 

 sary that I should now do more than call your atten- 

 tion to such important facts as have occurred during 

 the recess, and the matters connected with the public 

 defence. 



I have again to congratulate you on the accession of 

 new members to our Confederation of free and equally 

 sovereign States. Our loved and honored brethren of 

 North Carolina and Tennessee have consummated the 

 action foreseen and provided for at your last session, 

 and I have had the gratification of announcing, by 

 proclamation, in conformity with law, that these States 

 were admitted into the Confederacy. The people of 

 Virginia, also, by a majority previously unknown in 

 our nistory, have ratified the action of her Convention 

 uniting her fortunes with ours. The States of Arkan- 

 sas, North Carolina, and Virginia have likewise adopt- 

 ed the permanent Constitution of the Confederate 

 States, and no doubt is entertained of its adoption by 

 Tennessee, at the election to be held early in next 

 month. 



I deemed it advisable to direct the removal of the 

 several executive departments, with their archives, to 

 this city, to which you have removed the seat of Gov- 

 ernment. Immediately after your adjournment, the 

 aggressive movements of the enemy required prompt, 

 energetic action. The accumulation of his forces on 

 the Potomac sufficiently demonstrated that his efforts 

 were to be directed against Virginia, and from no 

 point could necessary measures for her defence and 

 protection be so effectively decided, as from her own 

 capital. The rapid progress of events, for the last 

 few weeks, has fully sufficed to lift the veil, behind 

 which the true policy and purposes of the Government 

 of the United States had been previously concealed. 

 Their odious features now stand fully revealed. The 

 Message of their President, and the action of their 

 Congress during the present month, confess their in- 

 tention of the subjugation of these States, by a war, 

 by which it is impossible to attain the propose'd result, 

 whiJe its dire calamities, not to be avoided by us, will 

 fall with double severity on themselves. 



Commencing in March last, with the affectation of 

 ignoring the secession of seven States, which first or- 

 ganized this G-overnment ; persevering in April in the 

 idle and absurd assumption of the existence of a riot, 

 which was to be dispersed by a posse comitatu* ; con- 

 tinuing 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 succeeded in deceiving 

 the people of these States into the belief that the pur- 

 pose 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. 

 The series of mano3uvres by which this impression 

 was created ; the art with which they were devised, 

 and the perfidy with which they were executed, were 

 already known to you ; but you could scarcely have 

 supposed that they would be openly avowed, and their 

 success made the subject of boast and self-laudation in 

 an executive message. Fortunately for truth and his- 

 tory, however, the President of the United States de- 

 tails, with minuteness, the attempt to reinforce Fort 

 Pickens, in violation of an armistice of which he con- 

 fessed to have been informed, but only by rumors, too 

 vague and uncertain to fix the attention of the hostile 

 expedition despatched to supply Fort Sumter, admitted 

 to have been undertaken with the knowledge that its 

 success was impossible. The sending of a notice to 

 the Governor of South Carolina of his intention to use 

 force to accomplish his object, and then quoting from 

 his inaugural address the assurance that " there could 

 be no conflict unless these States were the aggressors," 

 he proceeds to declare his conduct, as just related by 

 himself, was the performance of a promise, so free 

 from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the 

 world should not be able to misunderstand it ; and in 

 pefiance of his own statement that he gave notice of 



the approach of a hostile fleet, he charges these States 

 with becoming the assailants of the United States, 

 without a gun in sight, or in expectancy, to return 

 their fire, save only a few in the fort. He is, indeed, 

 fully justified in saying that the case is so free from 

 the power of ingenious sophistry that the world will 

 not be able to misunderstand it. Under cover of this 

 unfounded pretence, that the Confederate States are 

 the assailants, that high functionary, after expressing 

 his concern that some foreign nations had so shaped 

 their action as if they supposed the early destruction 

 of the national Union probable, abandons all further 

 disguise, and proposes to make this contest a short and 

 decisive one, by placing at the control of the Govern- 

 ment for the work at least four hundred thousand men, 

 and four hundred millions of dollars. The Congress, 

 concurring in the doubt thus intimated as to the suf- 

 ficiency of the force demanded, has increased it to 

 half a million of men. 



These enormous preparations in men and money, 

 for the conduct of the war, ou 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 pow- 

 erful 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 dis- 

 solved. They recognize the separate existence of these 

 Confederate States, by an interdictive embargo and 

 blockade of all commerce between them and the United 

 States, not only by sea, but by land ; not only in ships, 

 but in cars ; not only with those who bear arms, but 

 with the entire population of the Confederate States. 

 Finally, they have repudiated the foolish conceit that 

 the inhabitants of this Confederacy are still citizens 

 of the United States ; for they_ are waging an indis- 

 criminate war upon them all, with savage ferocity, un- 

 known in modern civilization. 



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 dwell- 

 ings after their inhabitants have fled from the outrages 

 of brute soldiery. In 1781 Great Britain, when invad- 

 ing the revolted colonies, took possession of every dis- 

 trict and county near Fortress Monroe, now occupied 

 by the troops of the United States. The houses then 

 inhabited by the people, after being respected and pro- 

 tected by avowed invaders, are now pillaged and de- 

 stroyed by men who pretend that Virginians are their 

 fellow-citizens. Mankind will shudder at the tales of 

 the outrages committed on defenceless families by sol- 

 diers of the United States, now invading our homes; 

 yet these outrages are prompted by inflamed passions 

 and the madness of intoxication. But who shall depict 

 the horror they entertain for the cool and deliberate 

 malignancy which, under the pretext of suppressing 

 insurrection, (said by themselves to be upheld by a 

 minority only of our people,) makes special war on the 

 sick, including children and women, by carefully-de- 

 vised measures to prevent them from obtaining the 

 medicines necessary for their cure. The sacred claims 

 of humanity, respected even during the fury of actual 

 battle, by careful diversion of attack from hospitals 

 containing wounded enemies, are outraged in cold 

 blood by a Government and people that pretend to de- 

 sire a continuance of fraternal connections. All these 

 outrages must remain unavenged by the universal rep- 

 rehension of mankind. In all cases where the actual 

 perpetrators of the wrongs escape capture, they admit 

 of no retaliation. The humanity of our people would 

 shrink instinctively from the bare idea of urging a like 

 war upon the sick, the women, and the children of an 

 enemy. But there are other savage practices which 

 have been resorted toby the Government of the United 

 States, which do admit of repression by retaliation, 

 and I have been driven to the necessity of enforcing 

 the repression. The prisoners of war taken by the 



