And whereas it is desirable that the Confederate States of America shall assume a definite position on so important a point; now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Congress of the Confederate States of America accept the second, third, and fourth clauses of the above-cited declaration, and decline to assent to the first clause thereof. The prohibition of the exportation of cotton, except through Confederate ports, was extended by Congress to embrace rice, sugar, molasses, and sirups. An act was also passed for the sequestration of all Northern property found in the State. The principal clause of the act was as follows: Be it enacted by the Congress of the Confederate States, That all and every the lands, tenements, and hereditaments, goods and chattels, rights and credits within these Confederate States, and every right and interest therein held, owned, possessed, or enjoyed by or for any alien enemy since the twenty-first day of May, 1861, except such debts due to an alien enemy as may have been paid into the Treasury of any one of the Confederate States prior to the passage of this Confederate States of America, and shall be held for the full indemnity of any true and loyal citizen, a resident of these Confederate States, or other person aiding said Confederate States in the prosecution of the present war between said Confederate States and the United States of America, and for which he may suffer any loss or injury under the act of the United States to which this act is retaliatory, or under any other act of the United States, or of any State thereof, authorizing the seizure or confiscation of the property of citizens or residents of the Confederate States, or other person aiding said Confederate States, and the same shall be seized and disposed of as provided for in this act: Provided, however, When the estate, property, or rights to be affected by this act were or are within some State of this Confederacy, which has become such since said twenty-first day of May, then this act shall operate upon and as to such estate, property, or rights, and all persons claiming the same from and after the day such State became a member of this Confederacy, and not before: Provided, further, That the provisions of this act shall not extend to the stocks or other public securities of the Confederate Government, or of any of the States of this Confederacy, held or owned by an alien enemy, or to any debt, obligation, or sum due from the Confederate Government or any of the States to such alien enemy. And provided, also, That the provisions of this act shall not embrace the property of citizens or residents of either of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, or the District of Columbia, or the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona, or the Indian Territory south of Kansas, except such of said citizens or residents as shall commit actual hostilities against the Confederate States, or aid or abet the United States in the existing war against Confederate States. law, be and the same are hereby sequestrated by the Sections 2 to 13 provide for the appointment of receivers in each county, and impose a penalty of $2,000 on all who may endeavor to conceal the ownership of property belonging to alien enemies. Section 14 provides for the appointment of three commissioners to take charge of the sequestration fund, and to hear and decide on all claims against it. This session was short, and devoted almost exclusively to military and financial subjects, (see CONFEDERATE STATES, also FINANCES, U. S.,) and closed by an adjournment to the 18th of November. On that day Congress again reassembled at Richmond. The members present from Virginia were Messrs. W. B. Preston, Tyler, and Macfarland. The aspect of affairs had somewhat changed since its adjournment. It was now manifest that serious dangers were beginning to threaten. The Northern force had gathered, and was organized and disciplined for desperate work. South Carolina had been invaded. North Carolina and Louisiana would soon be threatened. Still there were no fears of the ultimate ability of the Confederacy to repel all invaders. The number of acts of general importance passed at this session was limited. One was adopted admitting Kentucky into the Union of Confederate States. A Message from President Davis was also laid before Congress, relative to the secession from Governor Jackson, and also by an act disof Missouri. It was accompanied by a letter solving the Union with the United States, and an act ratifying the Constitution of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States; also, the Convention between the Commissioners of Missouri and the Commissioners of the Confederate States. This Convention was made on the part of the Confederate States, by R. M. T. Hunter, Secretary of State, and was unanimously ratified by Congress. On the next day an act was passed, admitting Missouri as a member of the Confederacy. At the same time a resolution was adopted, refusing to make any advance to, or to purchase the produce of planters, and surprise was expressed that such applications should be made. An act was also passed to increase the naval force and to enlist not more than two thousand seamen. A resolution was passed appropriating $250,000 as an advance, on account of any claims of the State of South Carolina upon the Confederate States. A large number of nominations, as major and brigadier-generals, was also confirmed. About $60,000,000 were appropriated for the army, and about $4,000,000 for the navy. The provisions of the naturalization act were extended to all persons not citizens of the Confederate States, who were engaged in the naval service of the Confederate States during the war. Postmasters were required to receive Treasury notes in the sums of five dollars and upwards, in payment of postage stamps and stamped envelopes. On the appointment of Attorney-General Benjamin, as Secretary of War, Thomas Bragg, of North Carolina, was appointed to the vacancy. All important matters relating to the war, finance, foreign relations, and many domestic measures were discussed in secret sessions, at which no persons were admitted but the regular members of that body and its officers. It presented to the world the first example of a public body, which claimed to represent the people of a country, and to be acting by their authority and in their behalf, sitting with closed doors and withholding all its important transactions from their knowledge. Such a flagrant outage upon representative institutions can find no justification with freemen. CONGRESS, THE U. S. The second session of the thirty-sixth Congress commenced at Washington on Monday, December 3, 1860.* In the Senate the difficulties of the country attracted immediate attention. Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, on making the usual motion for printing the President's message, (for Message see Public Documents,) said: "As to the general tone of the message, Mr. President, everybody will say that it is eminently patriotic, and I agree with a great deal that is in it; but I think it falls short of stating the case that is now before the country. It is not, for example, merely that a dangerous man has been elected to the Presidency of the United States. We know that under our complicated system that might very well occur by The members of the Senate were as follows. From the State of Maine.-Hannibal Hamlin and William Pitt Fessenden. Louisiana.-J. P. Benjamin and John Slidell. Arkansas.-R. W. Johnson and William K. Sebastian. South Carolina.-Jatnes Chesnut, jr., and James H. Ham mond had tendered their resignation to the Governor of that State on the 9th of November, 1860. The members of the House of Representatives were as follows: Maine-Daniel E. Somes, John J. Perry, Ezra B. French, Stephen Coburn, Freeman H. Morse, Israel Washburn, jr., Stephen C. Foster. New Hampshire-Gilman Marston, Mason W. Tappan, Thomas M. Edwards. Vermont.-E. P. Walton, Justin S. Morrill, Homer E. Royce. Massachusetts.-Thomas D. Ellot, James Buffinton, Chas. F. Adams, Alexander H. Rice, Anson Burlingame, John B. Alley, Charles R. Train, Eli Thaver, Charles Delano, Rhode Island-Christopher Robinson, Wm. D. Brayton, Connecticut-Dwight Loomis, John Woodruff, Alfred A. Burnham, Orris S. Ferry. New York-Luther C. Carter, James Humphreys, Daniel E. Sickles, William B. Maclay, John Cochrane, George Briggs, Horace F. Clark, John B. Haskin, William S. Kenyon, Charles L. Beale, John H. Reynolds, James B. McKean, George W. Palmer, Francis E. Spinner, Edwin R. Reynolds, James H. Graham, Roscoe Conkling, R. Holland Duell, M. Lindley Lee, Charles B. Hoard, Charles B. Sedgwick, Martin Butterfield, Emory B. Pottle, Alfred Wells, William Irvine, Alfred Ely, Augustus Frank, Elbridge G. Spaulding, Reuben E. Fenton. accident, and he be powerless; but I assert that the President elect has been elected because he was known to be a dangerous man. He avows the principle that is known as the "irrepressible conflict." He declares that it is the purpose of the North to make war upon my section until its social system has been destroyed, and for that he was taken up and elected. That declaration of war is dangerous, because it has been indorsed by a majority of the votes of the free States in the late election. It is this great, remarkable, and dangerous fact that has filled my section with alarm and dread for the future. "The President says that he may be powerless by reason of the opposition in Congress now; but that is only a temporary relief. Everybody knows that the majority which has borne him into the chair can control all the depart New Jersey.-John T. Nixon, John L. N. Stratton, Garnett B. Adrain, Jetur R. Riggs. Pennsylvania.-Thomas R. Florence, Edward Joy Morris, John P. Verree, John Wood, John Hickman, Henry C. Longnecker, Thaddeus Stevens, John W. Killinger, James H. Campbell, Galusha A. Grow, Jacob K. McKenty, James S. Blair, John Covode, James K. Moorhead, Robert McT. Hale, Benjamin F. Junkin, Edward McPherson, Samuel Knight, William Stewart, Chapin Hall, Elijah Babbitt Delaware-William G. Whiteley. Maryland.-James A. Stewart, J. Morrison Harris, H. Winter Davis, Jacob M. Kunkel, George W. Hughes, Webster. Virginia.-John 8. Millson, Daniel C. De Jarnette, Roger A. Pryor, Thomas S. Bocock, William Smith, Alexander R Boteler, John T. Harris, Albert G. Jenkins, Henry A. Edmundson, Elbert S. Martin. North Carolina.-William N. H. Smith, Thomas Puffin, Warren Winslow, Lawrence O'B. Branch, John A. Gilmer, James M. Leach, Burton Craige. South Carolina.-John McQueen, Lawrence M. Keltt, Milledge L. Bonham, John D. Ashmore, William W. Boyce. Georgia.-Peter E. Love, Thomas Hardeman, Lucius J. Gartrell, John W. H. Underwood, James Jackson, Joshua Hill, John J. Jones, Alabama. James L. Pugh. David Clopton. Sydenham Moore, George S. Houston, Williamson R. W. Cobb, Jabez L. M. Curry. Mississippi.-Otho R. Singleton. Ohio.-George II. Pendleton, John A. Gurley, Clement L. Vallandigham, William Allen, James M. Ashley, Wiliam Howard, Thomas Corwin, Benjamin Stanton, John Carey, Carey A. Trimble, Charles D. Martin, Samuel S. Cox, Jela Sherman, Harrison G. Blake, William Helmick, Cydnor B. Tompkins, Thomas C. Theaker, Sidney Edgerton, Edward Wade, John Hutchins, John A. Bingham. Kentucky-Henry C. Burnett, Samuel O. Peyton, Francis M. Bristow, William C. Anderson, Green Adams, Laban T. Moore, John W. Stevenson, John Y. Brown. Tennessee.-Thomas A. R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, William B. Stokes, Robert Hatton, James H. Thomas, James M. Quarles, Emerson Etheridge, William T. Avery. Indiana.-William E. Niblack, William H. English, W. McKee Dunn, William S. Holman, David Kilgore, Albert G. Porter, John G. Davis, Schuyler Colfax, Charles Case, John U. Pettit. Illinois-Elihu B. Washburne, Owen Lovejoy, Isane N. Morris, John A. McClernand, James C. Robinson, Philip B Fouke, John A. Logan. Missouri.-Thomas L. Anderson, John B. Clark, James Craig, J. R. Barrett, Samuel II. Woodson, John S. Phelps John W. Noell. ments of this Government. Why, sir, five or six of our conservative Senators have already to give place to others on the 4th of March; and if the others do not, it is simply because their terms have not expired. Both the Senators from Indiana and the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas,] and other gentlemen, would be beaten by that same majority, if it were not that their terms have time to run. They must, however, be cut down at no distant day. Not only that; but if the House of Representatives is divided to some little extent, how long can it be so? We all know that New England has presented an unbroken front for some time past; and does any man doubt that the same organization that elected Abraham Lincoln can make a clear majority of both branches of Congress? The efforts of the Abolitionists will be directed to the few doubtful districts, and they will soon be subjected to their control. So powerful and steady is the current of their progress that it will soon overwhelm the entire North. In this way they must soon control the President, both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and all the officers of the Government. The result is that a sectional party will wield the entire power over all the departments of the Government. "But this is not the worst view of the case. We are not only to be governed by a sectional domination which does not respect our rights, but by one, the guiding principle of which is hostility to the Southern States. It is that, Mr. President, that has alarmed the country; and it is idle for gentlemen to talk to us about this thing being done according to the forms of the Constitution. "My purpose was not so much to make a speech as to state what I think is the great difficulty; and that is, that a man has been elected because he has been and is hostile to the South. It is this that alarms our people; and I am free to say, as I have said on the stump this summer repeatedly, that if that election were not resisted, either now or at some day not far distant, the Abolitionists would succeed in abolishing slavery all over the South. "Therefore I maintain that our true policy is to meet this issue in limine; and I hope it will be done. If we can maintain our personal safety, let us hold on to the present Government; if not, we must take care of ourselves at all hazards. I think this is the feeling that prevails in North Carolina." Mr. Lane, of Oregon, said: "We are all aware, Mr. President, that there is great dissatisfaction in this country, and a very near approach, unless something can be done very speedily, to a dissolution of the Union. It is not very strange, as I look at it, that this condition of things should exist. It has been truly said that the election of any man to the Presidency would not be good cause for a dissolution of the Union. I am prepared to say that the simple election of any man to that office, in my judgment, would not be cause for a dissolution. The Nor is that the cause of complaint in the country; but it is the principles upon which the late election has taken place that have given rise to the trouble. Never in any previous presidential election has the issue been so fully put, so directly made, as in the late one. question every where was: shall the equality of the States be maintained; shall the people of every State have a right to go into the common territory with their property? And the verdict of the people has been that equality in this country shall not prevail. It is to the effect that fifteen States of this Union shall be deprived of equality; that they shall not go into the common territory with their property; that they are inferiors, and must submit to inequality and degradation. Then, sir, with such a state of facts before us, is it strange that there should be dissatisfaction and trouble? "Mr. President, it is not the election of Mr. Lincoln that is troubling the country, as I said before, but that he is regarded as a dangerous man; that he entertains views and opinions as expressed by himself, which are dangerous to the peace, safety, and prosperity of fifteen States of this Confederacy. He is an 'irrepressible conflict' man; he holds that the slave States and free States cannot live together. I apprehend the result will be, that they will not live together." Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, from the other side of the Senate, replied: "I think we might as well look this matter right clearly in the face; and I am not going to be long about doing it. I think that this state of affairs looks to one of two things: it looks to absolute submission, not on the part of our Southern friends and of the Southern States, but of the North, to the abandonment of their position-it looks to a surrender of that popular sentiment which has been uttered through the constituted forms of the ballot-box; or it looks to open war. We need not shut our eyes to the fact. It means war, and it means nothing else; and the State which has put herself in the attitude of secession so looks upon it. And I avow here I do not know whether or not I shall be sustained by those who usually act with me-if the issue which is presented is that the constitutional will of the public opinion of this country, expressed through the forms of the Constitution, will not be submitted to, and war is the alternative, let it come in any form or in any shape. The Union is dissolved and it cannot be held together as a Union, if that is the alternative upon which we go into an election. If it is pre-announced and determined that the voice of the majority expressed through the regular and constituted forms of the Constitution, will not be submitted to, then, sir, this is not a Union of equals; it is a Union of a dictatorial oligarchy on the one side, and a herd of slaves and cowards on the other. That is it, sir; nothing more, nothing less." Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said in answer: "All we ask is that we be allowed to depart in peace. Do you mean to say that that is not to be allowed us, that we shall neither have peace in the Union, nor be allowed the poor boon of seeking it out of the Union? If that be your attitude, war is inevitable. We feel as every American citizen not blinded by passion and by prejudice must feel, that in this transaction we have been deeply aggrieved; that the accumulating wrongs of years have finally culminated in your triumph-not the triumph of Abraham Lincoln, not your individual triumph -but in the triumph of principles, to submit to which would be the deepest degradation that a free people ever submitted to. We cannot; calmly, quietly, with all the dignity which I can summon, I say to you that we will not submit. We invite no war; we expect none, and hope for none." Mr. Iverson, of Georgia, still further replied: "As the Senator from New Hampshire very properly remarked, it is time to look this thing in the face. The time is rolling rapidly to the consummation of these great objects; and, in my opinion, there is nothing this side of heaven that can prevent their consummation. You talk about concessions. You talk about repealing the personal liberty bills as a concession to the South. Repeal them all to-morrow, sir, and it would not stop the progress of this revolution. It is not your personal liberty bills that we dread. Those personal liberty bills are obnoxious to us not on account of their practical operation, not because they prevent us from reclaiming our fugitive slaves, but as an evidence of that deep-seated, wide-spread hostility to our institutions, which must sooner or later end in this Union in their extinction. That is the reason we object to your personal liberty bills. It is not because that in their practical operation they ever do any harm. But, sir, if all the liberty bills were repealed to-day, the South would no more gain her fugitive slaves than if they were in existence. It is not the personal liberty laws; it is mob laws that we fear. It is the existence and action of the public sentiment of the Northern States that are opposed to this institution of slavery, and are determined to break it down-to use all the power of the Federal Government, as well as every other power in their hands, to bring about its ultimate and speedy extinction. That is what we apprehend, and what in part moves us to look for security and protection in secession and a Southern Confederacy." Mr. Wigfall, of Texas, declared his view of this point thus: "We simply say that a man who is distasteful to us has been elected, and we choose to consider that as a sufficient ground for leaving the Union, and we intend to leave the Union. Then, if you desire it, bring us back. When you undertake that, and have accomplished it, you may be like the man who purchased the elephant-you may find it rather difficult to decide what you will do with the animal." Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, closed the debate on printing the message with these words: "I do not rise for the purpose of protracting this unnecessary and most unfortunate debate; but I rise simply to say in the presence of the representatives of the different States, that my State having been the first to adopt the Constitution, will be the last to do any act or countenance any act calculated to lead to the separ ation of the States of this glorious Union. She has shared too much of its blessings; her people performed too much service in achieving the glorious liberties which we now enjoy, and in establishing the Constitution under which we live, to cause any son of hers to raise his hand against those institutions or against that Union. Sir, when that Union shall be destroyed by the madness and folly of others, (if, unfortunately, it shall be so destroyed,) it will be time enough then for Delaware and her Representatives to say what will be her course." On a subsequent day Mr. Powell, of Kentucky, introduced a resolution respecting the reference of the President's message, which was changed by amendment to the following form: Resolved, That so much of the President's message as relates to the agitated and distracted condition of the country, and the grievances between the slavespecial committee of thirteen members, and that said holding and non-slaveholding States, be referred to a committee be instructed to inquire into the present condition of the country, and report by bill or otherwise. Mr. Powell, on offering the resolution, thus stated its object: "Mr. President, the object of the resolution under consideration is to initiate measures to save the country from its present perilous condition; to avert, if possible, a dismemberment of the Union, and restore peace, harmony, happiness, and security, to a distracted and divided people. Events are rapidly crowding upon us which, if not arrested, will speedily overthrow the Government. The mere anticipation of these sad and melancholy results has already caused distrust, alarm, and ruin in many parts of the country." Mr. King, of New York, said: "I am not one of those who despair of the republic; I believe we shall go safely through this crisis, as we have passed through many others that in my period of time have been said to exist. If there be any thing that ought to be inquired into, in my judgment it is, whether the laws be sufficient to enable the Government to maintain itself, and to enforce its constitutional powers." Mr. Douglas, upon the resolution being again before the Senate, said: "I am ready to act with any party, with any individual of any party, who will come to this question with an eye single to the preservation of the Constitution and the Union. I trust we may lay aside all party grievances, party feuds, partisan jealousies, and look to our country, and not to our party, in the consequences of our action." Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, argued that the fault was not in the form of the Government, nor did the evil spring from the manner in which it had been administered. Where, then, was it? It was that our fathers formed a Government for a Union of friendly States; and though under it the people have been prosperous, beyond comparison with any other whose career is recorded in the history of man, still that Union of friendly States had changed its character, and sectional hostility had been substituted for the fraternity in which the Government was founded. He further said: "I do not intend here to enter into a statement of grievances; I do not intend here to renew that war of crimination which for years past has disturbed the country, and in which I have taken a part perhaps more zealous than useful; but I call upon all men who have in their hearts a love of the Union, and whose service is not merely that of the lip, to look the question calmly but fully in the face, that they may see the true cause of our danger, which, from my examination, I believe to be that a sectional hostility has been substituted for a general fraternity, and thus the Government rendered powerless for the ends for which it was instituted. The hearts of a portion of the people have been perverted by that hostility, so that ⚫ the powers delegated by the compact of union are regarded, not as means to secure the welfare of all, but as instruments for the destruction of a part-the minority section. How, then, have we to provide a remedy? By strengthening this Government? By instituting physical force to overawe the States-to coerce the people living under them as members of sovereign communities to pass under the yoke of the Federal Government? No, sir; I would have this Union severed into thirty-three fragments sooner than have that great evil befall constitutional liberty and representative government. Our Government is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual good offices. "Then where is the remedy? the question may be asked. In the hearts of the people, is the ready reply; and therefore it is that I turn to the other side of the chamber, to the majority section, to the section in which have been committed the acts that now threaten the dissolution of the Union. I call on you, the representatives of that section, here and now to say so, if your people are not hostile; if they have the fraternity with which their fathers came to form this Union; if they are prepared to do justice; to abandon their opposition to the Constitution and the laws of the United States; to recognize, and to maintain, and to defend all the rights and benefits the Union was designed to promote and to secure. Give us that declaration-give us that evidence of the will of your Constituency to restore us to our original position, when mutual kindness was the animating motive, and then we may hopefully look for remedies which may suffice; not by organizing armies not so much by enacting laws as by repressing the spirit of hostility and lawlessness, and seeking to live up to the obligations of good neighbors, and friendly States united for the common welfare." Mr. Green, of Missouri, said: "For me to go on the stump or in this Senate chamber, and denounce one section of the Union, or the other section of the Union, would do more harm than good; but let me appeal to them, and ask them, as I say to them now, Are you not willing to grant me the Constitution? Yes. You ask me, Do you want any more than the Constitution? No. Then this one point only remains: If you construe the Constitution one way, and I construe it another, let us as brethren put in an explanatory amendment, which will remove the whole difficulty, that we may go on together in harmony and peace hereafter. A rigid enforcement of the fugitive slave law, a rigid protection of the States from invasion, and an explanatory amendment of the Constitution, defining the rights on every point where there is any dispute, will give us the same old peace we had, and we will go on with the same prosperity as we formerly did." Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, followed: "In saying that the controversy respecting slavery is the cause of our present difficulties, I do not intend to say whether one section of the country is in fault more than another, whether both are equally in fault, or whether the blame is wholly on one side. Crimination and recrimination are now useless-nay, dangerous. If it be possible, the first thing should be to restore the fraternal spirit which once existed, ought to exist, and may still exist. "How shall this be done? I know of no other mode than by cheerfully and honestly assuring to every section of the country its constitutional rights. No section professes to ask more; no section ought to offer less. As to what are these constitutional rights, that is a question to be considered in a spirit of confidence and mutual good will, and furthermore, in a spirit of devotion to the Union, for the preservation of which my constituents are ready to make any sacrifice which a reasonable man can ask, or an honorable man can grant, consistently with principle. In this spirit, sir, I shall meet this great question; and in doing so I believe I shall be sustained by an immense majority of my constituents. If time shall show that I am wrong in this belief, I shall instantly cease to represent them in this Senate." Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, declined to vote for the resolution. He said: "Things had reached a crisis. The crisis could only be met in one way effectually, in his judgment; and that was, for the Northern people to review and reverse their whole policy upon the subject of slavery. I see no evidence anywhere of any such purpose. On the contrary, the evidences accumulate all around, day by day, that there is no such purpose. The Southern States do not expect that they are going to do it; and, |