USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 32
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On the other hand, Mr. Brown, of Randolph, considered that if it was not unconstitutional to deprive Rebels of life, it certainly was not to take their property.
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FIGHTING A MAN OF STRAW.
Mr. Mellet, of Henry, declared that the war ought to be prosecuted, or it ought not; and if it ought to be prosecuted, it should be done without conditions.
Mr. March said: "If the statements of those who at- tacked the Proclamation were correct, they were fighting a man of straw, for they have declared it was a nullity. They admitted that a military commander had a right to do what the President attempted to effect. The Proclamation was nothing but a military order from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. It has been detrimental to the army only in the imagination of Senators and in the wishes of Northern traitors."
Mr. Claypool was assured that if the Democratic party would come forward and unite for a vigorous prosecution of the war, and agree to favor the further increase of white sol- diers, there would be no use for negro soldiers. But if they failed to do this, he was in favor of arming negrocs. For his part, he would rather fight by the side of a loyal negro than by the side of the whitest Democratic traitor in the country.
Mr. Murray, of Elkhart and Lagrange, was convinced that Mr. Cobb's resolutions, if adopted, would add to the excitement existing in our State, and increase the divisions in the North. Legislators ought to do nothing to fan the flames. The blacks were as much bound to fight for their country now, as when they aided Jackson at New Orleans. Mr. Lincoln had for two years prosecuted the war on border State principles. He had made Fremont, Phelps, Hunter, Lane and Cameron withdraw their proclamations and ex- pressions in favor of arming negroes. He had now deter- mined on a different policy, and until this policy had been tried, he was not for asking him to change.
All amendments were voted down. The resolution passed by twenty-eight votes to fifteen.
The negro was on the tapis in another form. The devas- tation of town and country in the South forced thousands of wretches toward the North. They toiled wearily to the Ohio river, and looked to its northern shore for shelter and protec- tion. It might be supposed that the mute appeal of home-
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less, helpless, harmless wanderers would be irresistible to statesmen of the present day; that they would feel a noble pleasure in softening and enlarging the sympathies of their fellow-citizens. He who could indulge so wild a fancy did not know the Democrats of the Indiana Legislature of 1863. They delighted in playing upon vulgar prejudices, in striking the down trodden, in barring and double-locking the doors of Indiana. They presented, without shame, petitions from their constituents praying the Legislature to enforce the thirteenth article of the Constitution, an article which for- bids negro emigration, and which, though it violates the Con- stitution of the United States, was apparently dearer to the Democratic party than all the Constitution besides. They care- fully prepared and brought forward resolutions and proposi- tions to make the article more stringent, declaring negro emigration a contempt for the Constitution and a felony; requiring all negroes and mulattoes to present themselves for registry to the Clerk of Circuit Court; pronouncing null and void all contracts with negroes or mulattoes who had come into Indiana since October, 1851, or who would hereafter come; imposing a fine of not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars on negro emigrants or on whites, who should know without revealing that another afforded protec- tion to a negro or mulatto fugitive, and any white who permits a negro to remain at his house or on his premises to be regarded as sufficient evidence against such person.
Days and days were passed in debate of a bill to the above purport. The staunch Republicans opposed it with the plain arguments of justice and humanity. At length, Mr. Clay- pool proposed the following amendment: "It seems to be," le said, "modeled after the dog law, and in order to make it assimilate nearer, I move to recommit with instructions to amend so as to provide that it shall be lawful to kill all. ne- groes running at large after the first day of July, 1863, with- out being licensed under this act."
The bill passed, though without the amendment. If the latter had proceeded from Mr. Cobb or Mr. Wolfe, there is no reason to suppose it would have been unacceptable.
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PEACE CONVENTION PROPOSED.
Such was the reputation of the Indiana Legislature abroad that Mr. Claypool's amendment was taken as a bona fide proposition. The New York Evening Post, commenting on the bill, said: "A Copperhead named Claypool made a speech upon it, saying that it should be made to read like the dog law; that all negroes found at large without a license or a collar on their necks, should be killed." And the Nash- ville Union gave its opinion that: "Claypool (Mudhole) is one of the fellows who believe that slavery was ordained by the good Father of the human family to Christianize the negro."
Not satisfied with snarling at the negro soldier, and kick- ing out the negro refugee, the Democrats fell foul of the old, tax-paying negro citizen, who claimed for his children the benefit of the public schools.
Compromise! Armistice! National Convention! were ral- lying cries which drew to their feet and to the van of their forces the leaders of the majority. A proposition for a na- tional convention in July, and for an armistice from April to August, was warmly supported, as was also a resolution that: "No plan, overture or proposition for a compromise coming from any section or State be considered humiliating or dishonorable, but be hailed with gladness, pledging to the seceded States a liberal compromise and additional safe- guards for their rights." Assertions that only compromise could secure peace, and that it would be better to let the Rebels go than to continue the war, were received with approval.
Nashville having been designated in a joint resolution before the Senate as a favorable point for the Peace Con- vention, one Republican proposed Richmond instead, and another suggested "the suburbs of Charleston, as near to the city as circumstances will allow, and that Jeff. Davis be re- quested to furnish an escort and guard for the occasion; also, to notify this Legislature at an early day of his willingness to furnish said escort and guard."
The shot fell harmless. The majority was as impervious to ridicule as it was to reason.
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January 27, Mr. Wolfe introduced a series of resolutions which, as usual with that gentleman's resolutions, (his name seemed to designate his nature) outraged common humanity, if not common sense. It is as follows:
" WHEREAS, The present civil war, into which the people have been forced by the wicked and fanatical factions North and South, is detrimental to the best interests of the country, and of mankind, and a reproach upon the civilization of the age, filling the land with widows and orphans, and mourn- ing households; bankrupting the Government, and oppressing the people with taxation beyond their ability to bear; destroy- ing the productive industry of the laboring man, and filling the eoffers of the wealthy; filling the northern section of the Union with a vagabond and servile race to compete with or prey upon the industry of the white man; imposing unequal burdens and commercial restrictions upon the different por- tions of the North, thereby increasing the danger and the evil of further disintegration; sapping the foundation of reli- gion, morality and public virtuc; corrupting our rulers by an increase of political patronage; destroying personal liberty under the tyrant's plea of necessity, and obliterating from the hearts of the people the spirit of nationality and brotherhood, which is the only sure bond of union; and
" WHEREAS, Experience has taught the costly and bloody lesson that war alone is no remedy for the evil of disunion, but when waged in the spirit of sectional hatred, for an un- constitutional purpose, or in a manner not sanctioned by the laws of civilized warfare, it is the strongest ally of disunion, and if persisted in will result, not only in the bankruptcy of the nation and the impoverishment of the people, but also in a final separation of the different sections, and the destruc- tion of our admirable form of free government; and
"WHEREAS, The people of Indiana are desirous that no effort which inspires a reasonable hope of success in restoring the Union as it was, under the Constitution, shall be omitted; and being solemnly impressed with the conviction that arms alone, under the recent and present policy of the Cabinet at Washington, will never accomplish that desirable object; and invoking the prayers of all good men, and the smiles of
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MRS. PARTINGTON MOPS BACK THE ATLANTIC.
a God of Peace in the furtherance of our patriotic purpose; therefore,
"Be it resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: First. That while we continue to obey every con- stitutional requisition which true patriotism shall demand,' for the purpose of restoring the Union and preserving our constitutional liberty, yet we are opposed to a war for the liberation of the slaves, and while that policy is maintained by the Administration, the highest dictates of patriotism im- pel us to withhold from it our support, believing that the war for that purpose is unconstitutional, and if persisted in, will lead to the inevitable and lasting destruction of the Union.
"Second. That no Union can be maintained in this coun- try until fanaticism on the negro question, North and South, is eradicated, and the doctrine of Popular State Sovereignty is acknowledged as a fundamental axiom of the Govern- ment. The people of the North must yield up the heresy of Abolitionism, or else yield up the blessings of the Union. Abolitionism and the Union are incompatible; the one or the other must triumph. A war for Abolitionismi is a war against the Union; a war for the Union is a war against Abolitionism. Abolitionism is moral treason, and but for the forms of law with which it is clothed by the Administration, is actual legal treason. No patriot can be an Abolitionist.
"Third. That the interests of the white race as well as the black, demand that the condition and locality of the latter should not be interfered with; and war, or legislation, or Presidential proclamations to accomplish the purpose of the negroes' freedom and consequent migration to the North, are acts of flagrant violations of the constitution, and in wicked disregard of the people's voice and the best interests of the country, and all such acts ought to be constitutionally re- sisted by an outraged people.
"Fourth. That President Lincoln's scheme of " Compen- sated Emancipation," which proposes to tax the people of Indiana to liberate the slaves of the South, is unconstitu- tional, and a monstrous iniquity, which a tax-ridden and overburdened people will not submit to. The freemen of Indiana will not consent to impoverish themselves and their
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families to carry out that insane and wicked policy, but will resist it by every means in their power.
"Fifth. That the system of arbitrary arrests, and the wan- ton disregard of the Great Writ of Liberty, commonly called the habeas corpus, by the Cabinet at Washington, are acts of tyranny and usurpation, justly alarming to a free people, against which the State of Indiana protests with indigna- tion; and in the name of constitutional liberty she de- mands that the accursed system shall cease within her bor- ders; and we declare the unalterable determination of the people to maintain the liberty of speech, the liberty of the press, the right to the writ of habeas corpus and speedy trial by jury at every hazard of blood and treasure.
"Sixth. That the State of Indiana, on account of her de- votion to the Union, and geographical position and commer- cial interests, never will consent to any settlement upon a basis of disunion or a policy which shall separate her from the States bordering on the Mississippi river. Her highest interest demands the perpetuation of the Union, and especi- ally that the great valley of the Mississippi, from its source to its mouth, shall remain under one government and one flag.
"Seventh. That the war in which we are engaged ought to cease as soon as it can be brought to an honorable and satisfactory termination; and upon that subject, the people, who are bearing its burdens, have a right to speak. There- fore, our Senators in Congress are instructed, and our Repre- sentatives requested, to use all the power and influence of their positions, by bill, resolution, or otherwise, to accom- plish the following objects, namely: First. To procure an armistice of at least six months between the Federal and Confederate armies, for the purpose of testing the possibility of a permanent peace on the basis of the Union. Second. To pass a law calling a convention of all the States, com- posed of delegates freely chosen by the people, to take into consideration the state of the country, and to devise some plan of settlement, to be submitted to the vote of the people, North and South, by which the Union shall be preserved and the country restored to a lasting peace.
377
ATTEMPTS TO SHACKLE STATE AND CAPITAL.
"Eighth. That the Governor be directed to transmit a cer- tified copy of the foregoing preamble and resolutions to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, to be laid before their respective bodies, and to the Governor of each of the States, to be by them laid before their respective Legis- latures."
Mr. Brown, of Wells, followed with resolutions demanding, in the name of the people of the State of Indiana, the es- tablishment of an armistice, in order that a convention of all the States might be held, demanding of Congress the ap- pointment of such convention; in the failure of that body to respond to the demand, inviting each and every State in the Federal Union, including the so-called Confederate States, to meet delegates from Indiana in convention at Nashville, Tennessee, the first day of June, 1863, each State to send as many delegates as would equal the number of Congressmen; appointing the first Monday in April for the election of thirteen delegates from Indiana; allowing "a gen- erous per diem and mileage" to be drawn from the State Treasury, and ordering Governor Morton to transmit a copy of the Resolutions to the President and the Congress of the United States, and to the Governors and Legislatures of all the States, ineluding the Confederate States.
Contemplating, as these Resolutions did, the action of In- diana independent of, and in opposition to, the National Government, they virtually declared for Secession. But their passage was not immediately forced.
A bill creating an Executive Council or Military Board, to consist of the Auditor, Treasurer, Secretary and Attorney General of State, making the signature of a majority nicces- sary to the legality of any action on the part of the Gov- ernor; and a bill to repeal so much of the charter of Indian- apolis as authorizes the establishment of a city police, and to create a board to be elected by the Legislature to appoint and control the police of the city, were cunningly devised measures to give the State and City over to Secession, as a police elected by the Legislature would be solidly Demo- cratic; and of the four State officers proposed for the Mili-
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tary Board, three, from their bitterly partisan character, were suspected to be members of a secret treasonable society.
At a later period, the worst suspicions in regard to the character of these men were confirmed. In the summer of 1864, in the office of Daniel W. Voorhees, Senator in Con- gress, a letter from Mr. Ristine, the Auditor, was discovered, of which the following paragraph is an extraet:
" The successful resistance of the South I regard as the only safety of us of the North. Should she be overwhelmed, woe betide us who have dared oppose the policy of the Ad- ministration.
" Daniel, a Demoerat of the North who dares to oppose the policy of the present leaders, is as much hated as those of the South, and I look upon this war as much and more a war upon the Democracy than anything else."
This letter was written in 1861, four months after the war began. Mr. Ristine, who desired the successful resistance of the South-in other words, the defeat of the Union arms, the slaying of Union soldiers-and the like of Mr. Ristine, were, by the provisions of this bill, to bind the hands of Governor Morton.
However, both the bills were laid aside, ostensibly in de- ference to the storm of indignation roused by their high- handed and revolutionary character; in reality to be repro- duced at a future day, as an offset to resolutions for appro- priations necessary to carry on the Government.
Rumors of the existence and rapid growth of a secret so- ciety, the object of which was to undermine the Government, at first the mere breath of suspicion, gradually acquiring form and force, and at length confirmed by the grand jury of one of the United States courts, produced, in the winter of '62 and '63, a wide-spread and intense distrust. At an carly period in the session of the Legislature, the subject was brought up in the House, Mr. Cason, Representative from Boone and Hendricks, proposing the appointment of a committee of five to investigate the existence of a secret political organization which purposed encouraging the South- ern Confederacy and forming a North-Western Confederacy. The Resolution was voted down by a strict party vote.
379
"WE'LL CALL THEM ABOLITIONISTS."
In a few days, the Republicans returned to the charge, Mr. Gregory, Representative from Warren, proposing to ap- point a committee of seven to inquire into the existence of a secret political society in the interest of the Rebellion. During the ensuing discussion, Mr. Buskirk declared: "We (Democrats) are a band of brothers. We vote together, act together, think together, and we expect to do so as long as we remain. Even in measures I do not endorse, I will go with my party." He asserted that he knew of secret polit- ical organizations, all over the State, in favor of the party in power, and he desired that these should be included in the investigation, adding, "If you kill our dogs, we will kill your cats."
Mr. Brown, of Jackson, equally regardless of propriety, de- clared that "the charge was a lying assertion of the foul Abolition party. He was opposed to Abolition testimony, and would take none but Democratic testimony in regard to the designs of secret societies." The Resolution was tabled by a striet party vote.
The Democrats were profuse in professions of gratitude and in expressions of approval to the soldier. They desired that he be paid in gold, even at the cost of national bank- ruptcy; they were anxious that he be saved from the inhu- manity of surgeons; they lauded the private at the expense of the officer; considered an orderly the most important and the most abused officer in a company, proposed ad- vancing his pay, and that of all inferior to him, and lower- ering the wages of superiors, and repeatedly passed resolutions of thanks and willingness to do honor to the fallen, either in monumental marble or a published enrollment. When put to the test, however, their honors proved to be exceedingly empty.
Mr. Packard proposed to appoint a committee of five to collect statistics and prepare a roll of honor to commemorate the Indiana soldiers who had fallen or died in the service. Upon which Mr. Lamb, of Switzerland, offered the following amendment:
"Resolved, further, That the sacred cause in which they fell (the preservation of the Union), shall never be given up,
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but shall be maintained at whatever cost of blood and treas- ure; that their graves shall never be desecrated by traitors' feet; and the flag in defense of which they fell shall never be withdrawn from the soil that holds their patriotic dust."
This resolution was laid on the table by a party vote.
During the discussion to which the Resolutions gave rise, Mr. Packard desired to have it understood, that while he would enroll the names of all soldiers, he would thank only Democrats.
Mr. Cason introduced a joint resolution in reference to al- lowing Indiana soldiers to vote at the annual State and County elections. It was referred to the committee on elec- tions, and by that committee was reported back to the House with a recommendation from the majority that it be laid on the table, and from the minority, that it be passed. It was then referred to the committee on judiciary, which returned it, reporting against the constitutionality of any law authorizing soldiers to vote out of the township where they reside, and with the recommendation that it be laid on the table. It was accordingly tabled.
Mr. Anderson, of St. Joseph, introduced the subject again, but with the same result.
The policy of traducing faithful public officers, both by open denunciation and by innuendo, was unvaryingly pursued. One regretted that President Lincoln and Governor Morton had lost all regard for the white race of the North, and had turned their attention to the black race. Another knew that Governor Morton was not only reckless of expense, but was guilty of frauds. Mr. Brown, of Jackson, "would allow the Governor to be a member of a Military Board, provided there were enough honest men on it to control it."
"I could have made myself as popular as Governor Mor- ton," said Mr. Brown, of Wells, during a debate on the pro- priety of acknowledging the kindness of the Governor to sick and wounded soldiers, "if I had had control over the hun- dred thousand dollars appropriated by the last Legislature to the incidental expense fund."
"I regard Lincoln and Morton as despots and tyrants, worse than those of Austria," declared Mr. Packard.
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"HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN!"
Mr. Packard, and Mr. Brown, of Jackson, distinguished themselves by the agility with which they gained, and the persistence with which they retained the floor. This, their main strength or weakness, depending on the point of view from which it is regarded, was the occasion of the following lampoon which appeared, to the amusement of Indianapolis, in the Daily Journal :
"Brown and Packard, Packard and Brown, One is up, and the other is down. One is nothing when t'other ain't there; The other is nothing anywhere. Each is only a part of the other, Yet cach is as much as both together.
Nothing from nothing, nothing'll remain, Nothing to nothing, the result's the same."
These gentlemen both had classic names. Mr. Packard's was Marcus Aurelius Orestes, and Mr. Brown's Jason. The last was explained in a newspaper squib as the consequence of a parental presentiment that he would one day go out for wool, and come home shorn.
Democrats found countless opportunities to drag into notice causes for dissatisfaction. They groaned under the weight of taxes, and under the pressure of New England-a pressure which, they declared, was grinding the North-west to dust. They were especially disturbed by an alleged defi- ciency in the number of volunteers from Massachusetts. They called Union men Abolitionists, using the word exactly as prescribed by Beauregard. They accused Abolitionists and preachers of having made the war. They urged that any attempt to commit the Legislature of this State to the support of the war, by threats or otherwise, be treated with contempt. They styled the action of the President and mil- itary authorities, in making arrests, in attempting to restrain the press, and in the suppression of the writ of habeas corpus, "arbitrary, violent, insulting and degrading to a degree un- known to any government on earth, except those avowedly and notoriously cruel and despotic," while there had not occurred a single arrest except for crime against the Govern- ment. They dwelt with undisguised satisfaction on their
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doubts as to the continuance of the Union. Mr. Lasselle, of Cass county, did "not know whether we were to have the Union of our fathers or not-whether, in six months hence, the Government would be a Government of the whole or of a portion of the Union, nor what portion Indiana would be- long to."
Mr. Niblack, a very prudent man, looked to a revision of the United States Constitution.
The Indiana soldier, facing the enemy in the field, beheld this war in his rear with profound surprise and uneasiness, and at length with loudly expressed indignation.
In the Army of the Cumberland, twenty-two Indiana reg- iments and four batteries-all which were not absent on de- tached service-recommended the following resolutions for the adoption of the Legislature:
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