This proclamation, which has already been
mentioned, requires a further examination, as it was the official
declaration, on the part of the Government of the United States, of the
war which ensued. In it the President called for seventy-five thousand
men to suppress "combinations" opposed to the laws, and obstructing
their execution in seven sovereign States which had retired from the
Union. Seventy-five thousand men organized and equipped are a powerful
army, and, when raised to operate against these States, nothing else
than war could be intended. The words in which he summoned this force
were these: "Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some
time past, and now are, opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed,
in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by
the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in
the marshals by law: Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, by virtue of
the power in me vested by the Constitution and laws," etc.
The power granted in the Constitution is thus expressed: "The Congress
shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the
laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions."[169] It
was to the Congress, not the Executive, to whom the power was delegated,
and thus early was commenced a long series of usurpations of powers
inconsistent with the purposes for which the Union was formed, and
destructive of the fraternity it was designed to perpetuate.
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