" Yet he tendered the thanks of the Government to those
who applied the torch to destroy this property belonging, as he regarded
it, to the Government.
How unreasonable, how blind with rage must have been that administration
of affairs which so quickly brought the Government to the necessity of
destroying its own means of defense in order, as it publicly declared,
"to maintain its life"! It would seem as if the passions that rule the
savage had taken possession of the authorities at the United States
capital! In the conflagrations of vast structures, the wanton
destruction of public property, and still more in the issue of _lettres
de cachet_ by the Secretary of State, who boasted of the power of his
little bell over the personal liberties of the citizen, the people saw,
or might have seen, the rapid strides toward despotism made under the
mask of preserving the Union. Yet these and similar measures were
tolerated because the sectional hate dominated in the Northern States
over the higher motives of constitutional and moral obligation.
[Footnote 169: Constitution of the United States, Article I, section 8.]
[Footnote 170: Constitution of the United States, Article IV, section
4.]
[Footnote 171: Article I, section 8.]
[Footnote 172: Ibid.]
[Footnote 173: Constitution of the United States, preamble.]
[Footnote 174: Diplomatic correspondence, May 21, 1861.]
CHAPTER V.
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