In answer to these
resolutions, I have respectfully to say that, so far as the
Confederate forces are concerned, the facts are plain, and
shortly stated. The Government which they represent, recognizing
as a fundamental principle the right of sovereign States to take
such a position as they choose in regard to their relations with
other States, was compelled by that principle to concede to
Kentucky the right to assume the position of neutrality, which
she has chosen in the passing struggle. This it has done on all
occasions, and without an exception. The cases alluded to by his
Excellency, Governor Magoffin, in his recent message, as
'raids,' I presume, are the cases of the steamers Cheney and
Orr. The former was the unauthorized and unrecognized act of
certain citizens of Alabama, and the latter the act of citizens
of Tennessee and others, and was an act of reprisal. They can
not, therefore, be charged, in any sense, as acts of the
Confederate Government.
"The first and only instance in which the neutrality of Kentucky
has been disregarded is that in which the troops under my
command, and by my direction, took possession of the place I now
hold, and so much of the territory between it and the Tennessee
line as was necessary for me to pass over in order to reach it.
This act finds abundant justification in the history of the
concessions granted to the Federal Government by Kentucky ever
since the war began, notwithstanding the position of neutrality
which she had assumed, and the firmness with which she
proclaimed her intention to maintain it.
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