The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 2

MP3 Audio CD. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 2

PART IV--(Continued).

THE WAR.


CHAPTER XV.


The inauguration of the permanent government, amid the struggles of
war, was welcomed by our people as a sign of the independence for
which all their sacrifices had been made, and the increased efforts
of the enemy for our subjugation were met by corresponding
determination on our part to maintain the rights our fathers left us
at whatever cost. We now enter upon those terrible scenes of wrong
and blood in which the government of the United States, driven to
desperation by our successful resistance, broke through every
restraint of the Constitution, of national law, of justice, and of
humanity. But, before commencing this fearful narration, let us sum
up the hostile acts and usurpations committed during the first year.

Our people had been declared to be combinations of insurrectionists,
and more than one hundred and fifty thousand men had been called to
arms to invade our territory; our ports were blockaded for the
destruction of our regular commerce, and we had been threatened with
denunciation as pirates if we molested a vessel of the United States,
and some of our citizens had been confined in cells to await the
punishment of piracy; one of our States was rent asunder and a new
State constructed out of the fragment; every proposition for a
peaceful solution of pending issues had been spurned.