27th Congress special session convenes
Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr
- It’s the big day in Washington, and not just because it is the first Independence Day since the war began. A special called session of the 27th Congress convenes, summoned by President Lincoln to handle his war measures, and fund his war to destroy the republic and preserve the Union. In a speech meant more for the press than the Congress, Lincoln addresses a joint session claiming the North has done everything in its power to maintain peace. He says his Administration has attempted to solve the problems without resorting to war, problems which he maintains the South has caused by seceding. The similarities between Lincoln’s list of tyrannical acts and claims and the offenses of King George III described in the Declaration of Independence are striking. Lincoln blames his entire fiasco at Fort Sumter on the South and insists that the United States must maintain its “territorial integrity against its own domestic foes.” If the man had any integrity himself, he would have understood that once the states seceded that they were no longer domestic foes. Again Lincoln belabors his position concerning the indivisibility of the Union, using that heretofore unknown national policy to justify his unconstitutional Presidential declaration of war on the Confederate States. Then the President concludes his address with a now-typical Lincoln request for 40,000 additional troops from the Northern states./1861
- Although no longer an official holiday in the South, this day still has an air of gratefulness to God and celebration of Freedom; and in honor of the day, President Jefferson Davis presents a Confederate flag to the Maryland Regiment in the Confederate Army. /1861
- At Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, Confederate and Federal troops briefly skirmish as they pour into the lower Shenandoah Valley./1861
No comments:
Post a Comment