Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/271

 President Davis in Reply to General Sherman. 265

mon calamities." It is not surprising that such expressions of con- fidence and regard should have been drawn out in a debate upon a resolution which had for its purpose the indorsement by the Senate of a mean slander, which was known to be unfounded in truth, and important only as covering with the mantle of the Senate the menda- city of a retired General of the army.

The Senate having given vitality to Sherman's slander, a full reply to the opinions and expressions therein is made, so that hereafter it may derive no credit even from its official character.

The so called " historical statement concerning the public policy of the executive department of the Confederate States," as Sherman's letter to the War Department is headed in that " Ex. Doc," opens with the following statement : " That I (Sherman) had seen papers which convinced me that even Mr. Davis, the President of the Southern Confederacy, had, during the progress of the war, changed his State rights doctrines, and had threatened to use force — even Lee's armv — should any State of the Confederacy attempt to secede from that government." With the mental process by which Gen- eral Sherman is "convinced," I have no concern, but the "papers " in which he alleged that I "threatened" to use force against the States of the Confederacy, ought to be tangible and producible, and in an " historical statement," the Senate ought to have demanded the production of the proofs, and on the failure to produce them, and after denial by Senators who Sherman alleged had received them, such an "historical statement," already branded with falsehood and unsupported by evidence, ought to have been rejected with only wonder how it got before the Senate.

In the absence of all authority for the statement, or of any credit- able witness, General Sherman asserts that I abandoned my State rights doctrine, the unsupported assertion of a man whose reputa- tion for veracity is not good, and who could have had no personal knowledge, must weigh light as a feather against all the testimony of my official life, as well as against the recollections of all those most intimately connected with me, not a few of whom criticised my strict adherence to the Constitution and laws. His reiteration, even "a thousand times," will fail to convince any reasonable man that he did not know he never had seen any " papers " written by me threat- ening to use the army against any State of the Confederacy.

In this connection, I may refer to my action when Kentucky was invaded by the United States army and her people prevented by military power from acting for themselves on the question of seces-