Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/237

 The Monument to General Robert E, Lee, 229

the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Missis- sippi, Louisiana, and Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law :

States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and do hereby call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed. The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facili- tate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and existence of our national Union and the perpetuity of popular gov- ernment, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union, and in every event the utmost care will be observed consistently with the objects aforesaid to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference wtih property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens of any part of the country, and I hereby command the persons composing the com- binations aforesaid to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date.*'
 * Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United

The proclamation calls seventy-five thousand men to the field for several purposes :

First, to suppress certain alleged insurrectionary combinations in the States named, and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

Second, it invokes all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our national Union and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.

It proceeds to say that the first service assigned to the force called forth by it will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and prop- erty which have been seized from the Union, reserving the right, however, by implication, to use it for the other purposes.

WHAT IT MEANT.

What Mr. Lincoln called insurrectionary combinations was the withdrawal of the seven cotton States from the Union and the forma-