to State authority, and for respect shown for constitutional restraint.

"With the best wishes for your continued good health, I am, dear sir, your sincere friend,

"NAT. TYLER.”

It is apparent that this so-called "historical statement" had been seen by Republican Senators, and that they were not ignorant of its real character when the Hawley resolution was under discussion in the Senate. Those Senators then knew that General Sherman had, in his letter of January 6, 1885, to the Secretary of War, changed the issue between us from one of veracity to a rambling, shuffling discussion of a "conspiracy" and of "conspirators" in the winter of 1860-'61, and that which at the Frank Blair Post may have been "a white lie," not intended for publication, came before the Senate as an “historical statement," bolstered with other falsehoods equally without foundation or support in anything written or uttered by me. It now survives as an "Ex. Doc." of picturesque prevarication.

I know nothing of any "conspiracy" or of any "conspirators." There was no secrecy about any of the political affairs which led to the secession of the States in 1860-'61. There was no possibility of any concealment. The people were advised by the press, they acted knowingly, and the results, through all their various phases, were necessarily known to the people, by whom they were ratified and confirmed. To talk now of conspiracy and conspirators is shallow nonsense, and notwithstanding Sherman says that he "was approached by a number of the Knights of the Golden Circle," that accusation will be dismissed as the coinage of political demagogues. If Sherman was approached by "conspirators" they knew their man; they may have heard of his conversation at Vicksburg, his expressions of approval of Southern action, his talk of the "d-d Yankees " to Governor Roper, and such expressions, and may have regarded him as a fit conspirator with themselves. No man ever insulted me by approaching me with suggestions of conspiracy.

As to the action taken at the conference of some of the Southern Senators in January, 1861, and which is introduced in this "historical statement" as evidence of a "conspiracy," it is only necessary to say to those Senators who, in the debate on the Hawley resolution, referred to the letter of D. L. Yulee to Joseph Finnegan, and the resolutions attached thereto, that he resolutions were forwarded to the conventions of the States

then in session, and that they were the resolutions of Senators representing those States conveying to the conventions of the States the views of the Senators. Those resolutions were not discovered by General Sherman; they were not dug up from beneath the sod in any yard through which he marched. They were necessarily public since they were sent to conventions of the States, and they were printed in the newspapers. To speak of such action as a conspiracy, as Senator Sherman did in the debate on the Hawley resolution, shows to what defense he was driven to assist his brother out of the mire of mendacity in which he was floundering.

It was the opinion of that conference, in 1861, that secession was the only remedy left to the States; that every effort to preserve peace had failed, mainly through the action of that portion of the Republican party which refused all propositions for adjustment made by those who sought, in January, 1861, to justify confidence, insure peace, and preserve the Union. In the same month in which that conference was held, I served on a committee raised by the Senate to seek some possible mode of quelling the excitement that then existed. That committee was composed of the three political divisions of the Senate, and it was considered useless to report any measure which did not receive the concurrence of at least a majority of each division. The Republican Senators rejected every proposition that promised pacification, and the committee reported to the Senate that their consultation was a failure. Was there less conspiracy in the Republican senators combining to prevent pacification than there was in Southern Senators uniting in conference to advise the conventions of their States that their cause was hopeless in Washington? Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, assailed the Republican side of the Senate for their refusal to accept any terms that were offered to them, and demanded to know what they proposed to do, and in that connection referred to Senator Toombs and myself as having been willing to accept the line of 36° 30', or the Missouri compromise, and that the Republican Senators rejected the proposition. Which were the conspirators, the Senators who offered the Missouri compromise for the sake of peace, or the Senators who rejected that offering in order to enjoy "a little blood-letting?" The venerable Senator Crittenden, of the committee, used all his power and influence on the side of the peaceful efforts of the Southern Senators, and not unfrequently expressed himself in the most decided terms as to the conduct of the opposition. Party necessity may attribute the actions of the Southern Senators to conspiracy, but history will treat the actors of those days as they deserve, and to

her verdict, in common with my compatriots in that trying hour, the issue is referred.

The epithets which Senator Sherman in the debate applied to myself, are his mode of retaliation for my denunciation of his brother. I have been compelled to prove General Sherman to be a falsifier and a slanderer in order to protect my character and reputation from his willful and unscrupulous mendacity. If his brother, the Senator, felt the sting of that exposure, and his epithets are any relief, I am content that he shall go on the record as denouncing me as a traitor" because I have proved his brother to be a liar.

As the Republican party renounced the issue of treason when it abandoned my trial in 1867, not at my instance, but in face of my defiance, its leaders of the present day but stultify themselves in the cry of traitor which they raise at the mention of my name. This is more a matter of traffic than of argument, but as it serves to keep alive the issues and prejudices of the war period, it is a device which, as politicians, they may not like to abandon. It is not surprising that the politicians of a party which, in the mad fury of its passions, deliberately hung a harmless and helpless woman, should continue to keep warm their malice against an old soldier, and long a civil official, by the frequent use of epithets. If it affords them any relief, it costs me so little concern that it would be uncharitable to deny them the enjoyment they take in hurling epithets at me, a game in which any fishwoman might successfully compete.

The Senate, when about to give its sanction to General Sherman's "historical statement," ought, in fairness, to have demanded of him the production of the verifying letters, papers, and information within his knowledge or possession. He says in that "Ex. Doc.": "But of him (myself) I have personal knowledge, not meant for publication, but to become a part of the Traditions of the Civil War,' which the Grand Army of the Republic will preserve.' What fair and honorable purpose could the Senate have had in sanctioning such a base and inflamous inuendo, as that above quoted from page 3 of the "Ex. Doc."? If that "personal knowledge" is withheld from publication for the purposes. of future slanders, surely the Senate ought not to have made itself a party to that malice which hides its slanders until their subject shall have passed away, and contradiction and exposure become difficult, if not impossible. But I am not apprehensive of Sherman's additions to the "Traditions of the Civil War;" he stands pilloried before the public and all future history as an imbecile scold or an infamous slanderer-as either, he is harmless.

The statement on page 3, that a box containing private papers of mine was found at the house of my brother, Joseph E. Davis, is untrue. The error in the place where a box was scized by his pillagers would not have been material if mado by a truthful man, but when an habitual falsifier falls into even slight error of locality, it is not surprising that he should be suspected of having intentionally fixed upon my brother's residence to give point and probability to some other falsehood. The box of papers was found at a farmer's house several miles away from my brother's and the box did not contain a single letter written to me or by me at Montgomery. Therefore Sherman's statement that he abstracted from that box three letters which had been written to me by loyal officers of the United States army, and returned to the writers to protect them from the suspicion of complicity with the government of Montgomery, can have no other foundation in truth than, probably, the discovery of letters written at former times and received by me before the inauguration of the Confederato government at Montgomery.

It is due to the memory of the late Alexander H. Stephens, whose letter to Herschel V. Johnson has been made the foundation for this vile assault upon myself, to say, that if the letter is genuine, and has not been altered to serve Sherman's malice against myself, that it was written under excitement and when disappointment and apprehension of our overthrow had influenced his judgment and opinion, and that this private letter, written under its attending circumstances, never intended for publication, and expressing hasty opinions, will not be allowed to cast its shadow over the carefully prepared history of the war which Mr. Stephens has left to inform posterity of his views of public men and measures. I will be pardoned for extracting from Mr. Stephens's "War between the States" remarks complimentary to myself, since they completely refute the purpose for which the Johnson letter has been produced. In Volume II, page 624-5, commenting upon the meeting at the African church, in Richmond after the unsuccessful effort for peace in Hampton Roads, Mr. Stephens says:

"Many who had heard this master of oratory in his most brilliant displays in the Senate and on the hustings said they never before saw Mr. Davis so really majestic! The occasion and the effects of the speech, as well as all the circumstances under which it was made, caused the minds of not a few to revert to appeals by Rienzi and Demosthenes.

"However much I admired the heroism of the sentiment expressed, yet in his general views or policy to be pursued in the

then situation I could not concur. I doubt not that all-the President, the Cabinet and Congress-did the very best they could, from their own convictions of what was best to be done at the time."

In the same volume, on page 657, Mr. Stephens speaks of me as a man "of very strong convictions and great earnestness of purpose." In a conversation had during the summer of 1863, which was reduced to writing at the time, Mr. Stephens said:

"The hardships growing out of our military arrangements are not the fault of the President; * * * they are due to his subordinates."

In October of the same year, (" Life of A. H. Stephens," by Johnson & Browne, pages 445-47,) he wrote to a friend who had asked what would be his probable course in the event of the death of myself, as follows:

"I should regard the death of the President as the greatest possible public calamity. What I should do I know not. A large number of prominent and active men in the country ** would distrust my ability to conduct affairs successfully. They have now, and would have, no confidence in my judgment or capacity for the position that such an untimely misfortune would cast upon me."

These passages (and others might be selected from the writings of Mr. Stephens since the war) bear voluntary and involuntary testimony to my character and motives, and more than answer the complaints contained in the letter to Mr. H. V. Johnson, and in the canvass just preceding his death. Mr. Stephens said that the only difference between us during the war was as to the policy of shipping the cotton crop of 1861 to Europe. That criticism, when made by another, was fully answered by Mr. Trenholm and Mr. Memminger, the two secretaries of the Confederate States treasury, in which they very clearly showed that the cotton crop of 1861 had been mainly exported before the Confederate government was formed, and that if reference was made to any later crop, the Confederacy had no ships in which to export it, and the blockade prevented, to a great extent, foreign ships from taking the cotton out.

The "secret message" which is printed in this "historical statement" was communicated to the Confederate States Congress, and recommended the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The reasons for that recommendation are fully set forth in the message. It was an application to Congress for authority to suspend the writ, and it was within the constitutional power of Congress to grant the authority. It was a measure of public defense against schemes and plots of enemies which could not