March 25, 1861

New York Herald

The News.

It was believed in Washington yesterday that the programme of the administration, in regard to the evacuation of Fort Sumter, had been altered since the departure of Col. Lamon. It is now reported that the evacuation is to be conditional. Col. L. is to examine the stock of provisions on hand, and if the supply is not sufficient to maintain the troops now there, the he will deliver the President’s order to Major Anderson to evacuate the fortress.

The government is said to be in receipt of advices stating that the independent State of Texas has sent Commissioners to New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora and Chichuahua in induce the people of those States to cast their fortune with the Southern confederacy. Their mission is said to be favorably regarded, which, if true, will tend still further to complicate theembarrassments of Mr. Lincoln’s administration.

Despatches from Fort Pickens state that the garrison there is short of provisions, and can hold out but a short time longer. None but official communication is permitted at Pensacola, and the squadron can neither reinforce the Fort nor furnish supplies. Appearances indicate that before long the government will also be compelled to abandon Fort Pickens to the secessionists.

From Texas we learn that both branches of the Legislature had taken the oath of allegiance to the new government, a few of the members under protest. Governor Houston and the Secretary of State have retired from their offices and delivered up the records. Gen. Houston had issued an appeal to the people, in which he severely denounces the action of the Convention.

By a despatch from New Orleans we learn that the commissioners from the Confederate States to Europe will leave that city for Havana on the 31st inst., where they will take passage for England in the British steamer of the 7th of April.

The steam frigate Roanoke, now at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, has been ordered to be fitted for sea with all possible dispatch. A large force of mechanics and laborers were put to work on Saturday, who continued to labor through the entire day yesterday.

The Georgia State Convention adjourned on Saturday night. Before adjournment the convention adopted a State constitution to be submitted to the people for ratification or rejection, at an election to be held in July next.

In this day’s issue we give a list of the appointments made, up to the present time, by President Lincoln, as far as is publicly known. It will doubtless be found interesting to all who are in search of an office under the present administration, as they can thereby perceive what offices are taken up.

Charleston Mercury

Adams’ Express Company.

There are few, indeed, who will not bear testimony to the convenience and efficiency of ADAMS’ Express Company as a medium of transportation. Business men would be at a loss without it, and private individuals would be subjected to enormous expense and great trouble should its admirable arrangements be interrupted for even a fortnight. By means of its various ramifications, goods may be safely dispatched to any point on this continent—in fact, we risk nothing in adding, to any known point in the world. Next to building of railroads and the planting of telegraph poles, we believe the establishment of ADAMS’ Express Company has exerted the most beneficial influences upon the growth of trade and commerce. So highly appreciated and liberally patronized has it been, that in every city of any size and importance the finest business houses are appropriated to its use. Its growth, at first slow and sure, of late years has been surprisingly rapid. Its money transactions alone, in the course of a year, amount to fabulous sums. But its business is not solely that of transporting goods and moneys. Many persons, whose loss and inconveniences, in consequence of the faithlessness of postoffice agents and the irregularity of the mails, engendered complete distrust of the Postoffice Department at Washington, long ago adopted it as the canal of their correspondence. So much more satisfactorily was the service performed that the carrying of letters has constantly increased, and since the formation of the Southern Confederacy many persons do not make use of the postoffices at all. In short, if the decayed and decaying government at Washington has carried out its threat of stopping the mails, it would simply have increased the importance and usefulness of this indefatigable and praise deserving company. And while we are alluding to some of its many advantages, we may as well remark that there are none who are more indebted to it, or more sensible of its service, than the editors and proprietors of newspapers. Always attentive and obliging to their patrons, we are sure they are peculiarly so to the press. Not a day but they communicate valuable information, and never do they refuse to deliver a letter. It was by availing ourselves of their attention at Montgomery, that we were enabled promptly to furnish our readers with important and interesting intelligence in relation to the formation of our new, and, as we firmly believe, permanent Government. We hope their future success will be commensurate with their merits.

Admission of Northern States into the Southern Confederation.

As the new Constitution has been framed, there is nothing to prevent the admission of Northern States into the new Confederation. A vote of two thirds is all that is requisite; and, after the accession of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas, there is likely to be no great difficulty in obtaining this vote. In thus constructing the fundamental law, of course, a struggle has occurred in the secret sessions of the Montgomery Congress, in which those refusing to close the door against the reception of anti-slavery States have achieved a victory. Thus the policy of ultimately admitting the anti-slave States of the Northwest first, and afterwards Pennsylvania, New York, et cetera, is obviously the programme or prevailing idea of the Montgomery Congress. The Union is not to be reconstructed on terms of the old Constitution. It is to be reorganized on the new basis, and we are in danger, if the views of the Constitution makers are carried into practice of being dragged back eventually into political affiliation with the States and peoples from whom we have just cut loose.

Now, some may think us hypercritical and captious in seeing anything disagreeable, or in finding fault at all, when matters appear to be progressing satisfactorily. But, a reference to the future must govern us in the present, if we would control events. It is shortsighted and pusillanimous to cover up and conceal from view stubborn facts which, however unpleasant to know, our future peace and prosperity urge us not to overlook, but to strive and remedy. It has been found that, in the construction of a great ship, the unwise insertion of one stick of worm eaten timber has involved her fate with the loss of hundreds of lives and millions of property. So a defect of grave character, like this of the new Constitution may entail upon the peoples of the Southern States the difficulties and dangers of again going through the same struggle from which we are emerging, and perhaps may ultimately wreck the hopes of republican liberty throughout the world. It is too late, and South Carolina is not the State to resist the embodiment of this imprudent provision in the Constitution. And it is almost hopeless to expect that, after the accession of the Border States, the fundamental law can, without undue commotion, be so amended as to establish the policy of a strict proslavery Confederacy. The plank is in our ship, and we have but to make the best of it. We can only endeavor, by the application of the preservatory preparations of corrective knowledge and the instillment of sound, wholesome and purifying views of statesmanship, to ward off the peril and escape the evils that may result from what has been done and cannot now be avoided.

It is therefore, not to oppose the adoption of the Constitution by South Carolina that we broach the subject but simply, and at once to oppose the idea and policy of this new kind of reconstruction or reorganization, and to build up and fortify public opinion through out the South, as far as we can, against using the discretion that will be given our Congress under the proviso of a two thirds vote. For, if sufficient time be allowed the people of the Southern States to realize, under their own government, the amount of security, prosperity and power attainable, without connection with the North, except by treaty, we have great hopes that they will out grow present proclivities, which we are fain to consider weak and unwise, and will firmly refuse admission to all Northern States, whose people differ from us so radically and in such hostile degree in regard to our domestic institutions, and whose punic faith must render all paper constitutions and parchment obligations utterly nugatory and worthless for all the purposes for which laws are useful.

We will continue the subject in our next.

Diary of a Yankee in the Patent Office

MONDAY 25

This has been a delightful day, bright & warm. Have been very busy in the office, doing the work of two Desks or the Clerical duties of the room in addition to my own from the removal of our assist. Went down to the “National.” Saw Carl Shurz the famous Dutch Orator. And also met my old friend P Dorsheimer who is now State Treasurer of NY. He is after the N York Naval office. Got the NY papers & read them. Bed at 11.

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