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Governor Randall

Governor’s Message

Watertown Democrat, 05 23 1861

Senators and Representatives:

At the close of the last annual session of the Legislature to meet a sudden emergency, an act was passed authorizing me to respond to the call of the President of the United States, for "aid in maintaining the Union and the supremacy of the laws, or to suppress rebellion or insurrection, or to repel invasion within the United States," and I was authorized, and it was made my duty, to take such measures as in my judgment should provide in the speediest and most efficient manner, for responding to such call; and to this end I was authorized to accept the services of volunteers for active service, to be enrolled in companies of not less than seventy-five men each, rank and file, and in regiments of ten companies each. I was also authorized to provide for uniforming and equipping such companies as were not provided with uniforms and equipments.

The first call of the President for immediate active service was for one Regiment of men.

My proclamation, issued immediately after the passage of the act of the Legislature, was answered in less than ten days, by companies enough, each containing the requisite number of men, to make up at least five regiments, instead of one. I then issued another proclamation, announcing the offers that had been made, and advising that thereafter companies might be enrolled to stand as minute men, ready to answer further calls. as they might be made, but without expense to the State, except as they were mustered into service. In less than one month from the date of my first proclamation, at least five thousand men, either as individuals or in enrolled companies, have offered their services for the war, and all appear anxious for active service in the field.

In providing for the First Regiment, embarrassments have resulted from the fact that there has never been an efficient military organization in this State—no system or discipline. The men who had seen active field service were very few, or were almost entirely unknown; and the order and manner of equipping and uniforming and arming soldiers and officers for rugged war were mysteries, the solution of which could only be found by actual experiment.

So the expenses incurred in preparing the First Regiment have been greater to some extent than they otherwise would have been, or than they hereafter will be.

The spirit evoked by the rebellion against the Government of the United States is such as has never before been manifested since its organization. The people understand it is their Government that is assailed and everywhere through the North they are rising up to rebuke the treason so rife in some portions of the land.

The deepening and widening dangers that threaten our institutions and the pressure of public opinion from all parts of the State forced me to form another camp, and to bring together another regiment of men and to authorize a number of isolated companies which had volunteered, to remain together and to learn so far as possible without suitable arms, and discipline and drilling necessary for men going into actual war. It is a matter of public necessity and safety, not only for the State but for the Government, that an outlet be found for the spirit that is abroad among the Liberty loving people of the land. That spirit is driving them to action and if the Government does not or will not permit them to act for it they will act for themselves.

It is better that the State or federal Government should direct this current than to suffer it to run wildly. There is a moral element in the uprising that cannot be controlled in the ordinary manner. There is a conviction of great wrongs to be redressed and the Government, which is in danger, to be preserved by the willing hearts and strong hands of those to whom it belongs. This current of popular feeling must be directed and controlled or there will come of it something more than a war between the Border States; and those whose interests are connected with the Border States, and in such a war, for the time being, the Government would be lost sight of. If it was absolutely certain that the seventy-three thousand troops first called would wipe out the rebellion in three weeks from today, it would still be the policy of the Government and for its best interests, in view of what ought to be the future of this great Nation, to call into the field, as fast as they could be armed, at least three hundred thousand men.

The majesty and [power of the Government, if it has either, should be manifested now, so that the world may see it, and so that for all future time in its history the idea of secession and rebellion shall be an idea of the past. When the people see that their uprising has put down the rebellion they will be satisfied, and not before.

The difficulties of the present crisis are growing greater and more extreme every day. Broad and more extended fields are constantly opening by the threatening attitude of new States, forced by treachery or by armed mobs dignified by the name of rebels, into secession. One State after another, willing or unwilling, has been or is now being placed in an attitude of hostility to Federal authority, until with one more seceding State, there will be fifteen hundred miles of contiguous territory standing in most wicked warlike antagonism.

It is a most startling consideration that the people of the United States should be at war with each other, and that the Government of the United States should be forced to the terrible necessity of maintaining its authority against internal dissensions by force of arms. The settled design to over throw our system, so wisely designed, complicated yet simple, the completest for working out the greatest good of all men under it, is so strange, unaccountable, causeless, inexcusable, the war had actually begun, and an attack upon public property had actually been made, before the law abiding people of the country could be brought to realize that danger existed. We had noticed for a long time apparent preparations for mischief and had heard threats of a hostile disposition, in one portion of the country against another portion, but eighty years of growth and prosperity had fastened upon the minds of the people the idea of permanency and strength, that it was impossible to conceive of a serious, deliberate intent to destroy the Union.

The feeble colonies of revolutionary days had grown into great States, many of which in population equaled, and in wealth exceeded the population and wealth of the whole thirteen at the close of our first great struggle. An increase in population of about three to thirty-three millions of men, women and children, and an increase in wealth of thousands upon thousands of millions of dollars, should by our sufficient warrant for assuming that the government under which we have lived and under which our fathers lived and under which the posterity of this great people ought to live in peace, was and is of some value, and that it ought not for slight causes be disturbed.

The election of a man to the Presidency of the United States, according to the usual mode, strictly in conformity with the Constitution of the United States, without force or violence, is the pretext upon which what is called Secession is now attempted. Just as all the Presidents but one have been elected to the highest executive office on this continent, so Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.

There is no pretence anywhere that the election was not legal and constitutional. His installation, however, was the occasion of resistance to the constituted authorities, and state after state has been madly precipitated into a revolution. To make more severe the trails of the country in this exigency, some high in position